Table of Contents
1. Trafigura walks away from the Angola-to-copperbelt power line
Trafigura has dropped a proposed 2,000 MW transmission line that would have carried surplus Angolan hydropower to copper and cobalt mines in the DRC and Zambia, two sources told Reuters. The line was one of at least three privately backed transmission projects meant to move stranded Angolan power to mineral operations facing shortages, and Trafigura had signed a non-binding agreement in July 2024 with engineering firm ProMarks and the Angolan government to study it. Miners are not waiting, with First Quantum investing $500 million in a 430 MW wind-and-solar project to power its Kansanshi and Sentinel mines.
Why it matters: The copperbelt produces roughly a sixth of the world's copper and cannot get enough reliable power, so the fate of these interconnectors decides whether Central Africa's mining boom is real or capped. Trafigura's exit at the feasibility stage confirms the pattern that private capital keeps balking at cross-border African grid projects once the numbers are run. That is why First Quantum is building its own wind and solar rather than waiting, and self-generation by individual mines is a poor substitute for a regional grid the whole industry could share.
Source: Reuters via Engineering News / Reuters via TradingView
2. WHO says DR Congo's Ebola outbreak is now the third largest on record
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the DRC Ebola outbreak has become the third largest on record and is spreading faster than any previous one in the first month, with 2,273 cases and 796 deaths reported. More than 80% of new infections are being detected outside known contact lists, indicating undetected transmission, and an Ebola treatment centre in Bunia was attacked on Wednesday. The joint response plan with Africa CDC still faces a funding gap of more than $400 million.
Why it matters: The collapse in detection is the real emergency, because when four in five infections appear outside contact lists the surveillance system has already lost the thread. The outbreak sits in the same eastern provinces that anchor DRC's cobalt and copper ambitions, so an uncontained epidemic threatens the very minerals agenda Kinshasa and its Western partners are courting. The $400 million gap is a choice donors are making, and Uganda's recent clean exit from its own outbreak shows containment still works when it is paid for.
3. A Nigerian court forfeits 48 properties tied to former attorney-general Malami
A Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the final forfeiture of 48 properties linked to former attorney-general Abubakar Malami, after the judge held the assets were reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime. The EFCC had sought forfeiture of 57 properties valued at 212.8 billion naira, with the assets including a university and a radio station. Malami, who served as chief law officer from 2015 to 2023, separately faces 16 counts of money laundering and conspiracy and has pleaded not guilty.
Why it matters: Forfeiting assets tied to the man who ran Nigeria's justice system for eight years is the sharpest test yet of whether the anti-graft drive reaches the people who were meant to enforce the law. The civil-forfeiture route matters because it shifts the burden onto owners to prove their money was clean rather than requiring a criminal conviction first, which is how Nigeria is trying to claw back stolen wealth faster. The signal to the political class is that leaving office no longer means the file is closed.
Source: Reuters via CNBC Africa / The Telegraph Nigeria
4. Nigeria's corporate registrar moves to strike off 100,000 companies
The Corporate Affairs Commission has begun striking 100,000 companies off its register over failure to comply with statutory filing requirements. The exercise, tagged Batch Six under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, gives firms a final window to file outstanding annual returns and disclose their persons with significant control. The commission said it deregistered more than 400,000 companies in 2025 over prolonged inactivity and non-compliance.
Why it matters: Cleaning shell and dormant firms off the register is dull housekeeping with a real payoff, because a credible companies database is what lets banks, tax authorities and investors trust who they are dealing with. The demand for beneficial-ownership disclosure is the sharper part, since knowing who actually controls a company is exactly the information that anti-money-laundering enforcement, like the Malami case, depends on. A register full of ghosts is a gift to fraud, and Nigeria is slowly draining it.
Source: Nairametrics / Tribune Online
5. An RSF drone knocks out power in northern Sudan as the siege of El-Obeid tightens
A drone attack blamed on the Rapid Support Forces hit military sites and an electricity substation in Al-Dabbah in Northern State, cutting power to the town, while the army shot down a Chinese-made drone near El-Obeid. In North Kordofan, roughly half a million people are trapped in El-Obeid as the RSF tries to enforce dominance over the Kordofan and Darfur regions. Cholera cases in Kordofan have risen to 1,547 as the rainy season begins.
Why it matters: El-Obeid is the hinge of the war, because an analyst quoted by Al Jazeera notes control of it would let the RSF connect Darfur, Kordofan and central Sudan and rebuild its political project after losing Khartoum. Striking a power substation is the RSF's now-familiar method of breaking a city's will before the ground assault, the same playbook that preceded the fall of El-Fasher. With cholera spreading and half a million people encircled, the humanitarian cost of another siege is already visible before the fighting peaks.
Source: IDN/EEPA / Al Jazeera
6. Guy Scott, Africa's first white head of state in two decades, dies at 82
Zambia's former vice-president Guy Scott, who in 2014 briefly became Africa's first white head of state in two decades as acting president, has died at 82, the government said. Scott served as vice-president under Michael Sata from 2011 to 2014 and took over after Sata's death, serving until January 2015, and was constitutionally barred from running for president because his parents were not born in Zambia. President Hakainde Hichilema has accorded him a state funeral.
Why it matters: Scott's brief tenure was a quiet rebuke to the idea that African leadership is defined by race, and the state funeral from a rival party signals a country choosing continuity over division. His death lands as Zambia moves toward a 2026 election season and a still-fragile recovery from sovereign default. Remembering a Cambridge-trained economist who steadied a democratic transition is also a reminder of the institutional norms Zambia will lean on as that contest heats up.
Source: Reuters via CNBC Africa / AP via Chronicle
7. Macky Sall returns to Dakar for the first time since leaving office to campaign for UN chief
Former Senegalese president Macky Sall returned home on Friday for the first time since leaving office in April 2024, meeting President Bassirou Diomaye Faye in a visit tied to his bid to lead the UN. Sall was nominated by Burundi, the current AU chair, but has failed to secure the backing of his own country or the bloc, with around 20 member states declining to support him in March. Families of protesters killed in his final months have expressed anger over the meeting and called on Faye to honour his pledge to deliver justice.
Why it matters: Sall is asking the world to trust him with the UN while families at home still want him held to account, and Faye owes him nothing after beating his chosen successor. Africa has a genuine claim to the next secretary-general, the first since Kofi Annan, but the continent has signalled that Sall is not its preferred vehicle. A brief, chilly handshake in Dakar rather than an endorsement is the story, and it weakens rather than strengthens his campaign.
Source: AFP via allAfrica / Reuters via CNBC Africa
8. Morocco frees journalist Ali Lmrabet but keeps the case open
Moroccan authorities released French-Moroccan journalist Ali Lmrabet on July 15, three days after arresting him on arrival at Tangier airport, though the prosecutor's investigation into alleged defamation and libel continues. Lmrabet, a longtime critic of the authorities, was held over allegations of disseminating false information and undermining constitutional institutions. A CPJ regional director said authorities detained him the moment he returned after years of judicial harassment.
Why it matters: Arresting a critic at the airport and then releasing him with the case still live is a calibrated warning rather than a clean prosecution, and it works precisely because the threat lingers. For a country that markets itself to investors as North Africa's stable, reform-minded hub, the treatment of a returning journalist tells foreign partners where the real limits on expression sit. The conditional release keeps Morocco's independent press reading every procedural step for the boundary line.
9. Namibian returnees weigh going back to South Africa despite xenophobic violence
Namibia's government said it will consider future requests for assistance from citizens in South Africa case by case, after the voluntary repatriation of 72 Namibians fleeing xenophobic violence. Some returnees say they hope to go back once tensions ease because South Africa offers better economic opportunities. More than 100 Namibians living in South Africa have requested voluntary repatriation amid rising xenophobic tensions.
Why it matters: The tell is that people fleeing violence still want to return, which measures exactly how few opportunities home offers and how much the region's economy bends around South Africa's gravity. Xenophobic waves are becoming a recurring shock for every neighbouring labour force, and governments like Windhoek are being pushed from ad hoc rescue toward standing contingency plans. The deeper problem is a regional economy where one country holds the jobs and its politics periodically turns on the migrants filling them.
Source: allAfrica
10. A school-bus crash in eastern Uganda kills more than 20 children
At least 20 children and one adult were killed when a school bus crashed on Thursday night in the Kapchorwa district of eastern Uganda. Local reporting put the toll higher, with allAfrica citing 23 dead including 22 schoolchildren and a school founder, after the bus suffered a mechanical fault and overturned while returning from a study tour. The crash follows a similar collision days earlier involving students on a geography tour.
Why it matters: Back-to-back school-transport disasters point past individual accidents to a regulatory failure, because roadworthiness checks, driver standards and highway maintenance are the state's job. Uganda's roads carry a rising number of these mass-casualty crashes, and each one is a policy question about enforcement rather than an act of fate. Until vehicle inspection and school-trip safety rules are enforced, the death toll on study tours is a predictable cost, not a shocking one.
Source: AP via ClickOnDetroit / allAfrica
Africa Today is The African Exponent's daily briefing on the continent as it is. Summaries are written by our editors. Click through to the original sources for full reporting.
