THE LOCAL

Barrick Gold Corp, the world's largest gold miner by production, reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings on Wednesday as its mining costs fell and said it would begin talks with the Tanzanian government next week about an export ban. Barrick subsidiary Acacia Mining has three mines in Tanzania, which introduced an export ban on concentrates of gold and copper ore in March. Acacia's operations affected by the ban account for about 6 percent of Barrick's 2017 gold production forecast. Even so, Barrick left unchanged its forecast at between 5.3 million and 5.6 million ounces of gold, but it cautioned that this could change. "Barrick continues to monitor the situation and should Acacia revise its full-year outlook Barrick will evaluate the impact to its own guidance at that time," the Toronto-based miner said in its earnings statement. Any effect will depend in large part on the duration of the concentrate export ban, Barrick said. ...

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's upper house of parliament backed a series of constitutional amendments on Wednesday that could weaken the presidency and boost the legislature, the latest twist in a two-year power struggle between the two institutions. The head of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, who is pushing the changes, said they would help boost Nigeria's development but a senior official in President Muhammadu Buhari's government said they amounted to "a very unhealthy" power grab. Saraki has been tipped as a possible eventual successor to the ailing Buhari, who has spent more time this year in Britain receiving treatment for an undisclosed medical problem than he has in Nigeria. Buhari, 74, is currently again in Britain. "What we have done today definitely is to lay the foundation for a far-reaching reform of our political, economic and social development," Saraki said after the Senate vote. The amendments must still be approve...

- U.S. refineries are producing more fuel than ever as they seek to meet rising demand - from overseas, rather than the drivers on nearby roadways. Last year, the U.S. became the world's top net exporter of fuel, an outgrowth of booming domestic production since the shale oil revolution started in 2010. That's a fundamental shift from the traditional U.S. role in global markets as a top importer and consumer.  Net exports are on track to hit another record in 2017, making foreign fuel markets increasingly important for the future growth prospects and profit margins of U.S. refiners. Shale oil producers have provided refiners with abundant and cheap domestic crude supplies, giving them the raw material they need to produce internationally competitive fuel. The nation set a record in 2016 by sending a net 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of petroleum products to foreign markets. That compares to net fuel imports of 2.3 million just a decade ago, acco...

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve's plan to reduce its $4.5 trillion balance sheet could exert the same squeeze on emerging markets next year as three interest rate hikes, an Institute of International Finance (IIF) study shows. It said it also has the potential to reduce stock and bond flows by as much as $25 billion. The Fed cemented expectations on Wednesday that it could start the mammoth downsizing process in September. It plans to begin by not replacing maturing bonds -- Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities -- which it had bought to tackle the global financial crash. According to calculations by IIF, one of the most authoritative trackers of global capital flows, this will slice just over $200 billion off the U.S. central bank's balance sheet next year, assuming it keeps reinvesting some of the money for the time being. Sonja Gibbs, one of the IIF's senior directors, also estimates that just a $65 billion drop in the Fed...

African countries have continued to make significant progress towards economic and political liberalization. This, in turn, has sustained the very encouraging growth performance, particularly over the past four years. We found that out of the 50 countries for which we have data, 32 experienced some improvement in 1998, while 17 were worse off at the start of 1999 than they had been a year before. However, almost without exception, the countries in the region are growing at less than 7 percent per annum, the rate needed for Africa to meet the international development target of reducing poverty in half by the year 2015.  What is more, there are significant sub-regional differences in Africa's growth performance. The majority of Africans live in countries where performance fared poorly or declined last year. Of the five sub-regions, only two, accounting for only about 25 percent of the continent's population -- enjoyed a positive growth performance.  Growth decelerated in th...

1.  INTRODUCTION More than 1.3 billion people in this world live in extreme poverty, that is, one in every five person.(United Nations Report, 1997) As the world’s economies become more interdependent, solving a problem as big and as difficult as poverty demands international alliances. According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Millennium Development Goals set forth by the United Nations are a guiding light for international cooperation for development, in particular the target to halve the proportion of hungry and extremely poor people by 2015. But the starting point to achieve this target must be the recognition that poverty is predominantly rural. Three quarters of the world’s poor, about 900 million people, live in rural areas where they depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods. The reality is that the Millennium poverty target cannot be met unless the world addresses rural poverty. The World Bank’s new stra...