Malika Worrall's blog

Two businessmen served the second day of their four-month prison sentence in Zimbabwe today. Their crime? increasing the price of a loaf of bread from 185 Zimbabwean dollars (US$ 0.74) to 300 Zimbabwean dollars (US$ 1.20) without the approval of the Trade and Industry Ministry.

Last month, Oxfam accused Starbucks of blocking a 2005 bid by the Ethiopian government to trademark its three most popular types of coffee bean - Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe - in the US. This week, talks between Starbucks Chief Executive and the Ethiopian prime minister regarding Ethiopian ownership of its coffee names were reported to have failed.

Currently in India a bottle of locally-produced 2005 Sula chenin blanc costs $9.75, while a 2004 Ernest & Julio Gallo Turning Leaf chardonnay will set you back $20. An EU complaint to the World Trade Organisation, however, could soon narrow the difference in price.

Outsourcing drive-thru call centers and building fast food drive-thrus: the drive-thru culture could be on its way to China.

Vietnam-Intel relations have been warming up over the last few months.

Only 48 out of the 53 African countries attended the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing last weekend. The five absentees were Malawi, Swaziland, Gambia, Burkina Faso and Sao Tome and Principe, all of whom refused their invitations due to their diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China.

As both KFC’s parent company, Yum! Brands Inc., and Wal-Mart turn to Chinese markets for the growth they aren’t seeing in the West, Nokia has also been targeting Asia in an effort to maintain its global market domination. It’s third quarter results, however, came as a disappointment, with significant growth in China and Asia-Pacific offset by lower profits. And more threats could be on the horizon.

The East African Standard reported on the possible merger of the Nairobi and the Dar-es-salaam Stock Exchanges and the Uganda Securities Exchange.

Celtel International, an African telecommunications group, recently launched Africa's first borderless cell phone network. A common service, aptly named One Network, will be provided throughout Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. With no additional costs, it will enable customers, pre- and post-paid alike, to pay the same local rate wherever they are in East Africa.

Libya recently made a deal which could make it the first country in the world to connect every school-age child to the internet via educational personal computers. The Libyan government agreed to invest $250 million in 1.2 million specially-designed laptops to be provided by the American nonprofit organisation, One Laptop Per Child.

Mohammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, and this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, recently wrote on how microfinance could help reduce poverty in the United States. But while he outlined the way in which the Grameen Bank has worked in Bangladesh, he gave no indication of how it could be adjusted to become viable in the United States. Did he mean through government-funded programs? Or via not-for-profit organizations? Or even through commercial financial institutions?

A report from Global Labor Strategies, a labor rights advocacy group, claims that US-based corporations such as Wal-Mart, Google, Microsoft and Nike are fighting to prevent the introduction of Chinese government legislation which would give workers new rights.

Today, The Hindu reports that the ICICI Bank, India’s second largest bank, will be launching a number of innovative products in its remittances business before the end of this fiscal year. The Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) recently launched an initiative to provide free money transfers to India for Non-Resident Indians living in the United Arab Emirates. Once again, then, it’s the private sector that is steaming ahead of governments and international organisations to mobilise remittances, what many have called “the new development finance.”

In an attempt to become a more attractive outsourcing destination for international companies, the South African government has announced plans to train up to 30,000 South Africans to work in call centers. But with a far from advanced technological infrastructure, can South Africa pose any real threat to its outsource destination counterparts in Asia Pacific?

With exports tripling in the past five years, Asia is Africa’s third largest export destination partner, following only the European Union and the United States. The optimistic tone of a study recently released by the World Bank, however, failed to hide some underlying concerns about this shift in the pattern of world trade.