Features

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) — President Donald Trump on Monday said he had a “good relationship” with Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, despite evidence of a growing rift between the two men as coronavirus cases surge in several states. “I get along with him very well,” Trump told reporters during an event at the White House. “I like him, personally.” The conciliatory tone was a notable shift after White House…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) — Vice President Mike Pence told U.S. governors Monday that the administration would back them on any measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic as 13 states reached an alarming rate of positive tests. On a conference call, Pence said those states have rates of higher than 10%, according to a person who listened to the private session and requested anonymity to discuss it. The vice president has consistently argued…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa ) — South Africa’s state-owned power utility has reneged on its prediction that there would be only three days of electricity rationing during the nation’s winter season. Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. implemented the nationwide rotational power cuts for a fourth straight day on Monday to replenish emergency generation reserves needed during the week, the utility said on Twitter. Pump-storage plants and turbines that burn costly diesel are used to meet peak…

LUANDA (Bloomberg) — A Paris arbitration tribunal rejected an $850 million claim by Atlantic Ventures SA against the Angolan government for canceling a contract to build and operate a $1.5 billion port in the southwest African nation. The company, in which Isabel dos Santos — Africa’s richest woman and the daughter of the oil-rich country’s former president — has a direct stake, must also pay the government’s 133 million kwanzas ($232,000) tribunal fees, the Presidency…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — Nigeria’s government is in a London court to ask for more time to appeal a $9.6 billion arbitration award, an amount that is more than the country’s income from oil last year. The country, Africa’s largest crude producer, wants more time to pursue its accusations that the 2010 gas-supply contract with Process & Industrial Developments Ltd. was a sham. Last year, a British judge upheld the arbitration award P&ID…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — African Union-brokered talks ended without an agreement on a disputed dam project on the Nile River’s main tributary, potentially ratcheting up tensions between two key U.S. allies on the continent. The negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia have again foundered over the pace at which the country plans to fill the 74 billion cubic meter reservoir, stoking Egypt’s concern that it will lose control over its…

NEW YORK (Capital Markets in Africa) — President Donald Trump is seizing on a string of losses at the Supreme Court to galvanize his political base with calls to remake the judiciary with more conservative judges, a key issue that fueled his first presidential run. Trump has promised a new list of potential Supreme Court nominees this summer, repeating the gambit he used to calm doubts about him among some Republicans in 2016, and demanded…