Newish President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba aims to end Gabon’s economic dependence on oil along with its traditional ties to France. A 9-12 November trip to Singapore yielded...

Indian and Chinese investors are on the offensive in Central African Republic – even if the country is voted one of the worst in the world for doing...

Seven months late, national elections are due on 23 January, amid accusations of cheating and fraud, and with insecurity bringing hunger to more than half the country. The...

The findings by a United Nations' investigation that extensive criminal networks inside Congo's army are raping and killing people and stealing minerals challenge President Joseph Kabila's position following his call for...

Another month, another United Nations' report on Congo-Kinshasa. Yet do these reports, or indeed the UN in general, help improve conditions in Congo? At around 19,000 strong, the Mission des Nations...

European powers are blocking billions of dollars of debt relief to President Joseph Kabila’s government until it agrees to revise some of its trade and financing deals with...

South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak is due in Kinshasa in early 2011 to reciprocate Congolese President Joseph Kabila’s visit to Seoul in March. This month, the Korean International...

As first-round elections approach on 27 November 2011, Joseph Kabila’s former ally is emerging as a challenger to the President. Taking his cue from other parties in the...

Behind the obligatory shows of unity between the governments of Angola and Congo-Kinshasa lurk serious disagreements over the frontiers dividing the oil fields straddling the two countries, diamond...

The Rwandan Defence Force is back in Congo-Kinshasa but trying to keep a low profile. Presidents Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame agreed on the move at a 6...

The official story is that Armand Tungulu Mudiandambu killed himself on 1 October with a cloth he was using as a pillow. He had been detained by President...

Korea National Oil Corporation is discussing a potential strategic partnership with the parastatal Congolaise des Hydrocarbures. KNOC President Kang Young-won and Cohydro Chairman Séraphin Tshibambe Ndjibu were in...

At the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 23 September, Rwandan President Paul Kagame did not look like a man leading a government...

President Joseph Kabila's government now has the distinction of facing three international court cases in which foreign companies accuse it of arbitrarily seizing their assets. The biggest...

As attention from Juba to New York focuses on January’s referenda in Abyei and the South, Khartoum is trying to build a new reality in Darfur, away from...

The grumbles are growing fast, although there is still a year to go before the votes are cast. Several Congolese non-government organisations are casting doubt on the legality...

Only three candidates have so far declared that they will stand for president at the election whose first round is due on 27 November 2011. Oscar Kashala Lukumuenda,...

The job of Congo’s Centre d’Evaluation, d’Expertise et de Certification (CEEC) and its director, Léonide Mupepele, is to certify the value of metals produced, and so to ensure...

Congo-Kinshasa will outstrip its rivals over the next two years to become the world's second largest copper producer (behind Chile), with a total annual production of 1.94 million...

The credibility of the United Nations is on trial again after the leaking of its draft 545-page report mapping human rights violations in Congo-Kinshasa in 1993-2003. It seems...

Relations with the United Nations in general have taken a heavy hit. Kigali accuses the UN of leaking the report to distract attention from the inadequacies of its...

Rebels are taking over more mines throughout the east, while control of minerals by corrupt government forces continues, making even Congo's 'clean' state-sourced minerals more politically toxic than...

President Joseph Kabila's government is set for another round of legal clashes with foreign companies. First is Canada's First Quantum, locked in battle with Kinshasa at the International...

Several schemes and approaches aim to limit the flow of Congo-Kinshasa's conflict minerals, not all of them as well coordinated as they should be. Here is our rundown.

In the main square of Lubumbashi on 11 July, more than 20 people were arrested while demonstrating for the independence of Katanga. A month earlier, the Place de...

A fly-by-night Indian company registered in Hong Kong has packed its bags and disappeared after mining diamonds and not paying taxes for more than four years. Kasaï Oriental's Direction Provinciale des...

Congo-Kinshasa’s fiftieth birthday celebrations on 30 June were marred on two sides. International accusations of corruption delayed an US$8bn debt deal (see Box), and an oil tanker explosion...

More than a decade of tortuous negotiations has won US$8 billion of debt relief for Congo-Kinshasa a day after its fiftieth birthday. The historic, moral argument for relief...

The emergence of Khulubuse Zuma, the nephew of South African President Jacob Zuma, as a leading player in Congo-Kinshasa’s oil industry has provoked curiosity and anger in almost...

Canada, which hosts the Group of Eight and Group of Twenty summits on 26-27 June, is to call for action against what it claims is an attempt by...

A tailings timeline

After much internal agonising and diplomatic arm-twisting, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation backed down on 15 June and rejected an offer from Equatorial Guinea’s President,...

The fortunes of one of Black Beach gaol’s most celebrated inmates, the convicted coup plotter Simon Mann, have improved since his release ‘on compassionate grounds’ by President Teodoro...

China may be the biggest state investor in Congo but its private companies have invested less than those from South Africa and Britain, a new survey in Kinshasa reveals....

A storm is gathering over attempts by China’s Zijin Mining Group to buy Platmin Congo without prior approval from President Joseph Kabila’s government, despite generally good Beijing-Kinshasa relations....

With the fiftieth anniversary of Independence due on 30 June, discontent is growing. Much of it is aimed personally at President Joseph Kabila Kabange, who has been in...

The mechanics of Congo-Kinshasa’s government baffle almost everyone, including many of the participants. A handful of people, mostly unelected associates of President Joseph Kabila, wield the real power;...

The review of Congo-Kinshasa’s contested mining contracts was completed months ago but the business is still clogged in the mire of decision-making. One victim is Kingamyambo Musonoi Tailings...

Vodacom-Congo may be Congo-Kinshasa’s largest mobile telephone concern, with more than 4 million subscribers, although its rival Zain claims to have more. Vodacom’s internal battles are bigger still....

When Gabon’s President El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba was alive, his ministers had nothing but praise for the nearly US$4 billion Bélinga iron ore mine and associated logistics projects, described...

The death of journalist Germain Cyrille ‘Bibi’ Ngota Ngota in the notorious Kondengui maximum security prison has caused outrage in Cameroon and abroad and could prompt political change...

President Joseph Kabila and the ruling Parti du Peuple pour la Reconstruction et le Développement (PPRD) have called for the United Nations’ peacekeepers to quit Congo-Kinshasa as soon...

The Mission des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo (Monuc) believes it has made progress in its stabilisation strategy for eastern Congo. Since the beginning of 2009,...

A raid on Mbandaka, capital of Equateur Province, underlines the nation’s insecurity. Between 40 and 60 men of the Enyele people arrived on the riverboat Malaika (‘Angel’) armed...

Five years after his first official visit, President Joseph Kabila returned to South Korea on 29-30 March. Two protocols were agreed. The first accord seeks to replicate China’s US$6...

President Joseph Kabila is blocking exploration contracts that were granted several years ago and the lack of his approval has left several companies hanging on in Kinshasa, hoping...

In the Albertine Graben (Lake Albert, Lake Edward and land in between and around), the rivalry is international.

The disputes about Congo-Kinshasa’s oil concessions, licences, claims and terms have grown so tangled that, we hear, President Joseph Kabila may ask Uganda for help with a review....

A new battle for oil blocks has started in the troubled north-east after France’s Total announced that it was seeking acreage in the Lake Albert basin, in alliance...

Prominent Congolese businessmen with connections to rebel groups in the conflict-ridden North and South Kivu Provinces are largely responsible for the illegal export of quantities of tin and...

The execution of the US$6 billion ore-for-infrastructure deal originally signed in April 2008 between the Congolese state and Chinese companies China Railway Group and Sinohydro has suffered a...

The United Nations announced in early March that it would begin to withdraw its peacekeeping mission, the Mission des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo (Monuc) from...

Roger Busima Kataala is the head of the Agence Congolaise des Travaux Grands (ACGT), the agency that supervises Chinese-led infrastructure construction. The administrator has become increasingly visible...

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s determination to tackle corruption in Congo-Brazzaville will be tested on 9 March. EITI directors will meet to consider upgrading their verdict on...

It was supposed to be a reshuffle for austerity, in preparation for next year’s elections, and the government’s heavyweights hold on to their jobs, notably Alexis Thambwé Mwamba...

Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito would like to hush up a report from the Economic and Financial Commission (Ecofin) of the National Assembly, which urges the government to manage...

Over US$23 million in signature bonuses payable on China’s $6 billion Sino-Congolaise des Mines (Sicomines) deal with the Kinshasa government have been stolen according to a probe by a commission set...

Agreed in November 2009, the second phase of infrastructure deals associated with the Sicomines joint venture is worth US$400 million and is expected to provide Congolese President Joseph Kabila with a...

As President of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka received red-carpet treatment on his visit to China on 3-6 February. A troop of dignitaries turned out to welcome...

Evariste Boshab, Secretary General of the ruling Parti du Peuple pour la Reconstruction et la Démocratie, has become an essential contact for Congo-courting diplomats, particularly those from Asia’s...

The United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has until the end of April to report to the UN Security Council on the future of the peacekeeping mission, the...

Africa Confidential has obtained a copy of the 2007 and 2008 confidential lists which the United Nations Panel of Experts submitted to the UN Security Council for designation...

The new year started well for President Paul Kagame's international standing. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is encouraging a rapprochement. An independent inquiry (see Pointer) has scotched the...

The divisions in the Conseil National pour la Défense du Peuple infuriate Rwandan President Paul Kagame, as he struggles to balance the interests of rival party factions with...

The governing Rwandan Patriotic Front has been quarrelling about money as well as politics. In recent years the RPF has been privatising its assets, notably Tri-Star Holdings, a...

After weeks of speculation, the wife and political allies of politician-turned-rebel leader Colonel Charles Massi, 57, are convinced he is dead, on the instructions of Central African Republic...

This year, President Joseph Kabila has his chance to boost his standing with voters before the 2011 presidential and parliamentary election campaign. It is also the 50th anniversary...