Wherever he is in Africa, the Moroccan foreign minister is on the warpath as he tries to weaken support for the Sahwari Arab Democratic Republic or bring its backers round to Morocco's point of view.
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Diplomacy 
A new company has been set up whose ostensible purpose is to acquire aircraft for the Congolese leader's second presidential bid in December 2023. Pulling the strings of this discreet enterprise is a 'friend' who previously navigated the murky business waters of Gaddafi's Libya.
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Politics A Nigerian businessman, whose company pre-financed the assessments of the DRC oil blocks put up for sale in July, is asking the hydrocarbons minister Didier Budimbu to organise a restricted tender call to award two blocks of his choice.
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Energy 
The G5 Sahel alliance has been virtually inoperative since Mali withdrew from it, but Mauritanian president Mohamed Ould Ghazouani is striving - not without difficulty - to revive it. He wants the organisation's presidency transferred from Chad to Niger at a summit meeting to be held next February.
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Diplomacy Aiteo is still trying to escape proceedings launched against it by its creditors, who want repayment of a $2bn loan used to purchase of Shell's 40% stake in Nigeria's OML 29 oil block. Aiteo has however suffered a setback in a UK high court.
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Energy French defence company S2M-Equipment is hoping to bag a deal with the Nigerian Army to bring up to a hundred light vehicles, mainly French-made Panhard AMLs, back into operational condition.
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Defence 
An accident involving a commercial aircraft has revived the debate about the airline sector policies of successive Tanzanian governments. Within the president's party, the choice of the home town of the late John Magufuli as the location for a new airport has been singled out for criticism by his successor's supporters.
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Infrastructure The Ugandan president hopes that his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron will involve himself more in economic relations between the two countries, and in particular in the activities of TotalEnergies in Uganda.
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Energy Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is reliant on the contacts of former prime minister Mohamed Hussein Roble to attract funds and various other types of aid from Abu Dhabi.
Madagascan lychee exporters have lodged a complaint against the local branch of Transparency International, which has accused them of corruption. The affair, in which France's Compagnie fruitière and the Belgian firm Greenyard are implicated, is being followed closely by Western embassies.
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Commodity traders 
Even since he was accused of corruption in a series of affairs, Wadie Jary has been in open conflict with the government. But he has a fanbase, which extends to FIFA.
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Politics This year's summit of French-speaking countries held in Tunisia earlier this month was a slightly tense affair and served to highlight the divide between the North and South on a number of economic and diplomatic issues.
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Diplomacy Though Aziz Akhannouch's RNI and Abdellatif Ouahbi's PAM have been keen to show their cohesion in government, behind the scenes not everything is rosy between the two parties of the ruling majority.
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Politics 
