Back-room dealing is habitual in Congo-Brazzaville, where President Denis Sassou-Nguesso and his Parti Congolais du Travail lead a coalition of 30 parties, the Forces Démocratiques Unies. The latest...

President Denis Sassou-Nguesso's government is neither clean enough nor competent enough to qualify for aid. A Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) agreement with the International Monetary Fund...

The government's announcement last month that it will investigate about 60 mining contracts, agreed while civil wars raged from 1996 to 2003, risks disappointing everyone. Mining companies, especially...

Key to the contracts investigation in Congo-Kinshasa will be the role of the World Bank and the legacy of the anti-corruption policies pushed by its outgoing President, Paul...

An unexpected blast from the past has hit President Joseph Kabila with the victory of Léon Kengo wa Dondo in the 11 May poll for Senate President. This...

In late 2006, Congo-Kinshasa elected a parliament of 608 members. It includes 69 political parties, 31 of them with just one member in the National Assembly, along with...

The bloody shoot-out in Kinshasa on 22-23 March confirmed President Joseph Kabila's grip on the country. His troops decisively defeated the guard of Jean-Pierre Bemba, who had lost...

The war of words between two non-governmental agencies and French nuclear energy company AREVA escalated last week, with public accusations of malpractice in the extraction of uranium in...

A high-powered Angolan delegation visited Kinshasa on 14 March. It included Foreign Minister João Bernado de Miranda, Interior Minister Leal Monteiro 'Ngongo', Chief-of-Staff General Francisco Furtado, National Police...

Congo has its uranium scandal, and the International Atomic Energy Agency is investigating. New Minister for Scientific Research Sylvanus Mushi Bonane opened up the affair on 15 March...