Newscast - Africa

French oil giant TotalEnergies says it will cut North Sea investment by 25% next year after the windfall tax on oil and gas firms in the UK was extended.
The company will cut £100m of spending on new wells in the region.
The windfall tax - the Energy Profits Levy - was raised from 25% to 35% in last month's Autumn Statement and will now stay in place until March 2028.
The government says the levy strikes a balance between funding cost of living support while encouraging investment.
A Treasury spokesperson says they have been clear that we want to encourage reinvestment of the sector's profits to support the economy, jobs, and our energy security, which is why the more investment a firm makes into the UK, the less tax they will pay.

A leading adviser to Ukraine's president has warned that BP stands to receive "blood money through its investments in Russia.
Oleg Ustenko says BP is entitled to hundreds of millions of pounds from its stake in Russian energy giant Rosneft.
BP says it was no longer receiving any profits from Rosneft.
It added that It still planned to sell its shareholding in Rosneft, a move it announced immediately after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Russian energy firms have made bumper profits this year, despite sanctions against the country, because the invasion of Ukraine, and subsequent sanctions, have pushed up the price of oil and gas on the global market.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has announced he will testify before the United States Congress after taking time to review the implosion of his cryptocurrency exchange.
Bankman-Fried says he would appear before the US House Committee on Financial Services after he finished learning and reviewing the events that led to FTX filing for bankruptcy last month.
Bankman-Fried wrote the tweet in reply to Maxine Waters, the Democratic congresswoman who chairs the committee, after she invited him to appear at a hearing scheduled to examine FTX’s collapse.
Bankman-Fried, who once ranked among the world’s richest men, last week denied he had ever intended to defraud anyone while acknowledging he had made a “lot of mistakes” in his handling of the crypto company.
Bankman-Fried says he had no knowledge of being the subject of a criminal investigation and denied knowingly commingling investors’ funds with affiliated trading firm Alameda.

The bloc's chief, Von Der Leyen says the EU must address distortions created by a $430bn US plan to incentivize climate-friendly technologies,
Some EU members have criticized the US Inflation Reduction Act, raising fears of a trade war.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says the EU should adjust its own rule while adding that competition is good but the competition must respect a level playing field.
US President Joe Biden has called it the most aggressive action his country has taken to tackle the climate crisis.
Ms von der Leyen says the EU had to work with the US to address some of the most concerning aspects of the law.

Major oil-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed on Sunday to maintain their current output levels in a climate of uncertainty and ahead of fresh sanctions against Moscow coming into force next week.
The representatives of the thirteen members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries led by Riyadh, and their 10 allies headed by Moscow, decided to stick to their course agreed in October of a production cut of two million barrels per day until the end of 2023.
The alliance says that its October decision to cut output was purely driven by market considerations adding that it had been the necessary and right course of action towards stabilizing global oil markets.

Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board, Director General Solange Uwituze says Rwanda will be producing 1,250,000 tonnes of milk every year by 2024, so as to satisfy milk demand.
The increment represents a 33.9 per cent compared to the current production, The target will also be aimed at catering for a milk powder plant that is under construction in Nyagatare District.
Uwituze, says as of 2021/22, Rwanda was producing 932, 951 tonnes of milk per year.
She says farmers are being mobilized and supported to increase milk production to satisfy demand.
She says that various interventions have been initiated to increase milk production countrywide.

The Central Bank of Nigeria says it offered treasury bills amounting to N7.33 trillion in the first half of the year while total public subscriptions amounted to N10.94 trillion.
The bank also stated that the total outstanding FGN domestic debt stock amounted to N20.91 trillion, representing an increase of N3.28 trillion or 18.59 per cent outstanding as of June 2022, which was higher than the N17.63 trillion recorded in June 2021.
The CBN explained that it sustained its intervention in the foreign exchange market during the review period to enhance supply, moderate demand pressures, and preserve the value of the naira, stressing that intervention was made through sales for invisibles, small and medium enterprises and at the Investors’ & Exporters’ window and interbank secondary market intervention sales.
The CBN further disclosed that it made purchases from autonomous sources, particularly from oil-producing and servicing companies.

President Muhammadu Buhari has performed the official ground-breaking ceremony of the new ECOWAS Headquarters complex also known as the Eye of West Africa, to be constructed by the Chinese Government.
President Buhari declared that the edifice will strengthen the brotherhood of African countries.
The building which comes in the aftermath of engagements and an agreement between the Peoples's Republic of China and ECOWAS was envisioned as an all-inclusive architectural phenomenon.
It would represent the three hundred and eighty million West African Citizens and would house the three major ECOWAS Institutions, including the ECOWAS Commission.

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, faulted the recent endorsement of the naira redesign by President Muhammadu Buhari, saying the policy may be declared illegal in court.
The Central Bank of Nigeria earlier said it will redesign the N200, N500, and N1,000 notes to take control of the currency in circulation.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, said she wasn’t consulted by the apex bank on the initiative, Buhari backed the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, saying he is fully in support of the policy.
Falana, says the President is expected to present a money bill to the National Assembly for approval before the actualisation of the policy.

Donald Trump's tax returns have been handed over to a committee of the US House of Representatives after the former president lost a long legal battle to keep them sealed.
The Treasury Department says it had complied with a Supreme Court order that the records should be given to a panel in the Democrat-controlled House.
It is not clear if the returns will be made public, or what they will reveal.
He declined to release the documents during his 2016 presidential run or subsequently - breaking a decades-old presidential custom.