Last May, an action movie glorifying Russia's Wagner Group premiered at Bangui's stadium. Five months later, I flew to CAR to understand what it meant to the country where the mercenaries have waged a brutal campaign, and the local actors who were in it. enterprise-sharing.ft.com/redeem/ec2e595… Western analysts/academics say Wagner is an unofficial arm of the Kremlin, its mercenaries deploying to regions where Russia wants to extend influence, defend interests or antagonise the west. It's in CAR under a 2018 deal meant to involve unarmed military instructors. 2/x

Instability in the Sahel: how a jihadi gold rush is fuelling violence in Africa via @FT
on.ft.com/3qBvyOM I spent a week in Burkina Faso earlier this month reporting on how al Qaeda- and Isis-linked groups are increasingly directly targeting the artisanal gold mining sector, as they seek greater financing in Africa's western Sahel.

There's a massive statue of King Leopold II next to the Royal Palace in Brussels. When post-George Floyd protests against racism, police brutality and Belgium's horrific exploitation of Congo erupted this summer, demonstrators came for him. THREAD (1/n) Belgium's leaders responded to the pressure. King Philippe for the first time expressed his "deepest regrets" for the "acts of violence and cruelty" committed by Belgium and linked that period to racism today. It was not quite an apology. (2/n)

I was on vacation when a couple pieces on migration and security I wrote on a trip last month to Niger came out and I just wanted to flag them and a bit of other reporting on the Sahel that informed those pieces and has come out since. I wrote a Big Read about the dangers confronting this part of the world, an increasingly important (and complicated!) front in the global fight against terrorism and extremism. You can read it here: ft.com/content/bffcec…