Hopes for an historic reset linking security to a US-backed minerals and infrastructure deal have been overshadowed by fresh fighting displacing 200,000 people
It has taken less than a week for a brutal reality to intrude on the brash hopes for the peace accord signed between Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda in Washington...
The RSF’s seizure of El Fasher exposed the fragility of the Ndjamena regime and its dependence on United Arab Emirates funding
The seizure of El Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on 26 October prompted louder calls from United States and European Union politicians for sanctions against the...
Arrested on 26 May 2024 in Zémio, in the south-east of the country, by Wagner paramilitaries, Joseph Figueira Martin was beaten and tortured before being imprisoned at Camp...
With Tchiroma in exile and state repression in full flow the pendulum has swung back to the state as oppositionists ponder resignation or armed struggle
The opposition, fixed on the exiled figure of Issa Tchiroma Bakary, is beginning to lose heart after President Paul Biya was sworn in for his eighth term on...
Having served 20 years as a senior minister and spokesman for Cameroon President Paul Biya, Issa Tchiroma Bakary is an unlikely insurrectionist. Of his ten-year stint as Biya’s...
The President and his challenger marshal their forces while the loyalty of the security forces remains in the balance
The contest for power in Cameroon looks set to reach a climax this week, as opposition leader Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who claims victory in the 12 October presidential...
Issa Tchiroma Bakary has declared himself the presidential election winner but few doubt that Paul Biya will ultimately prevail through electoral fraud
Citizens of Cameroon's main conurbations are bracing themselves as unrest spreads in the wake of the efforts by President Paul Biya and his ruling Rassemblement Démocratique du Peuple...
Kinshasa balks at signing economic framework as Kigali-backed rebels consolidate territorial gains and set up proto-state
The pressure is mounting on Massad Boulos, senior Africa advisor to United States President Donald Trump, after the latest setback to his efforts to corral Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda...
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Kinshasa gets tough on cobalt quotas and mining leases under industry veteran and new mines minister Watum Kabamba
Congo-Kinshasa’s new Minister of Mines of Louis Watum Kabamba has inherited an ever more complex web of mining and trading relationships in a country that produces over 70%...
As his rivals bicker on the eve of the election, the President took a holiday in Geneva and promoted some generals
The campaign by Cameroon’s opposition coalition has been picking up speed but too slowly to unite and present a serious challenge to 92-year-old President Paul Biya in elections...
The 92-year-old President has removed all serious competition in the October election which looks a foregone conclusion
With the cancellation of the candidacy of Maurice Kamto by the electoral commission Elecam, president Paul Biya removed all doubt he would allow any challenge to his re-election...
A historic deal to agree peace between Bangui and all the rebel groups is announced, but at what cost and for how long?
On 4 July, Chad announced that a peace agreement had been reached between the Central African Republic government and the two main armed groups, which are mostly made...
A White House-brokered agreement promises regional calm and economic integration, but success depends on dislodging rebels and securing mining rights
Speaking at the White House on 27 June, during the signing of a new peace agreement by the Rwandan and Congolese foreign ministers, President Donald Trump declared that...
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Once-stalwart loyalists are breaking with the regime just as opposition strength swells ahead of the October elections. The President’s team is nervous
The previously confident guardians of Paul Biya’s presidency are looking concerned as they absorb the impact of the defection of two previously dependable, even crucial, allies – Bello...
Multiple mining investments and a hydropower project are riding on Kigali and Kinshasa making peace but details on military arrangements remain thin
US Africa Envoy Massad Boulos and US hedge fund executive Gentry Beach – both with close links to US President Donald J Trump’s family – were prime movers...
Amid a scheme to widen patronage and appoint a dauphin, the President may be at last be preparing for his exit
Top regime advisors are at work on reforms designed to broaden representation and increase the accountability of government through more parliamentary seats and new posts, according to sources...
Defying local and foreign enforcers, activists protest against the President’s anti-constitutional plans
Hundreds of activists took to the streets of Bangui on 4 April to oppose President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s plan to run for an unconstitutional third term with the support...
A peace conference on Sudan declined to hold the Middle Eastern sponsors of the war to account. Now the conflict is spreading to Chad
If anyone questioned that the Gulf States United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with their less pecunious partner Egypt, hold a veto on Sudan policy, the conference in...
Focusing on fixing national elections in October, top officials are failing to respond to the insurgents targeting the regime
The collapsing security system in Cameroon is seriously threatening 92-year-old President Paul Biya’s regime in what many in Yaoundé say is its twilight period. Determined to run for...
President Trump’s special advisor is testing transactional diplomacy amid the conflict and the continent’s biggest reserves of critical minerals
Washington’s latest intervention in Kinshasa, led by Massad Fares Boulos, senior advisor to United States President Donald Trump, is disrupting the calculations of Congolese politicians and warlords. Boulos,...
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After meeting the US President’s senior Africa envoy, President Tshisekedi has blocked millions of dollars’ worth of consultancy deals
After agreeing contracts with a string of K-Street lobby shops worth close to US$8 million with mandate to broker a mineral access deal with US President Donald Trump’s...
With 90.3% of the vote in the 12 April presidential election, on a 70.4% turnout, according to official provisional results, Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema begins his new seven-year...
Political insiders are circling as the 92-year-old leader is eclipsed by the ambitious secretary general Ngoh Ngoh
Assuming he wins elections expected in October, by the end of his next term Cameroonian President Paul Biya will be 99 years old. He would have ruled the...
With trade unionist Jean-Rémy Yama disqualified from the 12 April first presidential ballot due to his inability to produce his father’s birth certificate, defeat for Brice Clotaire Oligui...
Commissioned by the UAE to ship arms to the RSF militia in Darfur, Ndjamena is threatened by its eastern neighbour
After expelling the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from Khartoum in late March, the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) commander General Abdel Fattah al Burhan is now focusing on the...
Belgian-Portuguese national Joseph Figueira Martin has been all but abandoned, banged up for 10 months in a Bangui military camp in the Central African Republic, awaiting trial on...
The collapse of negotiations offers some stark choices as President Tshisekedi’s position weakens further
A week of diplomatic spats and foiled negotiations has handed more political weight to the M23 militia and its Rwandan backers to add to their string of victories...
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The proliferation of negotiations in the Kinshasa-Kigali war is derailing the prospect for a ceasefire
Its commanders and some of its key allies in the Rwandan government were sanctioned by the European Union on 17 March but it has been another good week...
The departure ends an era amid mounting challenges to President Mahamat with a deepening social crisis and overspill from Sudan’s war
On 31 January, a quiet ceremony took place at the Sergeant Adji Kossei air base in Ndjamena to mark the complete departure of all French troops from Chad,...
As General Burhan and the SAF gain ground, President Mahamat and his allies will face growing pressure at home and in Darfur
All eyes are on Sudan, especially now that the military dynamics are shifting in eastern and central areas in favour of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) commander General Abdel...
Schisms among the Anglophones and brutal repression by President Biya’s forces are blocking the separatists
Eight years of gruesome clashes between Anglophone separatists and government troops have brought a Federal Republic of Ambazonia in the North-West and South-West provinces, which some Anglophones call...
At her first press conference after being appointed as Congo-Kinshasa’s Foreign Minister last July, Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said that she aimed ‘to use diplomacy for more peace in...
Regional officials seem resigned to Rwandan control over swathes of eastern Congo as the price of a ceasefire
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame is moving pieces at will around the regional chessboard in this deadliest of tournaments. His putative opponent in Kinshasa, President Félix Tshisekedi, is flailing,...
Foreign minister Wagner quietly dropped in to London to undermine Rwanda’s sponsorship deal with a football club known for its prominent Labour supporters
Congo-Kinshasa Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner took a quiet detour to London on 9-11 February to persuade influential football fans to pressure President Paul Kagame to pull his...
Angola could play key role as Kagame-Tshisekedi conflict threatens region
When Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and its Congolese allies, the M23 militia, captured Goma, the capital of Kivu-Nord province, over the weekend of 25-26 January, they exposed the...
Accommodating one of Russia’s most profitable African operations, Touadéra balances competing foreign interests as he dismantles the local opposition
This year should be the year of elections in the Central African Republic. Local elections, already rescheduled four times, are due in July, with a general election following...
Having struck out on his own, the President looks ill-equipped to meet the domestic political and foreign security challenges and faces major risks
Two momentous decisions at the end of 2024 govern prospects for the regime in the year to come: the expulsion of France’s military and President Mahamat Déby Itno...
Amid the security crisis in the Kivu provinces and geopolitical jockeying for Congo’s critical minerals, the President prioritises a constitutional change
Two key issues confront President Félix Tshisekedi in 2025 – to harness the spiralling global demand for the country’s cornucopia of critical minerals and to end the deepening...
The Ambazonia Governing Council (AGovC) has emerged as the latest African separatist movement to stake its hopes on a second Donald Trump presidency recognising its independence from Cameroon...
As the 91-year-old president prepares to run for an eighth term in October, speculation is intensifying about how the regime ends
Despite mounting calls for Paul Biya to end his 42-year-long reign, the Cameroonian president intends to run again this year, hoping to lead the Central African nation for...
Security concerns in Central Africa have brought Presidents Obiang and Putin into a closer embrace
Restive militaries, recurring financial crises and transitions under two ageing authoritarian leaders are pressuring governments in Central Africa. These developments both pose threats and offer opportunities to Russia....
Ndjamena’s strategic switch helps Abu Dhabi more than Russia for now
Taking Paris by surprise on 20 December, the Chadian government ordered French troops to leave the country by the end of January, marking a final rupture after some...
Kinshasa’s closer business ties with the US are sidelining Moscow’s military offers
Congolese businessmen close to President Félix Tshisekedi are trying to negotiate a regime security, and arms deal between Kinshasa and the remnants of the Wagner Group, now under...