Breaking News Today - Monday 14 September 2026

Recent customs data from China, show Africa’s trade deficit with China increased by a staggering 34.5% year-on-year to $80.07 billion in the first eight months of 2026. Chinese exports to Africa jumped 25.8% to $177 billion; African shipments to China, for the same period, lifted 19% to $96.93 billion. Two-way trade reached $273.94 billion, up 23.3%. The trade deficit gap is widening even after Beijing extended zero-tariff access to 53 African states. 

Analysts point to Western trade barriers and Chinese industrial overcapacity pushing manufactured goods into African markets faster than commodity and farm exports can grow the other way. Minerals and energy still dominate what Africa sells; machinery, electronics and green kit dominate what it buys. The figures are a structural-economy story, with raw product exports losing ground to higher value manufactured goods.

Equinix’s Hyperscale Data-centre Approval Faces a Legal Challenge

The Financial Times reported on Sunday that campaigners are trying to overturn planning approval for a US-listed Equinix hyper-scale facility in South Africa. The contest is about concerns over power and water supply as AI-related data-centre build-out accelerates. South Africa’s grid is still tight after years of load-shedding, and large campuses compete with households and industry for megawatts and municipal water. A successful challenge would slow one of the bigger foreign digital-infrastructure bets in the country and set a precedent for other hyper-scale data centre development applications.

Breaking Business and Market News Shorts:  

• Brent crude rose toward $108 a barrel, and a 4-month high today, after rallying over 9% last week, as Saudi Arabia shut a major crude pipeline following drone attacks, disrupting a key route used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia suspended operations on the East-West pipeline as a precaution after Thursday’s attacks. Brent is up over 77% this year.
  
• Lithium carbonate prices in China fell to CNY 138,650 per tonne today, hitting a seven-month low, as the outlook of higher production in Australia offset supply uncertainty in China. Industry players reiterated the outlook of ample supply from major producers to maintain the ongoing supply surplus through the next decade.
  
• Coal prices moved above $146 per ton today, reaching a three month high, as the IEA said disruptions from the Middle East conflict had pushed oil and natural gas prices higher, encouraging a shift toward coal-fired power generation. The IEA now forecasts global coal demand to increase 1.2% to a record 8.94 billion tons this year
  
• Japan's Nikkei 225 Index fell 1.7% to below 63,000 on today, hitting a six-week low and tracking declines in US stock futures amid rising concerns over the safety of artificial intelligence development. On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on AI companies to slow the development of their most advanced models due to safety risks
  

• While some reports over the weekend indicated that Iran and Oman have agreed on the details of new entry and exit routes for the Strait of Hormuz, the attempted diplomacy appeared to falter heading into todayday with the postponement of a meeting between Iran and other Persian Gulf powers, ​while fresh attacks around the region's two most important oil transit routes deepened concern over global energy supplies. 

• South Africa will extradite  six Nigerian nationals, to the United States, who are suspected members of the Black Axe ‌organised crime network involved in romance scams and cyberfraud, police have confirmed. The men are wanted by ​U.S. authorities on charges including wire fraud ​and money laundering.