By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China s development banks provided $23 billion in financing for infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa from 2007 to 2020, more than double the amount lent by such banks in the United States, Germany, Japan and France combined, a new study showed. The Center for Global Development think tank said a review of 535 public-private infrastructure deals funded in the region in those years showed that China s investments dwarfed those of other governments and multilateral development banks. Nancy Lee, lead author of the paper and a senior policy fellow at the center, said overall public funding for projects in sub-Saharan Africa remained stuck at around $9 billion, well short of what the region needs for roads, dams and bridges. There is a lot of criticism of China, she said. But if Western governments want to boost productive and sustainable investments to meaningful levels, they need to deploy their own development banks and press the multilater
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina s President Alberto Fernandez will begin an overseas tour on Tuesday including visits to Russia and China, a trip that comes amid tensions over a possible conflict in Ukraine and in the wake of a breakthrough in debt talks with the International Monetary Fund. The center-left leader, who is battling to revive the grains producing country s economy and replenish dwindling foreign currency reserves, will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Argentina s government said. Fernandez also will travel to Barbados, where he will meet with Prime Minister Mia Mottley. He will be accompanied by Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero and other officials, while Economy Minister Martin Guzman will join the Russian leg of the tour. Tensions between Russia and the West have risen over a potential military conflict in Ukraine. Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine s borders, though denied plans to invade. China is a
By Guy Faulconbridge and Gabriela Baczynska LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union said on Friday that Britain had made no move to seek a compromise on post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland and cautioned London against triggering emergency unilateral provisions in the Brexit deal. Prime Minister Boris Johnson s Brexit negotiator David Frost ruled out immediately triggering such provisions, a move that would sour ties with the EU, concern the United States and anger Ireland. But Frost made clear he wanted Brussels to offer more. Maros Sefcovic, a deputy head of the bloc s executive European Commission, said the EU had seen no move at all from the UK side. We hear a lot about Article 16 at the moment, Sefcovic said after talks with Frost. Let there be no doubt that triggering Article 16 to seek the renegotiation of the Protocol would have serious consequences. Britain has repeatedly warned that it may trigger emergency measures called Article 16 which allows either side to take
By Eliana Raszewski BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina s Peronists are likely to suffer a major blow in midterm legislative elections, polls ahead of the Nov. 14 vote show, which could erase the ruling party s Senate majority as well as its strong position in the lower Chamber of Deputies. The majority of surveys show the party of President Alberto Fernandez trailing by over 8 points behind the conservative opposition coalition Together for Change, with defeats likely in the populous city and province of Buenos Aires. Defeat for the Peronists would be a hammer blow for Fernandez s reform plans in the second half of his term. It would likely embolden more radical factions in his party while forcing him to concede ground to the conservative right. The party suffered a stinging loss in a September primary election, seen as a dry run for the November vote, which sparked a Cabinet reshuffle and a raft of spending measures to win back voters hit hard by the pandemic and years of economic dec
By Simon Jessop and Valerie Volcovici GLASGOW (Reuters) - Do you know your GFANZ from your ISSB from your PPCA? Welcome to COP26! With truly global initiatives to slash the rate of planetary warming hard to come by, governments, companies and civil society groups are banding together in multiple smaller groups to try and accelerate change. Keeping track of the cornucopia of new clubs and alliances - each with its own, though sometimes overlapping, aims, is a headache both for outsiders and those inside the U.N. climate conference in Scotland. Governments have announced each alliance to great fanfare, but behind the scenes, they too are scrambling to keep up. One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described updating an announcement repeatedly overnight as more countries were persuaded to join one of the pledges. Some environmental groups worried important substance was being dropped in such last-minute scrambles, with agreements sounding better than they may turn out to be in