Small rows can end in great slaughter and the Congolese government is powerless to limit it. A humanitarian catastrophe and a political uprising started around some fish ponds...

Gabon's politicians continue to question the delays in the starting-up of the Bélinga iron ore mine and its associated infrastructure works. But financing issues and constant threats of renegotiation have not...

The United Nations Security Council has resisted heavy pressure to reject the hard-hitting UN Panel of Experts' Report(i) on violations, by African and Western states, of the embargo...

Cheered to the rafters at his Kwa Na Kwa (KNK) party congress at Mbaiki on 13 November, President François Bozizé, 63, declined to confirm that he would stand...

Many armed groups exploit local grievances but none have national weight. Their submissions to the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme show they number hundreds, not thousands.

Viewed from the outside, new President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba peacefully assumed the presidency on 16 October, after waiting more than a month for votes to be recounted...

An expensive round of score-settling and legal cases among the purported financiers and conspirators behind the 2004 coup plot in Equatorial Guinea is likely to be the immediate...

The two big neighbours have been busily expelling each others' nationals and the resulting tension hides their disagreements about oil, diamonds and the hoped-for electric power from a...

Reports from auditors commissioned by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank reveal that Congo-Brazzaville is still not meeting its promises to introduce transparency into its oil accounts....

Critics say that Congo has never taken seriously the requirements of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to improve governance, since France has been watching it more...

Asian companies have recently started negotiations to secure Cameroonian land to cultivate rice and other staples, but local civil society groups are already sounding warnings about the implications. At the end...

Several inconvenient facts are undermining President Joseph Kabila's ambitious 'zero tolerance' anti-corruption campaign. Recent reports highlight the failure of efforts to reform Congo's state and the continuing pillage...

Congo-Kinshasa's government has for ten years made no progress towards building a new dam to replace the underused hydropower stations at Inga on the Congo River. The existing...

Tenke Fungurume Mining: The world's largest, publicly-traded copper miner, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., and Lundin Mining Corporation control the fabled Tenke and Fungurume deposits. Uncertainty over...

President Denis Sassou-Nguesso has spent nearly US$6 million on lawyers and lobbyists in the United States in the past three years. He wants Congress to pass legislation...

In the run-up to last year's United States' presidential election, the neo-conservative Michael Ledeen persuaded Democratic Party politicians (normally his sworn opponents) to support the 'Stop Vulture...

The latest result of the close ties between Kinshasa and Seoul was revealed on 8 September by Générose Lushiku, Congo-Kinshasa's Minister of Urbanism and Habitat, who announced that...

Congolese former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo could soon be freed by the International Criminal Court. The ICC will meet on 7-14 September with governments that might host him:...

Both sides are claiming victory this month in the long-running negotiations on debt relief between the Kinshasa government and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Kinshasa has won promises...

The face of the late President Omar Bongo Ondimba still figures large on posters along the main boulevards of Libreville. Although his photographic image is fading in the...

Re-elected for a further seven-year presidential term by a crushing majority, according to the official count, Denis Sassou-Nguesso is thinking about forming a national government. He has floated...

Emmanuel Ngouelondele-Mongo was not the only critic of the conduct of Congo's 12 July presidential election or President Denis Sassou-Nguesso's record in power (AC Vol 50 No 12)....

A colourful Pakistani businessman, Saifee Durbar, faces extradition to France on fraud charges following the decision of the Central African Republic on 23 June to withdraw his 'honorific' title as Deputy...

Things are getting worse in eastern Congo, and everyone except the government and the United Nations Mission in Congo, Monuc, acknowledges it. Recent operations by the Congolese army,...

In late April, Britain announced that it would give £80 million (US$131.5 mn.) towards strengthening Congo-Kinshasa's security forces. Half was for police reform, £30 mn. was for 'domestic...

The victory of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso in 12 July presidential elections is all but assured after the Constitutional Court disqualified former Premier Ange-Edouard Poungui on the grounds that...

On 16 June, Francophone leaders came to bury El HadjOmar Bongo Ondimba, éminence grise of the occult Françafrique networks, and to keep alive the personalised relations between France...

The International Monetary Fund's pressure on Kinshasa has led to the first sign of the government buckling. At the end of 2007, President Joseph Kabila's government agreed a US$9 billion deal...

Next month’s elections do not scare the regime of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso. The opposition is fragmented and lacks a credible strategy (AC Vol 48 No 15). In any...

The death of El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba gives French President Nicolas Sarkozy the clearest chance to break with the opaque Françafrique networks, although he has avoided previous...

If President Omar Bongo Ondimba had a dollar for every time his demise was announced over the last 20 years, he would be even richer than he already...

As Defence Minister, Ali Ben Bongo has brought in a new Chief of Army Staff, Colonel Major Jean-Claude Ella Ekogha, and a new head of the Conseil National...

In both Angola and Congo-Kinshasa, public works produce surprising profits for well-connected cement producers, but an oil-fired building boom requires a lot of cement. Angola's Minister of Public...

Congo-Kinshasa's dilemma over how to finalise a US$9 billion minerals barter deal with China without jeopardising a debt-reduction deal with the International Monetary Fund will not be resolved...

Two weeks after Evariste Boshab, a close ally of President Joseph Kabila, was elected Speaker of the National Assembly and the independent-minded Vital Kamerhe had been forced from...

The Chadian rebel offensive began straight after the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie had tried to break the stalemate in talks between President Idriss Déby and his civilian...

On the Chad-Sudan border, everyone is asking who will fire first. As the mandate of the European Union Force (EUFOR) in eastern Chad ran out last month, Sudan's...

Grievances have arisen between Angola and Congo-Kinshasa about their borders - offshore and onshore. Kinshasa's Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito and ministers Célestin Mbuyu (Interior), Alexis Thambwe Mwamba ...

A month after Vital Kamerhe was forced out of office, a weakened National Assembly has followed President Joseph Kabila's instructions and voted in a new Speaker, Evariste...

Kinshasa's negotiators are preparing for more talks with the International Monetary Fund's debt experts at the Fund and World Bank's spring meetings in Washington on 25-26 April. The fundamental problem remains...

China's Huawei and China International Telecommunication Construction Corporation are working on two information technology projects for Congo-Kinshasa's Ministère des Postes, Téléphones et Télécommunications (MPTT, Post and Telecommunications Ministry). China Exim Bank...

The crisis is over and that is official. President Joseph Kabila’s attempts to remove National Assembly Speaker Vital Kamerhe resulted in his resignation on 25 March. Kamerhe’s crime...

Finance ministers will come under heavy pressure at the G-20 meeting on 2 April in London to crack down on tax havens and the banking secrecy regimes that...

The death of First Lady Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba née Sassou-Nguesso and her subsequent grand funeral in Libreville on 19 March has prompted a wave of sympathy and...

President Joseph Kabila’s worsening rivalry with the Speaker of the National Assembly, Vital Kamerhe, is dividing the ruling Parti du Peuple pour la Reconstruction et le Développement (PPRD),...

With an armed attack on a police base in Batangafo, 390 kilometres north-west of Bangui, on 21-22 February, Abdoulaye Miskine relaunched the rebellion that he had abandoned...

The gun battle in the early hours of 17 February between armed groups making a seaborne assault on Malabo and its security forces seems to have been sparked...

Falling demand for copper, cobalt and diamonds offers a stark choice for President Joseph Kabila's government: does it accept the onerous conditions of credits from the International Monetary Fund or does...

Chinese money is now a key target for United States' FG Hemisphere Associates LLC, which wants to reclaim a debt of US$104 million owed by Congo-Kinshasa. FG Hemisphere is widely...

Having won a dangerous game of brinkmanship, President El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba is trying to re-excite China's interest in the Bélinga iron ore project. Since the end of last year,...

Kinshasa's sudden embrace of Kigali may cause as many problems as it solves. President Paul Kagame's troops have been spearheading joint operations against the Hutu militiamen of the...

The main rebel movement in eastern Congo has split, with one faction seeking a ceasefire with the government, the other promising to fight on. The more militant rebel,...

Ghana's Electoral Commission organised an election in December that made Ghanaians proud. A similar commission for Cameroon has been resisted every step of the way by President Paul...