By Tom Sims



FRANKFURT, May 15 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Deutsche Bank&nbsp;DBKGn.DE&nbsp;is not financing a pipeline in Africa that environmental campaigners have said will displace thousands of families and disrupt nature reserves, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Sunday.



Germany&#8217;s largest lender has come under pressure to clarify its stance on the financing of the planned $3.5 billion East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which would stretch more than 1,400 kilometres from Uganda to Tanzania.



Deutsche has so far not commented on the project despite the pressure increasing ahead of the bank&#8217;s annual general meeting on Thursday. The environmental activist group 350.org is organising a series of protests in the coming days.



&#8220;Many major banks and insurers have already pulled out of this devastating project. We&#8217;re raising the pressure on Deutsche Bank, as one of the only major banks in Europe that has not yet withdrawn their support for EACOP,&#8221; 350.org has said ahead of the planned protests.



The French energy giant Total&nbsp;TTEF.PA, which is developing the pipeline with China National Offshore Oil Corporation, has said it was taking steps to mitigate the environmental and human impact of the project.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL1N2L60K3&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



In recent years, Deutsche Bank has marketed itself as a bank that companies can turn to as they transition to a greener future.



&#8220;We have placed sustainability at the core of our strategy,&#8221; Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing said last year.



Deutsche Bank has never been involved in the financing of the pipeline, said the person, speaking on condition of anonymity.



Deutsche Bank said in a statement that it doesn&#8217;t comment on clients, but that it &#8220;supports the transition to a low-carbon economy&#8221; and its policies prohibit it from knowingly financing projects that clear primary forests, areas of high conservation value and peatlands.



The campaign called&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stopeacop.net/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">#STOPEACOP</a>&nbsp;says on its website that the pipeline puts at risk water for millions of people, and will cut through land critical for elephants, lions and chimpanzees.



(Reporting by Tom SimsEditing by Riham Alkousaa, Maria Sheahan and David Evans)



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Currency Money Euro Cent Finance Wealth Business

Deutsche Bank not financing EACOP African pipeline – source

KEY POINTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Retail sales fell by 11.1% in April from a year ago, more than the 6.1% decline predicted in a Reuters poll.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Industrial production dropped by 2.9% in April from a year ago, in contrast with expectations for a slight increase of 0.4%.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>The unemployment rate in China’s 31 largest cities climbed to a new high of 6.7% in April, according to data going back at least to 2018.</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Shanghai city announced Sunday that it would start to allow restaurants to reopen gradually, and said Monday the city aimed to resume normal production and life by the middle of June.</li></ul>



BEIJING — China reported a drop in retail sales and industrial production in April — far worse than analysts had expected.



Retail sales fell by 11.1% in April from a year ago, more than the 6.1% decline predicted in a Reuters poll.



Industrial production dropped by 2.9% in April from a year ago, in contrast with expectations for a slight increase of 0.4%. The output of mining and utilities businesses grew.



But manufacturing fell by 4.6%, mostly dragged down by a slump in the auto sector and equipment manufacturing, said Statistics Bureau Spokesperson Fu Linghui. In addition to Covid, he said industrial production faces pressure from insufficient market demand, rising costs and other factors.



Last month, the persistent spread of Covid and resulting stay-home orders —&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/17/shanghai-by-the-numbers-chinas-covid-lockdowns.html">primarily in Shanghai</a>&nbsp;— forced factories to close or operate at limited capacity.



The “increasingly grim and complex international environment and greater shock of [the] Covid-19 pandemic at home obviously exceeded expectation, new downward pressure on the economy continued to grow,” the statistics bureau said in a statement. The bureau said the impact of Covid is temporary and that the economy “is expected to stabilize and recover.”



Fixed-asset investment for the first four months of the year rose by 6.8% from a year ago, slightly missing expectations of 7% growth. Investment in real estate declined by 2.7%, while that in manufacturing rose by 12.2.% and that in infrastructure rose by 6.5%.



China’s passenger car production&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/11/china-autos-shanghai-production-plunged-in-april-after-covid-lockdown.html">dropped by 41.1% year-on-year in April</a>, according to the China Passenger Car Association. The auto sector in China accounts for about one-sixth of jobs and roughly 10% of retail sales, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/04/electric-cars-take-the-spotlight-in-chinas-post-coronavirus-stimulus-plans.html">official figures for 2018</a>&nbsp;compiled by the Ministry of Commerce.



Auto sales dropped by 31.6% in April from a year ago, the statistics bureau data showed. That was better than the peak of the decline in early 2020 — down 37% year-on-year in January and February that year — but worse than the 0% year-on-year change recorded for April 2020.



Catering sales plunged by 22.7% — better than a 31.1% year-on-year drop in April 2020. Restaurants in Shanghai were essentially closed in April, while&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/03/beijing-city-bans-in-restaurant-dining-as-chinas-covid-controls-tighten.html">Beijing city’s ban on dining in restaurants only took effect in early May.</a>



Within retail sales, only beverages, medicine, food and petroleum products saw year-on-year growth.



“Although Covid case numbers have declined markedly from the peak in mid-April, the unwinding of lockdowns has been extremely slow, due partly to the caution among local government officials,” Ting Lu, Chief China Economist at Nomura, said in a note. “Therefore, we believe local lockdowns will still severely impact the production-end of the economy in May and view a quick turnaround as all but impossible.”



Shanghai city announced Sunday that it would start to allow restaurants to reopen gradually, and said Monday the city aimed to resume normal production and life by the middle of June.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-jobless-rate-ticks-higher"><a></a>Jobless rate ticks higher</h2>



The unemployment rate in China’s 31 largest cities climbed to a new high of 6.7% in April, according to data going back at least to 2018.



The unemployment rate across cities rose by 0.3 percentage points from March to 6.1% in April. The jobless rate among those aged 16 to 24 was nearly three times higher at 18.2%.



For an additional sense of the scale of economic slowdown in April, other data showed a slump in business and household demand for loans.



Total social financing — a broad measure of credit and liquidity — roughly halved last month from a year ago to 910.2 billion yuan ($134.07 billion), the People’s Bank of China said late Friday.



However, Macquarie’s Chief China Economist Larry Hu said he expected the drop in credit demand would be short lived. He pointed out that on Sunday, the central government took its “first action &#8230; to save property” by cutting mortgage rates for first-time homebuyers.



The rate, which used to follow the five-year loan prime rate as a benchmark, is now 20 basis points below that.



“Today’s cut is far from enough to turn the property sector around, but more property easing would come,” Hu said in a note Sunday.



Real estate and related industries account for about a quarter of China’s GDP, according to Moody’s.

105949584-1559711930288gettyimages-1078405216

China’s economic data disappoint in April as Covid controls weigh

KEY POINTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Twitter’s stock plummeted 18% in premarket trading following the initial announcement, but trimmed some losses after the second tweet.</li><li>Musk announced last month that he intends to buy Twitter for $44 billion.</li><li>He’s tweeted that one of his main priorities would be to remove “spam bots” from the platform.</li></ul>



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/">Elon Musk</a>&nbsp;announced Friday that his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/TWTR" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter</a>&nbsp;deal is on hold until he receives more information about how many fake accounts there are on the social media platform.



In a follow-up tweet around two hours later, Musk added that he was “still committed to the acquisition.”



Twitter’s stock plummeted 18% in premarket trading following the initial announcement, but trimmed some losses after the second tweet. A spokesperson for the social media company did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/TSLA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tesla</a>&nbsp;CEO Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/elon-musk-offers-to-buy-twitter-for-54point20-a-share-saying-it-needs-to-be-transformed-as-private-company.html">announced last month</a>&nbsp;that he intends to buy Twitter for $44 billion and he’s previously tweeted that one of his main priorities would be to remove “spam bots” from the platform.



Even before Friday’s announcement, the company’s market value had fallen to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/12/twitter-market-cap-has-dropped-to-9-billion-below-musk-purchase-price.html">$9 billion beneath the offer price due to concerns about the deal.</a>



Musk, who is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/05/elon-musk-expected-to-serve-as-temporary-twitter-ceo-after-deal-closes.html">expected to serve as Twitter’s temporary CEO</a> if the deal goes ahead, would have to pay a $1 billion breakup fee should <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/26/elon-musk-will-owe-twitter-1-billion-if-he-cant-secure-financing.html">he choose to walk away</a>. Musk is worth more than $220 billion.



Twitter estimated in a filing earlier this month that fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter were bots or spam accounts.



Musk, who is the world’s richest person on paper, now wants the company to confirm this before he continues with the deal, which is being partly funded by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.



The San Francisco-headquartered social media company said in the filing that it had 229 million users in the first quarter who were served advertising.



On Tuesday,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/10/elon-musk-says-he-would-lift-twitter-ban-on-donald-trump-after-deal-closes.html">Musk said</a>&nbsp;that he would lift Twitter’s ban on former President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/donald-trump/">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;if he takes over the company.



“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts … I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk said at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/50d2861e-fdeb-487c-b052-f2021558e87d" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FT Live’s Future of the Car conference</a>. “I think that was a mistake, because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”



Earlier this month,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/05/bill-gates-says-elon-musk-could-make-twitter-worse.html">Bill Gates warned</a>&nbsp;that Musk could make&nbsp;Twitter&nbsp;“worse.” Speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Summit, Gates said it’s unclear how Musk will change Twitter if he takes ownership, while also raising concerns about the spread of misinformation on social media platforms.



Gates went on to question what Musk’s goal is with Twitter and whether his drive to promote free speech is sensible. “What are his goals for what it ends up being? Does that match this idea of less extreme falsehoods spreading so quickly [and] weird conspiracy theories? Does he share that goal or not?” Gates said.



Before Musk made his bid to buy Twitter outright, he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/04/elon-musk-thumbs-his-nose-at-the-sec-again-with-twitter-stake.html">failed to disclose</a>&nbsp;a more than 9% stake in the company within the SEC’s mandatory 10-day window.



<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/elon-musks-early-twitter-purchase-under-ftc-scrutiny" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Information reported</a>&nbsp;that the Federal Trade Commission is probing the timing of Musk’s disclosure.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-05/musk-faces-ftc-antitrust-review-on-twitter-alongside-stock-probe" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg later said</a>&nbsp;the FTC is separately reviewing the acquisition itself, though many experts don’t expect the deal to raise antitrust concerns.



The FTC doesn’t disclose ongoing investigations, and an FTC spokesperson declined to comment.



Tesla’s share price climbed nearly 7% in premarket trading Friday.



Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said some are likely to query whether fake accounts are the real reason behind this delaying tactic.



“The $44 billion price tag is huge, and it may be a strategy to row back on the amount he is prepared to pay to acquire the platform,” she said in a statement.



Additional reporting by CNBC’s Lauren Feiner.

Elon Musk At SpaceX Headquarters

Elon Musk says Twitter deal on hold pending details on fake accounts; shares sink 11%

JOHANNESBURG, May 13 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;South African mobile operator MTN Group&nbsp;MTNJ.J&nbsp;said on Friday first quarter pretax profit rose 21.1% year-on-year, supported by service revenue growth amid demand for data and financial services.



MTN, with 276 million customers in 19 countries across Africa and the Middle East, said service revenue came in ahead of its medium-term target, growing by 15.9% year-on-year to 45.8 billion rand ($2.86 billion).



That was supported by a 37.3% increase in data revenue, with growth in data usage and active data users of 45.4% and 13.1%, respectively.



Fintech revenue grew 21.2% as active monthly users of mobile money services climbed 25.9% year-on-year and volumes processed by its fintech platform rose 32.5% to 2.9 billion transactions. The value of transactions increased 12.6% to $59.9 billion.



After its Nigerian fintech subsidiary received final approval for a mobile money licence last month, MTN is planning to commercially launch its mobile money payment service in Africa&#8217;s most populous country before the end of the second quarter, group Chief Executive Officer Ralph Mupita said.



Mobile phone operators like MTN have been pushing into financial services on the continent, where a large part of the population does not have good access to traditional banking services.



($1 = 15.9969 rand)



(Reporting by Nqobile DludlaEditing by Mark Potter)

800px-MTN_Mobile_south_africa_shop

South Africa’s MTN first-quarter pretax profit up 21%

By Nelson Banya



May 12 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;South African sugar producer Tongaat Hulett Ltd&#8217;s&nbsp;TONJ.J&nbsp;Zimbabwean subsidiaries have suspended advance payments for cane deliveries after the Harare authorities told banks to stop lending, the company said on Thursday, exposing farmers to possible cashflow problems.



Tongaat Hulett&#8217;s two Zimbabwe subsidiaries, the 50.3%-controlled Hippo Valley Estates Ltd&nbsp;HIPO.ZI&nbsp;and the wholly-owned Triangle Limited operate the only sugar mills in the country, with private growers &#8211; mostly smallholder farmers &#8211; contributing about 40% of the total sugar cane milled.



Tongaat Hulett group spokesperson Virginia Horsley told Reuters that, although farmers were due full payment for their sugar cane only after the processed sugar is sold, the company has made advance payments to growers to help provide them with working capital.



&#8220;Tongaat Hulett has traditionally agreed to utilise its borrowing facilities with banks to advance payments to farmers, on a cost recovery basis,&#8221; Horsley said.



&#8220;Tongaat Hulett is only able to advance these payments if it is able to access lending facilities and following the recent monetary measures announced, farmers were notified that advances would be suspended.&#8221;



Zimbabwe&#8217;s government on Saturday ordered the suspension of all bank lending with immediate effect, saying the aim was to stop speculation against the Zimbabwean dollar, which has been rapidly devalued on a thriving black market.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL5N2WZ0LR&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



Analysts and business organisations have said the government&#8217;s lending freeze could worsen the country&#8217;s economic crisis.



On Thursday, the country&#8217;s leading dairy processor, Dairibord Holdings Ltd&nbsp;DZL.ZI, said it had cancelled a scheduled dividend payment to conserve cash.



&#8220;The changes in the financial operating environment and resultant uncertainty have significantly disrupted the credit markets,&#8221; Dairibord said in a notice posted on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange website.



&#8220;This caused the company to revise the announced dividend position supported with the need to preserve working capital for the company.&#8221;



(Reporting by Nelson Banya; editing by Barbara Lewis)

Zimbabwe tightens coronavirus lockdown in capital Harare as cases hit 203

Tongaat Hulett suspends Zimbabwe sugar cane pre-payments over lending freeze

By Vuyani Ndaba



JOHANNESBURG, May 13 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;South Africa&#8217;s Reserve Bank is set to make its first 50 basis point hike to its repo rate in more than six years next week, taking it to 4.75%, to prevent potential second-round effects from higher consumer prices, a Reuters poll forecast on Friday.



Despite a cost of living crisis expected to have a severe impact on growth, 16 of 24 economists in the May 9-12 survey concluded the central bank would raise its repo rate by 50 basis points (bps) on May 19. The remaining eight opted for a 25 bps increase.



Last month only four of 17 economists thought a 50 bps hike was likely, against 13 who said 25 basis points.



A median of 16 economists showed an almost 60% probability the SARB would hike interest rates by 50 bps this month.



&#8220;We expect the SARB to step up the pace of policy normalisation in its May MPC meeting, delivering a 50 bps rate hike to 4.75%,&#8221; said Jeffrey Schultz, economist at BNP Paribas.



The Reserve Bank has not used 50 bps hikes in its policy toolkit since January 2016. It was the norm prior to the 2008/09 global recession.



Still, the Bank was expected to return to 25 bps hikes in every quarter until 6.00% was reached in the third quarter of next year.



Schultz added there were growing concerns over materialising upside risks to inflation &#8211; both core and non-core &#8211; a weaker currency and what was likely to be a faster frontloading of U.S. Federal Reserve hikes over coming months.



The poll suggested inflation would average 5.9% this year and slow to 4.7% next year, slightly higher than last month&#8217;s 5.7% and 4.6% respective forecasts.



Any further upward revision could breach the SARB&#8217;s 3-6% upper comfort level for 2022.



Some governments have responded to rising prices by cutting fuel taxes or granting subsidies.



In South Africa, the temporary cut to the fuel levy by 1.50 rand ($0.0924) per litre of petrol will come to an end late this month, setting the scene for much higher fuel price increases at gas stations next month.



Independent economist Elize Kruger said the sheer extent of such a hefty fuel price increase in a single month would result in a higher probability of a severe indirect negative effect on prices (second round effects) as every product that has to be transported would become more expensive.



&#8220;Workers will demand higher wages to compensate for higher living costs, also adding to the production costs in the economy and in this process prices in most of the CPI basket will show increases. The SARB would be very uncomfortable if second round effects start to appear in a meaningful way,&#8221; said Kruger.



South African economic growth was expected to slow to 1.8% this year from a 4.9% expansion last year and stay at that rate across the forecast horizon.



Ten of 14 economists expected a &#8220;severe impact&#8221; from the cost of living crisis on economic growth this year, while the other four suggested a &#8220;mild effect&#8221; owing to the Reserve Bank&#8217;s credibility in monetary policy.



Apart from rising prices across the world, South Africans have had to deal with rotational power disruptions that constrain growth in Africa&#8217;s most developed economy and undermine job creation. ($1 = 16.2372 rand)



(Reporting by Vuyani Ndaba; Editing by Alex Richardson)

South African Reserve Bank Rate Announcement Ahead Of Stimulus Plan

S.Africa’s central bank to hike by 50bps on May 19 for first time since 2016

WINDHOEK, May 12 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Namibia on Thursday launched a sovereign wealth fund, months after oil discoveries by TotalEnergies&nbsp;TTEF.PA&nbsp;and Shell&nbsp;SHEL.L&nbsp;off its coast.



President Hage Geingob said at the launch the Welwitschia Fund would get an initial injection of 262 million Namibian dollars ($16.15 million) and invest 2.5% of its portfolio locally to bridge the country&#8217;s infrastructure financing gap.



The fund will collect some of the royalties from all mineral resources sold as well as some tax revenues and money raised by the government divesting from its investment holdings.



&#8220;We are looking forward to the prospects and opportunities that will emanate from the recent discoveries of oil and the green hydrogen energy, which have the potential to further boost the fund&#8217;s capital,&#8221; Geingob said.



Other resource-rich African countries that have sovereign funds include Angola, Botswana, Libya and Nigeria.



TotalEnergies said in February its Venus prospect offshore Namibia had found a good quality reservoir, which one source told Reuters was more than 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent. That find was the second major discovery in a month after Shell also announced a significant find.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL1N2UZ0ND&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



Known for its gem-quality diamonds, gold and uranium, Namibia has considered creating a sovereign fund since 2009.



It is aiming to become a green hydrogen player by 2026 and has selected a preferred bidder for a multi-billion dollar project.



($1 = 16.2180 Namibian dollars)



(Reporting by Nyasha Nyaungwa, Editing by Alexander Winning and Angus MacSwan)

shutterstock_415273159

Namibia launches sovereign wealth fund following oil discoveries

EM FX, stocks down amid broader risk-off



Indian rupee at record low; inflation data due 1200 GMT



Yuan at 20-month low



Czech crown bounces from eight-week lows



S. Africa gold, mining March data due 0930 GMT



By Anisha Sircar



May 12 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Emerging market currencies slipped on Thursday as the greenback hit its highest&nbsp;level in two decades&nbsp;after hotter U.S. inflation data, while regional shares tumbled to&nbsp;fresh 22-month lows on pressure from&nbsp;stock markets in India and China.



MSCI&#8217;s index of emerging market (EM) currencies&nbsp;.MIEM00000CUS&nbsp;resumed a descent that began in&nbsp;early-April, falling 0.6% to return to its weakest level since November 2020 after a breather in its last two sessions.



Inflation pressures in parts of EM are rising, even though U.S. inflation might have peaked, said Natalia Gurushina, EM Fixed Income economist at VanEck.



Data on Wednesday&nbsp;showed U.S. consumer price growth is likely to stay hot for a while. Higher-than-expected inflation lifted&nbsp;the dollar&nbsp;=USD&nbsp;and dragged stocks as it suggests a more robust Federal Reserve response this year.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL2N2X315F&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



&#8220;Some EM central banks will have to keep on hiking – in a sense &#8216;matching&#8217; the Fed&#8217;s hikes – even though EM inflation is driven by exogenous factors, but the problem is that global supply shocks are feeding into core inflation, and this passthrough might be higher than in normal pre-COVID years,&#8221; Gurushina added.



Stocks&nbsp;.MSCIEF&nbsp;plunged 2.3% to a 22-month low, dropping eight out of its nine previous sessions.



Indian shares&nbsp;.NSEI,&nbsp;.BSESN&nbsp;dropped nearly 2% and the rupee&nbsp;INR=IN&nbsp;hit an all-time low for a second time this week ahead of domestic retail inflation numbers, with a Reuters poll expecting it to surge to an 18-month high.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL3N2X40XW&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a><a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL3N2WY21A&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



China stocks&nbsp;.SSEC,&nbsp;.CSI300&nbsp;pared gains to close upto 0.4% lower, while the yuan&nbsp;CNY=&nbsp;slipped 0.9% to a 20-month low.



The South African rand&nbsp;ZAR=&nbsp;fell 0.8%, ahead&nbsp;of mining data and after new COVID-19&nbsp;cases crossed 10,000 for first time since January, stoking fears of a fifth wave.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AJ8N2WE008&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



In Central Europe, the Czech crown&nbsp;EURCZK=&nbsp;bounced 0.2% a day after plumbing two-month lows after Czech Republic President Milos Zeman appointed Ales Michl, a central bank board member who has opposed policy tightening, as the bank&#8217;s new governor, signalling a likely end to rate hikes.&nbsp;CEE/



For GRAPHIC on emerging market FX performance in 2022, see&nbsp;<a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh</a>



For GRAPHIC on MSCI emerging index performance in 2022, see&nbsp;<a href="https://tmsnrt.rs/2OusNdX" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://tmsnrt.rs/2OusNdX</a>



For TOP NEWS across emerging markets&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3ATOPEMRG&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



For CENTRAL EUROPE market report, see&nbsp;CEE/



For TURKISH market report, see&nbsp;.IS



For RUSSIAN market report, see&nbsp;RU/RUB



(Reporting by Anisha Sircar and Lisa Pauline Mattackal in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh.V)

Stock market exchange graph price drop with red numbers investment lose of business financial digital background – Candle stick charts stock crash crisis fall risk decreasing arrow down trend sell

EMERGING MARKETS – FX returns to 18-month lows as dollar gallops higher

Bitcoin dropped below the $27,000 level as a recent sell-off in the cryptocurrency space continues.



The price of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/BTC.CM=">bitcoin</a>&nbsp;was last down 8.76% to $26,848.20 as of 1:47 a.m. ET Thursday, according to data from Coin Metrics.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/ETH.CM=">Ether</a>&nbsp;fell more than 13% to $1,832.33.



Cryptocurrencies fell with stocks after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported consumer prices for the month of April&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/11/cpi-april-2022.html">jumped 8.3%, which was slightly higher than expected</a>&nbsp;by economists polled by Dow Jones.



That spooked investors, leading them to exit risk assets including crypto. Cryptocurrencies remain highly correlated with the S&amp;P 500 and, more recently, the Nasdaq Composite.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-bitcoin-stays-under-30-000-wednesday">Bitcoin stays under $30,000 Wednesday</h2>



“The crypto market has been under pressure for some time now,” said Michael Rinko, venture associate at AscendEx. “The Fed keeps hiking, so equities keep going down and crypto’s been going down along with it. Generally that’s created a lot of fear in the market.”



This is the second time this week bitcoin has fallen into the $29,000 range. Analysts have called $30,000 a key level for the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and said it could fall even further if it can’t hold there.



This time last week bitcoin&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/04/bitcoin-jumps-to-40000-after-fed-chair-powell-rules-out-bigger-rate-hikes.html">touched a recent high of $40,000</a>&nbsp;but quickly reversed the next day and has been steadily hitting new lows since.



Investors also digesting big news from the Terra project, whose suddenly popular stablecoin&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/UST.CM=">TerraUSD</a>&nbsp;crashed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/11/terra-ust-stablecoin-dives-below-1-peg-luna-cryptocurrency-down-80percent.html">almost 100% at one point</a>&nbsp;in the past week, breaking its $1 peg. The decentralized, algorithmic stablecoin is meant to be backed by a combination of digital assets, including bitcoin.

106885587-16214575182021-05-19t203912z_144465080_rc28jn9cpt2v_rtrmadp_0_crypto-currency-bitcoin

Bitcoin drops below $27,000 level as crypto sell-off continues

* Asia stocks drop to near 2yr low, U.S. equity futures struggle



* Dollar hits 2yr highs on AUD, NZD



* Bitcoin tumbling, hits new 16-month low



By Tom Westbrook



SINGAPORE, May 12 (Reuters) – Asian stocks fell to an almost two-year low and the dollar rose to multi-year highs on Thursday as data showed U.S. inflation persistently hot, deepening investor worries about the economic toll of aggressive interest rate hikes to tame it.



U.S. markets whipsawed after the news, then closed sharply lower. S&amp;P 500 futures gave up early gains to fall 0.2% in the Asia session. European futures also fell, with EuroSTOXX 50 futures down 2% and FTSE futures down 1.6%.



Bitcoin, leading a fire-sale of risky assets as rate hikes gather steam, fell 7% to $26,970. It was near $40,000 a week ago and is 60% beneath its peak six months ago.



The growth-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars fell about 0.8% to almost two-year lows. The Chinese yuan slid to a 19-month trough.



Headline U.S. consumer prices rose 8.3% for the 12 months to April, slower than the 8.5% pace of a month earlier, but higher than market forecasts for 8.1%. Traders said it underscored concern that rates will rise quickly in response.



“We’re now very much embedded with at least two further (U.S.) hikes of 50 basis points on the agenda. For equity markets that really is the end of free money,” said Damian Rooney, director of institutional sales at Argonaut in Perth.



“I think we probably were delusional six months ago with the rise of U.S. equities on hopes and prayers and the madness of the meme stocks, and suddenly were going a little bit back to what is reality,” he said.



MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 2% to a 22-month low. Japan’s Nikkei fell 1.7%.



Treasuries were steady in Asia, but selling at the short end and a rally at the longer end has flattened the yield curve as investors brace for near-term hikes to hurt long-run growth.



The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield fell six basis points (bps) overnight and dropped a further 2.6 bps in Tokyo trade to 2.8967%. The gap between two-year and 10-year yields narrowed 3.5 bps.



“There should be a tipping point in how far the Fed can be pressed before odds clearly point towards a hard landing,” said NatWest Markets’ U.S. rates strategist Jan Nevruzi.



SELL IN MAY



The rates outlook is driving up the U.S. dollar and taking the heaviest toll on riskier assets that shot up through two years of stimulus and low-rate lending.



The Nasdaq is down nearly 8% in May so far and more than 25% this year. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech index slid 1.5% on Thursday and is off more than 30% this year.



Cryptocurrency markets are also melting down, with the collapse of the so-called stablecoin TerraUSD highlighting the turmoil as well as the selling in bitcoin and next-biggest-crypto, ether.



A weakening growth picture outside the United States is battering investor confidence, too, as war in Ukraine threatens an energy crisis in Europe and lengthening COVID-19 lockdowns in China throw another spanner into supply chain chaos.



Nomura estimated this week that 41 Chinese cities are in full or partial lockdowns, making up 30% of the country’s GDP.



Property developer Sunac China said it missed a bond interest payment and will miss more as China’s real estate sector remains in the grip of a credit crunch.



The yuan fell to a 19-month low of 6.7631 and has dropped almost 6% in under a month.



The Australian dollar fell 0.8% to a near two-year low of $0.6879. The kiwi slid by a similar margin to $0.6240, though the euro and yen held steady to keep the dollar index just shy of a two-decade peak.



Sterling was at a two-year low of $1.2204.



In commodity trade, oil wound back a bit of Wednesday’s surge as growth worries dampened fear of gas supply disruptions in Europe.



Brent crude futures fell 1.3% to $106.90 a barrel.



British activity and growth data is due later in the day.



(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Kim Coghill)

(Photo: Flickr/QuoteInspector.com)

SHARES TUMBLE AS STUBBORN U.S. INFLATION STOKES WORRIES ON RATES, ECONOMY

KEY POINTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>UST, a so-called stablecoin that’s meant to maintain a $1 peg, was trading at less than 50 cents Wednesday.</li><li>Sister token luna dived more than 80%.</li><li>Terra creator Do Kwon said Tuesday he was “close to announcing a recovery plan” for UST.</li></ul>



The two main tokens from embattled crypto project Terra are now in free fall.



TerraUSD, or UST, is a so-called stablecoin that’s meant to maintain a 1-to-1 peg with the U.S. dollar. But the cryptocurrency plunged to as low as 31 cents Wednesday morning. It was last trading at less than 50 cents, according to CoinGecko data.



Sister token luna dived 95% to just $1.69. The latest plunge means luna has erased more than 98% of its value in the last seven days.



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/BTC.CM=">Bitcoin</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/ETH.CM=">ether</a>&nbsp;saw more muted moves. Bitcoin fell about 1% to $31,378 while ether slipped 0.6% to $2,393.



Stablecoins are akin to bank accounts for the crypto economy, offering a sound store of value to avoid the kind of volatility cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have become notorious for — in theory, at least.



UST is what’s known as an “algorithmic” stablecoin. It uses a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/09/what-is-terrausd-ust-and-how-does-it-affect-bitcoin.html">complex system of minting and burning tokens</a> to adjust supply and stabilize prices. UST’s price has crumbled under the pressure of a sell-off in cryptocurrencies recently, resulting in further panic in the market.



Do Kwon, the coin’s creator, has amassed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/10/bitcoin-btc-investors-panic-as-terrausd-ust-sinks-below-1-peg.html">billions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin</a>&nbsp;through his Luna Foundation Guard fund to support UST in times of crisis. The fear now is that Luna Foundation Guard dumps those bitcoins onto the market, resulting in an even bigger sell-off.



Bitcoin&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/10/bitcoin-dips-below-30000-drops-more-than-56percent-from-its-all-time-high.html">briefly slumped below $30,000</a>&nbsp;late Monday, its lowest price since July 2021. The world’s biggest digital coin is now hovering slightly above that level. It’s fallen over 50% since setting an all-time high of nearly $69,000 in November.



David Moreno Darocas, a research analyst at CryptoCompare, said the situation highlights the “fragility” of algorithmic stablecoins like UST.



“UST has grown to be both an integral and controversial piece of the crypto ecosystem,” he said.



The phenomenon is still relatively new. But UST has grown to become a major player in the crypto economy, with a circulating supply of 16 billion tokens.



Investors are now closely watching for how Luna Foundation Guard responds to prop up its ailing stablecoin. Kwon said Tuesday he was “close to announcing a recovery plan” for UST. “Hang tight,” he tweeted.



Elsewhere, crypto traders were also rattled by concerns over&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/COIN" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coinbase’s</a>&nbsp;financial health.



CEO Brian Armstrong clarified Tuesday that there was “no risk of bankruptcy” for the crypto exchange even as digital currency prices slide.



“For our retail customers, we’re taking further steps to update our user terms such that we offer the same protections to those customers in a black swan event,” he said in a series of tweets. “We should have had these in place previously, so let me apologize for that.”



Coinbase shares were down 19% in pre-market trading Wednesday after the company reported a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/10/coinbase-coin-earnings-q1-2022.html">27% slide in first-quarter revenue</a>.

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Controversial stablecoin UST — which is meant to be pegged to the dollar — plummets below 50 cents

ACCRA, May 11 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Ghana&#8217;s consumer price inflation accelerated to 23.6% year-on-year in April from 19.4% in March, the statistics service said on Wednesday, a recent record one economist said was &#8220;shocking&#8221;.



The West African nation&#8217;s latest inflation reading was the highest in 18 years and more than double government&#8217;s targeted band of 6% to 10%.



Prices for 295 of the 307 items analysed by the statistics service rose in April. Prices for imported items accelerated faster than locally produced items for the first time in 29 months, except in the case of locally produced food.



Transport costs, which include fuel prices, saw the largest increases, up to 33.5% from 17.4% in March. Diesel costs alone were up 90.9%.



&#8220;We were all expecting the diesel increases, and these are imported items,&#8221; government statistician Samuel Kobina Annim told a news conference.



&#8220;But we need to look at it from the food and non-food perspective if we want policy to get a hold of the challenges we are having,&#8221; he added.



Food prices were up 26.6% from the previous month and nearly double the category&#8217;s 12-month average of 13.5%. Cereal prices were among the greatest contributors, continuing a trend that began with Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine in February.



Razia Khan, Standard Chartered Bank&#8217;s chief economist for Africa and the Middle East, said the spike was &#8220;shocking&#8221; and may pressure the central bank to further tighten interest rates.



&#8220;Failure to act soon could have far reaching implications, putting at risk any hopes for quick macroeconomic stabilisation,&#8221; she said.



Ghana&#8217;s central bank raised its main lending rate by a record 250 basis points in March, fearing that runaway inflation, compounded by a depreciating local currency and mounting national debt, could ignite a full-blown economic crisis.



The central bank&#8217;s monetary policy committee will meet from May 18 to March 23 to discuss further adjustments.



(Reporting by Cooper Inveen; Editing by Estelle Shirbon and Alex Richardson)

Ghana lifts lockdown on key regions as COVID-19 cases reach 1,042

Ghana lifts lockdown on key regions as COVID-19 cases reach 1,042. shutterstock_422422516

Ghana’s consumer inflation spikes to ‘shocking’ 23.6% in April

CHICAGO, May 10 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Why are food prices rising?



Global food prices started to rise in mid-2020 when businesses shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, straining supply chains. Farmers dumped out milk and let fruits and vegetables rot due to a lack of available truckers to transport goods to supermarkets, where prices spiked as consumers stockpiled food. A shortage of migrant labor as lockdowns restricted movement impacted crops worldwide.



Since then, there have been problems with key crops in many parts of the world. Brazil, the world&#8217;s top soybean exporter, suffered from severe drought in 2021. China&#8217;s wheat crop has been among the worst ever this year. Concerns about food security, heightened during the pandemic, have led some countries to hoard staples to ward off future shortages, limiting supplies on the global market.



Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine in late February dramatically worsened the outlook for food prices. The U.N. food agency said prices hit an all-time record in February and again in March. Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat and barley, and two-thirds of the world&#8217;s export of sunflower oil used for cooking. Ukraine is the world&#8217;s No. 4 corn exporter. The conflict has damaged Ukraine&#8217;s ports and agricultural infrastructure and that is likely to limit the country&#8217;s agricultural production for years.



Some buyers are avoiding buying grains from Russia due to Western sanctions.



Indonesia banned most exports of palm oil in late April to ensure domestic supplies of cooking oil, cutting off supplies from the world&#8217;s largest producer of the edible oil used in everything from cakes to margarine.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL2N2WK0MX&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



What food prices are rising the most?



Throughout the pandemic, high vegetable oil prices have helped drive up broader food costs. Cereal prices also hit a record in March, a result of limited shipments of corn and wheat during the Ukraine war.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL2N2W60EX&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



Dairy and meat prices reached a record in April, according to the U.N. food agency, reflecting continually increasing global demand for protein and high prices for animal feed – mainly corn and soybeans. In addition, bird flu in Europe and North America impacted egg and poultry prices.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL5N2WY2BD&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a><a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL2N2WA1YB&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



In U.S. inflation data for March, the index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs increased 14% from a year ago while beef rose 16%.



When will food prices come down?



It is hard to say, given that agricultural production depends on hard-to-predict factors like weather. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in early May the problem of global food security could not be solved without restoring Ukrainian agricultural production and Russian food and fertilizer output to the world market.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL2N2WW202&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



The World Bank forecasts wheat prices could rise more than 40% in 2022. The Bank expects agricultural prices to fall in 2023 versus 2022. But that depends on increased crop supplies from Argentina, Brazil and the United States &#8211; by no means guaranteed.



The sharp rise in fertilizer prices, as countries avoid buying from major producers Russia and its ally Belarus, could discourage farmers from applying adequate crop nutrients to their fields. That could bring down yields and result in lower production, prolonging the crisis. As the climate warms, extreme weather is becoming more common &#8211; posing another risk to crop production.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL2N2VI30O&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a><a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL1N2V30V8&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



Who is most affected?



Food prices in March accounted for the greatest share of U.S. inflation since 1981, according to Fitch Ratings, while shop prices in Britain surged in April at the fastest rate in more than a decade. But the people most impacted by higher food prices live in the developing world, where a larger percentage of incomes is spent on food.



The Global Network Against Food Crises, set up by the United Nations and the European Union, said in an annual report that Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine poses serious risks to global food security, especially in countries facing a food crisis including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL2N2WW0JG&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



(Reporting by Caroline Stauffer in ChicagoEditing by Matthew Lewis)

Concept of healthy food- fresh vegetables

Why are food prices going up? Key questions answered￼

LONDON, May 11 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Rising fuel and food prices look set to stoke an &#8220;inevitable&#8221; rise in civil unrest, with developing middle-income countries such as Brazil or Egypt particularly at risk, a report by a risk consultancy said.



Three quarters of nations expected to be at high-risk or extreme risk of civil unrest by the fourth quarter of 2022 were middle-income countries, as defined by the World Bank, Verisk Maplecroft said in an update to its political risk monitor.



&#8220;Unlike low-income countries, they were rich enough to offer social protection during the pandemic, but now struggle to maintain high social spending that is vital to the living standards of large sections of their populations,&#8221;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.maplecroft.com/insights/analysis/cost-of-living-crisis-inflames-civil-unrest-risks-in-emerging-markets" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the report found</a>.



Argentina, Tunisia, Pakistan and Philippines were also among the countries to watch in the next six months, the authors said, pointing to their high dependency on food and energy imports.



Russia&#8217;s war in Ukraine has accelerated a rise in food prices, which hit an all-time record in February and again in March. Energy prices also rose sharply.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL2N2X12RV&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>O/R



&#8220;With no resolution of the conflict in sight, the global cost of living crisis will continue deep into 2023,&#8221; the report said.



Lebanon, Senegal, Kenya and Bangladesh face similar pressures.



The report pointed to Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan as examples of middle income countries that have already suffered unrest this year. The former saw rising food and fuel prices contribute to escalating tensions, while an attempt to cut fuel subsidies sparked protests in Kazakhstan.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AS0N2VC00E&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



Civil unrest could hamper a potential economic recovery but also deter investors focused on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, it said.



&#8220;Some countries risk falling into a vicious cycle, whereby worsening governance and social indicators make them ESG investment pariahs, impeding the inflows needed to improve economic performance and address societal needs.&#8221;



The report found that more than 50% of the almost 200 countries covered by the index have experienced an increase in civil unrest since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.



(Reporting by Jorgelina do Rosario; Editing by Karin Strohecker and Richard Pullin)

RWANDA, KIGALI: A big market in the capital offers everything: food, clothes, kitchen equipment, herbal medicine.

Soaring food, fuel ramp up social unrest risk for emerging markets -report￼

KEY POINTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Crypto investors are keeping a close eye on UST, a controversial stablecoin, as the organization that supports it is sitting on billions of dollars in bitcoin.</li><li>Terra’s UST token sank below 70 cents late Monday, as holders continued to flee the controversial stablecoin.</li><li>Traders worry the project might have sold, or will sell, a large portion of its bitcoin to prop up UST.</li></ul>



Investors in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/BTC.CM=">bitcoin</a>&nbsp;are in panic mode as the controversial terraUSD stablecoin slips further from its intended $1 peg.



TerraUSD, or UST, sank below 70 cents for the first time late Monday, as holders continued to flee the token in what some have described as a “bank run.” The token fell as low as 62 cents before regaining ground to trade at 90 cents Tuesday, according to Coinbase data.



Created by Singapore-based Terraform Labs in 2018, UST is what’s known as an “algorithmic” stablecoin. Part of the Terra blockchain project, it’s meant to track the value of the dollar, like fellow stablecoins tether and USDC.



However, unlike with those cryptocurrencies, Terra doesn’t have cash and other assets held in a reserve to back its token. Instead, it uses a complex mix of code — alongside a sister token called luna — to stabilize prices.



UST is important for bitcoin investors as Luna Foundation Guard, an organization supporting the Terra project, is sitting on billions of dollars in bitcoin that could potentially be dumped onto the market at any point.



″Every professional investor in crypto has one eye on UST today, watching to see if it can maintain its peg to the dollar,” said Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise Asset Management. “There’s clearly significant risk in the market.”



In simple terms, the Terra protocol&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/09/what-is-terrausd-ust-and-how-does-it-affect-bitcoin.html">destroys and creates new units of UST and luna</a>&nbsp;to adjust&nbsp;supply.&nbsp;When the price of UST falls&nbsp;below the dollar,&nbsp;it can be&nbsp;taken out of circulation and exchanged for luna, making&nbsp;UST’s supply more scarce and boosting its price&nbsp;— at least, that’s how it should work in theory.



To further complicate things, Terra’s creator, Do Kwon, bought $3.5 billion worth of bitcoin to provide a backstop for UST in times of crisis. The theory was that UST could eventually be redeemed for bitcoin instead of luna, but this is untested and hasn’t yet been put into practice.



Deposits into Anchor, Terra’s flagship lending protocol, have declined from 10.3 billion tokens on May 6 to just 6.4 billion Tuesday, according to data from blockchain analytics platform Nansen. Anchor offered users an almost 20% annual percentage yield on their UST holdings, a rate many analysts believe was unsustainable.



On Monday, Kwon’s Luna Foundation Guard said it would lend $750&nbsp;million worth of bitcoin to trading firms to “help protect the UST peg,” while a further 750 million UST will be lent out to buy more bitcoin “as market conditions normalize.”



In a follow-up tweet, the organization said it had withdrawn 37,000 bitcoins — worth more than $1 billion at current prices — to lend out. “Very little” of the borrowed bitcoins have been spent, Luna Foundation Guard said, but it is “currently being used to buy” UST.



Several crypto investors are worried that Luna Foundation Guard might have sold, or will sell, a large portion of its bitcoin to prop up UST — analysts pointed out that the group’s bitcoin wallet is now <a href="https://www.oklink.com/en/btc/address/bc1q9d4ywgfnd8h43da5tpcxcn6ajv590cg6d3tg6axemvljvt2k76zs50tv4q" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">completely empty</a>.



Amid all of this uncertainty, UST’s decline has sent shock waves throughout the crypto market.



Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital currency,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/10/bitcoin-dips-below-30000-drops-more-than-56percent-from-its-all-time-high.html">briefly fell below $30,000</a>, hitting its lowest price since July 2021. As of 7:00 a.m. ET, bitcoin was trading at $31,324, down around 5% in the last 24 hours. It’s now down more than 50% from its November all-time high.



Luna, UST’s counterpart, has roughly halved in value in the past 24 hours. It was last trading at a price of $32.



Adding to UST holders’ woes, Binance, the largest crypto exchange by market volume,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/dc02bedd65be40f7b10022f26bc06879" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">temporarily suspended</a>&nbsp;withdrawals of both UST and luna “due to a high volume of pending withdrawal transactions,” citing network congestion.



Binance has since resumed withdrawals, and says it “will continue to monitor” network conditions.



“I think the market is expecting some forced selling here on the part of Terra and the reserve,” Nic Carter, co-founder of Coin Metrics, told CNBC. “It is a calamity but very expected. No algorithmic stablecoin has ever succeeded and this is no exception.”



He added that the problem with UST is that it’s largely “backed by faith.”



“It’s not fully guaranteed, it’s certainly not fully backed by reserves,” he told CNBC. “It was really just backed by faith in the issuer effectively.”



Terraform Labs did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

106914167-1626861873395-gettyimages-1234061399-sindeyev-notitle210719_npeAJ

Bitcoin investors are panicking as a controversial crypto experiment unravels

Price rises sparked by war worsening food crisis in Africa



Ukraine, Russia are major suppliers of wheat, fertilizers



Aid agencies hit by rising costs and drop in donor funding



By Nelson Banya



HARARE, May 10 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Zimbabwean security guard Edwin Dapi was already struggling to provide for his wife and four children before a conflict 11,000 km (6,800 miles) away in Ukraine sent global prices for grains, cooking oils, fuel and fertilizer soaring.



Now his monthly pay of 18,000 Zimbabwe dollars, worth roughly $55 at the black market rate used at many informal markets, is stretched to breaking point.



At a supermarket in Mabvuku, one of the poorest neighbourhoods of the capital Harare, the 46-year-old was fretting over his family&#8217;s next meal.



He reached for a 2-litre (0.5 gallon) bottle of vegetable oil, but at 990 Zimbabwean dollars it was more than he could afford. So was a 2 kg (4.4 lb) bag of flour for 390 Zimbabwean dollars.



&#8220;I keep hearing it&#8217;s because of Ukraine, but I don&#8217;t know what that has to do with us,&#8221; he said, scratching oil and flour from his grocery list.



United Nations agencies are warning that price hikes sparked by Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine will worsen a food crisis in Africa, where tens of millions of people have already been plunged into extreme poverty by the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflicts, climate shocks and economic turmoil.



Last year, Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for nearly two-thirds of the 193 million people considered to be acutely food insecure worldwide, a report by the Global Network Against Food Crises, set up by the United Nations and the European Union, said this month.



Once-prosperous Zimbabwe has struggled to feed itself since the seizure of thousands of white-owned farms to resettle black families, a policy championed by Zimbabwe&#8217;s late president Robert Mugabe during the 2000s.



More recently, its economy has been throttled by drought and cyclones, rolling electricity cuts, foreign currency shortages and runaway inflation.



The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) estimates that some 5.3 million Zimbabweans – around a third of the population &#8211; are food insecure.



To make ends meet, Dapi said he was making plans to move his family to his home village of Mutoko, some 140 km (87 miles) northeast of Harare. &#8220;I must reduce my rent and school fees because everything is going up, except my salary,&#8221; he said.



Across Africa, food insecurity is on the rise. More than 2 million children are at risk of starving to death in the Horn of Africa, where parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia are facing their driest conditions in more than 40 years, U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths told donors in Geneva on April 26.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL2N2WO1H3&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



In Ethiopia, a civil war has pushed hundreds of thousands of people into famine conditions. Millions more are at risk in South Sudan, where a war that ended in 2020 caused widespread destruction, compounded by some of the worst flooding in generations.&nbsp;L3N2NW2JD



West Africa is facing its worst food crisis on record, driven by Islamist insurgencies that have forced millions of people off their land in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria. The region has also seen worsening floods and droughts linked to global warming.&nbsp;L5N2W23Z3



The conflict in Ukraine is making a dire situation even worse.



The war has disrupted shipping in the Black Sea, a major artery for grains and other commodities, throttling exports from Russia and Ukraine to markets including Africa. Ukraine has said the area sown with grains could fall by around a fifth this year because of the war.



Abebe Haile-Gabriel, assistant director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its representative for Africa, said nearly half of the continent&#8217;s 54 countries rely on Russia and Ukraine for wheat imports. Russia is also a major supplier of fertilizer to at least 11 countries.



&#8220;This Ukraine war&#8217;s impact is overlapping with a crisis that has already been unfolding in some African countries,&#8221; Abebe told Reuters. &#8220;We have a very grim outlook going forward.&#8221;



&#8216;DOUBLE JEOPARDY&#8217;



Even before the conflict in Ukraine, food inflation was pushing many African families to the brink. Global food commodity prices climbed over 23% last year, the fastest pace in more than a decade, according to the FAO.



Many of the most vulnerable depend on handouts from the WFP, which buys half the wheat it distributes around the world from Ukraine. Rising food and fuel prices have increased its monthly operating costs by $71 million – a 50% rise &#8211; since 2019, said Tomson Phiri, a global spokesman.



&#8220;WFP faces a double jeopardy: our costs are going up as the numbers of hungry rise,&#8221; he told Reuters.



Prior to the Ukraine war, the WFP faced a funding shortfall that forced it to cut rations in 17 African countries &#8211; including Zimbabwe, Chad, South Sudan and Ethiopia – and the gap has widened as donors turn their attention to the conflict in Europe, Phiri said.



Experts say the impact of grains shortages could be particularly harsh in North Africa, where countries like Egypt import up to 80% of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine.



But even African countries that import little from them are being hurt by higher world prices for key commodities.



Kenya, East Africa&#8217;s biggest economy, was shielded from early impacts because millers there had turned to other suppliers after Russia increased taxes on its wheat exports last year, said Kennedy Nyaga, chairman of the United Grain Millers Association.



Kenya has sufficient wheat reserves to last until September but has already run out of reserves of maize &#8211; its staple &#8211; due to the drought, Nyaga said.



The association is pressing the government to allow millers to import 360,000 tons of maize duty free, saying prices leapt from around 2,800 shillings ($24.17) per 90 kg bag to 4,500 shillings since December.



Kenya&#8217;s Ministry of Agriculture did not respond to requests for comment. Finance minister Ukur Yatani said on May 5 he was yet to receive a request from the millers for duty free imports.



STRUGGLING FOR BASICS



In Zimbabwe, households are already feeling the pain. About half its 15 million people survive on less than $1.90 per day, according to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency.



Households’ struggles to afford food were compounded when the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe hiked prices for wheat flour and the staple maize meal by about 15% in March, citing surging global prices linked to the Ukraine war.



The FAO says that Zimbabwe imports the bulk of its wheat from the Black Sea and Baltic regions, with Russia and Ukraine accounting for nearly one-fifth of imports last year.



Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said in March the government had purchased sufficient maize and wheat stocks from local farmers in the 2021-21 agricultural year to cushion the poor against any food shortages this year.



But the millers association imposed even bigger price increases in April of 31% for wheat flour and 52% for maize meal.



The group says it is seeking alternative suppliers for at least 155,000 tonnes of imports needed until the next harvest in October.



As fuel prices rose and the currency rapidly devalued, Zimbabwe&#8217;s annual inflation jumped to 96% in April, up from 61% in January.



And with fertilizer prices soaring due to the disruption of exports from Russia, many farmers in Zimbabwe are struggling to afford it just as dry weather is affecting crop yields in parts of the country.



Fertilizer prices are up 30% over the past year, according to the Zimbabwe Farmers Union.



&#8220;If fertilizer prices remain at their record high levels, it will also dim crop yield prospects for the 2022/23 agricultural year,&#8221; WFP&#8217;s Zimbabwe spokeswoman Maria Gallar Sanchez said.



Officials at Zimbabwe&#8217;s information, agriculture and trade ministries did not respond to requests for comment.



Fertilizer firm Omnia Holdings&nbsp;OMNJ.J, which operates in many African countries, said prices of potash, ammonia, urea and other key soil nutrients have gone up by 200%-400% since January 2021.



Small-scale farmers, who account for more than 70% of fertilizer consumption in the region, have been hardest hit, Omnia Chief Executive Seelan Gobalsamy told Reuters.



Boniface Mutize, who grows maize and soybeans just outside Harare, said he has started making his own fertilizer by mixing cow dung or chicken waste with zinc. But he said he needs ammonium nitrate, which is not produced in large quantities in Zimbabwe.



&#8220;Many smallholder farmers will not be able to come back next season to grow their own food,&#8221; he said.



($1 = 115.8500 Kenyan shillings)



(Additional reporting by Duncan Miriri and Ayenat Mersie in Nairobi; Editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Daniel Flynn)

Z63TKZLGTFLOXPFQ45DXM3R5TE

Ukraine war fuels food crisis in distant Africa

<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Largest private bank to begin stake sale next week</li></ul>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Government pushing broad privatisation strategy</li></ul>



By Miguel Gomes



LUANDA, May 10 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Next month&#8217;s debut initial public offering (IPO) on Angola&#8217;s BODIVA stock exchange is expected to unlock a wave of new listings, its chief executive said, as the Southern African oil producer forges ahead with a far-reaching privatisation drive.



BODIVA will begin accepting bids next week for 1.945 million shares &#8211; a 10% stake &#8211; being offered by BAI, Angola&#8217;s largest private bank. BAI&#8217;s listing is expected on June 9.



Under President Joao Lourenco, the OPEC member has embarked on an ambitious reform programme to modernise the economy and attract private investment.



The state plans to sell its stakes in firms including upstream oil company ACREP, Caixa de Angola bank, fuel retailer Sonangalp and television and telecommunications provider TVCabo Angola.



&#8220;All these companies revealed, publicly or privately, their ambition to list capital with BODIVA,&#8221; the exchange&#8217;s CEO Walter Pacheco told Reuters. &#8220;I think that the first IPO will be decisive to promote the market.&#8221;



BODIVA was founded in 2014. But with Angola&#8217;s economy largely dominated by state-owned companies &#8211; a legacy of its socialist past &#8211; the exchange has mainly served as a market for government bonds, trading debt of around $2 billion in 2020.



&#8220;The market did not advance earlier because it was necessary for the state to reduce its direct intervention in companies and in the economy,&#8221; Pacheco said.



The 10% of capital offered by BAI represents stakes currently held by state-owned oil and diamond companies Sonangol and Endiama.



Foreign investors will be allowed to purchase shares sold at between 17,200 and 20,640 kwanzas ($42.92 and $51.50) each, a prospectus published on the bank&#8217;s website showed.



The stake sale should raise 33 billion to 35 billion kwanzas ($82-87 million), Pacheco said.



Angola plans to privatise some 62 state assets this year, though the sale of a 30% stake in state oil company Sonangol, seen as the crown jewel of the privatisation push, could take another two years.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL8N2U43AC&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



&#8220;We know that the restructuring of Sonangol, because of its dimension and relevance for the country, is going to take some time,&#8221; Pacheco said.



BODIVA was prepared to work with Sonangol on privatisation, he said, but the extent of the exchange&#8217;s involvement was not yet clear.



&#8220;We don&#8217;t know if the country and our capital market are ready to negotiate this kind of asset. Maybe Sonangol will spread their capital in different jurisdictions, not only in Angola,&#8221; Pacheco said.



($1 = 400.7700 kwanzas)



(Writing by Joe BavierEditing by Mark Potter)

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