Africa Business

Election officials began counting ballots on Saturday after Nigeria’s southwest Osun state went to the polls to elect a new governor in a final test for next year’s presidential elections.

The frontrunners are incumbent governor Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress, senator Ademola Adeleke of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Akin Ogunbiyi of the Accord Party and Labour’s Yusuf Lasun.

Analysts expect the contest to become a two-horse race between old political foes Oyetola and Adeleke — who lost by less than 500 votes after a run-off four years ago.

“I left home very early so that I can use my vote to elect the governor that will improve the welfare of the people,” Adenike Adeyiola, a 32-year-old university student, told AFP.

The ballot is seen as a battleground for Nigeria’s leading parties to test support for their presidential hopefuls ahead of the February 2023 election as President Muhammadu Buhari steps down following eight years in office.

“Am in the race to win and by the grace of God, I will triumph,” a smiling and waving Adeleke told a large crowd as he voted in his hometown of Ede.

Osun is among eight of Nigeria’s 36 states where governorship elections are not being held at the same time as the rest of the country because of legal challenges to previous results.

Polling stations opened from 08:30 am (0730 GMT) to 2:30 pm on Saturday, but long lines formed in the state capital Osogbo as early as 06:00 am. 

According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), 1.9 million voters registered to participate in the ballot.

“Sorting and counting of the ballot papers have commenced,” said electoral official Opemipo Adelusi in Osogbo, the state capital.

The winner will be known by Sunday, he added.

Operatives of Nigeria’s anti-graft agency EFCC stormed some polling centres, including that of PDP’s Adeleke in Ede to monitor the ballot and arrest anybody offering or taking money for votes.

Nigeria has a history of election malpractice, fraud, vote-buying and violence. 

On Monday, the residence of Lasun, the Labour party candidate, in his Ilobu hometown, was attacked by gunmen but he was not at home.

There was heavy security presence as security forces mounted road blocks to restrict people and vehicles in major cities.

Police deployed over 23,000 personnel, helicopters and drones to try to ensure a trouble-free election.

Ons Jabeur may have missed out on the Wimbledon title but the trailblazing Tunisian was accorded a champion’s reception on Friday as a crowd of hundreds celebrated the country’s sporting pioneer.

While she ultimately succumbed in three sets to Elena Rybakina, her achievement at becoming the first Arab and African woman to reach a Grand Slam final has seen her popularity soar.

The 27-year-old is visibly enjoying the affection she is getting from her fellow Tunisians.

“Tunisians’ love is more important than no matter which title. I hope this is the start of lots more wins. I’m proud to be a Tunisian,” she said as women and children carried the national flag, with music played at maximum volume on loud speakers adorned with photos of Jabeur and tennis racquets.

After spotting a banner in favour of a ‘yes’ vote on the upcoming referendum on the constitution she nodded: “Yes, everything is possible”.

And from a big grandstand in front of the capital’s national theatre she spelled out her next career objective “to be world number one and win (the French Open) at Roland Garros”.

Autographed tennis balls were being thrown into the crowd for those fans lucky enough to get their hands on them.

One of those in the happy throng was Mongia Zaag, who told AFP: “We’ve come here to experience the joy with Ons Jabeur”.

“She’s made us happy. I’m very emotional, with everything that’s going on (in the country), the morale of the Tunisian people is not at its highest,” Zaag added, alluding to the political crisis in the country and global economic difficulties.

The teacher by profession suggested Jabeur “is an example not only for Tunisian girls but also the boys”.

Friday’s reception followed Thursday’s presentation to Jabeur by President Kais Saied of the prestigious Grand Medal of the National Order of Merit.

She said she wanted to “give more hope” to the country’s youngsters.

Since she began her climb up the WTA rankings to her present fifth in the world her club’s membership has doubled to 700.

Key ministers from France and Niger met on Friday as French forces revamp their mission in the Sahel following a planned pullout from Mali.

Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu arrived in the Nigerien capital late Thursday.

They held talks on Friday with Foreign Minister Hassoumi Massoudou and Defence Minister Alkassoum Indatou, followed by President Mohamed Bazoum.

The visit takes place as French forces complete a pullout from Mali, placing the spotlight on Niger as a frontline state in the fight against jihadism, and as the unstable region struggles with a string of military coups.

“We are here to show France’s commitment, at the side of the Nigerien government,” Colonna told a joint press conference.

“We are here to respond as best we can to the needs you put forward.”

Niger, a deeply poor former French colony, is the focus of a French push that hopes to stem jihadism through security as well as development.

It is one of the biggest recipients of French aid, receiving 143 million euros (dollars) last year.

The two sides on Friday signed agreements for a French loan of 50 million euros and a grant of 20 million euros.

France will also increase food aid to Niger by 66 percent this year, to eight million euros, “at a difficult time for world food security” because of the war in Ukraine, Colonna said.

“If we don’t win the war of development, we will eventually lose the war against terrorism,” Massoudou said.

The French ministers were also to visit a base at Ouallam, north of Niamey, which oversees joint operations on Niger’s western border by several hundred French and Nigerien troops.

Colonna returns to Paris late Friday, while Lecornu heads to Ivory Coast, for talks with President Alassane Ouattara and a visit to French troops there.

– Sahel problems –

Niger, the world’s poorest country by the benchmark of the UN’s Human Development Index, has been badly hit by the jihadist insurgency that began in northern Mali in 2012 and then swept across neighbouring countries.

Thousands of civilians have been killed and more than two million have fled their homes.

Niger itself is facing insurgencies both on its western border with Mali and Burkina Faso as well as its south-eastern frontier with Nigeria.

It hosts tens of thousands of internally displaced people, as well as refugees from Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria. 

French forces who have been supporting Mali for nearly a decade are expected to complete their pullout in the coming weeks after France and the Malian junta fell out.

The roots of the dispute lie in a military takeover in August 2020, which was followed by a second coup in May 2021.

Friction developed over the junta’s delays in restoring civilian rule and escalated when Mali brought in Russian paramilitaries — personnel described by France as “mercenaries” from the pro-Kremlin Wagner group.

Coups followed in Guinea last September and in Burkina Faso in January.

– French in Africa –

At its peak, France’s Barkhane mission had 5,100 troops among five Sahel allies, all former French colonies — Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

The forces have provided key support in air power, troop transport and reconnaissance. In Niger, France notably has an air base at Niamey where it has deployed drones.

After the Malian pullout, the mission will have “around 2,500” troops, Barkhane commander General Laurent Michon said in an interview this month.

The reconfigured mission will emphasise “more cooperative operations,” in which French forces will act in support of local armies rather than in place of them, he said.

More than a thousand troops will be deployed in Niger, providing air support and training, French sources say.

French troops are also in Gabon, Ivory Coast and Senegal, as well as in the east of Africa in Djibouti.

On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he had asked the government and military chiefs “to rethink our overall presence on the African continent by the autumn”.

He called for “a presence that is less static and less exposed” and “a closer relationship” with African armed forces.

Egypt will “temporarily suspend” its participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations in Mali after seven of its troops died in attacks this year, the UN mission MINUSMA said on Friday.

Egypt signalled its concerns at UN headquarters in New York this week, the mission said in a statement. 

“We have been informed that, in consequence, the Egyptian contingent would temporarily suspend its activities in MINUSMA from August 15,” said the statement, without detailing how long the suspension would last.

MINUSMA — the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali — was launched in 2013 to help one of the world’s poorest countries cope with a bloody jihadist campaign.

It is one of the UN’s biggest peacekeeping operations, with 17,609 troops, police, civilians and volunteers deployed as of April, according to the mission’s website. 

It is also one of the most dangerous UN missions, with 275 fatalities from attacks, accidents or other causes, according to the website. 

Of these, 177 deaths have come from hostile acts, 10 of them since January. 

The latest attack against the Egyptian contingent was on July 5, when two peacekeepers were killed and five seriously hurt near Gao, in northern Mali.

A UN official in Bamako said Egypt contributed 1,035 out of the total 12,261 UN peacekeeping troops in Mali.

“It is one of the mission’s biggest contingents,” he said.

– Crisis –

The announcement comes at a time when Mali’s ruling junta is wrestling with a bloody jihadist insurgency and friction with international partners.

The UN Security Council renewed MINUSMA’s mandate for one year on June 29, although the  junta opposed requests to allow freedom of movement for rights’ investigators with the mission.

On Thursday, Mali announced it was suspending all rotations by MINUSMA troops and police for reasons of “national security”.

Troops from France’s Barkhane operation are due to complete their pullout from Mali in the coming weeks — a departure sparked by a bustup between Paris and the junta which took power in September 2020.

The junta stirred French anger over delays in its pledge to restore civilian rule, and then wove closer ties with the Kremlin, bringing in paramilitaries that France says are mercenaries from the controversial pro-Kremlin Wagner group.

The French withdrawal is likely to have an operational impact for MINUSMA, as French air power has been a major source of support.

– ‘Hindrances’ –

A western diplomat whose country supplies troops to MINUSMA said that the “hindrances” to the mission “are clearly going to make several contributing countries question their commitments.”

“Some contingents were present in Mali because Barkhane was there,” Ornella Moderan, a researcher at the South African-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS) told AFP in February.

“With the French troops going, will the Germans, the English or the Swedes be staying?” shed asked.

Mali’s security problems began with a regional insurrection in the north in 2012 that was abetted by Islamist militants.

The jihadists, after being scattered by French military intervention, regrouped to move into the centre of the country, inflaming long-standing ethnic resentments, and mounting cross-border raids into neighbours Burkina Faso and Niger.

Across the region, the violence has claimed thousands of lives, prompted more than two million people to flee their homes and inflicted devastating economic damage on three countries that rank among the poorest in the world.

Hosts Zimbabwe and the Netherlands filled the last two places for the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia by winning their qualifying tournament semi-finals in Bulawayo on Friday.

Zimbabwe beat Papua New Guinea by 27 runs after posting 199-5 in 20 overs, then restricting their opponents to 172-8.

The Netherlands defeated the United States by seven wickets. Replying to an American total of 138 in 19.4 overs, the Dutch scored 139-3 with six balls to spare.

Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, Namibia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates and the West Indies had already secured places.

The 16-team tournament runs from October 16 to November 13 with Australia defending a title they won in the UAE last year. 

Winning the toss and opting to bat, Zimbabwe clicked with six batsman led by Wesley Madhevere scoring at least 22 runs.  

Madhevere top scored with 42, including five fours, and added 63 runs for the second wicket with captain Craig Ervine.

Papua New Guinea, who scraped into the semi-finals on net run rate after winning only one of three group matches, were close to matching the Zimbabwe run rate for much of the innings with Tony Ura starring. 

But when Ura fell off the final ball of the 14th, after notching 66, including five sixes and four fours off 35 balls, the island nation lost momentum.

Blessing Muzarabani was the most succesful Zimbabwe bowler, taking two wickets at the expense of 24 runs in four overs.

Zimbabwe, who appointed former star batsman Dave Houghton as coach just before the tournament, will be making a fifth appearance at the T20 finals.

In the other semi-final, captain Monank Patel top scored for the USA with 32 and Steven Taylor, their star batsman in the group stage, contributed 26.   

Bas de Leede and Paul van Meekeren took two wickets each, but Fred Klaassen, who captured five wickets against Uganda on Thursday, had a disappointing 0-40 four-over stint.  

After impressing with the ball, De Leede did even better with the bat, striking an unbeaten 91, including three sixes and nine fours.

Captain and wicketkeeper Scott Edwards weighed in with a run-a-ball 26 to ensure a fourth consecutive appearance at the T20 World Cup tournament for the Dutch.

In placement play-offs, there were victories for Uganda over Jersey and Hong Kong against Singapore, the only team not win so far in Bulawayo.

Several cars and signs celebrating Tunisian-Algerian friendship marked the reopening Friday of land borders between the two countries, more than two years after they closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Authorities expect more than a million Algerian visitors, most of them tourists, to enter Tunisia during the summer months.

After two years of closure, nine border crossings between the two countries reopened at midnight on Thursday.

The decision to reopen the crossings was announced by Algeria’s President Abdelmajid Tebboune to his Tunisian counterpart Kais Saied, on July 5, during Algiers’ independence day celebrations.

The Melloula border post, near Tabarka where an AFP team was deployed, traditionally sees the most traffic, according to Tunisian national guard official Jamel Zrig. 

In 2019 it saw between 15,000 and 16,000 daily arrivals and accounted for a quarter of incoming traffic from Algeria.

“Long live Algerian-Tunisian fraternity,” read a large banner at the border. 

Visitors showed vaccination certificates and other Covid-related documents to customs officials in a building adorned with the inscription: “Welcome to our Algerian brothers, in their second country, Tunisia.” 

Jana Galila, an Algerian pensioner, said she was “very, very happy” to return to Tunisia.

“We had been waiting for (the border to reopen)… with impatience,” she told AFP as she prepared to enter Tunisia for holidays.

Nearly three million Algerians travelled to Tunisia in 2019, equating to one third of foreign visitors in a year that signalled a recovery in Tunisia’s tourism sector after it was hit by a string of jihadist attacks in 2015.

Following the onset of the Covid pandemic, border crossings between the two countries were closed on March 17, 2020, remaining open only for emergencies.

Algerians typically travel to Tunisia for tourism, visiting the popular seaside resorts of Annaba and Constantine, to visit family or to undertake medical treatment.

Relations between the two North African countries have been historically warm since Algerian independence from French colonial rule in 1962.

Voters go to the polls on Saturday to elect a new governor for Nigeria’s southwest Osun state, with two Afrobeat stars backing rival candidates, in a final test for next year’s presidential elections.

Osun is among eight of Nigeria’s 36 states where governorship elections are not being held at the same time as the rest of the country because of legal challenges to previous results.

President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army commander who came to power in 2015, will step down after the February 2023 vote at the end of eight years in office.

Saturday’s ballot in Osun is seen as a battleground for the leading parties to test support for their presidential hopefuls ahead of the February election.

Buhari’s ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) has chosen former Lagos state governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu as its presidential flagbearer.

Tinubu, a Muslim from the southwest, faces a tough challenge from the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, a northern Muslim. 

Another frontrunner is the Labour Party’s Peter Obi who has been enjoying growing support among the younger generation in a bid to break the APC and PDP dominance.

Last month, the APC won a governorship vote in nearby Ekiti state with a landslide that confirmed and reinforced Tinubu’s strength in the southwest’s political landscape.

Among the frontrunners in Osun are incumbent Governor Gboyega Oyetola of APC, PDP senator Ademola Adeleke, Akin Ogunbiyi of the Accord Party and  Labour’s Yusuf Lasun.

– Popstars and euros –

Analysts expect the contest to become a two-horse race between old political foes — APC’s Oyetola who is seeking re-election and Adeleke of PDP who narrowly lost with a slim margin — less than 500 votes — after a re-run four years ago.

Oyetola, who enjoys the power of incumbency to boost his chances, has been leveraging on Tinubu’s regional popularity to retain the seat for another four years.

“Tinubu’s foothold in the entire southwest is formidable. He cannot afford to lose Osun or anywhere  in the southwest,” said public affairs analyst Dr. Abolaji Odumesi.

He said the APC flagbearer would also want “to prove he is on course to win the presidential vote by adding Osun to his laurels”.

Adeleke on the other hand is poised to give the ruling party a challenge.

“My fellow Osun residents, you are the one to decide. It is not by force, not by gimmicks, if it is money, I have brought money and not only naira but dollars, pounds and euro,” he boasted at a recent campaign rally.

“This time around, it is fire for fire for the Osun governorship election.”

Described locally as a “dancing senator” because of his penchant for partying, Adeleke is an uncle of celebrated Nigerian superstar singer Davido, who joined him on the campaign.

The PDP flagbearer comes from a wealthy political family. His father was a senator in the 1980s while his late brother, Isiaka, was the state governor from 1992 to 1993. 

Another brother Deji, is a billionaire oil and shipping mogul and Davido’s father.

Davido has been mobilising the youth, including his supporters and fans, for his uncle.

Fellow music star Portable joined rallies for the APC candidate, waving a broomstick, the party’s symbol for sweeping away the PDP in its first 2015 presidential victory.

Intra-party wranglings and violence have been reported ahead of Saturday’s election.

On Monday, the residence of Lasun, the Labour party candidate, in his Ilobu hometown, was attacked by gunmen but he was not at home.

Nigeria has a history of election malpractice, fraud, vote-buying and violence. In 2011, more than 800 people were killed in post-election violence in the country.

On Wednesday, candidates in the Osun vote were made to sign a peace agreement and police have deployed over 23,000 personnel, helicopters and drones to try to ensure a violence-free election.

Conflict and climate change in West Africa’s Sahel region have prompted nearly five million to flee their homes, the UN’s refugee agency says.

At the end of June, 4.8 million people had fled in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, the UNHCR said in a press release to trail a visit by the agency’s chief to the troubled region.

Of these, nearly three million of those people were displaced within their own countries, it said.

“The worst-affected country is Burkina Faso, where there are nearly two million internally displaced,” the High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a two-day visit to camps in Chad, which hosts more than a million people.

Grandi on Thursday visited the Kalambari camp, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the capital N’Djamena, where some 8,000 refugees from neighbouring Cameroon live.

“Two years ago, we registered 500,000 people in Mali and Burkina Faso, which already seemed huge to me,” Grandi had told journalists in N’Djamena.

“It’s worrying. The countries that cause the most concern are Burkina Faso and Mali. This is due to the actions of armed groups that terrorise populations, empty villages and drive people towards big cities,” he said.

“But it is also due to the unduly strong reaction of governments,” Grandi added.

Even before the emergence of jihadist groups affiliated to the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda, the affected Sahel nations were already among the poorest in the world.

Grandi said governments typically responded to jihadism with security measures, when the fight also needed to tackle poverty and under-development in such areas as education.

“All this will weaken extremism. Military action alone is not enough,” he stressed.

“Added to this is the climate emergency, which deprives communities of resources and promotes conflicts,” he said. “We need more humanitarian aid for all the countries of the Sahel.”

– Monthly food aid eaten in a week –

The impoverished, volatile region is struggling with a jihadist campaign that sprang up in northern Mali in 2012.

Three years later, it spread to the centre of the country, an ethnic powder keg, and then to Niger and Burkina Faso. 

In the case of Chad, attacks by Nigeria’s Boko Haram jihadists began in the Lake Chad region in February 2015.

– Food aid finished in a week –

Around 100 camp residents took part in a protest as Grandi arrived on Thursday, holding up placards saying “No-one listens to our problems” and “We are tired of all the tricks”.

He spent time listening to complaints.

“The roofs of the houses aren’t strong enough and we badly lack bedding,” said Gabriel Mati, secretary of the camp committee.

“Each month, they give us 5.75 kilogrammes (12.67 pounds) of sorghum, 1.75 litres (3.7 pints) of cooking oil and 1.5 kilos of beans — the food is finished in a week.”

Fires ravaging remote mountain forests in northern Morocco have killed at least one person and forced the evacuation of more than 1,000 families, officials said on Friday.

Fanned by strong winds, the fires that broke out on Wednesday have destroyed 1,600 hectares (nearly 4,000 acres) of woodland in the provinces of Larache, Ouezzane, Taza and Tetouan, the authorities said.

“The body of a person suffering from multiple burns has been found” amid one of the blazes in the Larache region, the authorities said in a statement.

The rapid spread of the fires forced 1,100 families to flee some 15 villages in Larache, while about another 645 residents were evacuated in the provinces of Taza and Tetouan.

Four Canadair planes were deployed by the army to water bomb the fires.

They were joined by hundreds of personnel from the civil protection service and water and forest department, as well as soldiers, police and volunteers.

One fire had been extinguished and another was under control in Larache, according to authorities in the province.

The North African nation, which is struggling under intense droughts, has in recent days been hit by soaring temperatures approaching 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit).

On the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar, fires are also raging in southern Europe, from Spain and Portugal to France and Greece.

Western finance chiefs condemned Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine at G20 talks in Indonesia Friday, accusing Russia of sending a “shockwave” through the world economy and its technocrats of complicity in the war’s alleged atrocities.

The two-day meeting on the island of Bali began under the shadow of a Russian military assault that has roiled markets, spiked food prices and stoked breakneck inflation, a week after Moscow’s top diplomat walked out of talks with the forum’s foreign ministers.

“Russia is solely responsible for negative spillovers to the global economy,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Russian delegation in the opening session, according to a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.  

“Russia’s officials should recognise that they are adding to the horrific consequences of this war through their continued support of the Putin regime. You share responsibility for the innocent lives lost,” Yellen added, according to the official.

The official did not comment on whether the Russian delegation responded. Russian officials did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment. 

Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation” and blames subsequent Western sanctions for blocked food shipments and rising energy prices.

“Russia tried to say that the world economic situation had nothing to do with the war,” a French delegation source told AFP.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers condemned Russia’s “immoral transgression” against Ukraine, saying that Moscow must take the blame for the impacts on the global economy caused by the war.

“Russia’s unjust actions have had terrible human cost but they’ve also increased global uncertainty,” Chalmers said, according to a transcript. “Russia must take full responsibility.”

Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told Russia’s delegation they were responsible for “war crimes” in Ukraine because of their support for the invasion, a Canadian official said. 

“It is not only generals who commit war crimes, it is the economic technocrats who allow the war to happen and to continue,” said Freeland, according to the official.

Both Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko participated virtually in the meeting. 

Moscow sent Russian Deputy Finance Minister Timur Maksimov to attend the talks in person. He was in the room as Western officials expressed their condemnation, according to a source present at the talks.

Host and G20 chair Indonesia warned the finance chiefs that failure to tackle energy and food crises would be catastrophic.

In her opening remarks, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati called on ministers to work together with a spirit of “cooperation” because “the world is watching” for solutions.

“The cost of our failure is more than we can afford,” she told delegates. “The humanitarian consequences for the world and for many low-income countries would be catastrophic.”

– ‘Weaponising’ food –

The meeting has largely focused on the food and energy crises that are weighing on an already brittle global recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s actions including the destruction of agricultural facilities, theft of grain and farm equipment, and effective blockade of Black Sea ports amounts to using food as a weapon of war,” Yellen said in an afternoon seminar.

In another session, she said Russia’s “unjustified war” has sent a “shockwave” through the global economy. 

Indrawati said members had “identified the urgent need for the G20 to take concrete steps” to address food insecurity and to help countries in need.

Yellen has pressed G20 allies for a price cap on Russian oil to choke off Putin’s war chest and pressure Moscow to end its invasion while bringing down energy costs.

In April, the US treasury secretary led a multinational walkout of finance officials as Russian delegates spoke at a G20 meeting in Washington, but there was no such action on Friday.

There is unlikely to be a final communique issued when talks end on Saturday because of the disagreements with Russia.

– ‘Act together’ – 

G20 chair Indonesia -– which pursues a neutral foreign policy –- refrained from disinviting Russia despite Western pressure.

Chinese Finance Minister Liu Kun, Britain’s new Finance Minister Nadhim Zahawi and European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde attended the meeting virtually. 

World Bank chief executive David Malpass did not attend, while International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva appeared in person after saying Wednesday that the global economic outlook had “darkened significantly” because of Moscow’s invasion.

The meeting is a prelude to the leaders’ summit on the Indonesian island in November that was meant to focus on the global recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Other issues being tackled by the ministers included digital financial inclusion –- with more than a billion of the world’s population still without access to a bank account -– and the deadline for an international tax rules overhaul.