The fighting in North Kivu threatens both next year's promised elections and Congo's fragile peace. President Joseph Kabila's cheerleaders in Kinshasa blame Rwandan aggression for the latest clashes,...

Congo's Christmas wish, a three-year US$84 million Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, was granted by the International Monetary Fund on 6 December, after years of failed reforms and...

Politics in Malabo, like the three volcanoes surrounding the capital city, are bound to erupt some time. If anything, the government's bizarre handling of the purported mercenaries' coup...

Somebody fired katyusha rockets into Rwerere village in Rwanda's northern Gisenyi province, on 15 November. Three people were hurt. A similar attack followed in Ruhengeri province. President Paul...

The decision by Equatorial Guinea to include three British citizens in legal proceedings in connection with an alleged mercenary-led coup apparently uncovered last March is a clear indication...

Campaigning for the presidential election due next July has started early. President Joseph Kabila set the ball rolling on 16 October with a groundbreaking visit to Kisangani, almost...

As President Paul Biya settles in to his fifth consecutive term of office, with seven more years stretching ahead, there is no sign of any serious challenge to...

Everyone in N'djamena is worried about where the oil revenues are going. Opposition parties, advocacy groups, even the oil companies, whose splendid isolation behind the walls of Komé...

The World Bank's scheme for ensuring the oil revenue is spent on poverty alleviation is necessarily complex. Some 85 per cent of royalties and dividends go to priority...

At the end of November, several months late, a report is due from the National Assembly's Commission on contracts signed during Congo's recent wars (AC Vol 45 No...

The National Assembly's Commission on war contracts consists of 17 members of parliament: four each from Société Civile and Opposition Politique, two each from the Parti pour la...

Attempts to strengthen Congo's new integrated national army have met an unexpected obstacle. Five weeks' 'training the trainers' in Belgium was planned for 285 Congolese officers. But 16...

The shortcomings of Cameroon's electoral process are becoming glaringly obvious as polling day approaches. The combination of an ill prepared and divided opposition and a lack of independent...

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa sacked Vice-President Nevers Mumba on 4 October for igniting a serious diplomatic row. Mumba had accused individuals in Congo-Kinshasa of funding the Zambian opposition.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan wants to increase the strength of Monuc, the UN Mission in Congo, from 10,800 to 23,000 men. He also wants troops for...

President Idriss Déby is nervous. Chadians are involved on both sides of the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region and the National Islamic Front government is strengthening its links...

Several businessmen whose names are on the so-called 'wonga list' obtained by South African investigators plan legal action to contest claims of their alleged involvement in a coup...

Congo-Kinshasa's transition to normality ground to a halt on 23 August, when the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie-Goma 'temporarily' withdrew from the transitional government in Kinshasa. The RCD-Goma's...

The 25 August raid by South Africa's 'Scorpion' police squad on the Cape Town house of Mark Thatcher, son of British ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, follows a private...

The scandal enveloping the venerable Washington-based Riggs Bank, which once called itself the 'most important bank in the most important city in the world', has been flung into...

After years of broken promises to the International Monetary Fund, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso has finally agreed to reveal how Congo's oil wealth is managed. An audit has been...

Disclosing your exports is one thing, international monitoring is quite another. A review mission of the Kimberley Process monitoring the international diamond trade, led by the Chairman of...

This week's military agreement between Rwanda and South Africa may be touted as African Union cooperation and regional peace-building. But some in Pretoria fear that if Kigali continues...

The capture of Bukavu by General Laurent Nkunda's rebels on 2 June sent tremors across the country. It was a huge blow to the power-sharing government in Kinshasa...

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has thwarted a second mercenary-sponsored coup attempt in three months, government officials claim. Five rebels were killed, others were captured and a security...

A Belgian judge has issued an international arrest warrant for a senior member of President Joseph Kabila's team, Jean-Charles Okoto. He is in charge of organisation and recruitment...

Lubumbashi-born K.W. Kayembe, perhaps Africa's most successful nightclub entrepreneur, is to open a new venue, in Manor House, North London. Kayembe established his first Chez Ntemba ('preferred corner'...

It took three months of negotiation for President Joseph Kabila to nominate the eleven provincial governors. The Mission des Nations Unies en République du Congo (Monuc) approved but...

Oryx Natural Resources has finally lost the legal battle to clear its name and dropped its libel action against the London daily The Independent, which accused the company...

Parliamentary and local elections late last month produced an emphatic victory for supporters of the President, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. His Partido Democrático para la Guinea Ecuatorial (PDGE)...

The peace process has run out of steam, key politicians remain in exile, and veterans in the ruling Parti Congolais du Travail (PCT) increasingly resent the dominant role...

President Denis Sassou-Nguesso's trusted advisors include: Emmanuel Yoka, the President's uncle and directeur de cabinet. A lawyer and former Ambassador to Morocco, he headed...

The new integrated army, created to solve political problems, is not much use for military tasks such as peacekeeping. Its First Brigade, whose 190 Belgian and twelve French...

The global 'War on Terror' arrived in Chad in early March when a heavily armed column of Algeria's Groupe Salafiste de Prédication et de Combat (GSPC), turned up...

Facts are sacred and thin on the ground for Congolese struggling to make sense of what lay behind three hours of shooting in Kinshasa in the early hours...

Amid the swirl of rumour and counter-claim surrounding March's alleged mercenary-led coup, enter a new ingredient - a 13-page, handwritten, signed confession by Simon Mann, the Old Etonian...

Ten days after the unravelling of a bizarre plot to oust him, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo strode into the People's Palace on 17 March to tell a...

The failed plot to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo swings wildly from farce to tragedy. The arrest of some 65 foreign soldiers (and the seizure of their...

A dangerous rift has opened at the top of the transitional government, between President Joseph Kabila and Azarias Ruberwa, one of the four vice-presidents and leader of the...

Suddenly everyone's going to Bangui. Haiti's ousted President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, may have had little choice but oil executives are also beating a path to President François Bozizé's door

South Africa's dreams of harnessing Congo-Kinshasa's massive hydro-electric resources to power most of Southern Africa are moving towards reality. The first aim for Eskom, SA's state-owned power utility,...

The King of Rumba Rock's troubles are rebounding on other Congolese musicians. Jeany Ibela-Ibel, President of the Congolese artists' union, complains that European immigration authorities are victimising...

The network of family and Esangui clan ties that underpins the presidency of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is deeply divided. The trigger was December's coup attempt by General...