A UN report that illicit diamonds are financing rebels has dashed the government’s hopes that the ban on exports will be lifted
Diamonds are a vital export for Central African Republic but the main beneficiaries recently are rebels linked either to Anti-Balaka groups or to the Séléka coalition. The interim...
Seasoned investigative journalist Pierre Péan has put the cat among the pigeons yet again with a stream of sensational claims about President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba and his...
The High Court in London ruled late last month that the hearing on the law firm Dechert's disputed bill to Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation should be held behind...
Vol 55 No 20 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
Arguments grow over whether measures to ensure mineral exports are conflict-free need strengthening or are damaging local society
An open letter from a group of 70 academics and specialists in Congo and the Great Lakes region has claimed that legislation and other measures to control conflict...
Vol 55 No 19 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
The President wants the constitution changed to allow him to stay in power after 2016 but opposition is mounting
Faced with fierce opposition to amending the constitution so that he can run for a third term, President Joseph Kabila is pushing for a new one. He has...
Vol 55 No 19 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
President Kabila is restructuring the army and putting his loyalists in command. It is a sign he means to stay on, come what may
A sweeping restructuring of the army command is the strongest sign yet that President Joseph Kabila Kabange plans to ignore the constitution and seek re-election for a third...
The IMF predicts 6% growth but poverty still rises. Sassou has high hopes for Special Economic Zones as the end of oil looms
Between the lines, the International Monetary Fund's latest analysis of Congo-Brazzaville's economy reveals a meagre record of economic achievements for the decades of rule by President Denis Sassou-Nguesso....
The political class falls out over the Islamists while the military claims a 'stinging setback' against them
On 4 September, President Paul Biya returned from his customary holiday at Geneva's Intercontinental Hotel to find ruling party politicians accusing each other of being in league with...
Tension between the government and opposition is already mounting before the presidential election in 2016
The 2016 presidential election campaign has already begun in Libreville. President Ali Ben Bongo Ondimba is trying to explain away his government's glacial progress in fighting corruption and...
President Obiang says he wants to open up politics to the opposition but most parties are setting conditions for taking part
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo announced on 29 August his plans to hold a dialogue with members of the opposition but they are highly sceptical that it will...
More reports say Yaoundé is negotiating with Boko Haram, as a prominent MP reports on the condition of the hostages
The government sent a ruling party MP, Abba Boukar Malla, to negotiate with the jihadist militia Boko Haram for ransoms for the hostages they seized in a raid...
Friends abroad worry increasingly about the probity and effectiveness of the interim government but wonder what to do
Interim President Catherine Samba-Panza's surprise choice of Mahamat Kamoun as the new Prime Minister, along with a cabinet of 31, has dismayed Central African Republic's international supporters. They...
The military's reorganisation to cope with the jihadist threat leaves unanswered the charge that the country is a soft touch for kidnappers
As further details emerge about Boko Haram's 27 July attempt to capture Amadou Ali, one of President Paul Biya's top ministers and confidants, questions remain about the adequacy...
When Boko Haram kidnapped one of the wives of a Deputy Prime Minister on 27 July, killing 16 people in the process, it also unleashed the latent competition...
Backstage at the AU summit and increasingly worried about the state of affairs in CAR, regional leaders took some key decisions
The leaders of the Francophone Central African grouping, the Communauté économique des états de l’Afrique centrale, are demanding changes to CAR President Catherine Samba-Panza’s government. Impatient at her...
The notorious militia is disarming but some say that’s a blind. A complex mix of motives, alliances and regional interests is at work
Central and Southern African leaders have demanded the disarmament of the Rwandan Hutu militia, the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda. At a summit in Luanda on 2...
Vol 55 No 13 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
The President tries to ignore opposition and international objections to his changing the law to stay on in power
President Joseph Kabila seems determined to serve a third term of office, although his attempts to make the idea popular at home have failed. Nor has he responded...
Both Kinshasa and Kigali have their own domestic or geopolitical reasons to keep the pot boiling over their common border
Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda traded heavy arms fire in the second week of June in a reminder, after months of calm, of the countries' mutual suspicion and the volatility...
Vol 55 No 11 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
The government believes big farms and agro-industry can achieve food self-sufficiency. Small farmers fear a land-grab
President Joseph Kabila Kabange's government believes it can massively increase food production and crop exports by setting up vast commercial farms of tens of thousands of hectares. The...
Vol 55 No 11 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
After making gigantic profits by buying and reselling mining and oil concessions in Congo-Kinshasa, the controversial Israeli businessman Dan Gertler has set up a farm on a philanthropic...
In a row that could affect the oil industry, Congo-Kinshasa is again raising the temperature over maritime rights which Angola disputes
A long-simmering dispute about rights to the sea has worsened. Last year, Angola submitted a map to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf...
The recent expulsions of Congo-Kinshasa's nationals mark a new low in relations between the two capitals that face each other across the Congo River
Around 600,000 nationals from Congo-Kinshasa live in Congo-Brazzaville but over the last two months, Brazzaville has deported nearly 100,000 of them. Officially, the expulsion of some of the...
The Sahel’s only major body of water has shrunk to a fraction of its former size but one plan to save the lake is fraught with controversy
Lake Chad once sustained a large population through irrigation and fishing in Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Nigeria. Now, just a tenth of its former size, it is only...
The President's bid to change the constitution to allow him to stand for a third term has failed
The Kinshasa press loudly celebrated the failure of President Pierre Nkurunziza to amend the Burundian constitution at the end of March, a move intended to permit him a...
Vol 55 No 7 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
The Inga III dam on the Congo River has a few more obstacles to overcome following a new World Bank report
The approval of a US$73.1 million grant by the World Bank's Board of Directors on 20 March would suggest that all is well with Congo-Kinshasa's 4,000-megawatt Inga III...
Militias are adapting to changing circumstances but the political inaction and international delays continue
The few hours that President François Hollande spent in Bangui on 1 March were intended to prove that the capital was now quiet, almost back to normal. The...
Vol 55 No 4 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
Kinshasa wants foreign assistance for the long-delayed polls but is unlikely to get it without some searching questions about fraud
The head of the electoral commission, Apollinaire Malu Malu Muholongu, is seeking foreign assistance in organising local and provincial elections. The United Nations has agreed to help draw...
The former Chairman of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, has broken his studied silence on Gabon’s domestic politics. He has disavowed any relationship with the governing Parti...
The new government has little time to assert its authority and end the sectarian slaughter. Some militants are even threatening to secede
Although two months have passed since the international military intervention began, the situation in Bangui has barely changed. Atrocities are still rife and life in the countryside is...
The search is on for an interim president but so far allies of the ousted Bozizé and his corrupt former ministers are making all the running
Politicians allied to the discredited former President François Bozizé, along with ministers most associated with rampant corruption, may end up as the main beneficiaries of the power vacuum...
Vol 55 No 1 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
Kabila may leave office in 2016 or seek a third term: both threaten more political mayhem. Militia threats remain while Katangese mines boom
The main challenge this year will be to stabilise the political climate and consolidate the constitution. The European Union and the Carter Centre both found the 2011 elections...
Vol 55 No 1 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
December's attempt to seize power was bound to fail but Kabila still needs to worry about the festering underlying causes
Kinshasa awoke on 29 December to the sound of gunfire. It was a classic attack, in the manner of so many past African coups d’état, on the three...