POLITICS
A decade after the end of Angola’s brutal civil war, veterans are threatening to block general elections in seven weeks if authorities fail to pay them their promised pensions (News24).
Human Rights Watch criticised Angola for its “alarming” crackdown on anti-government protestors amid a growing public show of dissent in the run-up to next month’s elections (News24).
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ECONOMY
Angola’s foreign exchange reserves rose to $30.71 billion in May from a revised $28.54 billion in April, the central bank said (Reuters).
Angola and China’s Eximbank signed 17 loan agreements valued at more than $500m to finance various post-war reconstruction projects, the finance minister said (News24).
BUSINESS
Thirty three countries have confirmed their presence at the 29th edition of the Luanda International Fair (Filda), taking place from 17 to 22 July, in the Angolan capital, the president of the fair, Matos Cardoso said (Macauhub).
AGRI ETC.
Vietnam, the world’s second-largest coffee producer after Brazil, will help Angola revitalise its war-ravaged coffee production by planting the commodity on 100,000 hectares over the next decade (Reuters).
Angolan coffee producers are expected to harvest 13,900 tons of coffee in the current campaign, as compared to 12,000 tons harvested in the previous agricultural campaign the minister for Agriculture, Afonso Pedro Canga said (Macauhub).
SPLIT SECOND POLL
MINING
Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual will provide most of a $500 million investment to form a new mining company with Roger Agnelli, the former chief executive of mining giant Vale. Agnelli will run the operation and bring along options to buy mining projects for Chilean copper and Brazilian titanium, phosphate and potassium, the paper reported, without citing sources. Agnelli is also negotiating the purchase of copper and iron ore projects in Angola (Reuters).
OIL & GAS
U.S. oil group ExxonMobil said its Esso Angola unit had started oil production from the Kizomba Satellites project located offshore Angola. The initial phase of the project was expected to produce 100,000 barrels of oil per day, and recover a total of about 250 million barrels from the Mavacola and Clochas fields, 150 kilometres off the coast of Angola (Reuters).
Angolan natural gas company, Sonangol Gás Natural (Sonagás) posted a net profit for the first time in 2011, of US$125 million (Macauhub).
REAL ESTATE
The ghost towns of China, Ireland and Spain – full of large empty house estates – may be a phenomenon that is on its way to Africa. Built for people who never move in, they leave those who did with a worthless property they cannot sell. Perched in an isolated spot some 30km (18 miles) outside Angola’s capital, Luanda, Nova Cidade de Kilamba is a brand-new mixed residential development of 750 eight-storey apartment buildings, a dozen schools and more than 100 retail units (BBC).