Border chaos, and TotalEnergies hauled to court

Here’s what is happening in and affecting South Africa today:

• Border chaos: Violent protests in Maputo over Mozambique’s election results have escalated as hundreds of thousands took to the streets to participate in a “freedom” march, with police clashing with demonstrators demanding a recount. Unrest also disrupted trade and infrastructure, impacting the Lebombo border post and the Port of Maputo. South Africa’s High Commissioner to Mozambique, Siphiwe Nyanda, has declared, “Maputo is almost under siege”. [EWN]

• TotalEnergies taken to court: A small-scale fishing cooperative and environmental groups have filed a court bid to stop TotalEnergies from exploring for oil and gas off South Africa’s West Coast. The move targets the environmental approval for the company’s Deep-Water Orange Basin project, despite TotalEnergies withdrawing from other offshore exploration plans in the country. They are opposing the environmental authorisation for the project by the Departments of Mineral Resources and Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. [Moneyweb]

• Municipal manager sentencing: In the Pretoria High Court, a former Fetakgomo-Tubatse Local Municipality manager who invested R230 million into VBS Mutual Bank has been given a five-year suspended sentence after his guilty plea. He was also ordered to pay an amount of R100,000 to the curator of VBS. [The Citizen]

• AngloGold boom: AngloGold Ashanti has confirmed its full-year guidance after its core earnings for the first nine months of the financial year more than doubled to $1.863 billion. The gold miner reported a free cash flow of $553 million for the period, compared to a $184 million outflow in the same period last year, with gold production remaining steady at 1.9 million ounces. [Business Day]

• Markets: The rand recouped some losses on Thursday, a day after emerging market assets took a hit following Donald Trump’s win in the U.S. election. On Friday (08 November), the rand was trading at R17.35 to the dollar, R22.57 to the pound, and R18.72 to the euro. Oil is trading at $75.14 a barrel. [Reuters]