The rivalries among African nations have prompted Moscow to give up on the idea of holding the Africa-Russia gathering on the African continent and go with Saint Petersburg instead in November 2022.
Although submarine fibre optic links are on the increase, several international operators are now waging a war in space in order to establish their satellites as the new relays for the African internet.
The presidential Mouvement du peuple pour le progrès (MPP) party has offered little support to Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, either in countering the demonstrators who questioned his security record, or in forming a new government, the latter responsibility eventually being entrusted to Lassina Zerbo.
After a hiatus caused by a dispute with neighbours, India's Dynamic Mining is set to resume building its bauxite mine and related infrastructure early next year.
The ICSID panel of judges that will rule on the dispute between the Canadian company Montero Mining & Exploration and Tanzania has finally been constituted. It will examine the government's withrawal of Montero's Wigu Hill permit.
Denel, leading supplier to the South African armed forces, is in a critical financial situation. The company is trying to get the government to give it the funds its needs to pay its debts. Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and new defence minister Thandi Modise have been given the job of trying to help the flailing state-owned company.
The French major and the Mozambican authorities are indicating that investments may resume in the conflict-ridden province in 2022, but the nature of the operations there could change radically.
There has been a flurry of activity in neighbouring Botswana since the beginning of this year, but now the Namibian section of the Kalahari copperbelt is also attracting increasingly active exploration projects.
The Swedish music streaming company Spotify has appointed a new managing director for sub-Saharan Africa
Appointed Morocco's representative to the European Union by Mohammed VI on 17 October, Youssef Amrani was subsquently not confirmed in that post by the king on 14 December. However, it is in fact Brussels that is delaying his appointment due to Morocco-EU tensions.
Algiers has been slow to make good on its ambitions to develop Sahel trade by building logistics hubs in the far south. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's government touted the grand plans as a means of boosting the country's influence in the region.