Africa Business

The United States and allies will heap pressure on Russia Tuesday to end the Ukraine war, pinning painfully high global food and fuel prices squarely at Vladimir Putin’s door during a G20 summit.

Leaders from the world’s 20 largest economies will gather in Bali, Indonesia to discuss soaring inflation that has driven millions more into poverty and tipped several nations toward recession.

On the eve of the talks, Putin’s critics forged a united front, blaming his eight-month-old war for the global economic tumult.

“Every household on the planet is feeling the impact of Putin’s war,” British officials said previewing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s remarks.

Even Russia’s ally China issued a subtle rebuke, with President Xi Jinping voicing opposition to the use of nuclear threats and weapons in Ukraine, according to a White House account of a meeting with US President Joe Biden.

Putin has decided to skip the summit, as he deals with the fallout from a string of embarrassing battlefield defeats in a war that his supporters believed would be over in days.

Rubbing salt in the wounds, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky — fresh from a visit to liberated Kherson — will address G20 leaders in a video message.

In Putin’s sted, Russia will be represented by Sergei Lavrov, despite the veteran foreign minister making two Bali hospital trips in as many days for an undisclosed ailment. 

Moscow denied the top diplomat had been hospitalised.  

Although a seasoned and pugilistic diplomat, Lavrov is not seen as part of Putin’s inner circle — meaning the chance of a diplomatic breakthrough to end the war is vanishingly small.  

With Zelensky and Putin absent “there is little chance of any real peace diplomacy in Bali,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group. 

Still, French President Emmanuel Macron has kept an olive branch extended. He will call Putin after the G20 summit, according to a senior French official. 

Host Indonesia still holds out hope that the summit can lead to a joint statement that would show the major countries can agree on a way forward.

“Negotiation was nearly there, but we cannot promise anything,” a senior Indonesian official told AFP, adding that the issue of the war remains the crucial sticking point.

US allies hope their argument about the need to up pressure on Putin finds favour with G20 nations that, while cautious about denouncing Russia, are deeply concerned about rising prices.

G20 members Argentina and Turkey are among the countries worst hit by food inflation, while South Africa and India have notably shied away from criticism of Moscow.

“Ending Russia’s war is a moral imperative and the single best thing we can do for the global economy,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on the eve of the meeting. 

The International Crisis Group’s Gowan warned that “if all Western powers want to do in Bali is belittle Russia, they will find that a lot of non-Western colleagues will not play along.”

– Grain corridor –

An expiring deal allowing Ukraine to export grain though the Black Sea is likely to be another focus of conversation.

The deal expires on November 19, and Russia has already threatened to rip it up.

On Monday United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres voiced hope that Russia would extend, saying the arrangement was crucial for food security.

“I am hopeful that the Black Sea grain initiative will be renewed,” Guterres said.

Ukraine is one of the world’s top grain producers, and the Russian invasion had blocked 20 million tonnes of grain in its ports until the United Nations and Turkey brokered the deal in July.

“We need urgent action to prevent famine and hunger in a growing number of places around the world,” Guterres said.

The build up to the G20 has been dominated by a first presidential sit down between Biden and Xi.

The pair cooled Cold War rhetoric in a three hour summit as they tried to take some of the heat out of their simmering superpower rivalry. 

“The world expects that China and the United States will properly handle the relationship,” Xi told Biden.

Troops and rebels traded heavy fire in eastern DR Congo on Monday, a military source and local inhabitants said, as an envoy from the East African bloc pursued efforts to hold a “peace dialogue” on the region’s troubles.

Government forces and the M23 militia were fighting in Kibumba, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the strategic city of Goma in North Kivu province, the sources said, speaking by phone.

M23 fighters were also seen about 40 kilometres to the northwest of the city in the Virunga National Park, a wildlife haven famed for its mountain gorillas but which is also a bolthole for armed groups, the sources said.

A mostly Congolese Tutsi group, the M23 — the March 23 Movement — leapt to prominence in 2012 when it briefly captured Goma before being driven out. 

After lying dormant for years, the rebels took up arms again in late 2021, claiming the DRC had failed to honour a pledge to integrate them into the army, among other grievances.

They have since won a string of victories against the military and captured swathes of territory, prompting thousands of people to flee their homes.

The resurgence has ratcheted up diplomatic tensions, with the Democratic Republic of Congo accusing its smaller neighbour Rwanda of backing the group.

Kinshasa expelled Rwanda’s ambassador at the end of last month as the M23 advanced, and recalled its envoy from Kigali.

Rwanda denies providing any support for the M23 and accuses the Congolese army of colluding with the Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) — a notorious Hutu rebel movement involved in the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda. 

“The Rwandan army and its allies from the M23 don’t stop, every passing day, launching assaults on our different positions in Kibumba,” army spokesman for North Kivu lieutenant colonel Guillaume Ndjike told reporters.

– School canteens pillaged –

As happened late last week too, witnesses spoke of World Food Programme-backed school canteens being pillaged in the rebel-held town of Kiwanja on Sunday and Monday.

“There was corn flour and oil. They took these provisions as food rations,” a resident said.

Another said oil cans, flour sacks and beans had been taken away by truck the previous day.

Eastern DR Congo was the theatre of two bloody regional wars in the 1990s.

That conflict, along with the Rwandan genocide, bequeathed a legacy of scores of armed groups which remain active across the region but especially in North Kivu.

The heads of the seven-nation East African Community (EAC) on Sunday announced they would hold a “peace dialogue” on the region’s problems.

EAC’s mediator, former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta arrived in Kinshasa on Sunday for talks aimed at paving the way for the meeting, set to take place on November 21.

The bloc has not spelt out who will take part in the talks or how long they are scheduled to run.

Another diplomatic path is being explored by Angolan President Joao Lourenco.

He met on Friday with Rwandan President Paul Kagame and on Saturday with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi.

COP27 entered its final week Monday with rich carbon polluters and developing nations at loggerheads over how to speed up and fund reductions in emissions to slow global warming.

The standoff comes with wealthy nations pressed into acknowledging the need to compensate emerging economies for accelerating climate change, and as total funding needs appear poised to run into trillions, rather than billions, of dollars.

“There is still a lot of work ahead of us,” Egyptian Foreign Minister and COP27 president Sameh Shoukry said at the UN climate talks in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

He said countries were still split on key issues as ministers join the talks this week to seek a consensus before the summit is scheduled to end on Friday.

COP27 participants were watching for signals from the first face-to-face meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping — representing the world’s top two polluting nations — at the G20 summit in Indonesia.

The White House said following the bilateral talks that the United States and China will resume climate cooperation, which Beijing had halted in anger after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August.

“The two leaders agreed to empower key senior officials to maintain communication and deepen constructive efforts on these and other issues,” the White House said.

Ani Dasgupta, president of the research non-profit World Resources Institute, said the global community was “breathing a sigh of relief”.

“There is simply no time left for geopolitical fault lines to tear the United States and China away from the climate negotiation table.”

– ‘No consensus’ on 1.5 –

Negotiators in Egypt are also eagerly waiting to see what climate message may appear in the final communique of the G20 meeting on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

At last year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow, nearly 200 countries vowed to “keep alive” the Paris Agreement’s aspirational goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“Confirming the 1.5C goal in Bali would make our lives easier,” a senior negotiator at COP27 said.

Nearly 1.2 degrees of warming on average so far has seen a cascade of increasingly severe climate disasters, such as the flooding that left a third of Pakistan under water this summer, claiming at least 1,700 lives.

The Glasgow Pact urged nations to ramp up their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ahead of COP27, but only around 30 nations have obliged.

This leaves the world on track to heat up by about 2.5 degrees by the end of the century — enough, scientists say, to trigger dangerous climate tipping points.

In Bali, UN chief Antonio Guterres said he would make a “strong appeal” to G20 countries, which account for 80 percent of emissions, to “have a common plan to reach net zero (emissions) globally by 2050”.

China and India have called the 1.5-degree goal into question, with Beijing pointing out that the binding target agreed in Paris was “well below” two degrees.

The more ambitious 1.5 target is non-binding, but science shows it is a far safer global threshold. 

Switzerland, on behalf of a six-nation group that includes Mexico and South Korea, proposed to introduce an item on the official COP27 agenda to reinforce the goal of “limiting global warming to 1.5C”.

“It’s mostly about securing a space for commitments on 1.5C,” said a delegate who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Developed countries backed the proposal, but China and groups of developing nations rejected it over concerns that it would imply renegotiating the Paris Agreement, several delegates said.

“Basically there is no consensus,” a Chinese delegate told AFP.

– Money talks –

For developing countries, the priority at COP27 is for wealthy nations to make good on pledges to provide $100 billion a year in aid for poorer countries to green their economies and build resilience against future impacts.

There are also deep divisions over calls to create a “loss and damage” fund through which rich polluters would compensate developing nations for the destruction caused by climate-induced natural disasters.

Wealthy nations fearful of creating an open-ended liability regime agreed only this year to include this touchy topic on the formal agenda. 

Developing nations are calling for the creation of a separate facility, but the United States and the European Union — while not precluding such an outcome — have said they favour using existing financial channels.

On Monday, the Group of 7 developed countries and nearly 60 nations most vulnerable to climate change launched a scheme aimed at providing financial support for communities battered by climate disasters, with more than $200 million of initial funding.

Kenneth Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s finance minister and chair of the V20 group of nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, said the scheme “is long overdue”.

The United States said Monday it was increasing its reward for information about key leaders of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab to $10 million apiece, a move that follows a spate of deadly attacks by the jihadist group.

The US State Department also said it was for the first time offering a reward of up to $10 million for information “leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms” of the Al-Qaeda affiliate.

Al-Shabaab fighters have stepped up attacks in the Somali capital Mogadishu and other parts of the country in the face of a widescale offensive against the group by the new government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

The US said it was offering up to $10 million each for information leading to the identification of Al-Shabaab “emir” Ahmed Diriye, second-in-command Mahad Karate and Jehad Mostafa, a US citizen who it said had various roles in the group.

“These key leaders of Al-Shabaab are responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in Somalia, Kenya and neighbouring countries that have killed thousands of people,” said a poster issued by the US with pictures of the three men.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said earlier Monday that more than 600 civilians had been killed this year in attacks largely attributed to the group.

At least 613 civilians have been killed and 948 injured so far in 2022, according to the latest United Nations figures — the highest since 2017 and a more-than 30-percent rise from last year.

In the deadliest attack in five years, twin bombings on October 29 claimed by Al-Shabaab killed at least 121 people and injured 333 others in Mogadishu, the UN said, citing Somali figures.

– ‘All-out war’ –

The group, which was designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the State Department in March 2008, has been seeking to overthrow the fragile foreign-backed government in Mogadishu for about 15 years.

Its fighters were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 by an African Union force, but the group still controls swathes of countryside and continues to wage deadly strikes on civilian, political and military targets.

In August, following a 30-hour siege on a Mogadishu hotel that killed at least 21 people, Mohamud declared “all-out war” on the jihadists, who espouse a strict version of sharia or Islamic law.  

The US statement said Diriye, who has been leader since September 2014 after the killing of Ahmed Abdi Godane in a US strike, was designated by the US as a “specially designated global terrorist” in April 2015, and slapped with UN sanctions the same year.

Karate, who was also designated a terrorist in April 2015 and also faces UN sanctions, continues to lead some Al-Shabaab operations, the US said.

He also “maintains some command responsibility over Amniyat, the group’s intelligence and security wing, which oversees suicide attacks and assassinations in Somalia, Kenya, and other countries in the region, and provides logistics and support for al-Shabaab’s terrorist activities”.

Mostafa, a US citizen who once lived in California, has been a military instructor at Al-Shabaab training camps, as well as a leader of foreign fighters, a leader in the group’s media wing, an intermediary with other “terrorist organisations,” and a leader in the use of explosives in attacks, the US said. 

In December 2019, he was indicted in a US court on various charges linked to Al-Shabaab.

“The FBI assesses Mostafa to be the highest-ranking terrorist with US citizenship fighting overseas.”

In May, US President Joe Biden decided to restore a military presence in Somalia, approving a request from the Pentagon, which deemed his predecessor Donald Trump’s rotation system too risky and ineffective.

Britain announced Monday that it would cut short its troop deployment with the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali after relations with the country’s Russian-backed junta soured.

“I can announce that the UK contingent will… now be leaving the MINUSMA mission earlier than planned,” Defence Minister James Heappey told parliament, referring to the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali.

“Two coups in three years have undermined international efforts to advance peace,” he said.

“This government cannot deploy our nation’s military to provide security when the host country’s government is not willing to work with us to deliver lasting stability and security.”

Heappey accused Mali of working with the Russian mercenary group Wagner, and actively seeking to “interfere” with the UN mission and French-led operations there.

“The Malian government’s partnership with Wagner group is counterproductive to lasting stability and security in their region,” he said.

Bamako has previously denied turning to Wagner’s paramilitaries, acknowledging only the support of Russian military “instructors.”

Britain dispatched 300 troops to Mali in December 2020 to join MINUSMA, a force drawn from dozens of countries aiming to bolster the troubled Sahel nation.

It was originally planned that they would remain there for three years, but they will now pull out within the next six months, under the ministry’s plans.

Alongside faltering relations with Mali’s military leaders, an Islamist insurgency that first erupted in the country’s north in 2012 has now spilled over into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

The epicentre of the conflict — which has killed thousands of people and displaced millions — now appears to be in Burkina Faso, according to Britain’s defence ministry.

France pulled its troops out of Mali earlier this year amid growing friction with the junta in Bamako, while Sweden announced in March it would be leaving the MINUSMA mission.

Heappey insisted the UK troop drawdown did not mean Britain would abandon security commitments to the region.

“We’ve been working closely with our allies to consider options for rebalancing our deployment alongside France, the EU and other like-minded allies,” he told MPs.

Interested parties will meet next week in Ghana in the first major gathering in support of the so-called Accra Initiative, he noted.

The West African-led plans aim to prevent further contagion of the insurgency into Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Niger, and tackling the growing levels of violence in Burkina Faso.

“The UK will continue its commitment to Mali and the Sahel through our humanitarian, stabilisation and development assistance, working in close coordination with partners,” Heappey added.

The world’s biggest rainforest nations Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday formally launched a climate partnership to work together on conservation.

All three nations have vast tropical rainforests threatened by logging and agriculture. 

“Representatives from Indonesia, Brazil and DRC… announced a tropical forest cooperation and climate action in the Egyptian COP27 (climate summit) side event on November 7, and agreed to sign a Joint Statement today,” Indonesia’s coordinating minister of maritime and investment affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said in a statement.

“We do need cooperation with others to achieve common goals. Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much,” he said on the eve of the G20 summit.

The agreement calls for all three to be compensated by the international community for reducing deforestation, focusing on joint issues such as access to climate finance and the price of a tonne of carbon in the carbon-credit market.

The Indonesian statement said the countries “have a common interest in collaborating to increase the value of their tropical forests, and to ensure that these tropical forests continue to benefit the climate and people.”

Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to pledge a reversal of the environmental policies of his right-wing predecessor Jair Bolsonaro to protect the Amazon rainforest.

His trip to the COP27 talks in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh — which he will address on Wednesday — will be his first international visit since beating Bolsonaro in an election run-off last month.

The 77-year-old promised on the campaign trail to work towards zero deforestation. Brazil will be represented at the G20 summit on Tuesday and Wednesday by Foreign Minister Carlos Franca.

The DRC, which is home to 60 percent of the vast Congo Basin rainforest, has faced criticism for launching an auction in July for oil and gas blocks, some of which are in sensitive areas. 

The impoverished central African nation maintains that developing its fossil resources is an economic imperative.

But the country’s Environment Minister Eve Bazaida Mazudi said the three nations can offer solutions to climate change together.

“The world is currently getting warmer and warmer, so humanity needs rainforests to bind CO2,” she said, according to the Indonesian statement.

Tanzania’s president on Monday ordered officials to strengthen the country’s disaster response at an emergency cabinet meeting, a government spokesman said, after its handling of the deadliest plane crash in decades sparked anger among citizens.

Nineteen people died when the Precision Air plane plunged into Lake Victoria on November 6, prompting a frantic rescue effort by emergency workers, fishermen and residents to pluck people to safety from the largely submerged aircraft.

Police blamed bad weather for the accident, which shocked Tanzanians and raised questions about the government’s emergency response, with an investigation now under way into the disaster.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan chaired the meeting in the capital Dodoma, spokesman Gerson Msigwa told reporters, urging citizens to remain calm until the probe is completed.

“The cabinet has directed local aviation experts to cooperate with their foreign counterparts to investigate the source of accidents and recommend what is needed to be done to ensure safety in aviation and prevent such kinds of accidents,” Msigwa said.

“The cabinet has also ordered strengthening of the emergency response and government units responsible for disaster management,” he said.

He said the investigators would issue a bulletin within 14 days of the probe, followed by a preliminary report in 30 days, with the final report expected to take up to a year.

Precision Air said Monday that it had started the process to compensate the families of those killed in the accident, but gave no indication about the amount due to them.

Last week, Tanzania Insurance Regulatory Authority said the airline’s insurance cover was $50 million for damage to its aircrafts and up to $170 million for planes and passengers.

It added however that a final figure could only be established after the investigation was completed.

“We have started contacting the families of the respective victims and telling them what is needed from them, as well as explaining the whole process,” the airline’s CEO Patrick Mwanri told reporters.

“I want to assure everyone that all relevant laws and procedures regarding… compensation will be observed,” he said.

Twenty-four survived out of the 43 people aboard flight PW 494 from financial capital Dar es Salaam to the northwestern city of Bukoba.

Precision Air, which is partly owned by Kenya Airways, was founded in 1993 and operates domestic and regional flights as well as private tourist charters.

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo on Monday fired his junior finance minister over corruption allegations made in an upcoming documentary on illegal gold mining.

The president has “terminated the appointment of the Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, Mr Charles Adu Boahen, with immediate effect,” he said in a statement.

The fallout from the expose by a well-known investigative journalist comes as the government is under pressure over a faltering economy and lawmakers even from his own party push Akufo-Addo to fire Finance Minister Kenneth Ofori-Atta.   

The presidency’s statement said Akufo-Addo’s decision came after “being made aware of the allegations” against Boahen in the documentary “Galamsey Economy,” which is scheduled to be released on Monday.

Akufo-Addo also referred the case to prosecutors for further investigation.

“The sacking of Charles Adu Boahen is meaningless unless it is linked to the resignation of Ken Ofori-Atta,” governing party lawmaker Davis Opoku said in a Facebook post.

Teasers from the expose show Boahen in what the documentary claims are images of him trying to demand $200,000 from potential investors to give to the vice president to allow them to do business. 

Galamsey is a local Ghanaian phrase referring to the illegal or unregulated, small-scale gold mining operations.

Boahen has not commented on the allegations made in the teasers.

But before the sacking was announced, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia on Monday said he was not aware of any meeting in which Boahen had used his name to “peddle influence and collect money from supposed investors.”

“If what the minister is alleged to have said is accurately captured in the video, then his position as a minister of state is untenable,” he wrote on Twitter.

“I will not allow anyone to use my name to engage in corrupt activities.”

– Veteran investigator –

The documentary was made by Anas Aremeyaw Anas, whose previous films led to a ban on the former Ghana FA president by FIFA and sanctioning of over 50 referees across Africa. 

He has also investigated the country’s judiciary leading to the dismissal of over 30 superior and lower court judges in Ghana over bribes to drop cases.

The documentary will have a public screening at the Accra International Conference Centre for two days.

“The minister was too excited at the opportunity,” said Franklin Cudjoe, president of IMANI Africa, a civil society organisation, referring to the teaser images. “Will wait for the full video though.”

Akufo-Addo has been under increasing pressure after recently opening negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a potential $3-billion loan to help shore up the country’s economy.

Last month, he appealed to Ghanaians to support his efforts to manage the “crisis” as inflation has hit 40 percent and the national currency, the cedi, has dropped sharply.

Lawmakers are investigating Finance Minister Ofori-Atta over economic mismanagement and other allegations though he is leading the talks with the IMF team over the loan deal.

The world’s fashion giants have pledged to trim their carbon footprint but that goal remains elusive at a time “fast fashion” is all the rage — a topic in the spotlight at the UN climate summit.  

With a chance to strut their climate commitments at COP27 talks, clothing brands and manufacturers discussed global warming — but some admitted that their pledge to halve emissions by 2030 and reach net-zero by mid-century may be a stretch. 

“Are we there yet? Of course not. Are we on track? I would say … maybe,” Stefan Seidel, senior head of sustainability at Puma, told a panel at the COP27 in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Greenpeace and other groups have urged the sector — already under fire for often exploitative labour practices — to slow down or end the wasteful trend of mass-producing low-cost clothes that are quickly thrown away.

Fast fashion, they charge, uses up massive amounts of water, produces hazardous chemicals and clogs up landfills in poor countries with textile waste, while also generating greenhouse gases in production, transport and disposal.

The fashion sector was responsible for four percent of global emissions in 2018 — about the same as Britain, France and Germany combined — according to the McKinsey consultancy firm.

Some 30 firms — from retail giants H&M and Zara owner Inditex to sports apparel rivals Adidas and Nike — signed up to the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action at the COP24 summit in Poland in 2018.

At the time they pledged to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2030 and to be net-zero emitters by mid-century.

A year ago they set the new, more ambitious goal of slashing their CO2 emissions by half by the end of the decade, with more than 100 companies now signatories to the pledge.

But meeting the target is a major challenge for an industry with long and complex supply chains that span the globe, industry insiders admit.

– ‘Difficult and costly’ –

Industry figures at COP27 barely mentioned the “fast fashion” business model, which critics say is at the heart of the problem, focussing instead on ideas around the use of renewable energy in factories and regulation.

But greening the entire supply chain and introducing climate-friendly standards among suppliers of raw materials and factories is a monumental task.

Leyla Ertur, head of sustainability at H&M, said the Swedish firm has more than 800 suppliers.

And Marie-Claire Daveu, sustainability chief at Kering Group, which owns luxury brands Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, said: “Even us, we’re not big enough to change all the supplies chains. That’s why collaboration is key.”

Ali Nouira, an Egyptian manufacturer, told another COP27 panel that certification bodies do not even exist in the region.

“When we manufacture, we need to have all the right certifications and the carbon footprints and all that, and for a small brand coming out from Egypt that is extremely difficult and also costly,” Nouira said.

“We also manufacture for other brands, in Europe and other places,” he said. “And we’re pressured to have the certifications and also to go down with our prices, so they can continue to make the profits they make.”

– ‘Leap of faith’ –

Nicholas Mazzei, head of environmental sustainability at online retailer Zalando, said there had been a culture change in developed countries, with banks offering lower interest rates to companies that commit to a net-zero target.

“If you make that transformation, you may end up paying nothing because the loans are so low the costs are basically free,” Mazzei said.

But suppliers face big costs as sewing clothes in factories requires more energy than that used by retail stores at the end of the supply chain.

“We need, at a far bigger scale, more renewable energy than brands do,” said Catherine Chiu, vice president of corporate quality and sustainability at Kong Kong firm Crystal International Group.

“Even if we install solar panels in all of our 20 plants, that would only represent 17 percent of the energy consumption of the group,” she said.

Delman Lee, vice chair for sustainability at TAL Apparel, another Hong Kong garment manufacturer, said it has been decarbonising its operations for a decade.

But with subsidiaries in countries including Vietnam and Ethiopia, it is complicated to navigate the different regulations, Lee said.

Aiming to become a net-zero business “is a leap of faith commitment,” Lee said. “You commit to something you don’t know how to achieve.”

A former Algerian union head was sentenced Monday to a decade in prison for corruption, his lawyer said, the latest ally of late president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to face jail time.

Abdelmadjid Sidi Said, 76, who led the General Union of Algeria Workers (UGTA), was seen as a key supporter of Bouteflika, who ruled from 1999 until a vast protest movement forced him to quit in 2019.

Said had led the UGTA, the only union recognised at the time by the authorities, from 1997 until he quit just weeks after Bouteflika left.

He had long been unpopular with workers for his unwavering support for Bouteflika.

Said and his three sons were detained in May on graft charges, months after Bouteflika died following a long illness.

The union chief’s lawyer Miloud Brahimi said Said had been sentenced to 10 years in prison without parole, while his sons Djamil and Hanafi were jailed for three and five years respectively.

A third, Ramine, on the run overseas, was sentenced in absentia to a year behind bars without parole, Brahimi said.

They had been charged with money laundering and “inciting public officials to abuse their functions to obtain undue advantages”, among other charges. Brahimi said they would appeal.

Since Bouteflika’s departure, dozens of members of his inner circle have been imprisoned on corruption charges.