This paper argues that Russia’s soft power should be understood as a niche soft power, microtargeting some specific audiences based on four particularisms:

2020 marked the beginning of the total phasing out of electricity production based on coal, as well as coal extraction in Germany. Laws implemented in 2020 concluded a governmental process started in 2015, which itself resulted from a prior broader debate on the role of coal in a viable and sustainable energy and economic system.

In order to have any chance of limiting global warming to well below +2°C, there is no choice but to tackle coal-fired power plants head-on, around the world. 

The Trump administration has been very actively designing and implementing a new strategy for reliable supply of critical minerals which aims at reducing the country’s vulnerabilities and becoming a leader in this field. 

To adapt its foreign policy to new challenges, Germany must overcome certain taboos inherited from its history.

The global car market has been shrinking since 2018. This is a key economic sector for Germany whose producers belong to the Top 15 carmakers worldwide. Yet they are running the risk of being outclassed and eventually replaced, given emerging actors in the USA and China.

Although the Central African Republic remains a very weakly connected country with an Internet penetration rate of 14% in 2020, citizens begin to appropriate the use of social networks.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic and the passing of  President Pierre Nkurunziza on June 8, 2020, the election cycle (presidential, legislative, senatorial, communal and hillside elections) have been upheld and went smoothly. Not only has the ruling party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) remained in power, but it has also consolidated its dominance over an institutional system that had been modified with the 2018 constitutional revision.