Crypto rules: Nigeria’s central bank has released inaugural guidelines for banks opening cryptocurrency accounts, while retaining its ban on them holding or trading in virtual assets on their own behalf. https://bloom.bg/3NR7cgO

Take over: Gabon plans to buy an oil company owned by the Carlyle Group by taking advantage of its right to increase its stake as an existing shareholder of the firm that pumps crude from the country. https://bloom.bg/3vmMn6u

Contentious land deal: Ethiopia wants to buy coastline from Somaliland. Does Somaliland have the right to sell it? Read more: https://bloom.bg/3S4TKr1

Watch Africa Amplified for a deep dive into the region’s biggest stories: https://bloom.bg/3u0S3Cz

As Japan Airlines flight JL516 skidded to a fiery halt after colliding with another plane on the runway at Tokyo Haneda airport on Jan. 2, cabin crew faced a daunting scenario.

The intercom system to communicate between flight deck and cabin had broken down, one of the giant engines was still spinning and couldn’t be shut off, and only three of the eight escape doors were available to evacuate the stricken aircraft as flames licked up the kerosene-covered fuselage.

In the end, all 367 passengers and 12 crew got off the Airbus A350 alive. Given the odds, their escape is even more remarkable, the result of modern aircraft design, skilled crew and — not least — passengers who stayed calm and left their bags behind. Read how they were saved here: https://bloom.bg/3S3sH0k

📷: Jiji Press/AFP

Microsoft is adding a button to the Windows keyboard to activate its AI Copilot service, with the first devices to sport the new key available this month.

The Copilot key, which will sit to the right of the space bar, is the first change to the Windows keyboard layout since Microsoft added the Windows/Start key in 1994, underscoring the company’s commitment to artificial intelligence.

Microsoft’s hardware partners will show off Windows 11 computers with the Copilot button over the coming days at the CES technology conference and, over time, it will become a required feature. Read more: https://trib.al/oQFcbJr

📷: Microsoft

East Africa tensions: The African Union and US called on Ethiopia and Somalia to de-escalate tensions in a region that’s situated on the approach to a global shipping choke-point. https://bloom.bg/4aHMgm8

Capital shortage: Nigerian electricity companies are short of an estimated $2.5 billion in capital and need new investors to revive the industry that can barely supply power to its 200 million residents. https://bloom.bg/3S6r3uY

Prison release: Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee South African Olympian athlete who murdered his girlfriend a decade ago, will be placed on parole from Friday. https://bloom.bg/3NSaX5r

Watch Africa Amplified for a deep dive into the region’s biggest stories: https://bloom.bg/3u0S3Cz

Huawei's new laptops stirred speculation China's SMIC achieved another chip breakthrough. A teardown shows that's not the case.

The Qingyun L540 notebook contains a 5-nanometer chip made by TSMC in 2020, around the time US sanctions cut off Huawei’s access to the chipmaker, research firm TechInsights found after dismantling the device for Bloomberg News.

That counters speculation that Huawei’s domestic chipmaking partner may have achieved a major leap in fabrication technique. More here: https://bloom.bg/3NNM5vG

📷: TechInsights

After a roller-coaster ride on the wealth rankings last year, Gautam Adani is back to being Asia’s wealthiest person days after India’s top court said no new probes were needed into Hindenburg Research’s bombshell allegations against the tycoon’s conglomerate.

Adani’s net worth rose $7.7 billion in a day to $97.6 billion, reclaiming the top spot in the region from Indian compatriot Mukesh Ambani, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, was trailing by a narrow margin with a net worth of $97 billion, the index shows. More here: https://bloom.bg/3NTIbkZ

📷: Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg

Foreign exchange probe: Nigerian anti-graft officials visited offices controlled by billionaire Aliko Dangote as part of an ongoing probe into Godwin Emefiele, the former head of the country’s central bank. https://bloom.bg/3Hs0p9P

Senegal elections: A top court upheld the libel conviction of the country’s main opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, dimming his chances of being able to run for president in elections next month. https://bloom.bg/3TNabue

Electricity czar powers: South Africa’s president approved an agreement giving Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa authority over the board and management of the state-owned power utility on ending blackouts. https://bloom.bg/41IZj2J

Watch Africa Amplified for a deep dive into the region’s biggest stories: https://bloom.bg/3u0S3Cz

Somali election: Lawmakers in Somalia’s oil-rich semi-autonomous region of Puntland reelected Said Abdullahi Deni as president. https://bloom.bg/48LKkak

Nigeria clears billions on FX backlog: The West African nation's central bank paid about $2 billion of the amount it owed lenders to settle matured foreign-exchange contracts, Thisday newspaper  reported. https://bloom.bg/41WNp5h

Affirma, Zambia energy contract: Affirma Capital closed a $145 million deal that gives it a direct stake in a key supplier of power to some of the biggest Zambian and Congolese mines for copper and cobalt. https://bloom.bg/3HceYOu

Watch Africa Amplified for a deep dive into the region’s biggest stories: https://bloom.bg/3u0S3Cz

One of India’s biggest online travel platforms has halted bookings to the Maldives, with the two nations engaged in an increasingly fraught diplomatic spat.

EaseMyTrip's decision comes after a deputy minister in the Maldives wrote in a now-deleted post on X that called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “clown.”

With Indians the biggest group of visitors to the Maldives, their dispute threatens a key sector of the archipelago west of Sri Lanka. More here: https://bloom.bg/41V18cL

📷: Shubham Koul/Getty Images

Africa dominates top economic growth spots:  Six of the top-10 performing economies in the world are forecast to come from Sub-Saharan Africa in 2024, according to the IMF. https://bloom.bg/4aRzfGw

Johannesburg's housing crisis: A decades-long wait list for low-income housing in Africa's richest city forces many to suffer dangerous conditions in abandoned buildings. https://bloom.bg/3NX2CNQ

Somalia warns Ethiopia on Red Sea plan: President Hassan Sheik Mohamud warned neighboring Ethiopia he would take “all necessary measures” to defend his country should it make strides toward securing direct passage to the Red Sea via Somaliland. https://bloom.bg/3vppZJD

Watch Africa Amplified for a deep dive into the region’s biggest stories: https://bloom.bg/3u0S3Cz

DRC election win: Democratic Republic of Congo’s constitutional court certified a landslide victory for President Felix Tshisekedi in the country’s December elections. https://bloom.bg/47tW5RF

Bill for state-firm holding company: South Africa’s minister of public enterprises will soon introduce a bill in parliament to establish a government firm that will own and manage at least 13 of the country’s state-owned companies. https://bloom.bg/47uFIUU

China-Africa lending: Chinese lending to the African continent may rise for the first time since 2016 as pledges to finance projects ranging from renewable energy to natural gas increase, StanChart says. https://bloom.bg/3SayNvY

Watch Africa Amplified for a deep dive into the region’s biggest stories: https://bloom.bg/3u0S3Cz

When President Xi Jinping held talks in California with his US counterpart Joe Biden in November, seated to his right was a man who is quietly emerging as one of China’s most influential politicians.

Cai Qi wields unusual clout for China’s No. 5 official. Not only does he sit on the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, China’s most powerful body, but he also serves as Xi’s chief of staff — making him the first person to hold both positions since the Mao Zedong era.

Those dual titles have given Cai another privilege: He’s the only member of China’s top decision-making body to publicly travel overseas with Xi during his decade-plus in power. Standing Committee members traditionally do not accompany Chinese leaders abroad as they manage their own portfolios. See how the No. 5 official's career has accelerated during Xi Jinping's rule: https://bloom.bg/3TWnCIu

📷: Bloomberg

Google is laying off hundreds of staff working on its digital assistant, hardware and engineering teams, the company said as it continues its drive to cut costs.

Among the affected workers are those working on the voice-based Google Assistant and at the augmented reality hardware team. Workers in the company’s central engineering organization were also hit by the cuts, the company said.

“Throughout the second half of 2023, a number of our teams made changes to become more efficient and work better, and to align their resources to their biggest product priorities,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “Some teams are continuing to make these kinds of organizational changes, which include some role eliminations globally.” More: https://bloom.bg/3HgETEA

📷: Alex Kraus/Bloomberg

Dangote office raid: Last week’s raid by the anti-graft commission on the offices of Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person whose empire dominates the Nigerian corporate world, has sent panic through the country’s boardrooms. https://bloom.bg/4aPcO4Z

UN chopper crashes in Somali: Militant group al-Shabaab killed one passenger and is holding five others hostage after their helicopter made an emergency landing in territory controlled by the al-Qaeda affiliate, officials say. https://bloom.bg/3Sd4y7p

South Africa port takeover threatened: Powerful labor unions could scupper the nation’s plans to sell a stake in sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest container port. https://bloom.bg/3tRsuEb

Watch Africa Amplified for a deep dive into the region’s biggest stories: https://bloom.bg/3u0S3Cz

The US and UK launched airstrikes on Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, escalating a conflict with an Iranian proxy in response to a string of attacks that have disrupted commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

A US official, who asked not to be identified before a formal announcement, confirmed the strikes. Live updates here: https://bloom.bg/3tRqLyG

📷: Handout/Getty Images Europe

Nigeria's benchmark beats peers: Nigerian equities are beating all peers in the EMEA region in 2024 as pension funds and institutional investors pile in to share on expectations of record profits. https://bloom.bg/3tS6EQR

US, Africa trade deal: The US has reached preliminary agreement with African nations to extend their preferential trade access by another decade, pending approval by Congress. https://bloom.bg/48TPRvN

Israel rejects genocide allegations: The Middle Eastern nation rejected allegations at the United Nations’ court, arguing its operations in Gaza are a legitimate defense. https://bloom.bg/47xvMdl

Watch Africa Amplified for a deep dive into the region’s biggest stories: https://bloom.bg/3u0S3Cz

🇹🇼 Taiwan’s voters are casting their ballots for president and the legislature in an election closely watched by China and the US. https://bloom.bg/4aOItnb

The sitting vice president, Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party, faces off against the Kuomintang’s Hou Yu-ih, the mayor of New Taipei City, and former Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party. Check who's leading in our free tracker as the votes flow in: https://bloom.bg/3HgAnpB

We'll be chronicling all the ups and downs in our liveblog. Our updates are free to read. https://bloom.bg/3U0f2sm

Taiwan has elected the ruling party’s Lai Ching-te as president, defying Beijing’s warnings the China skeptic’s victory could eventually trigger a war.

His rival from the opposition Kuomintang party had vowed to restart talks with President Xi Jinping’s government if elected.

Lai’s victory tests the recent stabilization of ties between Beijing and Washington. For more: https://bloom.bg/421GAiP

📷: Chan Long Hei/Bloomberg

Indian expats are driving a boom in luxury property sales back home, seeking to benefit from a soaring economy and a weak rupee.

The surging demand has pushed top-end home sales to a 10-year high and NRIs are likely to make up 20% of it. “The rental yields are good, the market is realistic and prices are affordable,” says Dubai-based Sunil Pillai, who left India 25 years ago and recently bought a two-bedroom apartment costing around $1 million in tech hub Bengaluru.

The boom is in sharp contrast to property markets elsewhere. In China, homes sales have slumped due to economic uncertainty and a crisis among developers, while in the US and Europe, demand for real estate has slowed as interest rates surged. Read more: https://trib.al/SFpqA4k

Nigeria inflation: The country's consumer prices climbed at the fastest annual pace in almost three decades in December as a halt to fuel subsidies stoked transport costs and the naira weakened. https://bloom.bg/3TW54YX

Black rhino revival: Kenya Wildlife Service vets will dart 21 endangered black rhinos and move them to repopulate an area that’s not had a presence of the animals in half a century. https://bloom.bg/47vx7lb

Difficult budget: South Africa’s finance minister warned that next month’s budget will be a “difficult one” as the nation’s ability to service its growing debt remains a challenge. https://bloom.bg/3HhS08u

Watch Africa Amplified for a deep dive into the region’s biggest stories: https://bloom.bg/3u0S3Cz