Recent documents published by the Dossier Center, an investigative project set up by Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, demonstrate unequivocally that the Wagner Group is funded and run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who in turn answers directly to Putin.

In recent years, the Wagner Group has been particularly busy in the Middle East and North Africa, where it has been deployed to fulfil Putin's ambition of expanding the Kremlin's influence in the Middle East, an objective that has been made a great deal easier by US President Joe Biden's willingness to abandon Washington's long-established presence in the region.

Wagner mercenaries played an active role in Russia's military intervention in Syria during the civil war to save the regime of Bashar Assad from certain defeat, and more recently have been active in Libya and Mali as part of Putin's drive to expand Moscow's presence in North Africa.

Wagner's involvement in Sudan dates back to 2017, when it was invited to help shore up Bashir's dictatorship after he visited Putin in Moscow, during which he promised to make the country Russia's "key to Africa".

Since last year's Russian invasion of Ukraine, reports have surfaced of Wagner helping to smuggle significant quantities of gold out of the country to help Putin to avoid international sanctions and fund his war effort. In return Moscow provides the RSF with sophisticated weapons.

Another vital feature of Wagner's involvement with the RSF is that it might help Moscow to fulfil its ambitious plan to build a naval base at Port Sudan, a development that would give the Russian Navy access to one of the world's major trade arteries.

An agreement to build a base at Port Sudan was originally agreed when Bashir was still in power but has since fallen into abeyance because of the chaos that has seized the country since the dictator's overthrow. The RSF is now indicating that it will help revive the project if it succeeds in its attempts to seize control of the Sudanese junta, a move that would greatly enhance the potential threat Moscow poses to control of the Suez Canal and the future stability of the Middle East and Africa.

The conflict in Sudan, therefore, is not merely a struggle between rival military factions for control of the country. It represents a blatant attempt by Moscow to establish a Russian stronghold in the Red Sea, an objective that would not have been possible without Biden's willingness to abandon Washington's global leadership.

Iranian workers... have launched a series of strikes and sit-ins to protest what they regard as "systemic exploitation."

By the time of this writing, over 100,000 workers were on strike in 122 businesses in 35 cities, relatively small numbers yet significant for two reasons: the protests seem to be spreading and the strikes begin to affect the nerve-centers of the economy including the vital energy industry.

"What we see is the first hissings of the coming explosion." — Jawad Zar'e, who monitors the Iranian workers' movement.

Rahmatallah Partovi, head of the Islamic Workers' Council claims that over 70 percent of Iranian workers live below the official "poverty line". Alireza Mahjub, a member of the Islamic Majlis (ersatz parliament) puts the figure at 90 percent.

If you listen closely you may hear the time bomb that is ticking in work-place across Iran: tick-tack, icky-tack!