In their ekonga initiation dance, young warriors from northern Congo chant 'Boma !', meaning 'Kill!' The 'Cobra' militiamen who follow General Denis Sassou-Nguesso have often used ...

As protests grow against the US$3.5 billion Chad-Cameroon pipeline (AC Vol 39 No 13), Africa Confidential has obtained two confidential memoranda showing the World Bank's efforts t...

In Lusaka, African diplomats and army commanders have produced a fair and far-reaching plan to end the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (AC Vol 40 No 14). It may have no bet...

To judge by the increasing desperation of the contestants, the power struggle in Brazzaville is entering a new phase. President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, who overthrew the elected Pre...

Whoever wins the presidential election starting on 29 August faces a huge task in keeping order. Incumbent President Ange-Félix Patassé is the favourite, though prob...

Congo-Kinshasa's combatants are fighting on two fronts. One is the looming battle for Mbuji-Mayi, the diamond capital in Kasaï Occidental, and the other is getting the best te...

President Denis Sassou Nguesso, who is too broke to pay his own army, has been secretly trying to make a deal with his main rivals. These are the elected President he overthrew in ...

Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon are falling out again over their boundaries in the Gulf of Guinea's oil-rich waters (AC Vol 40 No 9). President Paul Biya failed to dampen down the r...

The news that creditor banks met to discuss the future of well connected Zimbabwean entrepreneur Billy Rautenbach's Hyundai Motor Distributors in Botswana raises questions about hi...

Looking for a way out of the Congo war, Presidents Robert Mugabe, Sam Nujoma and José Eduardo dos Santos emerged grim-faced from their Kinshasa summit with President Laurent- Désir...