Amazon may quit African HQ deal if blocked, Cape Town court hears

Tauriq Jenkins of the Goringhaicona Khoena Council, a Khoi traditional group opposing a development, which includes a new Africa headquarters for Amazon, in Cape Town, South Africa. — Reuters

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa: Online retail giant Amazon could pull out of a deal to create its Africa headquarters in Cape Town, if a legal challenge by indigenous activists is allowed to proceed, a Cape Town court heard Thursday.

Construction is already underway for Amazon’s 4bil rand (RM1.10bil, US$262mil, €231mil) African HQ, on land that Khoisan communities hold sacred as a site of their early resistance to European colonisers in 1510.