Following the coup led by General Abdel Fattah al Burhan on 25 October, several political leaders and senior military officers close to Omar al Bashir and his Islamist NCP party were released from prison, although some of them were subsequently locked up again.
Run by DRC mining experts and financed by businessman Gad Cohen, Sceplum is the fourth partner on the state-run project to formalise artisanal cobalt mining in the country.
The Belgian group Semlex, which last June lost its monopoly on Congolese passport production, made a last-ditch attempt to return to the country but was rejected at the last moment by the presidency.
France has taken advantage of its turn to command the European Union Training Mission to order a wide-ranging audit of its performance. This is expected to result in the mission being completely reorganised or perhaps even being called off altogether.
The DRC presidency has come out in force at the climate summit in Glasgow and is looking to give substance to its carbon reduction projects. Its main asset, the construction of the Grand Inga, will be the subject of a behind-the-scenes meeting with the African Union.
In a circular sent to all staff on 27 October, Pierre-Etienne Latour, head of the Yaounde office of the French construction group Sogea-Satom, a subsidiary of Vinci, announced a 'mass redundancy plan'.
The 40% cost increase that BP wants to impose on the Mauritanian and Senegalese governments to develop Grand Tortue Ahmeyim is one of the stumbling blocks fuelling tensions between Senegal and the British major.
As negotiations between the Malian junta and Wagner step up a notch, Paris is making last-ditch efforts to prevent the arrival of Russian paramilitaries in Bamako. Emmanuel Macron gave Vladimir Putin a stern warning during a phone call last month.
Addax Energy has bagged a six-month extension from the junta led by Mamady Doumbouya on its exclusive contract to import petroleum products to Guinea.
By sending the humanitarian aid organisation The Halo Trust to oversee the management of arms stocks of the Mozambican forces fighting in Cabo Delgado, Washington has entered into a tentative partnership with Maputo on security matters.
Zimbabwean mining duo Kevin Makoni and Deric Dube, owners of Berkan-Fellmann, founded two entities in Botswana on 22 October: Excalibur Resources and Bullion Investments.
Chaouki, a native of Casablanca and former Democratic Party deputy for the Italian region of Campania has joined infrastructure and construction machinery specialist Tesmec to set up a branch in Morocco. At the same time, he is becoming more involved in lobbying and economic diplomacy.
