Washington is recalibrating its relationships with DR Congo and Rwanda as its push to resolve their conflict shifts from a largely diplomatic posture to a more overtly security-backed approach tied to strategic mineral interests. In recent days, the US sanctioned elements of Rwanda’s military while reopening limited security cooperation with Kinshasa, and then convened both […]

Washington has lifted key restrictions on military assistance to the Democratic Republic of Congo, paving the way for renewed U.S. security cooperation and training programs with Kinshasa. The development shared by the Republican policy advisory firm Von Batten-Montague-York, credits progress under President Félix Tshisekedi’s government in addressing one of the region’s most sensitive human rights […]

If you want to understand what is happening around Rwanda right now, you have to begin where strategists always begin: with the center of gravity. In Rwanda’s case that center is very clear. It is President Paul Kagame and the Rwanda Defence Force, alongside the broader security architecture that moves with it by default: the […]

A US mining company backed by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates is in a tangle with Belgium’s AfricaMuseum over who should digitise antique maps of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the museum’s archive. Mining startup KoBold Metals said it had offered to support the DRC in digitising the colonial-era […]

President Museveni has revealed that Uganda turned down proposals by the United States and the United Kingdom to establish a military presence in the country, insisting that Uganda is capable of defending itself without hosting foreign bases. Speaking about past engagements with Western governments, Museveni said that both the Americans and the British offered to […]

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Thank you very much.  We gather here today as members of a historic alliance, an alliance that saved and changed the world.  When this conference began in 1963, it was in a nation – actually, it was on a continent – that was divided against itself.  The line between communism and freedom ran […]

In less than a decade, Africa has once again become a destination for mercenaries. Meanwhile, Russia, Ukraine and Israel are recruiting Africans to fight on the front line or work in arms factories. A combination of factors has made Africa a major destination for dogs of war. The jihadist threat in the Sahel following the […]

The debate around China and the West in Africa is often framed as a moral or geopolitical contest, as if Africa were moving from one camp to another, or as if Chinese engagement were, by nature, more developmental than Western involvement ever was. China didn’t arrive to change Africa’s system. It arrived knowing how to […]

“I actually stopped the war with Congo and Rwanda and they said please please we would love you to come and take our minerals – which we’ll do.” 09 12 2025 US President Donald Trump On 4 December, five agreements were signed in Washington by the presidents of DRC and Rwanda in an official ceremony: […]

As the armed conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rages on, calls are being made for non-military solutions. One such process is a court case before the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights – a judicial organ of the African Union (AU) established by African states “to ensure the protection of […]