Apple’s top privacy executive defended the company’s use of encryption after recent clashes with law enforcement and politicians over access to information locked on iPhones.

Bitcoin climbed to the highest since November after breaching the $8 000 price level. Concerns about an escalation in the conflict between the US and Iran are seen as contributing to the rally.

Orange, France’s biggest phone company, has picked BNP Paribas and Morgan Stanley to advise on a proposed initial public offering of its Middle East and Africa business, sources say.

South Africa’s school pass rate rose for a fourth consecutive year to the highest since the end of apartheid. Yet the quality of South Africa’s education system continues to lag.

Eskom will implement stage-2 load shedding in the early hours of Wednesday, later than it might otherwise have done so, to “accommodate the release of the matric results”.

After shedding 8% of their workforce last year, Zimbabwean banks may cut more jobs in 2020 as the economy shrivels and the sector increasingly shifts away from cash and toward digital services.