By Ralph Jennings, Contributor
Bribes paid to the judiciary are accelerating in parts of the world, the NGO Transparency International found this year. It named Ghana, Mozambique and Indonesia, where the rate had gone up by more than 20%. You expect that from Africa and Indonesia. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Wednesday announced general elections will be held in October next year. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
Hosts Zambia embark on Sunday on a Cosafa Cup journey they hope will last seven days and finish with a record-equalling fourth title.
They face Mozambique in the second half of a quarter-finals double-header at Nkana Stadium in mining city Kitwe.
Surprise qualifiers Lesotho, who topped a qualifying group ahead of Botswana and Kenya, meet Angola in the other match.
Chipolopolo (Copper Bullets) won the first two editions of the 16-year southern Africa national team championship.
They were successful again in 2006, but the closest they came to glory since was collecting silver medals twice.
Although France-born coach Herve Renard has chosen an experimental squad, his side are favoured to lift the trophy.
And he accepts the pressure is on him and his team as they try and put a miserable year for the Copper Bullets behind them.
“Every Zambian believes we will win the Cosafa Cup this year, especially as we are hosting the tournament,” admitted Renard.
“This means there is only one path for us to follow — the one that leads to the winners’ podium in Ndola next Saturday.”
Renard became a national hero in Zambia last year when his team emerged as shock winners of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.
After 120 goalless minutes against Didier Drogba-skippered Ivory Coast, the underdogs won a penalty shootout in Gabon.
But little has gone right for Zambia since with a disappointing Africa Cup title defence followed by poor World Cup qualifying results.
They failed to win at the 2013 Nations Cup in South Africa, drawing with Ethiopia, Nigeria and Burkina Faso and making a first-round exit.
And draws with minnows Lesotho and Sudan have left dreams of a first World Cup appearance on the verge of extinction.
Renard hopes goalkeeper Danny Munyau, defender Kondwani Mtonga and midfielder Mukuka Mulenga can lead by example in Kitwe.
The local stars were promoted to the first team for recent World Cup ties and offer experience amid exciting but untested talent.
Mozambique coach Joao Chissano has been in charge less than a month since German Gert Engels paid the price for a 6-1 World Cup drubbing in Guinea.
His Cosafa Cup build-up has been nightmarish with a spate of withdrawals owing to injuries and club commitments leading to 11 squad changes.
Almiro Lobo and Dario Khan are long-serving defenders and Alberto Diogo is a midfielder with a fondness for goals.
Striker Josimar Machaisse gave Chissano a timely boost by scoring in a 1-0 friendly victory away to Malawi last weekend.
Lesotho held Kenya 2-2 and Botswana 3-3 before defeating Swaziland 2-0 to top Group B on goal difference and book an unexpected last-eight place.
The Botswana clash stamped Likuena (Crocodiles) as a team to watch when they came from behind twice to level deep in stoppage time.
Angola dare not concede any penalties as midfielder Ralekoti Mokhahlane has proven his worth by converting two spot kicks.
Striker Thapelo Tale has also netted twice and defender Nkau Lerotholi and strikers Mojela Letsie and Tsepo Seturumane once each.
A team averaging 2.3 goals a game and full of never-say-die spirit could trouble Angola, even though they are 65 …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
South African officials say an elephant has overturned a vehicle carrying two tourists, injuring one of them.
A statement from Kruger National Park says the tourists are of “Chinese origin.”
The statement says an elephant in the park attacked the vehicle on a road at 6:30 a.m. Monday, and a medical team in a helicopter rushed to help the injured male driver. He was taken to a hospital for further treatment.
Park spokesman William Mabasa says it is unclear why the elephant became aggressive. But he is appealing to the public to be alert in the park and try not to get too close if they see an elephant approaching on the road.
The vast Kruger park lies in South Africa‘s northeast, next to Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/TWyf6U5L6SU/
By Matt DiLallo, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Regional geopolitical disputes are increasingly becoming international economic issues thanks to our global economy. At first glance, rising tensions in the South China Sea would appear to be no more than a fishing dispute. However, some see this situation as one surrounding supposed gas and oil reserves under the sea.
That, however, is in conflict with some reports that state that there are negligible reserves to be found in the disputed areas. Even if the potential energy reserves are what’s behind the current squabble, it probably won’t be something that’s solved anytime soon. That could mean future flare-ups that affect the energy industry beyond the resources that may or may not be under the sea. So as China, Vietnam, and others debate the territorial rights of two certain islands in the region, let’s look at how future incidents might have the potential to affect the global energy trade.
According to the Energy Information Administration, 15 million barrels of oil per day, or a third of all seaborne oil, traveled through this region in 2011. That puts it nearly on par with the higher-profile Strait of Hormuz, which is responsible for more than 17 million barrels per day. If this situation here were to boil over, it could have a significant impact on the flow of oil through the sea, given China‘s military might.
As important as the region is for the oil trade, it’s also responsible for more than half of the global liquefied natural gas, or LNG, trade. With growing demand for natural gas in Asia, this dispute could become a big problem for LNG exports from places such as Africa and australia, while putting exports from North America at a competitive advantage. Take a look at the following map, and I’ll explain what I mean.
Source: Energy Information Administration.
In 2011, Africa shipped 0.3 trillion cubic feet, or Tcf, per day, while while australia shipped 0.9 Tcf. However, those numbers are probably headed much higher in the future. Energy companies are spending billions to develop new LNG export facilities designed to tap these highly profitable Asian markets.
For example, Anadarko Petroleum recently joined forces with Eni on a major LNG export facility in Mozambique. The project is designed to support Anadarko’s major natural gas find off the coast. The partners expect the project to begin exporting gas by 2018. While that’s a long way off, geopolitical disputes tend to be recurring themes.
Moving over to australia, ConocoPhillips is moving forward on a major LNG export facility. The company expects to begin exporting in mid-2015. Chevron is working to complete its own LNG projects with its Gorgon project, a joint venture with ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell expected to come online in early 2015. Overall, a lot of gas will be flowing from Australia to Asia in the coming decades.
If China were to use its military might to shut down shipping lanes, it could conceivably crimp the
From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/14/peace-in-the-south-china-sea-is-vital-for-the-oil/
British police say they have finally identified a man whose body was found on a suburban London street in September after falling from the undercarriage of a plane as it prepared to land at Heathrow Airport.
Police identified the man Thursday as Jose Matada from Mozambique.
Police initially believed the man was from Ghana because he was found with currency from that country in his jeans and because a jet from Ghana was overhead shortly before his crumpled body was found in the suburb of Mortlake.
They eventually determined his identity by calling numbers found on a SIM card he was carrying. But efforts to locate his next of kin have failed so far. Police are still holding the body for repatriation.
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/a_ltpuVckN4/
Mozambican authorities say they have made some arrests after recent attacks and fighting between police and alleged members of an opposition group killed at least seven people.
Alberto Mondlane, Mozambique‘s interior minister, also said Tuesday that 13 people were wounded in the violence in the central province of Sofala.
Renamo, a former rebel movement, says Mozambique‘s Frelimo government has persecuted its members. President Armando Guebuza has urged Renamo to stick to politics and refrain from armed conflict.
Mozambique holds municipal elections this year and general elections next year
After winning independence from Portugal in 1975, Mozambique fell into a devastating war between Frelimo, then a Marxist guerrilla group, and Renamo, which was backed by neighboring South Africa‘s apartheid government.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By The Huffington Post News Editors
* Rhino poaching rampant, driven by demand from Asia
* Poachers have killed 188 rhinos in S.Africa this year
JOHANNESBURG, March 28 (Reuters) – Three suspected rhinoceros poachers were killed in a shoot-out with rangers in South Africa‘s Kruger National Park, a park official said on Thursday.
The killing of rhinos for their horns, worth more than their weight in gold, is rampant in the park. So far this year, 188 rhinos have been poached in South Africa, 135 in Kruger alone, according to government figures released this week.
“Our rangers were on patrol and they came across these suspected poachers. Shooting ensued and the three were fatally wounded,” said Kruger spokesman William Mabasa.
The poachers came from Mozambique and the shooting happened on Wednesday, he said.
Mozambique borders Kruger and many of the poachers stalking rhino in park are drawn from its poor villages. They are usually heavily armed and are paid by organised crime syndicates, according to police and conservationists.
In 2012, 668 rhinos were poached in South Africa, a 50 percent rise on the previous year and double the number killed illegally in 2010.
Surging demand from newly affluent consumers in Vietnam and China, where rhino horn is highly prized for medicinal purposes, is behind the onslaught.
South Africa hosts virtually the entire population of white rhino – over 18,000 head or 93 percent – and about 40 percent of Africa‘s much rarer black rhino, which number close to 5,000.
According to the International Union for Conservation, there are three Asian species and they number about 2,000 in total. (Reporting by Ed Stoddard)
By Aimee Duffy, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The success of employing new technology to exploit unconventional sources in the U.S. can sometimes distract us from the world energy picture. Discoveries of oil and gas in foreign lands can and will impact the state of American energy, however. With that in mind, let’s take a look at energy development in three very different places: East Africa, New Zealand, and Colombia.
East Africa
The story about East Africa‘s offshore natural gas reserves has been growing for quite some time. Like any good story, the numbers and size of the reserves in question grow as it gets told more often. Except unlike most fables, these outsized numbers aren’t borne of exaggeration but of more drilling and a growing number of new discoveries. The region’s reserves are so highly sought after that in the past week alone there were three separate announcements involving some of the biggest oil companies in the world.
Last week, Italian energy company Eni announced that it was selling a 20% stake in its Area 4 project offshore Mozambique to China National Petroleum Corporation for $4.2 billion. CNPC is China‘s largest oil and gas company. A state-owned operation, it is also the parent of the publicly traded PetroChina. Area 4 is thought to hold 75 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Also last week, ExxonMobil and Norway’s Statoil discovered gas at their third deepwater well in Block 2, offshore Tanzania. With a 65% working interest in the project, Statoil is the operator and has completed five wells in the block over the last 15 months. Estimates now place the total gas reserves at 15 tcf to 17 tcf (trillion cubic feet).
Finally, Russian gas company Gazprom announced yesterday that it was also seeking a stake in Eni’s Area 4 project. Talks are only in the early stages, but expect this deal to continue to develop as Russian President Vladimir Putin travels to Africa for the BRICS summit next week.
New Zealand
At the beginning of the year, I wrote about Shell’s efforts to conduct seismic surveys offshore New Zealand in its quest for oil. This time, the story is about natural gas.
New Zealand is self-sufficient with its natural gas production. The country’s 20 natural gas fields generated about 1.5 tcf in 2011. The government’s Petroleum Action Plan aims to increase the development of these resources. Currently, gas production contributes roughly $2 billion to the country’s GDP.
So far, the plan seems to be working. Improving production results allowed Canadian company Methanex to announce it was increasing capacity at its New Zealand methanol plants. The company will boost capacity in the country by 700,000 metric tons by the end of the year, for a total of 2.2 million metric tons. The increase will necessitate restarting one facility and expanding another.
Colombia
Colombia has been on the radar of many investors because of the country’s commitment to growing its oil production. In 2006, production sat at 529,000 barrels per day. As …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Roland Head, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
LONDON — After closing at a record high for the last nine days, can the Dow extend the streak to 10? Stock index futures at 7 a.m. EDT indicate that the Dow Jones Industrial Average may open up by 0.12% this morning, while the S&P 500 may open 0.16% higher, bringing it to within 20 points of its October 2007 intraday high of 1,576.09.
Yesterday’s five-point closing gain for the Dow Jones may suggest that the bull run is slowing, but today’s economic data could provide a further boost if it comes in ahead of expectations. At 8:30 a.m. EDT, the latest weekly jobless-claims figures are due, with consensus forecasts suggesting 350,000 new claims from March 3 to March 9, up slightly from 340,000 the previous week. Also due at 8:30 a.m. EDT is February’s producer price index, which is expected to show a rise of 0.8%, up from 0.2% in January.
In corporate news, companies expected to report earnings before markets open include AAON, Diana Shipping, Dynegy, and Ebix, while Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and Molycorp are expected to report results after the closing bell tonight.
Stocks that may be actively traded include Blackberry after the company reported that it had received a 1 million-unit order for its Blackberry 10 phone from an unnamed partner. Blackberry stock was up 2.6% in premarket trading. Meanwhile, Apple may also be in focus as competitor Samsung launches its latest Galaxy smartphone in New York later today. Finally, E*TRADE may sink after a major shareholder said it planned to sell its entire stake in the company, whose stock was down 4.6% in premarket trading.
European markets
Markets edged higher in Europe this morning as investors welcomed the growing strength of the U.S. recovery and were encouraged by a draft statement from today’s EU leaders’ summit, which indicated that they may consider extending deficit-reduction deadlines for countries including Spain, Portugal, and France.
At 7:40 a.m. EDT, the DAX was up 0.69%, the CAC 40 was up 0.62%, the FTSE MIB was up 1.36%, and the IBEX 35 was up 1%. In London, the FTSE 100 was 0.33% higher, helped by a 6.2% gain for temporary-power specialist Aggreko, which announced a 122 MW new contract to supply power to Mozambique and Namibia as part of the cross-border Southern Africa Power Pool project. Wm. Morrison Supermarkets was also higher after announcing that it will move into online retailing in 2014 through a joint venture with online-only supermarket Ocado.
If you’re looking for shares that can outperform the wider market, you need to look beyond the news headlines. This free Motley Fool report, “The Top Growth Share For 2013,” highlights a share that gained 38% in 2012, during which time the wider market rose just 6%. The company is a household name, and its earnings per share have risen by 44% since 2009 — so click here now to download your free copy of …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
SEACOM upgrades submarine network capacity to turbo-boost African Internet
EBENE, Mauritius & HANOVER, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– The privately ownedcommunications service provider SEACOM has selected Ciena Corporation’s (NAS: CIEN) 6500 Packet-Optical Platform and OneControl Unified Management System for the upgrade of its submarine network across the Southern and Eastern African coastlines. This falls in line with SEACOM‘s focus on driving the development of the African internet and opening the broadband tap for African consumers.
Ciena’s technology will allow SEACOM to meet the growing capacity demands of its customers and enable affordable Internet access to East Africa with a network that offers a better cost point and a smoother evolution path for the future.
The upgrade includes key countries in SEACOM‘s 17,000km undersea network, including India, Egypt, Dijbouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. The solution will allow SEACOM to deliver its capacity in very short timeframes and provide for future demands. The deployment will initially use Ciena’s 40G coherent transport technology, with ultra-long distance 100G wavelengths planned for future upgrades.
“Connectivity services in Africa are booming due to the growing needs of business IT users, the rise of ‘cloud’ based services, and growing requirements for the processing and storing of personal data,” says Claes Segelberg, chief technology officer at SEACOM. “Ciena’s technology will enable us to cost-effectively scale our capacity to address this growing demand for connectivity throughout the continent. The company’s future-proof network design has mitigated the risks associated with the upgrade project, ensuring a seamless transition for SEACOM‘s carrier customers and end users.”
Adds Ed McCormack, vice president and general manager, submarine systems at Ciena: “In the last couple of years, bandwidth penetration in several African countries has increased tenfold with the support of SEACOM‘s submarine network. Ciena’s coherent technology will enable SEACOM to evolve and grow its network cost-effectively. It will lay the foundations for a unified terrestrial and submarine network and evolution path to a GeoMesh network architecture. This project demonstrates a key aim of Ciena’s OPn network architecture vision: to bend the cost curve of networking in the face of new service requirements.”
About Ciena
Ciena is the network specialist. We collaborate with customers worldwide to unlock the strategic potential of their networks and fundamentally change the way they perform and compete. Ciena leverages its deep expertise in packet and optical networking and distributed software automation to deliver solutions in alignment with OPn, …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Mourners in Mozambique have held a funeral for a taxi driver who died in a South African police cell after he was dragged from a police vehicle in a shocking incident that was filmed by onlookers.
A coffin bearing Mido Macia was lowered into the ground on Saturday before a crowd that included his distraught wife and parents. The burial happened in Matola, west of the capital, Maputo.
Ana Carlos Maposse, a resident of Matola, said the community does not feel compassion for those who killed Macia.
Nine South African police officers were charged with the murder of the taxi driver, who allegedly had blocked a road with his vehicle. They appeared in court on Friday and their bail hearing continues on Monday.
By Harvey Jones, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
LONDON — Every investor dreams of that elusive 10-bagger, the stock that multiplies every pound or dollar you invest by 10. This doesn’t just happen with smaller companies: At least 10 FTSE 100 stocks have delivered a total return of between 1,000% and 2,000% over the [ast decade, according to research from Fidelity Worldwide Investment. Last week, I looked at the top 3 FTSE shares over the past 10 years. But the next three are almost as impressive. And they are …
Randgold Resources
There are more peaceful places to do business than Mali, but few more profitable.
Over the past decade, Randgold Resources , a gold miner and explorer mostly based in the strife-torn African nation, has returned a dazzling 1,723%. Its strategy is to unearth multimillion-ounce deposits in the prospective gold belts of West and Central Africa and develop them into profitable mines. It currently operates four gold mines — Morila, Loulo, and Gounkoto in Mali and Tongon in Cote d’Ivoire — and is developing a fifth, Kibali in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
After enjoying a golden decade, its share price is down 23% over the past six months, and that’s despite reporting record production levels in 2012 and a 16% rise in full-year profits to $511 million. Even a 25% dividend hike didn’t help the share price shine, although on a current yield of 0.6%, this isn’t for income seekers.
The falling gold price is a concern, as investors become less risk-averse. Political unrest is another worry, both in Mali and Cote d’Ivoire. But Randgold is hungry for more and has launched a hefty program of capital investment. The recent share-price dip looks like a buying opportunity, except I worry that gold’s glory days are now over. Despite its impressive portfolio of mines, this stock is too risky for me. Gold bugs will feel differently.
Tullow Oil
If gold isn’t your thing, what about black gold?
Today’s second FTSE 100 multibagger is oil explorer Tullow Oil , which returned 1,600% over the past decade, making it a sweet 16-bagger. It enjoyed a solid 2012, with sales revenue up 2% to $2.34 billion, and full-year profit before tax up 4% to $1.1 billion. Net debt fell from $2.9 billion to $1 billion. Highlights included the discovery of a new oil basin in Kenya, the Ngamia-1 and Twiga South-1 wells, its fourth major discovery in six years. It also enjoyed success in Uganda and Ghana.
Exploration will always be a risky business, and Tullow wrote off an eye-watering $671 million on failed exploration activities, a massive leap from the $121 million lost in 2012. Happily, its strong balance sheet should help it shrug off these losses, as well as fund the 40 exploration and appraisal campaigns in 2013, including new territories in Africa as well as Guinea, Greenland, Uruguay, and Mozambique.
You only have to look at the company’s earnings-per-share growth to see how volatile your holding is likely to be. It …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Bruce Watson
Filed under: Family Money, Personal Finance, Economic Indicators, Global Economy, Job Market, Saving
When it comes to best places in the world to be a woman, it’s not surprising that the U.S. falls behind nations like Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Scandinavian countries, after all, are famed for their impressive social contracts, with the amazing health care and child care benefits that they provide. But you might be shocked to learn that in at least one key metric, American women are being surpassed by those in Mozambique, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and 13 other developing nations.
The World Economic Forum’s 2012 report on the global gender gap ranked the U.S. as the 22nd best country in the world. But when it comes to wage equality, the land of the free and the home of the brave drops to 61st, behind Madagascar, Cambodia and Guyana. Women in America earned 67 percent of what men earned. By comparison, women in Sweden earned 69 percent, women in Canada earned 73 percent, and women in Ireland earned 77 percent.
Dig a little deeper into the numbers and it becomes clear what least part of the problem is. In many countries, unmarried women earn more than unmarried men. In Ireland, for example, the average woman without a child earns 17 percent more than the average man. After having children, however, Irish women make more than 10 percent less, on average, than men. In America, the female-to-male pay gap jumps by almost 15 percentage points after children enter the picture.
The reasons for this decline in wages aren’t hard to figure out. Women with children are more likely to leave the workforce, work part time, or otherwise adjust their schedules to deal with child care. Added to this, the high cost of raising a child — a cost that inordinately falls on women — further cuts into household budgets.
In some countries, there are programs to mitigate these factors. Ireland, for example, has government-mandated paid maternity leave. Then again, so does every other country in the world, except for Papua New Guinea, Swaziland … and the U.S.
And these aren’t the only areas in which the U.S. falls well behind the pack. In terms of labor force participation based on gender, the U.S. is 43rd in the world, behind Uganda, Mongolia and Benin. Put another way, 68 percent of able-bodied, adult American women are at work, while 80 percent of able-bodied, adult American men are at work.
Part of this, again, is due to child-rearing, as America’s lack of publicly-funded child care makes it harder for women in this country to juggle family and work. And the situation looks like it’s going to get worse before it gets better. As The International Business Times reported earlier this week, the sequester budget cuts will further erode women’s health care programs, Head …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
The wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela on Wednesday attended a memorial service for the man who died in police custody after being dragged by a police vehicle in an incident filmed by onlookers.
Several hundred people gathered at a stadium Wednesday to remember Mido Macia, a taxi driver from Mozambique who died last week. The event was in Daveyton township east of Johannesburg, where Macia was detained by police in an incident that attracted global attention because of widely circulated, graphic footage of his harsh treatment at the hands of police.
Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel, is the widow of former Mozambican President Samora Machel, who died in a plane crash in 1986. She criticized police conduct in Macia’s death, saying officers are supposed to shield South Africans from the high rate of violent crime.
“When you see police that is expected to protect people behave the way it does, it just becomes clearer and clearer that we have a big trouble that we have to deal with,” said Machel, who spoke with Mozambican compatriots who are friends and family members of Macia.
The memorial was organized by the African National Congress, South Africa‘s ruling party.
Eight police officers have been charged with murder for Macia’s death. Their bail application was postponed to Friday.
South African police, meanwhile, celebrated a national day in their honor with gatherings in stadiums and other venues.
A statement released by police in Gauteng, a province that encompasses Daveyton township, referred to the death of taxi driver Macia as “shocking,” but said police have “made a commitment to reinforce policing and get closer to the local communities.”
The statement also said police planned to fight corruption within its ranks, introducing a hotline in which complaints about graft can be reported anonymously and in any language.
South Africa‘s police watchdog said there were 232 deaths in police custody and another 488 deaths as a result of police action in the fiscal year running from early 2011 to early 2012.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate said the numbers represented a 10 percent drop over the previous year.
“Although these numbers are still …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News
By Maynard Paton, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
LONDON — Like all natural resources stocks, miner Rio Tinto is highly susceptible to cyclical slowdowns in the global economy and fears over commodity prices.
However, I believe that new chief executive Sam Walsh and his plan to take a hatchet to costs to streamline the business should turbocharge efficiency, resulting in a less bloated operation and excellent shareholder value.
Aggressive plans to tackle the debt
Rio Tinto announced last month that it had slumped to a $2.9 billion net loss in 2012, compared with a $5.9 billion profit the previous year. In particular, the crippling $14.4 billion writedowns involving its aluminum and Mozambique coal businesses has bashed the balance sheet.
New management has taken aggressive steps to rectify the ills of the previous administration, however. The firm plans to significantly slash cash costs over the next two years, with cutbacks of $5 billion scheduled by the end of 2014.
Rio Tinto announced last month that it has already taken the axe to exploration spending to the tune of $750 million — or a quarter of the planned total — and will also slow the modernization of its Kitamat aluminum complex to reduce capital expenditure.
As well, Rio Tinto is targeting the divestment of non-core businesses in order to boost the balance sheet.
In fact, reports have been circling in recent days that the firm has hired Credit Suisse and the Canadian Investment Bank of Commerce to offload its 59% stake in Iron Ore Co. of Canada. Investors should expect more disposals to cut the strain on its balance sheet and enhance shareholder returns.
A staggering value-for-money selection
City analysts predict earnings per share to leap 18% this year to 394 pence, before jumping a further 12% to 439 pence in 2014.
These earnings projections make Rio Tinto a great value pick, in my opinion, trading on a P/E ratio of 8.7 and 7.8 for 2013 and 2014 respectively. This view is compounded by sub-1 price/earnings to growth (PEG) ratings for this year and next, levels which are generally regarded as offering excellent value. A figure of 0.5 is expected this year and 0.7 in 2014.
A beefy dividend seals the investment case, with a projected dividend yield of 3.3% and 3.7% penciled in for 2013 and 2014. Shareholder payouts are also well protected, with coverage of 3.4 times anticipated over both of the next two years, providing protection against potential volatility in commodity markets.
The expert view to growth elsewhere
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Our “10 Steps to Making a Million in the Market” report highlights how fast-growth small-caps and beaten-down bargains are all fertile candidates to produce ten-fold returns. Click here NOW to enjoy this exclusive ‘wealth report’ — it’s 100% free and …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
LONDON (Reuters) – The London Stock Exchange expects an increase in new listings from African companies this year as businesses in the continent's fast-growing economies seek to attract foreign investors. London, which has seen a general drop off in listing activity over the past few years due to the global financial crisis, expects companies from countries including Chad, Mozambique, Nigeria and Kenya could go public on its markets. …
South Africa‘s police chief has announced that the officers involved in the death of a cab driver who was dragged by a police vehicle have been suspended and that the local police commander has been removed of his post.
Gen. Riah Phiyega said Friday that she shares “the extreme shock and outrage” over a video showing the abuse of the Mozambican immigrant by police officers.
Phiyega said she fully supports the investigation by the police watchdog agency and added the rights of Mido Macia, a 27-year-old from neighboring Mozambique, were “violated in the most extreme form.”
The scandal is only the latest to undermine confidence in South Africa‘s police force.
Brazilian mining giant Vale (VALE, VALE5.BR) said Monday it has declared force majeure on about 250,000 metric tons of metallurgical coal shipments from Mozambique due to heavy rains since the beginning of February. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox Business Headlines
