US Criticism of Congo Highlights E-Voting Hypocrisy and Hybrid War Threats

US Criticism of Congo Highlights E-Voting Hypocrisy and Hybrid War Threats

Despite using electronic voting machines in its own elections, the US is adamant that the Congo forsake this technology in its upcoming ones owing to what Washington hypocritically alleges is its unreliable nature, and it’s even pressuring foreign donors to withhold aid until Kinshasa capitulates to this demand because it believes that paper ballots would…

Congo Mining Code: Kabila vs. Cobalt Companies

Congo Mining Code: Kabila vs. Cobalt Companies

The Congolese legislature passed an initiative at the beginning of the year nullifying a previous act allowing companies a 10-year delay in complying with new fiscal demands and simultaneously decreed that the royalty on “strategic minerals” such as the cobalt that’s used in today’s gadgets, missiles, and electric vehicle batteries could jump fivefold from 2%…

2018 Outlook: Africa

2018 Outlook: Africa

Africa’s known for its internal divisions and predisposition to conflicts, especially those which are encouraged from abroad, and it’s with this in mind that there are plenty of reasons to worry about its stability in 2018. Proceeding from North Africa to Southern Africa, Egypt is regularly attacked by terrorists in the Sinai and elsewhere, posing…

Why Does Russia Want to Sell Arms to the Central African Republic?

Why Does Russia Want to Sell Arms to the Central African Republic?

Russia’s “military diplomacy” in the war-torn Central African Republic is designed to stabilize part of Africa’s “Failed State Belt” and set the stage for Moscow to eventually move its peacemaking efforts to the continent’s next cauldron of chaos in the neighboring Congo, all with the intent of reasserting its historic Great Power role in Africa…

The Top Ten Underreported News Stories of 2017

The Top Ten Underreported News Stories of 2017

We’ve reached half-time in what has been a very eventful year. It’s revealing to compare the stories that have made the headlines in the western media in the first six months of 2017, with those that haven’t. There’s been saturation coverage of alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election — and Russian state “hacking” in general — even though…

Hybrid Wars: Geopolitics of the Central African Highlands and the Great Lakes

Hybrid Wars: Geopolitics of the Central African Highlands and the Great Lakes

Rwanda and Burundi straddle the African highlands in the central part of the continent, occupying an ultra-strategic position along the transregional border between East and Central Africa. Overpopulated, mostly agricultural, and plagued with a past of ethnic violence, these two similar neighboring states are bound to share an interrelated destiny due to their near-identical demographic…