Ten weeks into massive street protests in Sudan, anger at the three-decade-old regime of President Omar al-Bashir has begun to spread well beyond Khartoum. Unsure of support from the army (supposedly his powerbase), Bashir has unleashed counter-terrorist paramilitaries against the demonstrators. Though the 75-year-old Bashir... MORE

Less noticed but no less important than the reported arrival of Russian mercenaries in Venezuela (see EDM, January 28, 31) has been the influx of Russia Wagner Group “private military contractors” (PMC) in Khartoum to help local security forces shore up the embattled regime of... MORE

Twenty-eight years after taking power by force, Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno faces extremely difficult economic and security challenges. Chadians form one of the most impoverished populations in the world, relying on agro-pastoral pursuits for survival despite being an oil-producing nation. Formed from the tiny... MORE

The minister of national defense of the Central African Republic (CAR), Marie-Noëlle Koyara, stated, on January 10, that a Russian military base might soon be created in the country (Business-gazeta.ru, January 10, 2019). If so, this step would usher in a qualitatively new phase in... MORE

President Vladimir Putin’s neo-colonial enterprise in the Central African Republic (CAR), one driven by a desire to weaken the West, counter Chinese expansion there, and gain access to gold and uranium in one of the poorest countries on earth (see EDM, May 15, September 4,... MORE

On October 21, angry locals filled the streets of the Congo’s Nord Kivu province town of Beni. The crowd torched the post office, destroyed parts of the town hall and threw stones at vehicles belonging to health workers fighting a deadly outbreak of the Ebola... MORE

  The Kremlin has seemingly taken another step to cover up the murders of three Russian journalists who were killed at the end of July in the Central African Republic (CAR), while investigating Moscow’s dispatch of weapons there. Pyotr Verzilov, an activist linked with the... MORE

Shocking news at the end of July of the murder of three independent Russian journalists investigating the activity of a Russian private defense company in the Central African Republic (CAR) was followed a month later with the signing of a military cooperation agreement between that... MORE

The All-Russian Officers’ Assembly, a national war veterans’ organization, published a document, on July 5, urging government officials to legalize so-called Private Military Companies (PMC). The document was signed by Colonel General (ret.) Leonid Ivashov (the president of the Academy for Geopolitical Problems), Colonel (ret.)... MORE

Moscow is returning to sub-Saharan Africa in a big way by exploiting ties and themes developed in Soviet times: it is talking about anti-colonialism, providing university training for Africans in Russia, dispatching nominally “private” military companies to provide security, and exploiting the power of its... MORE