Welcome to the latest edition of WSJ Pro Emerging & Growth Markets, our weekly review of key news affecting frontier and small emerging markets.

This newsletter is a companion to Strategic Intelligence, an information resource focused on emerging markets that brings together the global news coverage of The Wall Street Journal with the analysis of market intelligence firm FrontierView.

Ethiopia’s Tigray group, once powerful, now fights for survival. For three decades, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a rebel group that evolved into a political party, was the dominant force in Ethiopian politics. It controlled the military, intelligence services and the economy when it governed Africa’s second-most-populous nation.

Now the group, forced from power in 2018, is fighting for survival as federal government forces claim to have seized its last remaining stronghold three weeks after a struggle for control of Ethiopia flared into armed conflict, threatening to tear the country apart.

Last Saturday, government forces claimed to have taken control of the Tigrayan capital of Mekelle, home to half a million civilians and thousands of battle-hardened TPLF fighters who had dug trenches and blown up bridges to halt the advance of federal troops. The government troops appear to have faced little resistance, meaning TPLF fighters have likely melted into the civilian population and hide-outs elsewhere in the state, where regional analysts and Western diplomats say they are preparing to mount an armed insurgency.

In an in-depth report, Nicholas Bariyo and Joe Parkinson chronicle the chain of events that have pushed Ethiopia to the brink of civil war.
 
African borrowers turn on cellphones for Covid-19 financial lifelines. African consumers have long been paying each other for goods and services on cellphones, making them among the earliest adopters of mobile money services in the world, but the pandemic has turbocharged the usage of digital cash, Alexandra Wexler reports. It has also hastened the use of cellphones not just to transfer money, but also to take out loans and deliver government assistance.

During the pandemic, African governments boosted their use of digital payments, known locally as mobile-money, and took down some of the barriers to its adoption. Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia and Rwanda cut mobile-money transaction fees and increased balance and transaction limits. Ghana’s government relaxed regulations that require customers to show their IDs at a mobile carrier’s physical shop in order to purchase a SIM card, to give more people contactless access to mobile money services. Madagascar’s government distributed one-time social grants of 100,000 Malagasy ariary (about $26) via mobile money to nearly 200,000 households at risk of food insecurity due to lost income from the country’s shutdowns.

Cellphone companies, which have dominated the mobile money space for more than a decade, have used the pandemic to accelerate their expansion beyond payments into more traditional banking services such as lending. And some are using what they’ve learned to acceleate development of services outside Africa, too. “The success of Orange Money in Africa has shed a light on how we can proceed in Europe,” said Patrick Roussel, executive vice president of mobile financial services in the Middle East and Africa at Orange.

Pipeline approval brings Ugandan oil exports closer. Uganda’s state environment regulator has approved the Ugandan section of a 900-mile crude-oil export pipeline, bringing the development of the region's largest unexploited crude oil fields closer, the Nicholas Bariyo writes. The clearance allows oil firm Total to commence work on the 200-mile section of the project, days after receiving approval for the Tanzania section of the $3.5 billion pipeline.

“The project will yield substantial foreign direct investment in Uganda and Tanzania during the construction phase,” the regulator said. “It will unlock East Africa’s potential.”

Egypt rights-advocates case sets country on a collision course with Biden administration. Three prominent Egyptian human-rights defenders who were arrested in November and charged with “belonging to a terrorist organization” and “spreading false news” that could harm public security appeared in court this week, despite an international outcry over their detention, Jared Malsin writes.

The arrests of three members of one Egypt’s best-known civil-society groups has thrust the Egyptian government into a potential conflict with the incoming administration of Mr. Biden, who has said human rights and democracy issues would be a central part of his U.S. foreign policy.

Mr. Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, tweeted on Nov. 20 that he shared concerns about the arrests, which came after Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights held a briefing on human-rights issues with a group of 13 Western diplomats, including ambassadors from several European countries. “Meeting with foreign diplomats is not a crime. Nor is peacefully advocating for human rights,” said Mr. Blinken.

On Thursday, the three were released on bail.

Thailand uses controversial ‘lèse-majesté’ law against pro-democracy protesters. Authorities in Thailand have upped the stakes in the longtime struggle with pro-democracy activists, accusing at least five of defaming the monarchy, an offense punishable with up to 15 years in prison, Feliz Solomon reports. The charges are the harshest to date involving the leaders of the pro-democracy movement that has brought unprecedented scrutiny to the nation’s powerful throne this year.

Lèse-majesté outlaws any perceived insult to the royal family and its use now signals a shift toward stricter action to curb the youth-led protests.

Thailand is technically a constitutional monarchy in which the king is intended to perform ceremonial duties while an elected government governs the country. But activists and political analysts say the palace is a key political actor and remains unaccountable to the people.

King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who succeeded his widely revered father in 2016, is seen by protesters as an absentee leader who spends most of his time in Germany. Activists have become increasingly outspoken about the king’s enormous wealth, calling for curbs on his control of palace finances and of two units of the military that the king brought under his direct command.

Bangladesh moves Rohingya refugees from camps to remote island. Bangladesh has begun relocating Rohingya refugees to a remote island off the country’s southeast coast, despite calls from human rights groups to halt the plan, Feliz Solomon writes. Bangladesh’s commissioner on refugee issues, Mahbub Alam Talukder, said more than 1,000 Rohingya were moved from the country’s massive refugee camps to the island of Bhasan Char on Friday.

Bangladesh authorities developed the island of Bhasan Char, which wasn’t previously inhabited, to accommodate around 100,000 refugees, an effort to ease congestion in the camps that house around one million Rohingya. But human-rights groups warn the island may be vulnerable to extreme weather in an area that is cyclone-prone, and that it is hard to reach and could be difficult for humanitarian workers to access.

Advocacy groups say the government hasn’t been transparent about the relocation, including how families were picked and what information was shared with them about the island. Some of the roughly 300 refugees already residing on the island say living conditions are poor, their movement is restricted and that they are physically and verbally abused by guards, according to interviews by The Wall Street Journal and a report by advocacy group Fortify Rights.

WSJ Exclusive: U.K. court freezes up to $5 billion tied to alleged Kazakhstan bank theft. A U.K. civil court has frozen up to $5 billion in assets including stakes in luxury hotels, cash in bank accounts in half a dozen countries and a Burger King franchise, as part of an international legal saga that ensnared Kazakhstan’s richest businessmen, Bradley Hope writes. The Business and Property Courts of England and Wales issued the asset freeze on Nov. 13, based on a petition from Kazakhstan’s state-owned BTA Bank, which has alleged for years that its former chairman stole more than $6 billion and laundered it through shell companies around the world.

The case is part of a set of civil court disputes involving BTA in the U.S., U.K. and more than a dozen other jurisdictions. Defendants have long maintained BTA’s accusations are false and based on a political vendetta that pits political and business elites against each other in Kazakhstan.

Turkey tightens lockdown as deaths rise. Turkish authorities announced tighter restrictions in a bid to contain a surge of coronavirus infections that has pushed Covid-19 deaths to record levels, David Gauthier-Villars writes. Full lockdowns will replace curfews on weekends, and curfews will be introduced on weekdays, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.

As part of the new measures taking effect on Tuesday, access to busy streets and squares will be filtered to prevent the formation of large crowds, the president said. To enter shopping malls people will have to show that they have activated a government tracking mobile-phone application, he added.

Last week, Turkish health authorities said they had signed a contract with China for the supply of 50 million doses of a two-shot Covid-19 vaccine between December and February.

Qatar and rival Gulf states approach thaw. Rival Gulf nations are taking tentative steps to resolve a yearslong feud after a series of meetings brokered by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Dion Nissenbaum reports. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are looking to end a bitter dispute that has fractured the Middle East, but Gulf officials warned Friday that the U.S. mediation could still falter if the countries can’t agree on how to resolve a three-year-old attempt to isolate Qatar.

On Friday, Middle East leaders said they were launching new talks, with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister expressing optimism that a “final agreement” is within reach. Mr. Kushner, who is President Trump’s son-in-law, and his team flew to Saudi Arabia and Qatar earlier this week in an effort to break an impasse in talks that has thwarted a deal for years.

If the pieces fall into place as hoped, the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani , would take part in a meeting of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council later this month to formally sign a deal to end the dispute with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Killing of Iranian nuclear scientist imperils potential warming of relations with U.S. The death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a top Iranian nuclear scientist who was killed in an attack near Tehran on Nov. 27, risks fueling hostilities in the Middle East and diminishes the chance of a fresh start in U.S.-Iran relations, Sune Engel Rasmussen and Laurence Norman report. His death was also a strike against Iran’s nuclear capabilities, which Tehran agreed to contain in the 2015 nuclear deal, but which the U.S. and its allies still face challenges in restraining.

The attack comes at a time when Iran needs to restore diplomacy with the U.S. to gain sanctions relief and salvage its economy, but is also looking for ways to deter its enemies. While the Iranian leadership has not sought revenge—so far—the killing of Mr. Fakhrizadeh puts pressure on Iran to retaliate in a way that would scuttle diplomacy, and fuels domestic mistrust of any diplomacy with the West.

Amos Yadlin, a former director of Israeli military intelligence, said those who planned the operation aimed to make it difficult for the incoming U.S. administration of President-elect Joe Biden to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, from which the Trump administration withdrew.

Iranian arms and fighters ‘bolster Maduro government in Venezuela. The top U.S. military commander for Central and South America said this week that Iran has sent arms and dispatched paramilitary operatives to help Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro maintain his hold on power, Michael R. Gordon and Ian Talley report.

“We see a growing Iranian influence in there,” Adm. Craig Faller, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, told reporters, citing the “alarming and concerning” presence of military personnel from the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Tehran has used the force to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and other foreign allies and proxies.

Iran is just one U.S. adversary backing the embattled Venezuela leader, the U.S. believes. Thousands of Cubans have been “basically owning” the country’s intelligence service and guard force that protects Mr. Maduro, Adm. Faller said. Hundreds of Russians have also been instrumental in providing support to “keep key elements of Maduro’s military just ready enough,” he added.

Cuban leadership confronts a rare dissident movement. Cuba’s totalitarian government is facing growing challenges less than two years after it allowed internet services for mobile phones, making social apps a tool to organize spontaneous protests and share information about arrests, José de Córdoba and Santiago Pérez write. An alliance of hip-hop musicians, writers, internationally known artists and Black activists has emerged as a driving force against censorship and government repression, prompting a rare Communist government action: to hold talks about freedom of expression.

“What has happened here in Cuba is unheard of and historic,” said Abraham Jiménez, an independent journalist. “It shows there is a generation that thinks differently and is willing to face the state and tell it to stop this repression because Cuban society must change.”

Havana has been reeling from crippling sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, a dizzying collapse in aid from Cuba’s main ally, Venezuela, and the ravages of Covid-19—all of which have hammered the island’s tourism-driven economy. Cuba now hopes the incoming Biden administration will lift some U.S. sanctions. But there are risks. “If the government represses harshly, it could make it impossible for Biden to move on a path towards normalization,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister.

WSJ Exclusive: U.S. ‘will move nearly all troops out of Somalia.’ (WSJ) 

Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire cancel Hershey’s sustainability programs as row over ‘cheap cocoa beans’ intensifies (Confectionery News)  

Akuffo-Addo and Mahama face off in Ghana’s election—for the third time. (AfricaNews) 

Further devaluation feared as Nigerian naira’s slide continues. (The Nation) 

Zimbabwe has high hopes for cannabis earnings. (Economic Times)  

Amnesty calls out Egypt over ‘execution spree.’ (Al Jazeera) 

Vietnam’s new law on investment explained. (Lexology) 

Cambodia aims to woo resorts with new casino law. (Nikkei) 

Pakistan’s new regulations aim to ‘silence the internet.’ (Al Jazeera) 


North Korean hackers are said to have targeted companies working on Covid-19 vaccines. (WSJ) 

Creditors support Suriname’s deferral plan, but ‘challenging’ negotiations ahead. (Reuters) 

Ukraine poised for a win over controversial Russian pipeline. (WSJ) 

Argentina’s Guzman plays down prospects of an early IMF deal. (Bloomberg) 

U.S. Blacklists Chinese Defense Firm for Sales to Venezuela. (WSJ) 

Covid-19 to worsen poverty in 47 poorest nations, UN warns. (DW)