Congo-Kinshasa

China’s billion dollar contracts in Congo are at the centre of a new propaganda front in rebel General Laurent Nkunda’s war against President Joseph Kabila’s government in Kinshasa....

The International Monetary Fund has given Kinshasa a stark choice: the Bretton Woods financial institutions or the Chinese. On a visit in September, an IMF delegation led by...

No one in the Kinshasa government wanted to talk to the rebel General Laurent Nkunda. So the talks which began in Nairobi on 8 December were a big...

The world’s financial crisis threatens the mining deals that were meant to finance Congo-Kinshasa’s post-war recovery. The big mining companies are finding it hard to raise funds as...

The strategic blunders of both the Kinshasa government and the Kivu rebels leave Congo's government facing military defeat, the rebels facing political isolation and the people of Kivu...

Most of the Kivu belligerents profit, one way or another, from the two provinces' precious reserves of gold, cassiterite and colombo-tantalite (coltan). Gold and coffee smuggling has been...

Foreign Ministers Bernard Kouchner of France and Karel de Gucht of Belgium want the European Union to send forces to take on General Laurent Nkunda and his rebel...

As the crisis around Goma intensifies, conditions further north are deteriorating, opening up the possibility of more regional intervention. In the mineral-rich Orientale, Ugandan Joseph Kony’s Lord’s...

Admission of failure The resignation of Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga Fundji on 25 September launches a battle for succession that will probably strengthen President Joseph Kabila in the...

Congo-Kinshsasa's government is to reform the controversial forestry sector. On 30 July, an interministerial commission, Le Commission Interministérielle de Conversion des Anciens Titres Forestiers, began reviewing 156 concessions,...

The commanders of Congo’s army, the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo, are mining cassiterite (tin ore) and gold in league with the majority Hutu Forces...

Companies drilling on the Ugandan side of Lake Albert, which straddles the border with Congo-Kinshasa, had a rude shock in mid-June when President Yoweri Museveni announced that Uganda...

At least a couple of months must pass before Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo can be transferred from Belgium, where he was arrested on 24 May, to prison in the...

On 24 May, Kinshasa recalled ‘for consultations’ its Ambassador in Brussels, Jean-Pierre Mutamba, and (to the horror of the diamond trade) closed its Antwerp consulate. Later, it closed...

Belgium has lost a diplomat and the George Forrest Group, which dominates parts of Congo-Kinshasa's mining industry, has lost a valuable senior executive. Pierre Chevalier, Belgium's Special Representative...

Talks to resolve the intermittent border disputes between Kampala and Kinshasa have been called off after Congolese troops seized a tract of disputed territory between Arua district and...

The habitual politeness between Belgium and its former colony grew thinner still during a five-day visit to Kinshasa in late April by three ministers from Brussels, Karel De...

The halting of United Nations' investigations into allegations of abuses by Indian and Pakistani peacekeepers in Congo-Kinshasa raises new questions about UN accountability and the legal responsibilities...

Congo-Kinshasa and Uganda still disagree about their shared border, but the scraps in which soldiers and civilians were killed on Lake Albert late last year have faded away,...

Once again, the political-religious cult Bundu dia Kongo has set off a bloody conflict in the province of Bas-Congo, near the mouth of the Congo River. The United...

At last, the bargaining can begin. The government has given the private mining companies details of the terms of the new and renewed contracts that they will be...

Peace has not broken out in the Kivus yet. In Goma diplomats are trying to organise follow-up meetings to the accord signed last month between the Congolese government,...

A ceasefire in Congo's eastern war was agreed on 23 January by the Kinshasa government and armed factions from North and South Kivu after a three-week conference in...

President Joseph Kabila, by an order dated 12 January, massively increased his economic power and political patronage. He replaced the heads of 37 state enterprises with his own...

China's activities in Congo-Kinshasa began with mining, moved into infrastructure and are now more ambitious still: they are diversifying into national development planning. Relations were strengthened by President Joseph Kabila's visit for...

India's defence minister A. K. Antony has ordered 'prompt and time-bound' investigations into charges of child sexual abuse by 60 of its soldiers deployed to the Mission des Nations Unies en...

Beijing's multi-billion dollar plans for Congo-Kinshasa are hitting new obstacles as questions are being asked about the transparency of the new deals and the behaviour of Chinese companies on the ground....

Indian peacekeepers in the United Nations' troubled mission in Congo-Kinshasa face a new investigation - this time into claims that a senior officer has publicly declared his support for Tutsi rebels....

Confidential reports by the United Nations contain 44 allegations against the Indian battalion based in Congo-Kinshasa's North Kivu province and known as INDBATT. The main report, dated 7 February 2008, describes...

Three Indian officers'would not be spared' if they were found to have smuggled gold while serving with the United Nations in Congo-Kinshasa, India's Defence Minister A. K. Antony said after ordering...

Kinshasa's Commission Ministérielle Chargée de la Revisitation des Contrats Miniers has revised the terms of China's biggest contract in Congo-Kinshasa, signed with the joint venture Sicomines, as part of a wider...

It could be another three years before China launches its US$3 billion investment into Katanga’s vast reserves of copper and cobalt, according to Congolese mining officials who met their counterparts...