Created in 1980 from two of Africa’s most effective guerrilla forces, Zimbabwe’s national army is struggling in Congo-Kinshasa. Zimbabwean troops have tried five times to retake the strategic south-eastern...

Factionalism is alive and well in ZANU-PF ahead of its national conference in Gweru on 9-12 December. The internecine disputes played out in the provincial party elections...

The world's largest diamond producer by value stands ready to see off rivals as world recession slashes gemstone demand, especially from east Asia. The Debswana Mining Company, which...

Chivukuvuku’s first steps as an independent politician have faltered. He tried to recruit Savimbi’s former economics spokesperson, Fatima Roque, who is white and married to Portuguese tycoon Horacio...

Officials at Congo-Kinshasa’s state mining company Gécamines confirm that control of the Central Group of copper and cobalt mines around Likasi, (with associated facilities, including the super-profitable Shituru...

In one month, the government has transformed the Angolan political situation. Its intrigues became visible on 31 August, when it suspended ministers and parliamentarians belonging to the...

Jonas Savimbi’s União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola is sometimes reported to have recently recaptured most of the diamond-mining areas from which it had been ousted...

The military intervention in Lesotho was meant to be a show-case for the new South African National Defence Force (SANDF). It turned into a political-military fiasco. Lesotho’s opposition...

Pretoria’s African National Congress government finally lost its diplomatic virginity with the deployment of 600 South African soldiers in the early hours of 22 September to put down...

This time - at dawn on 22 September - mutinous soldiers of the Lesotho Defence Force faced well equipped South African troops, rather than just their own loyalist...