During a closed-door meeting, the East African Community's regional force expressed concern about the lack of synergy between the military and political responses to the crisis in eastern DRC. Kinshasa, meanwhile, has made discreet efforts to open channels of communication with the M23 rebels.
Its rivals having set their sights elsewhere, Astral Aviation now has a near-monopoly over air cargo in CAR. The timing is right, as many private firms and public authorities are avoiding the road corridor between Douala, Garoua-Boulay and Bangui.
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Business 
The major foreign traders were the winners in Ivory Coast's main cocoa bean harvest that has just ended. This has heightened tension between the big players such as Cargill and local exporters, who blame foreign competitors for their supply difficulties.
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Commodity traders At UN headquarters in New York, the name Leonardo Santos Simão, Mozambique's former foreign minister under Joaquim Chissano, is doing the rounds as the potential next head of UNOWAS.
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Diplomacy 
While Egyptian soldiers detained by the Rapid Support Forces started to be released last night, their presence at the Merowe base in the north of the country is raising questions. On the sidelines of joint exercises between the Egyptian and Sudanese armies, this unit appears to have been stationed there for a long period of time.
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Diplomacy The African directors of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of all 27 member states to AU headquarters in Addis-Ababa on 27-28 April. They will likely discuss common policy on strategic partners.
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Diplomacy 
Portugal has pledged €2bn in aid to Angola. Of that sum, some money will go towards the construction of the vast Vila da Muxima, a sanctuary that Angola's Catholic Church has been trying to get out of the ground for years.
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Infrastructure The Comorian leader, who has held the rotating AU presidency since February, has found himself solicited by both Kyiv and Moscow over the Ukrainian conflict.
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Diplomacy 
Cairo is to raise capital on the Chinese markets as the IMF insists on conditions previously set for disbursing a second tranche of a loan approved last December. Beijing is already the country's fourth largest creditor.
Pierre Jochem, the general manager of La Mamounia, the legendary Moroccan luxury hotel, is to join the board of the equally iconic Ritz on Paris's Place Vendôme.
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Business Egyptian diplomat Nasser Kamel's term as secretary-general of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), which he has led since 2018, ends next year. Behind the scenes, negotiations are already underway between member states to appoint his successor.
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Diplomacy 
