President Joseph Kabila’s beleaguered government in Kinshasa faces growing pressure from local authorities and civic activists to step up scrutiny of Chinese mining companies in the country. This...

A dispute over pollution in Katanga between Chemical of Africa – an Indian company based in Dubai – and local miners and non-governmental organisations may hit Chemaf’s expansion...

The seizure of Goma by the Mouvement du 23 mars rebels on 20 November has dangerously weakened the regime of President Joseph Kabila Kabange. Backed by Rwanda and...

The full details of Goma’s fall are still murky but the main military push started on 19 November when, say local people, fighters from the Mouvement du 23...

The controversy over the United Nations’ report on the conflict in eastern Congo-Kinshasa continued this week as the UN Security Council debated it yet again. The United States...

The United Nations Group of Experts on eastern Congo-Kinshasa has indicted the Ugandan government as co-sponsor of the Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) rebellion in Kivu alongside Rwanda....

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema will host a summit for the 80 member states of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific group in Malabo on 13-14 December. Herman van Rompuy,...

The Kinshasa government plans to begin discussions in November with three consortiums that are interested in the construction of a third hydroelectric dam capable of producing several thousand...

Stung by accusations that he and the governing elite have squandered the country’s oil wealth with nothing to show for their three decades in power, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso...

Building Congo-Brazzaville’s infrastructure, a more tangible goal than policy reform, has been taken to heart. It is overseen by the department for large projects, the Délégation générale des...

Indirect talks between the M23 rebels in North Kivu and the Kinshasa government are finally taking place in Uganda, sources in Kampala have told Africa Confidential. Yet this...

Cries of disappointment resound from those expecting François Hollande’s election as President to make a decisive break with the clandestine commercial networks between Paris and its African...

China Development Bank has expressed its interest in backing Congo-Kinshasa’s colossal Grand Inga Dam project. The announcement was made during the visit of Zou Lixing, a CDB Vice-President,...

Congolese ministers have been energetically lobbying in New York ahead of a high-level meeting on Central Africa at the United Nations General Assembly which opens on 25 September....

President Joseph Kabila Kabange got an unexpected present on 27 August when his French opposite number, François Hollande, said he would attend the 12-14 October Francophone summit in...

The Kivu crisis is diverting attention from other provinces where order is collapsing. In Katanga, two Republican Guard soldiers at Lubumbashi Airport were shot dead during squabbling over...

The Parti Démocratique Gabonais government is sending mixed messages to its Asian partners, to its people and to the regions hosting several major projects. Its representatives have...

In February 2010, Marafa Hamidou Yaya, then Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, confessed to the United States Ambassador, Janet E. Garvey, that he was worried. 'He half-joked,...

In 2001, President Paul Biya said he wanted a new presidential aircraft to replace his predecessor's ageing machine. However, since Cameroon was then applying for inclusion in...

The rebels of the Mouvement du 23 mars in North Kivu Province were only 20 kilometres north of Goma and looked likely to attack the town, sources there...

Amid unprecedented criticism from the European Union and strikes on several worksites, Chinese companies are having a rough time in Cameroon. With Hanlong Mining’s backing of the Mbalam...

Although six governments signed an agreement in Addis Ababa on 15 July to promote security in eastern Congo-Kinshasa, rebels still threaten Goma, the base of the United Nations...

The fog around Samuel Mebiame is clearing. His signature appears,along with those of ministers Mohamed Lamine Fofana and KerfallaYansané, on the controversial loan Guinea took from the South...

The murder of human rights campaigner Floribert Chebeya Bahizire in a Kinshasa police building in June 2010 has come back to haunt President Joseph Kabila and may...

After nine years at the President’s right hand, Finance and Budget Minister Sylvain Ndoutingaï finds himself out in the cold. Ndoutingaï, who is also General François Bozizé’s nephew,...

The security situation outside Bangui is getting worse and the political crisis has not helped. Unsurprisingly, the offensive against the Baba Laddé movement was reported as successful, despite...

After a protracted delay and much discussion, at the end of June the United Nations finally published its investigation into Rwandan involvement in the rebellion in eastern Congo-Kinshasa...

Rwanda’s actions in support of the east Congolese rebels, according to the evidence of the United Nations investigation, indicate a breach of a little-known United States law, the...

Singapore’s Olam is riding a new wave of opposition to its industrial agriculture and fertiliser projects. Criticism of state-backed projects from inside the governing Parti Démocratique Gabonais is...

The Gabonese government reconfirmed in early June that it is open to discussions with all interested parties on the development of the Bélinga iron ore mine that...

As fighting escalates in eastern Congo-Kinshasa, pressure is mounting for the publication in full of a United Nations’ investigation into the links between Rwanda and a new militia...

While Congo-Kinshasa’s Foreign Minister, Raymond Tshibanda N’tungamulongo, demanded that Rwanda immediately withdraw its support for militia in eastern Congo, Rwandan President Paul Kagame told a press conference on...

No one watching the fighting in eastern Congo-Kinshasa was surprised when the United Nations reported in May that Rwanda was directly involved.

The Chinese-led construction boom in Congo-Brazzaville has been assuming mythical proportions. In May, rumours – boosted by a mobile phone video – swept through Brazzaville and Kinshasa that...

The Kinshasa government has succumbed to international pressure and is implementing sanctions against Chinese companies implicated in the trade of minerals of doubtful origin.

The fighting between Congo-Kinshasa’s army and its former comrades in the Tutsi Congrès national pour la défense du peuple is growing more intense and more complex. Protesting at...

The new government of Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo Mapon has presented a five-year plan promising double-digit economic growth. That would make Congo-Kinshasa a middle-income country by 2030....

Efforts to negotiate a compromise between Gabon and South Africa over the contest for the presidency of the African Union Commission are faltering. This is unlikely to...

President Idriss Déby Itno is using his country’s significant oil resources to work in his favour and it seems to be paying off. For the first time, locally...

General Jean-Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity during the 1998-2003 civil war, has taken to the bush in command of...

Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters have left Central African Republic for Garamba, in Orientale Province in north-eastern Congo-Kinshasa. They are now concentrating on theft and looting rather than...

With little support outside his ethnic power base in the north, President Denis Sassou-Nguesso does not count on democratic legitimacy to justify his rule.

Although he has long since traded in his uniform to rule as a civilian president, Denis Sassou-Nguesso likes to be associated with the pomp and power of the...

Congo-Kinshasa is on its way to becoming a significant oil-producer, providing more opportunities for corruption and other enrichment to the government and its friends. The National Assembly, elected...

The Eastern Province is ripe for a clash between disgruntled rebels and returning national army units. The Forces de résistance patriotiques en Ituri under ‘Cobra’ Matata Banaloki have...

Macky Sall’s election as President of Senegal has caused many to wonder if Chad’s ex-President Hissène Habré will still be welcome.

If he is not careful, President Joseph Kabila could see fights breaking out in his anteroom. He has struck forestry deals with a Lebanese businessman whose company is...

The new law on ‘Fundamental Principles of Agriculture’ removes the right of foreigners to own farmland in Congo-Kinshasa and seems certain to discourage external investment in the already...

President Idriss Déby Itno inaugurated a new cement factory at Baoré in Mayo-Kebbi on 16 February. Chad’s first cement plant was built by China CAMC Engineering Company, thanks...

At the funeral wake on 13 February in Kinshasa for Augustin Katumba Mwanke were two men whose careers had critically depended on him: President Joseph Kabila Kabange and...

Australia's BHP Billiton has won the rights to the US$5 billion Bélinga iron ore project from China Machinery Engineering Corporation. BHP and the Gabonese Mining Ministry agreed a...

Gabon’s government is scrutinising the activities of Chinese logging companies which have failed to respect international best practice. In an unprecedented move, the Gabonese Ministry of Water and...

A new report from Belgian, Chinese and Congolese academics provides in-depth analysis on the contrasts between European and Chinese aid and trade policies in Congo-Kinshasa. Neither Conflict, nor...

Gécamines has used strong-arm tactics once again, this time to block the investment plans of Australia’s Anvil Mining. The state-owned mining company’s decision to review its partnership with...

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak prides himself on his government’s resource diplomacy, but now a corrupt Cameroonian diamond deal has taken its first political casualties. The CNK International...

President Idriss Déby Itno’s government has finally reached an agreement with the Chinese owners of the troubled Djermaya refinery. Discussions between the government, led by Justice Minister Abdoulaye...

Washington-based lobbyist Lanny J. Davis, a former counsel for ex-President Bill Clinton, is suing Equatorial Guinea. At issue is the non-payment of expenses incurred when Davis was...

The Gabonese government preaches African unity but finds it harder to practice. After spending tens of millions of dollars on stadia and associated infrastructure, it...

Battle lines are hardening as disputes rage over the results of November’s legislative and presidential elections. Although the parliamentary results are not to be formally announced until 26...

The election campaign and its dubious results have made foreign companies jumpy. In early January, the monetary policy and banking operations department of the central bank, the Banque...

Electoral fraud has rarely been better documented than in the presidential poll of 28 November, of which every stage involved the Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour...

President Joseph Kabila’s year will start with a strenuous effort to re-establish credibility. The official results of the 28 November elections gave him 48.95% of the vote, against...