Author: Congo Times

Brazzaville gathers regional health strategists From 8 to 10 October, the riverside conference centre of Kintélé, on the outskirts of Brazzaville, became a laboratory for modern public-health governance. Delegations from the forty-seven states that form the World Health Organization’s African Region met under the chairmanship of Professor Mohamed Yakub Janabi to reflect on a theme that captures both urgency and ambition: “Repositioning the WHO Regional Office as Africa’s strategic health leader: accelerating country impact through convergence and national solutions.” Opening the deliberations, Congo’s Minister of Health and Population, Professor Jean Rosaire Ibara, framed the gathering as an opportunity to align…

High Nomination Fees Under Scrutiny In a briefing delivered on 9 October in Brazzaville, Dominique Basseyla, Minister and Commissioner of the ad-hoc Committee monitoring the Sibiti 2015 National Dialogue, drew renewed attention to the financial thresholds required to contest elections in the Republic of Congo. At present a presidential hopeful must lodge a deposit of 25 million CFA francs, while candidates to legislative and local bodies face fees of 1.5 million and 500 thousand CFA francs per list respectively. According to the Commissioner, such figures, though designed to deter frivolous bids, are proving prohibitive for “many citizens endowed with constructive…

World Sight Day turns spotlight on ocular health World Sight Day, observed each year on the second Thursday of October under the aegis of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, has once again provided an opportunity to place vision at the centre of public-health debate. In Brazzaville’s populous sixth arrondissement, the Ophthalmology Department of the Talangaï Reference Hospital seized the moment to orchestrate a two-day open clinic dedicated to the early detection of Dry Eye Syndrome, cataract, glaucoma and other sight-threatening conditions. While global statistics underline that more than one billion people live with preventable visual impairment, medical…

Lubumbashi fairways crown a Brazzaville champion The heavy afternoon air that draped the greens of Luano Golf Club could not muffle the final roar: a delicate chip from Roxy-Désiré Pango Mashimango stopped five centimetres from the eighteenth hole, sealing a cumulative 107 stableford points and the first Congolese victory in the third series of the 46th Lubumbashi Open. The Republic of the Congo’s anthem rose over Katanga’s copper hills, offering a symbolic echo of cross-Congo amity and of a sporting discipline long eclipsed by football. “I dedicate this title to my club and to an entire nation,” the 28-year-old declared,…

A Regional Forum Elevating Girls’ Voices On 10 and 11 October, Dakar turns into the epicentre of a continental conversation as the Girls Summit 2025 convenes more than 250 young change-makers from 24 African states under the auspices of UNICEF Africa. The meeting, expressly designed by and for adolescents, crowns a year-long cycle of country consultations on schooling, health, nutrition, protection and civic participation. Dakar’s agenda therefore mirrors the priorities repeatedly voiced in Brazzaville, Abidjan or Nairobi: ending the gender gap in classrooms, shielding girls from early marriage, and recognising their centrality in climate resilience. The organisers are keen to…

A strategic cultural rendez-vous in Oyo On 18 October the riverside town of Oyo, capital of the Cuvette Department, will reverberate to the sounds of Warriors 2.0, a showcase conceived by production house 10 novembre Events. The stated ambition is two-fold: to spotlight emerging artistic talent while cultivating a spirit of civic togetherness among Congolese youth. By hosting the evening in Oyo—already renowned for its hospitality infrastructure—the organisers implicitly acknowledge the city’s growing role as a cultural hub capable of complementing the dynamism of Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire. According to the planning committee, the concert has received logistical facilitation from local…

A packed CAF calendar sets the stage The Confederation of African Football is preparing for an unusually dense sequence of competitions stretching from the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and the African Nations Championship to the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations itself. In parallel, the CAF Super Cup scheduled for 18 October will pitch the continent’s two club champions against each other, a single night that routinely draws television audiences in excess of thirty million according to previous CAF audience reports. It is against this backdrop that global bookmaker 1xBet – an official partner of CAF since 2022 – has…

Strategic mid-stream pause for a flagship programme In Brazzaville the Steering Committee of the Project for Accelerating the Digital Transition, better known by its French acronym PATN, convened on 8 October to conduct an official mid-term stock-taking. The session, chaired by Mr Sylvain Leckaka and informed by a comprehensive memorandum submitted by project coordinator Mr Michel Ngakala, marks the halfway point of an endeavour that began in 2023 with a sunset horizon fixed for December 2027. While such reviews are routine in development finance, the timing is critical: nearly forty per cent of the USD 100 million envelope—jointly mobilised by…

A painful scoreline for the Red Devils The chill that greeted the final whistle at the Stade du 4 Août in Ouagadougou still hangs over Congolese football. Beaten 3-1 by Niger, Fabrizio Cesana’s men have now collected merely one point in seven qualifying fixtures, an arithmetic that makes the road to the 2026 World Cup appear steep, if not vertical. The early concession before half-time, followed by two further blows, erased any tactical blueprint the staff had rehearsed. Only in the 93rd minute did the talented teenager Bassinga Déo Gracias claw back a consolation, a gesture more symbolic than transformative.…

A sudden dusk over a luminous career The message spread across Congolese social media on the evening of 8 October 2025 with the persistence of a drum pattern: Pierre Moutouari is no more. In a matter of hours, disbelief yielded to collective mourning. The 75-year-old singer, guitarist and songwriter died in Paris from illness, closing a chapter that had begun in Brazzaville at the tail end of the 1960s. The news, later confirmed by relatives, sent ripples through dance halls from Pointe-Noire to Dakar and nostalgic vinyl corners in the French capital. Moutouari’s passing deprives the Republic of Congo of…