Author: Congo Times

Smolny’s Symbolic Berth in Central Africa Shortly after sunrise on 28 July, the white-hulled training ship Smolny, attached to Russia’s Baltic Fleet, slid alongside the main quay of Pointe-Noire amid a flourish of brass instruments and ceremonial salutes. The Congolese prefectoral authorities, flanked by senior officers of the First Military Region, greeted Captain Igor Markov and his contingent of nearly four hundred sailors and cadets with honours that echoed beyond protocol. Both sides framed the port call as the tangible expression of a security dialogue that has quietly intensified since Brazzaville and Moscow signed a bilateral defence agreement in 2019…

Equatorial Hub Between Forest and Ocean Few African states condense as much strategic diversity into a single map as the Republic of the Congo. Straddling the Equator and sitting astride both hemispheres, the country links five neighbours and the Atlantic Ocean in a geopolitical knot that has long commanded diplomatic attention. Cameroon and the Central African Republic open a northern corridor to the Sahel; Gabon buttresses the west; the Democratic Republic of the Congo embraces the south and east; while the sliver of Angola’s Cabinda province interrupts the coastline to the southwest. This spatial configuration has fostered a tradition of…

A strategic geography at Africa’s equatorial hinge Few African states combine coastal access, fluvial depth and equatorial biodiversity as seamlessly as the Republic of the Congo. Straddling the Equator between 4° and 5° latitude south, the country occupies a pivotal corridor connecting the Gulf of Guinea to the continental interior. Diplomats frequently note that Brazzaville’s ability to address landlocked neighbours such as the Central African Republic while maintaining an Atlantic shoreline grants the Congolese state a dual maritime–continental outlook, a “Janus geography” as phrased by a senior official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2023 interview). The coastal corridor and…

Geographic Keystone of Central Africa Stretched across the Equator, the Republic of the Congo offers a striking juxtaposition of coastal plains, dense rain forest and interior plateaus. From the Mayombé Massif’s rugged relief to the swampy reaches of the western Congo basin, the country forms a natural bridge between the Gulf of Guinea and the heart of the continent. This varied topography explains why Brazzaville, the capital perched on the right bank of the great river, emerged early as a logistical hinge for trade moving north–south and river traffic flowing east–west. Congo’s 160-kilometre Atlantic frontage may appear modest, yet its…

A Symbolic Homecoming on the Banks of the Congo At dawn on 27 July, hymns once again drifted across the Kombo stream as hundreds of congregants converged on the Mont Carmel prayer ground in Brazzaville’s Makélékélé district. The site, sealed in 2021 as part of a wider governmental review of religious gatherings, reopened with ceremonial restraint but palpable fervour. Standing beneath the acacia canopy where the first vigils were reportedly held in 1987, Apostle Bruno Jean Richard Itoua proclaimed, “It was here that lives were transformed; it is here that the journey continues.” His declaration, echoing across a crowd that…

Senate Green Light Signals Policy Continuity In less than an hour of debate, the Congolese Senate approved two instruments that anchor the country’s Digital Acceleration Project in the medium-term expenditure framework. The first, a €26 million credit line from the European Investment Bank, and the second, a grant package worth roughly CFAF 9.4 billion, sailed through on 28 July under the gavel of Senate President Pierre Ngolo. The ease of passage, diplomats in Brazzaville observe, reflects a cross-party understanding that the digital economy is no longer a discretionary add-on but a macro-critical sector, a view echoed by several African Development…

From Libreville’s Palais Rénovation to Paris’s Place de Fontenoy The marble corridors of Libreville’s Palais Rénovation offered an emblematic stage for Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso’s encounter with Gabon’s transitional head of state, Brigadier General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, on 28 July. Officially, the audience concerned bilateral cooperation; substantively, it launched Brazzaville’s full-scale campaign for Firmin Édouard Matoko, the Congolese diplomat whose candidacy for Director-General of UNESCO was registered at the Organisation’s headquarters in early April (Congolese Government Communiqué, 5 April 2024). By travelling in person rather than relying on envoys, Mr Makosso signalled that the matter had crossed the…

A Prodigy Emerges on the St. Lawrence When the International Francophone Scrabble Federation gathered more than 280 players from five continents in Trois-Rivières last July, few observers expected the most dramatic narrative arc to belong to a 17-year-old student who had travelled from Brazzaville largely on crowdfunding and family savings. Yet by the evening of 18 July, Briny Oscar Kouba Matouridi was walking through the lobby of the Delta Marriott with five medals around his neck, three of them gold, having matched Belgian veteran Jean-Luc Deneve at –28 on the cumulative grid (results confirmed by the FISF match bulletin and…

Strategic Warehousing for Grid Stability Few events in the technical life of a power network attract political symbolism. Yet the hand-over of two purpose-built warehouses to Energie Électrique du Congo (E2C) on 28 July in Brazzaville was staged with the ceremonial solemnity usually reserved for power-plant inaugurations. Standing among rows of freshly painted steel racks, Minister of Energy and Hydraulics Emile Ouosso saluted what he called “the quiet insurance policy of our transmission backbone,” a reference to the 2 000 m² of sheltered floor space now allocated exclusively to transformers, circuit breakers and gas-insulated components. The facilities—one at Itatolo in…

A Ceremony Rich in Symbolism The marble atrium of Brazzaville’s Palais des Congrès seldom falls silent, yet on 25 July 2025 an unusual hush preceded presidential protocol. Moments later, President Denis Sassou Nguesso fastened the crimson sash of Grand-Croix of the Congolese Order of Merit on the shoulders of Professor Joseph Théophile Obenga, while a diplomatic gallery observed with studied attentiveness. In the official narrative, the decoration rewards “exceptional service to national prestige”; in practice, it binds the state to one of its most compelling public intellectuals, an octogenarian whose academic itinerary mirrors a good portion of Africa’s own search…