After having long been a breeding ground for future party officials, ministers and presidents, the ANC Youth League has been a shadow of its former self since the ousting of its charismatic leader Julius Malema in 2011.
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Politics 
It seems the Senate president Modeste Bahati Lukwebo, who is also a leading player in the South Kivu business world, may have played a key role in the decision of the province's governor to authorise the resumption of gold mining in Luhihi.
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Mining To comply with Congolese legislation which requires subcontracting companies to team up with a local partner, Canadian security firm GardaWorld has hired former diplomat André Kapanga.
Mahamat Idriss Déby's Transitional Military Council (CMT) has placed an order for 60 light armoured vehicles with US-UAE manufacturer The Armored Group (TAG) to handle future rebel offensives.
Having already come in for criticism in an audit conducted last year, the Nigerien defence ministry has again attracted the ire of colleagues at the budget ministry, who are concerned at the purchase, currently being finalised, of two Short Tucano aircraft from the American broker RSW.
Despite Ankara's intense lobbying of the African Union (AU), the pan-African organisation has still not confirmed the date of the third Turkey-Africa summit, which should in theory take place in the autumn.
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Diplomacy A Nigerian firm and a Burkinabé trader based in Switzerland have joined forces with Niger's state oil firm to scoop up the areas relinquished by CNPC at Agadem (R5, R6, R7). The potential move was enabled by one of the last major energy decisions of ex-president Issoufou's government.
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Energy 
The electoral crisis in Somalia and the parliamentary election in Somaliland have weakened the two incumbent presidents, who have fallen back on patriotic rhetoric that leaves little room for a potential rapprochement. However, the situation could work in favour of their opponents, who are more amenable to a resumption of dialogue.
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Politics The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), which signed a deal with Rwanda last November concerning a headquarters for its FEDA, should be moving its operations to Kigali in a few months at the earliest, the process having been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Harare is ready to pull out all the stops for the Australian firm's launch of production at its Arcadia lithium, success stories involving foreign mining investors being few and far between.
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Mining The calls for tender for Prodigy, the project to digitalise Madagascar's institutions, have not yet been launched, but Sipromad, Alibaba and Pangea IT are already keen to get a slice of the $143m the World Bank is contributing to the scheme.
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Business 
Europe is busy working on a new migration management roadmap, on which Libya features prominently. The EU Border Assistance Mission there is set to be expanded and prolonged, especially in the south of the country.
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Diplomacy Royal Air Maroc operations director Fouad Boutayeb has resigned from the presidency of two of the airline's subsidiaries: RAM Handling and Casa Aero.
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Business 