By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/kathleen-elkins/">Kathleen Elkins</a>



Between running a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/richard-branson/#4d22de8f6ff5" class="">multi-billion dollar empire</a>, attempting to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/13/richard-branson-hopes-to-be-in-space-next-year-with-virgin-galactic.html" class="">head to space</a>&nbsp;and updating his blog multiple times per day, Virgin Group founder, Richard Branson, gets a lot done.



His top productivity trick is a simple habit that has nothing to do with making to-do lists, checking email or turning off notifications: “The only reason I’m able to do all the things I do and to keep on top of a busy schedule without getting too stressed is because I stay fit,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.virgin.com/importance-being-healthy" class="">the billionaire entrepreneur writes on his blog</a>.



Making time for exercise, he says, <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/10/richard-branson-says-this-daily-habit-doubles-his-productivity.html">doubles his productivity</a>.



“If people are feeling their best, they will be their most productive selves at work,” writes Branson. Plus, there are other benefits: “I find exercise the most natural and effective mood booster there is.”



Science backs him up: Studies show that exercise can help you out professionally by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/regular-exercise-releases-brain-chemicals-key-for-memory-concentration-and-mental-sharpness" class="">improving memory and mental sharpness</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/07/03/exercise-reorganizes-brain-be-more-resilient-stress?section=topstories" class="">reducing stress</a>&nbsp;and even&nbsp;<a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2014/04/24/walking-vs-sitting-042414/" class="">promoting creativity</a>.



Branson, who prefers playing tennis, kite-surfing and lifting weights, dedicates at least an hour a day to working out. “Many people say they don’t have the time for exercise, and you’re right, you don’t have the time unless you make the time,” he says. Make it a priority, he encourages, because “there is nothing more important than looking after yourself.”



He’s not the only <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/29/7-habits-of-highly-successful-people-from-a-man-who-spent-5-years-studying-them.html">highly successful individual who makes time for exercise</a>.



“Staying in shape is very important,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a&nbsp;<a href="http://time.com/3942073/mark-zuckerberg-arnold-schwarzenegger/" class="">Q&amp;A</a>&nbsp;on his social media site. “Doing anything well requires energy, and you just have a lot more energy when you’re fit.”



Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban and Alexa von Tobel are among other top business leaders who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/preview/104202389" class="">prioritize fitness</a>.



To make it a consistent habit, find easy ways to fold exercise into your routine, says Branson: “Go for a walk around the park with a friend instead of going to the pub, find the health club closest to your house, join a team sport. &#8230; There are so many options — try a few and see what sticks.”



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/richard-bransons-top-productivity-trick.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/26/richard-bransons-top-productivity-trick.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Billionaire Richard Branson’s top productivity trick is a simple habit that has nothing to do with email or to-do lists

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/festival-godwin-boateng-686321">Festival Godwin Boateng</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>

It’s a sadly familiar image in several developing countries’ media reports: people frantically searching the rubble of a collapsed building for survivors.

The data is disparate and scattered. But what is known confirms what the images tell us: building collapses are a common, tragic occurrence in developing countries’ cities. In Kampala, Uganda, <a href="http://ebooks.iospress.nl/publication/38227">one study</a> counted 54 building collapse deaths and 122 injuries between 2004 and 2008. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284082610_Contemporary_Issues_in_Building_Collapse_and_Its_Implications_for_Sustainable_Development">Another study</a> identified 112 cases in Lagos, Nigeria from December 1978 to April 2008. Between February and May 2019, 29 deaths and 76 injuries <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201906030071.html">were recorded</a> from 13 building collapse incidents across Nigeria. 

<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Festival_Godwin_Boateng/publication/317291061_The_Collapse_of_Buildings_in_Cities_in_Ghana_Reasoning_Beyond_'Scientism/links/5930aeb245851553b67f297b/The-Collapse-of-Buildings-in-Cities-in-Ghana-Reasoning-Beyond-Scientism.pdf#page=14">Ghana</a> and <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.871.2870&amp;rep=rep1&amp;type=pdf">Kenya</a>, too, have recorded a number of fatal incidents in recent years.

This isn’t a uniquely African problem, though. It <a href="https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/abs/10.1680/jfoen.17.00019">occurs</a> in the rapidly urbanising parts of Asia as well.

I <a href="https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/abs/10.1680/jmuen.17.00033">set out to understand</a> this rather under-researched phenomenon of building collapse in developing countries’ cities. I wanted to know the range of agencies, motivations and causes that propel the widespread creation of unsafe buildings in cities in developing countries. I also wanted to know why so many of these buildings collapse. 

This is important because of how quickly cities in the developing world are filling up. Today <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/Africa-urbanization-cities-double-population-2050-4%20ways-thrive/">around 40%</a> of those in Africa live in cities – that’s around 500 million people. This is <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/Africa-urbanization-cities-double-population-2050-4%20ways-thrive/">projected to rise</a> to more than 1.4 billion people in the next few decades.

<a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/326581468337788007/Building-regulation-for-resilience-managing-risks-for-safer-cities">Urbanisation is here to stay</a>. It’s up to authorities to make sure that the people arriving in their cities don’t end up suffering such incidents.

<h2>The “pathology” of cities</h2>

Studies suggest that the social problems experienced in cities usually have a uniquely <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pathologies-Urban-Processes-Kingsley-Haynes/dp/9518480222">“urban” dimension</a>. In this way of thinking, urbanisation processes – the concentration of people and socioeconomic activities in cities – affect the extent to which problems occur and the particular forms they take in those places. Studies of this nature are classified under the broad term <a href="https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/sswa_facpubs/442/">“urban pathology literature”</a>. 

I drew on the ideas and methods of urban pathology literature to explore the phenomenon of building collapse in cities in developing countries. To do this, I reviewed contemporary and historic documents on housing and construction, media, scholarly and investigative reports on building collapses and other cognate materials on the growth and development of cities.

Here’s what I found.

The more people come to a city, the more demand for buildings is amplified. People need accommodation, offices, or both. This demand creates pressure from which a range of agencies, motivations and causes arise. And that often encourages shoddy construction and building use practices. Buildings are hastily built. Those which already exist are hastily converted for uses that weren’t built into the original design. Extra floors are added atop old buildings.

Usually, city authorities would step in to enforce safe building regulations and guard against these practices. But too often in the developing world, institutional cultures like corruption and political interference undermine authorities’ responsibilities. Add to that a dearth of building inspectors or other resources, and unsafe building practices multiply. 

In the end, huge stocks of unsafe buildings are created, sometimes in hazard-prone locations. This, then, can lead to disaster.

<h2>Understanding context</h2>

All of this means that building collapses in cities are a pathological feature of urbanisation. 

One insidious dimension of the problem relates to how socioeconomic inequalities associated with urbanisation processes impede poorer people from finding safe, sturdy accommodation. This exposes them to <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/326581468337788007/Building-regulation-for-resilience-managing-risks-for-safer-cities">tremendous risk</a>, forcing them to either rely on or undertake construction practices that are inherently unsafe. Two issues could be addressed to ease this problem: the high cost of urban land and unfavourable mortgage and credit schemes that lock people out of accessing building or accommodation finance.

Essentially, unless conscious efforts are made to address the building needs of Africa’s urban poor, the creation of unsafe (illegal) buildings in hazard-prone areas cannot be prevented.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118423/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/festival-godwin-boateng-686321">Festival Godwin Boateng</a>, PhD Candidate, School of Global Urban &#038; Social Studies, RMIT University-Australia, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/rmit-university-1063">RMIT University</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/knowing-what-leads-to-building-collapses-can-help-make-african-cities-safer-118423">original article</a>.

Identifying the causes of building collapses can help make African cities safer, here’s how

By<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jade-scipioni/"> Jade Scipioni</a> 



In 1975, at the age of 19,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/24/bill-gates-says-his-biggest-mistake-was-not-beating-google-on-android.html?forYou=true" class="">Bill Gates</a>&nbsp;dropped out of his sophomore year at Harvard to launch Microsoft with his buddy Paul Allen.



Gates worked weekends and never took vacation in his 20s to get the company off the ground. And it worked. Today, Microsoft is valued at more than&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSFT/" class="">$1 trillion</a>&nbsp;and Gates is the second richest man in the world with a net worth of around&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/william-h-gates/" class="">$107 billion</a>&nbsp;(just $12 billion shy of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ fortune of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/jeffrey-p-bezos/" class="">$119 billion</a>).



“It really is true that I didn’t believe in weekends; I didn’t believe in vacations,” Gates told Eventbrite co-founder and CEO Julia Hartz&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&amp;amp;amp=&amp;amp;v=W5g4sPi1wd4" class="">Thursday</a>&nbsp;at a Village Global event.



Gates was at the office so much that he knew the license plates of everyone who worked for him, and he would see what time they would come and go and therefore how many hours his employees were putting in.&nbsp;



“Microsoft was a high-stress environment because Bill drove others as hard as he drove himself,” Gates’ co-founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/paul-allen/" class="">Allen</a>&nbsp;wrote in a 2011 article for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2011/05/paul-allen-201105" class="">Vanity Fair</a>. “He was growing into the taskmaster who would prowl the parking lot on weekends to see who’d made it in.”



Gates’ spy tactics and often intense office demeanor during the company’s prime years in the late ’80s and ’90s famously earned him the reputation as an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/17/advice-microsoft-billionaire-bill-gates-would-give-his-younger-self.html" class="">office bully</a>, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gq.com/story/young-bill-gates-was-an-angry-office-bully" class="">GQ.</a>



However, once he got into his 30s — and started dating his now-wife&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/06/14/melinda-gates-the-best-advice-warren-buffett-gave-me.html" class="">Melinda</a>&nbsp;— he said he began to relax a bit and started taking time off, which helped him tone it down.



“Now I take lots of vacation. My 20-year-old self is so disgusted with my current self. You know, I was sure I would never fly anything but coach and you know, now I have a plane,” Gates said.



He refers to the change of heart as a “counter revelation” and he said he can’t imagine working to those extremes today.



“I don’t recommend it and I don’t think most people would enjoy it,” he said.



However, he said he still believes that hard work is essential during the early years of building a business, especially if you want it to become something great.



“You’ll have individuals who have, you know, health or relatives or things that [distract them]. But yes, I have a fairly hardcore view that there should be a very large sacrifice made during those early years&#8230;.” he said.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/25/why-bill-gates-younger-self-would-be-disgusted-with-him-today.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/25/why-bill-gates-younger-self-would-be-disgusted-with-him-today.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Why Bill Gates says his 20-year-old self would be ‘so disgusted’ with him today

LAGOS (Reuters) &#8211; A Nigerian judge on Wednesday adjourned until Oct. 29 a case to resolve a $2 billion tax dispute between telecoms company MTN Group and the country’s attorney general.



The attorney general demanded South Africa’s MTN pay the $2 billion in September. The company has said the tax payment demand is without merit, it does not owe the money and the attorney general exceeded his powers in making the request.



Reporting by Libby George and Alexis Akwagyiram; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Toby Chopra

Nigerian court adjourns case between MTN and attorney general over $2 bln tax dispute

HARARE, June 25 (Reuters) &#8211; Zimbabwe’s largest labour body on Tuesday threatened protests over the government’s decision to ban the use of foreign currencies and make the interim currency the sole legal tender.



President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government said the move on Monday to abandon a multi-currency system was an important step towards removing economic imbalances.



But many Zimbabweans are distrustful after a long succession of failed economic interventions.



“If the government does not reverse this ruinous policy immediately and announce U.S. dollar salary payments, we will immediately mobilise workers for mass action,” Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president Peter Mutasa told a news conference.



“The ZCTU has not moved from its position that the short-term solution is to dollarise and, as such, we are going into the tripartite negotiating forum (with government and business) to demand U.S. dollar salary payments,” Mutasa added.



In January, the ZCTU led nationwide protests against a 150% fuel price increase, triggering a violent crackdown by the army and police, which left at least 12 people dead, according to rights groups.



Mnangagwa replaced longtime leader Robert Mugabe after an army coup in November 2017, but a hoped-for economic turnaround has not materialised.



In February, Mnangagwa’s government introduced the RTGS dollar as a transitional unit before relaunching the Zimbabwean dollar. 



(Reporting by Nelson Banya; Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Alison Williams)

Labour group in Zimbabwe threatens protests over ban on foreign currencies

NAIROBI (Reuters) &#8211; Kenya’s government, and oil firms Tullow Oil, Total and Africa Oil Corp have signed agreements for the development of a 60,000-80,000 barrels per day crude oil processing facility for oil discovered in the country’s north west, the Petroleum and Mining Ministry said on Tuesday. 



The ministry said on Twitter the Heads of Term agreements were for discoveries in Blocks 10 BB and 13T in South Lokichar Basin.



Reporting by George Obulutsa, editing by Louise Heavens

What you need to  know about the deal between Kenya’s government, Tullow Oil, Africa Oil and Total

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/misheck-mutize-331377">Misheck Mutize</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-cape-town-691">University of Cape Town</a>

International credit rating agencies have had their fair share of <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/credit-rating-controversy">controversies</a> over the years. They have been at the centre of the major financial crises from the financial markets collapse of <a href="https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/40208/Reagan_washington_0250E_17396.pdf?sequence=1&amp;isAllowed=y">New York City in the mid-1970s</a>, the <a href="https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/36469/2/MPRA_paper_36469.pdf">Asian financial crisis</a> of 1997 – 1998, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/business/enron-s-collapse-rating-agencies-debt-rankings-finally-fizzle-but-deal-fizzled.html">Enron scandal</a> of 2001, to the <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/the-indisputable-role-of-credit-ratings-agencies-in-the-2008-collapse-and-why-nothing-has-changed/">global financial crisis of 2008</a>. All of these cost investors globally billions. 

Rating agencies are meant to give comfort about an issuer’s ability to repay debt. Ratings are essential in determining the level of interest rate that a borrower must pay. Inaccurate ratings therefore distort both the prices of debt instruments and the interest rates payable on them. As history has shown, this creates asset bubbles that eventually burst, disrupting the functioning of financial markets.

The three dominant international credit rating agencies – Standard &amp; Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch – have been accused of many faults including:

<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.rt.com/business/421033-sp-credit-agency-lawsuit/">false ratings</a>; </li>
<li><a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-08-28-moodys-to-pay-16-mn-over-flawed-credit-ratings/">flawed methodology</a>; </li>
<li>encroaching on <a href="https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/54340/2016_Luten_PA_IEG.pdf?sequence=1">government policy</a>; </li>
<li>political <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0010414017710263">bias</a>, </li>
<li><a href="https://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Abdullah-Yalta.pdf">selective aggression</a>;</li>
<li>and <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/852a0672-3904-11e4-9cce-00144feabdc0">rating shopping</a>. </li>
</ul>

These shortcomings originate from their ‘issuer-pay’ business model. The institution being rated pays for the rating which is used by investors. This means that the model has an inherent conflict of interest. 

Although this has been evident through various crises – most notably the financial meltdown in 2008 – regulatory mechanisms are yet to address this problem. And, despite these known weaknesses, rating agencies are still being referenced in key financial market decisions.

<h2>Why current regulations aren’t working</h2>

A <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228203856_The_Issuer-Pays_Rating_Model_and_Ratings_Inflation_Evidence_from_Corporate_Credit_Ratings">number of studies</a> have identified the issuer-pay revenue model as a key driver of conflict of interest. Here are four reasons why I think the current attempts to regulate ratings agencies will not address conflict of interest.

The first big problem is the relationship between the rating agencies and the issuers. This relationship naturally creates pressure for both the lead rating analyst – around which the whole <a href="https://www.moodys.com/sites/products/ProductAttachments/mis_ratings_process.pdf">rating process</a> is centred – and the ratings committee to give favourable ratings over time. 

This is how the process works: after an issuer contracts a rating agency, the ratings agency assigns an analytical team (lead and support analysts) to gather information about the entity from different sources they deem credible. The analytical team makes recommendations to a ratings committee, convened by the lead analyst. The lead analyst also <a href="https://www.moodys.com/sites/products/ProductAttachments/mis_ratings_process.pdf">determines</a> the size and composition of the ratings committee based on the size and the complexity of the credit analysis. 

The second problem is that rating agencies are bound to be concerned about the sustainability of their revenue sources because they’re profit driven businesses. They will fight to protect their income at the expense of aggressive or objective ratings that could compromise revenues, although in the long-run will damage their businesses. 

The third problem is that the individual employees of a rating agency face no <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23074028?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">criminal liability</a>. Conflict of interest usually manifests itself through members of the analytical team.

Lastly, the credit ratings industry is highly concentrated. Moody’s Investors Service and Standard &amp; Poor’s together control 80% of the global rating market. Fitch Ratings accounts for a further 15%. The ‘big three’ credit rating firms seek to maintain dominance in the industry through discouraging any <a href="https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/opinion-rotation-of-credit-rating-agencies-must-be-avoided-1556058549186.html">activities</a> that may lead to a loss in their market share. They are unwilling to <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-competition-may-not-improve-credit-rating-agencies">allow competition</a>, suggesting that it could instead lead to poor ratings. 

<h2>Responses</h2>

Following the 2008 Global Financial crisis the <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-238">US</a>, <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/credit-rating-agencies-regulation-ec-no-1060-2009_en">European Union</a>, <a href="http://www.csrc.gov.cn/pub/csrc_en/about/">China</a> and <a href="https://www.fsca.co.za/Regulated%20Entities/Pages/LR-Credit-Ratings.aspx">South Africa</a> introduced legislation to address the flaws in rating agencies’ operations.

Although strict civil laws are necessary to deter misconduct and encourage compliance, enforcing civil regulations only is both an ineffective and expensive way of <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7408&amp;context=jclc">curbing conflict of interest</a>. Tighter scrutiny of credit rating agencies by investors, regulators and media is also not effective.

Despite these regulatory responses, rating agencies are still being caught on the wrong side of the law. Recent cases are proof of this. But there’s still the possibility that a great deal of wrongdoings go undetected.

Earlier this year the European Securities and Markets Authority <a href="https://www.esma.europa.eu/press-news/esma-news/esma-fines-fitch-%E2%82%AC5132500-breaches-conflict-interest-requirements">fined</a> the Fitch group of companies in France, Spain and United Kingdom a total of €5 132 000 for failing to maintain independence and avoiding conflict of interest. Fitch UK, Fitch France and Fitch Spain issued ratings on Casino Guichard-Perrachon, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, and Renault. This was despite the fact that they knew one of their shareholders – which indirectly owned 20% shares in each of the Fitch group companies – was also a board member of the rated companies.

In 2018, China <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-20/chinese-rating-company-dagong-issues-apology-after-one-year-ban">suspended licences</a> held by Dagong Global Credit Rating, one of China’s biggest agencies. Dagong was found guilty of submitting false information to regulators and charging borrowers very high fees, actions that regulators said compromised the rating agency’s independence.

In South Africa, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority recently found the <a href="https://gcrratings.com/regulatory-environment/">Global Credit Rating Agency</a> guilty of failure to avoid a conflict of interest. The agency was <a href="https://www.fin24.com/Companies/Financial-Services/hefty-fine-for-credit-rating-agency-over-conflict-of-interest-breach-20190430">fined</a> an administrative penalty of R487 000. The CEO of the GCR undertook to an issuer, whose credit rating had expired, that the GCR would issue a credit rating. This was contrary to the rules that required the CEO to act separately from the agency’s rating analysis team. 

At the time of undertaking, the issuer was the process of procuring the services of a rating agency, a process in which global agency was one of the bidders.

<h2>Shortfall in regulatory mechanism</h2>

The continuing infringement by credit rating firms on rules and analysts’ actions that compromise the independence of their opinions shows there is a major shortfall in the current regulatory mechanism.

Although problematic, abandoning the ‘issuer-pay’ business model is not the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3270894">solution</a> and will push some rating agencies out of business. 

The only solution is to criminalise rating misconduct such as breaching conflict of interest. The strict monitoring, scrutiny and penalising of credit rating firms alone will not be enough to deter bad behaviour. Individuals responsible for breach of conflict of interest rules should face criminal prosecution. If this does not happen, analysts will not hesitate to take chances.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117549/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/misheck-mutize-331377">Misheck Mutize</a>, Lecturer of Finance, Graduate School of Business (GSB), <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-cape-town-691">University of Cape Town</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-credit-rating-agencies-are-still-getting-away-with-bad-behaviour-117549">original article</a>.

Credit rating agencies continue to get away with bad behaviour, here’s why

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jade-scipioni/">Jade Scipioni</a>



You might assume that as the second richest person in world with a net worth of <a class="" href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/">$107 billion</a>, Bill Gates doesn’t have a lot of <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/bill-gates-this-is-a-great-way-to-use-your-tech-skills.html">regrets</a>. But there is a big one that still eats away at him, he says.



Gates admitted his “greatest mistake ever” was allowing Google to develop Android — one of Apple’s biggest smartphone competitors — before Microsoft could develop a competing mobile operating system, he told Eventbrite co-founder and CEO Julia Hartz&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&amp;amp;v=W5g4sPi1wd4" class="">Thursday</a>&nbsp;at a Village Global event.



“That was a natural thing for Microsoft to win,” he said.



Gates said he blames his own poor “mismanagement,” since he didn’t guide his team to jump on the opportunity. He also partially blames Microsoft’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/technology/antitrust-tech-microsoft-lessons.html" class="">antitrust problems</a>&nbsp;in the early 2000′s for allowing Google to get ahead.



Google moved on mobile shortly after Apple did, when it acquired Android in 2005. Google later released it first Android device in September 2008, a little more than a year after Apple released its first iPhone on June 29,&nbsp;<a href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/14/04/14/exclusive-android-docs-reveal-before-iphone-googles-plan-was-a-java-button-phone" class="">2007</a>.



“These are winner-takes-all markets. So the greatest mistake ever is whatever mismanagement I engaged in that caused Microsoft not to be what Android is,” he said.



Gates added that there is now only room for one “non-Apple” operating system, and that market is worth $400 billion, he said.



He added that if Microsoft would have “got that one right,” Microsoft would be the top technology company in the game right now.



“We would be&nbsp;the&nbsp;company. But oh well, ” he said.



Despite Gates’ blunder, Microsoft still currently has the highest market cap of the contenders at&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/MSFT?p=MSFT&amp;amp;.tsrc=fin-srch" class="">$1 trillion</a>; Apple currently has a market cap of&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AAPL?p=AAPL&amp;amp;.tsrc=fin-srch" class="">$918 billion</a>, with Alphabet Inc. (the conglomerate which owns Google since 2015) coming in at&nbsp;<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOOG/" class="">$776 billion</a>.



“It’s amazing to me, having made one of the greatest mistakes of all time&#8230;our other assets — Windows, Office — are still very strong. So we are a leading company,” he said.



Correction: This story has been revised to correct that Google acquired Android in 2005.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/24/bill-gates-says-his-biggest-mistake-was-not-beating-google-on-android.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/24/bill-gates-says-his-biggest-mistake-was-not-beating-google-on-android.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Bill Gates reveals his ‘greatest mistake’ that potentially cost Microsoft $400 billion

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 <img decoding="async" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/280672/original/file-20190621-61775-kjdy00.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&#038;q=45&#038;auto=format&#038;w=754&#038;fit=clip" />
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 Giving young people financial skills can lead to much better education and job outcomes.
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By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/leila-patel-240768">Leila Patel</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-johannesburg-1275">University of Johannesburg</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lauren-graham-251070">Lauren Graham</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-johannesburg-1275">University of Johannesburg</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/zoheb-khan-274873">Zoheb Khan</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-johannesburg-1275">University of Johannesburg</a>

The picture in South Africa is a bleak one for the average 15 – 24 year old. Many have finished their schooling with a qualification of little value in the eyes of employers. And they lack the basic skills that employers now need. The result is that a staggering <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=12121">39,6% (narrow definition) or 55,2%</a> (expanded definition which includes those who have stopped actively looking for work) are unemployed.

South Africa has grappled with high unemployment for many years and the private sector, civil society and government have invested heavily in interventions to address the problem. Youth Employability Programmes (YEPs) are one such example. These programmes aim to help young people make the transition from school to work more seamlessly via skills training.

YEPs are part of a broad suite of programmes designed to drive growth and employment. But there seems to be a piece missing from existing schemes: giving young people basic financial skills. Other countries have found that giving young people these skills leads to much better education outcomes. For example, they’ve led to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775712001409">better secondary schooling outcomes</a> in Ghana. And in Uganda they have been shown to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2976060/">increase financial security</a> in vulnerable households. In the US they have helped <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775712001355">promote transitions to college in poor communities</a>.

We <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/faculties/humanities/csda/Documents/Siyakha%20Report%20June%202019%20Web%20LowRes.pdf">did a study</a> to find out whether including financial skills in existing programmes could help more young people find and keep work.

The answer is yes. We found that providing young people with financial capabilities does improve the picture. Those who got the training were 9 percentage points more likely to be employed than those who did not two years after completing the training.

<h2>Tracking over six years</h2>

The study, launched in 2013, tracked 1974 people who participated in one of eight YEPs at 44 sites across the country. Half of the training sites were randomly assigned to receive a short savings and basic financial management training module and access to a no-cost bank account.

We followed these two groups of young people as they entered the programmes and up to two years after completing their training to understand whether financial capability training should be a complementary intervention offered to young people.

The study participants were predominantly African (94,4%), women and from poor backgrounds, with an average per capita income of R527. This places them below the upper-bound poverty line. Most participants had experienced food insecurity in the year prior to joining the programme.

The majority of participants had a matric certificate – the equivalent of 12 years of schooling – and over half had some prior work experience, primarily short-term contract work, while a few had self-employment experience. Just under a third had started a post-secondary qualification. Despite this the vast majority were unemployed at the start of the study and 78% had been chronically unemployed (unemployed for longer than one year).

<h2>What we found</h2>

We tracked and interviewed the study participants before, during and after their training. During a period corresponding to between 12 and 24 months after their training, young people who received the financial capability training were 9 percentage points more likely to be employed than those who did not receive the intervention. 

Importantly, the financial capability intervention also had positive effects for young people who remained unemployed. They were more likely to persist with work seeking than those who did not.

Interestingly, young people who received the training did not differ in their reported savings behaviour from those in the control group. From this we can see that the effect of the intervention is likely due to the financial literacy training, and not the saving account.

<h2>What next?</h2>

We cannot definitively say why young people who received the financial literacy training showed better employment outcomes. One hypothesis is that improved financial literacy helps young people manage what little money they have better and this in turn helps them manage the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-south-african-case-study-how-to-support-young-job-hunters-110511">high cost of work-seeking</a>, especially in low-income households. 

<hr>

 
 
 Read more:
 <a href="http://theconversation.com/south-africas-youth-speak-out-on-the-high-cost-of-finding-work-61024">South Africa&#8217;s youth speak out on the high cost of finding work</a>
 
 

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Another possibility is that the financial literacy training promotes belief in oneself, which in turn facilitates improved job search. It certainly appeared to be the case that those who received the treatment did have slightly higher levels of self-esteem after the intervention than those who did not receive the intervention.

The possibility of growth in self esteem supports other research which shows that improved financial literacy is associated with a greater sense of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02309.x?journalCode=pssa">future orientation</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019074091100291X">increased motivation</a> and the <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1319&amp;context=csd_research">desire to achieve their own goals</a>.

The outcomes from the study are compelling. Although it’s unclear exactly how financial literacy training works, this kind of programme does seem promising as a complementary intervention to existing programmes for young people.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118860/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/leila-patel-240768">Leila Patel</a>, Professor of Social Development Studies, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-johannesburg-1275">University of Johannesburg</a>; <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lauren-graham-251070">Lauren Graham</a>, Associate professor at the Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-johannesburg-1275">University of Johannesburg</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/zoheb-khan-274873">Zoheb Khan</a>, Researcher, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-johannesburg-1275">University of Johannesburg</a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-giving-young-people-basic-financial-skills-helps-them-find-jobs-118860">original article</a>.

Giving young people basic financial skills can aid them in finding jobs, here’s how

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) &#8211; Ethiopia’s army chief of staff and the regional president of the northern state of Amhara were killed in two related attacks when a general tried to seize control of Amhara in an attempted coup, the prime minister’s office said on Sunday.



Amhara state president Ambachew Mekonnen and his advisor were shot dead and the state’s attorney general was wounded in Amhara’s capital of Bahir Dar on Saturday evening, according to a statement from the office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.



In a separate attack the same night, Ethiopia’s army Chief of Staff Seare Mekonnen and another retired general were shot dead in Seare’s home in Addis Ababa by his bodyguard. The two attacks were linked, the statement said, without giving details.



Abiy’s office named Amhara state security head General Asamnew Tsige as responsible for the foiled coup, without giving details of his whereabouts. Asamnew was released from prison last year, having been given an amnesty for a similar coup attempt, according to media reports.



Abiy took office just over a year ago and embarked on unprecedented reforms in Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country and one of its fastest-growing economies.



But the premier’s shake-up of the military and intelligence services has earned him powerful enemies, while his government is struggling to rein in powerful figures in Ethiopia’s myriad ethnic groups fighting the federal government and each other for greater influence and resources.



The shooting in Bahir Dar occurred when the state president &#8211; an ally of Abiy &#8211; was holding a meeting to decide how to put a stop to the open recruitment of ethnic Amhara militias by Asamnew, one Addis-based official told Reuters.



Asamnew had advised the Amhara people to arm themselves in preparation for fighting against other groups, in a video spread on Facebook a week earlier and seen by a Reuters reporter.



Abiy donned military fatigues to announce the attempted coup on state television on Saturday evening. Residents of Bahir Dar, about 500 kilometers (311 miles) northwest of Addis, said there was at least four hours of gunfire on Saturday evening and some roads had been closed off.



“The situation in the Amhara region is currently under full control by the Federal Government in colloboration with the regional government,” Abiy said in the statement on Sunday.



The U.S. Embassy tweeted it had heard reports of gunfire in Addis Ababa on Saturday night, and some residents told Reuters they heard six shots in a suburb near the country’s Bole International Airport around 9:30 p.m. local time.



The capital was quieter than usual on Sunday, with fewer cars or pedestrians on the streets.



Earlier Brigadier General Tefera Mamo, the head of special forces in Amhara, told state television that “most of the people who attempted the coup have been arrested, although there are a few still at large.”



He did not give details about Asamnew.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">STRUGGLE FOR REFORMS</h3>



Since coming to power, Abiy has released political prisoners, removed bans on political parties and prosecuted officials accused of gross human rights abuses, but his government is battling ethnic bloodshed once held in check by the state’s iron grip.



Now some of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups are disputing the boundaries of the country’s nine federal states, or arguing that they too should have regional governments, claims that threaten the dominance of other groups.



Amhara is home to Ethiopia’s second largest ethnic group of the same name and their native tongue, Amharic, is also the country’s official language. The anti-government protests that



lasted three years and eventually forced former prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn to resign in 2018 had begun in the neighbouring state of Oromia but quickly spread to Amhara.



Demonstators were angered by grievances over land rights, political and economic marginalisation &#8211; issues that Abiy is now racing to address.



“He (Abiy) seems to be dismantling the EPRDF (ruling coalition) and is entertaining thoughts of altering the architecture of federalism, but he hasn’t given any clear direction he’s heading in,” said Matt Bryden, the head of regional thinktank Sahan Research.



“That uncertainty is creating a lot of competition and &#8230; driving a lot of the friction and violence.”



Abiy had also changed many senior security officials when he came to power, Bryden noted, creating more uncertainty that allowed armed groups that would once have been quashed to flourish.



Abiy’s changes have not gone unchallenged. A year ago, he survived a grenade attack that killed two people at his rally. In October, hundreds of soldiers marched on his palace demanding more pay. He defused the situation by doing push ups with them but later said they were trying to derail reforms.



The internet was down across Ethiopia on Sunday, although there was no statement on this from the government. Authorities have cut off the internet several times previously for security and other reasons.



Ethiopia is due to hold parliamentary elections next year, although the electoral board warned earlier this month that they were behind schedule and that instability could cause a problem for polling. Several opposition groups have called for the elections to be held on time anyway.



Additional reporting by Katharine Houreld; Writing by Elias Biryabarema and Katharine Houreld; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

Ethiopia’s army chief, top regional officials killed in northern coup attempt, here’s what you need to know

LONDON (Reuters) &#8211; Orange, France’s number one telecoms operator, sees the planned liberalisation of Ethiopia’s telecoms market taking shape in 2020, Chief Financial Officer Ramon Fernandez said on Friday. 



Ethiopia is one of the last countries whose telecoms industry remains in the hands of the government. Orange is one of the leading contenders seeking to benefit from the end of state-controlled Ethio Telecom’s monopoly, pushed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.



Sources told Reuters earlier this month that the government aimed to award telecom licenses by the end of 2019, with the new operators expected to launch services next year. However some industry executives have expressed scepticism over the timetable. [nL8N23J39U]



“The most likely scenario as of today seems to be the opening of the incumbent’s capital to a minority shareholder who could play a significant role within the company,” Fernandez told Reuters in an interview in London.



“And, in parallel, the opening of the market through the sale of at least one license to an operator,” Fernandez added.



The Orange executive also said a split of Ethio Telecom between an infrastructure provider and telecom services provider was unlikely, contradicting earlier reports. [nL8N23O56V]



“I’m not certain this is the main scenario as of today. It’s up to the Ethiopian authorities to decide, but we’re convinced that a split between telecoms operators and infrastructure operators is not the best option,” Fernandez said.



Africa and the Middle East is Orange’s fastest-growing region for the telecoms group, which controls 17 operators on the continent.



The group, which competes with other major players such as Vodafone-controlled Vodacom, Airtel Africa and South Africa’s MTN in the region, generated 5.2 billion euros ($5.9 billion) in the area last year, up 5% from a year earlier.



“This a pace we can keep on the long run, with a profitability performance at the same level, or even above,” Fernandez said.



The group is betting that its financial services provider Orange Money, which offers money transfers and payment services, will help it in the race to get into Ethiopia’s market, he added.



($1 = 0.8835 euros)



Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Additional reporting by Joe Bavier; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and David Holmes

Here’s why Orange sees Ethiopia’s telco liberalisation taking shape in 2020

By <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mosoka-fallah-631916">Mosoka Fallah</a>, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/harvard-medical-school-1710">Harvard Medical School </a>

More than <a href="https://www.who.int/ebola/situation-reports/drc-2018/en/">2000 cases of Ebola</a> have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) since last August. Now, despite authorities’ efforts – such as <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/311641/SITREP_EVD_DRC_20190331-eng.pdf?ua=1">screening millions of travellers</a> moving between the DRC and its neighbours – the disease has spread. The World Health Organisation <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48603273">announced</a> on 12 June that a five-year-old boy had died in Uganda after testing positive for Ebola. A day later, his grandmother died. It’s believed he contracted Ebola when they attended the funeral of his grandfather (who died of Ebola) in the DRC. The Conversation Africa’s Natasha Joseph asked Professor Mosoka Fallah to explain the implications.

There have now been two Ebola deaths in Uganda. Do we know anything more about these cases?

We now know that a family of 14 travelled from the DRC to Uganda. Most of them crossed at the formal border, but five evaded the main port of entry. Instead they crossed over informally. Those five arrived with symptoms that included diarrhoea and bleeding. This implies a period of illness in the DRC and that they were most likely symptomatic while travelling.

It appears they knowingly evaded the official check point that would have monitored their temperature and physical signs to pick them up as possible Ebola cases.

In some ways this is a replica of the cross-border import and export of Ebola cases between Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone that were hit by the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/history/2014-2016-outbreak/index.html">2014 outbreak</a>. Many borders between countries in the region are porous: people are in fact much more likely to cross into a neighbouring country without even going through a formal border crossing. 

People cross for all sorts of reasons. One of them is funeral rites. The spread of the cases from Guinea to Liberia and eventually to Sierra Leone centred around funeral rites.

Authorities have worked hard to keep Ebola from spreading beyond the DRC. Does the spread mean they need to do more, or do things differently?

The response teams from both the DRC and Uganda must be commended for preventing the mass cross-border export of Ebola cases given the complex nature of the current outbreak.

There are a lot more informal crossings than the formal ones. The surveillance system for scanning people who are crossing into Uganda are at these formal crossings. This isn’t always foolproof. When I was working in Liberia during the West African epidemic between 2014 and 2016, we found that some people would take antipyretic medications to avoid being detected at the formal border crossings. These drugs bring fevers down so that scanners don’t detect a high temperature.

You may wonder why people would do this. The reality is that people across geographical boundaries don’t have any physical boundaries in their minds. When they are in the DRC and fall ill, they will do what anyone would: seek support from their relatives and friends, some of whom are in border towns.

All of this means that health authorities’ interventions must be strategic. They cannot physically monitor all of the informal porous borders between these countries.

What they need to do now is to mobilise all of the towns and villages that share border points with the regions of DRC that are at high risk for the export of Ebola. These villages and towns can physically monitor their individual crossing points. The local leaders and chiefs can keep a visitor log and identify a common building to keep new visitors from the DRC for observation. These logs should be reported to the regional response team daily.

The visitors can then be tracked back to their village of origin to investigate any linkage to a cluster of cases. Coordinating visitors’ movements across the multiple borders will be the greatest strategic intervention. If possible, mobile application can be deployed to local youths to enter these data for real time reporting and coordination. 

This strategy was employed in Liberia during the latter part of the Ebola crisis in the region and was critical in preventing the cross-border import of cases. Even within Liberia some counties – sub-regional division – did this to prevent the import of cases from Monrovia or neighbouring counties. When Lofa county went to zero in November of 2014, it was able to maintain that status by using these methods.

What is being done now to try and ensure the cases in Uganda do not lead to more Ebola infections?

Health workers are tracking the cases, finding out who the five people came in contact with and then taking them to a treatment centre immediately. From the recent situation report from Uganda, they have tracked down 98 contacts which is very impressive. As the average number of contacts per case is 10-12. But they have gone beyond that average.

These are very critical response steps in any epidemic. The surveillance team has to enter the mind of a typical villager from the DRC who knows they’re infected and is trying to escape to relatives in Uganda. They will have to figure out whether the infected people visited traditional healers or local medicine stores. How long were they in Uganda before they were picked up? In this way they’ll be able to identify all the contacts and monitor them.

Ebola is a very difficult disease to contain because of human social and behavioural factors. But it can be easily contained if 100% of the infected people’s contacts are identified and monitored and if cases are quickly removed into treatment units. The sooner you are treated, the higher your chances of surviving Ebola. And the more survivors there are, the more the community will trust response workers.<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118719/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" />

<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/mosoka-fallah-631916">Mosoka Fallah</a>, Deputy Director General at National Public Health Institute of Liberia and Visiting Scientist, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/harvard-medical-school-1710">Harvard Medical School </a>

This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-africas-porous-borders-make-it-difficult-to-contain-ebola-118719">original article</a>.

Are Africa’s permeable borders making it difficult to contain Ebola?

(Reuters) &#8211; South African mobile phone operator Vodacom Group Ltd on Friday said it has entered an agreement to sell its Business Africa unit’s Angolan operations and assets to Internet Technologies Angola for an undisclosed amount.



Separately, Vodacom, which is majority owned by Vodafone Group Plc, also announced an agreement to sell the unit’s operations in Nigeria, Zambia and Cote d’Ivoire to Synergy Communications.



Vodacom said it will no longer service enterprise customers directly in any of the four markets but will continue to service clients through local service providers.



Reporting by Shariq Khan in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich

Vodacom unit plans to sell operations in four African markets, what you need to know

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/elizabeth-gravier/">Elizabeth Gravier</a>



Apple CEO Tim Cook&nbsp;<a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2019/06/16/remarks-tim-cook-2019-stanford-commencement/" class="">addressed the graduates</a>&nbsp;of the 128th&nbsp;class of Stanford University on Sunday, and borrowed a few words from his mentor&nbsp;<a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/" class="">Steve Jobs</a>.



“Fourteen years ago,” Cook said, “Steve <a class="" href="https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/">stood on this stage</a> and told your predecessors: ‘Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.’ Here’s my corollary: ‘Your mentors may leave you prepared, but they can’t leave you ready.’” 



Cook described the time after Jobs’ death as “the loneliest” he’d ever felt in his life, and said he could “sense” the expectations others had for him.



“All I knew,” he said, “was that I was going to have to be the best version of myself that I could be.&nbsp;I knew that if you got out of bed every morning and set your watch by what other people expect or demand, it’ll drive you crazy.”&nbsp;



He urged grads to focus on authenticity and forging something new, rather than imitating others.&nbsp;



“Don’t try to emulate the people who came before you to the exclusion of everything else, contorting into a shape that doesn’t fit,” Cook said. “It takes too much mental effort – effort that should be dedicated to creating and building. You’ll waste precious time trying to rewire your every thought, and, in the meantime, you won’t be fooling anybody.”



Cook had already built an impressive resume in tech prior to joining Apple in 1998, with roles at IBM, Intelligent Electronics and Compaq. But he felt that Jobs had a new and exciting outlook on the tech industry, one he thought he could add value to.



He told graduates that Jobs’ illness and death, and his own takeover as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2011/08/24Steve-Jobs-Resigns-as-CEO-of-Apple/" class="">Apple CEO</a>&nbsp;in 2011, taught him the critical distinction between being “prepared” and being “ready,” and warned grads that when the time came for them to lead, in whatever capacity, they wouldn’t be ready&nbsp;— and that’s OK.



“You’re not supposed to be,” Cook said. “Find the hope in the unexpected. Find the courage in the challenge. Find your vision on the solitary road.”



Cook also addressed the need for tech companies to take responsibility for the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/16/apple-ceo-tim-cook-stanford-commencement-speech.html" class="">“chaos”</a>&nbsp;they create, hinting at (though never mentioning specifically) tech giants Google and Facebook. He warned that in the case that continued data breaches and privacy violations are accepted as inevitable, “we lose so much more than data. We lose the freedom to be human.”



In closing, Cook urged grads to remain focused on their goals and how they want to contribute to society.&nbsp;



“Don’t get distracted,” Cook said. “There are too many people who want credit without responsibility. Too many who show up for the ribbon cutting without building anything worth a damn. Be different. Leave something worthy.”



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/tim-cook-and-steve-jobs-time-is-limited-so-dont-waste-it-on-this.html?forYou=true">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/tim-cook-and-steve-jobs-time-is-limited-so-dont-waste-it-on-this.html?forYou=true</a> and is republished with its permission.

Apple’s Tim Cook and Steve Jobs agree: ‘Time is limited, so don’t waste it’ on this

FREETOWN (Reuters) &#8211; Sierra Leone’s president opened a tender process on Wednesday for building a 7 km bridge at a cost of up to $2 billion to link Freetown to the country’s only international airport.



Freetown International Airport at Lungi is currently accessible only by boat or helicopter, separated from the capital by the nearly five km (three mile) wide mouth of the Rokel river.



“I will closely superintend the entire process and ensure that every tender is compliant and every tender is in the best long-term interest of Sierra Leone,” President Julius Maada Bio said in a Wednesday speech at State House.



Sierra Leone officials have previously estimated the Lungi bridge could cost anywhere between $1.3 billion and $2 billion.



James Turner, an official from Sierra Leone’s transportation ministry, told Reuters the project would take between four and five years to complete, and would likely be financed through a public-private partnership scheme, such as a toll gate.



Bio first proposed the bridge project to the state-funded Chinese firm Power China International during a visit to Beijing last September. A month later, he axed a plan of his predecessor’s to build a new $400 million airport closer to the capital with Chinese labour and loans.



Reporting by Cooper Inveen; Editing by Tim Cocks and David Evans

Westafrica_Wikimedia

The president of this West African country has opened bids for 7 km airport bridge

BLANTYRE (Reuters) &#8211; Malawian President Peter Mutharika has appointed minister of agriculture Joseph Mwanamvekha, an economist and former banker, as finance minister in his new cabinet, the chief secretary to the government said on Wednesday.



Mwanamvekha moves from Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development where he was credited with boosting food security through surplus harvests of maize, Malawi’s staple grain.



Mwanamvekha replaces Goodall Gondwe, who has been the Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development for a decade.



Also on Wednesday, lawmakers elected member of parliament Catherine Gotani Hara as the first female Speaker in the history of the southeast African country.



Mutharika won Malawi’s presidential election in May with 38.57% of votes, narrowly securing a second five-year term. [nL8N2333RZ]



He has pledged to fight corruption and revive the economy following accusations of corruption and mismanagement.



The president is expected to deliver his State of the Nation Address on Friday in Parliament in the capital Lilongwe.



Reporting by Frank Phiri; additional reporting by Mabvuto Banda in Lilongwe; writing by Nqobile Dludla; editing by Alison Williams and Grant McCool

Malawi’s Mutharika appoints economist Mwanamvekha as finance minister in new cabinet

WINDHOEK (Reuters) &#8211; Namibia is to host a two-day economic summit which is expected to attract at least $1 billion worth of investments over the next two years, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology said on Wednesday.



Namibia’s economy has contracted for the last two years, and the southwest African nation has been ravaged by a drought which the meteorological services estimate to be the deadliest in 90 years.



The economic summit, which will take place from July 31 to Aug. 1 in the capital Windhoek, is aimed at reviving and growing the Namibian economy, creating job opportunities and attracting investment opportunities, the ministry said in a statement.



It will also seek to promote Namibia as an investment and tourist destination as well as identifying and removing bottlenecks that are slowing the growth of the local economy.



The International Monetary Fund projects that Namibia’s economy, which contracted by 0.8% and 0.1% in 2017 and 2018 respectively, will mildly contract again this year due to poor rains and reduced diamond production.



About 600 delegates from across the country, Africa and the world are expected to attend the summit, which is the first of its kind.



“The summit will provide a platform to showcase growth and investment prospects in the local economy as well as present local and international investors with a portfolio of investment projects in several sectors,” the ministry said.



Reporting by Nyasha Nyaungwa; Editing by Alison Williams

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