Author: Congo Times

A ceremonial launch that echoed far beyond Salé The ribbon-cutting at the Mohammed VI Football Complex in Salé unfolded with the gravitas usually reserved for heads-of-state summits. FIFA President Gianni Infantino called the occasion “a historic inflection point” for the organisation’s continental footprint, underscoring the presence of CAF President Patrice Motsepe and Moroccan Federation chief Fouzi Lekjaa (FIFA Media Release, 26 July 2024). The timing, coinciding with Morocco’s Throne Day festivities, amplified the symbolism that Africa is no longer a distant outpost of Zurich but an integral theatre of football governance. Why Morocco, and why now Rabat’s selection was no…

A Symbolic Judgment Echoing through Likouala The quiet river town of Impfondo rarely captures the international spotlight, yet its Tribunal of First Instance has issued a ruling that resonates well beyond the Sangha River basin. On 26 June the court sentenced three Congolese citizens to prison terms of two and three years, complemented by a collective fine of one million CFA francs and civil damages amounting to three million. The defendants admitted to possessing a freshly tanned panther skin, four giant pangolin claws and several kilogrammes of pangolin scales—trophies explicitly banned under Law 37-2008 on Wildlife and Protected Areas. For…

Ceremony in Kintélé marks academic milestone The glass-walled amphitheatre of Kintélé vibrated with a mix of orchestral hymns and ululations as the University Denis Sassou Nguesso, barely three years after its inauguration, released its third cohort into the national talent pool. In the presence of the Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso and senior cabinet members, 405 graduates—294 at licence level and 111 at master level—received parchment embossed with the state seal, an image that quietly underscored the Republic of Congo’s intention to anchor its economic modernisation in academic credentials (ACI, 26 July 2024). Breakdown of licencés and masters Behind the…

Contextualising Congo’s Extractive Ledger The Republic of the Congo occupies a paradoxical space in global commodity flows. Hydrocarbons and minerals account for roughly two-thirds of public income, yet the volatility of prices and the opacity historically surrounding contracts have often distorted budgetary planning. Since re-adhesion to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in 2012, Brazzaville has sought to align fiscal disclosures with international norms. The 24 July session of the national EITI committee therefore arrived at a pivotal juncture: oil production has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels while external lenders, including the IMF, increasingly tether concessional envelopes to demonstrable governance progress (IMF…

Brazzaville Sounds and Continental Stakes Hotel Ledger Plaza, overlooking the Congo River, thrummed with polyphonic rehearsals as delegates completed the intellectual score of the 12th Pan-African Music Festival. In closing the reduced-format symposium, Minister Marie-France Lydie Hélène Pongault insisted that African music must be treated not as an ephemeral entertainment but as a civilisational archive and a forward-looking industry. Her argument drew applause from musicologists, UNESCO advisers and producers who recognise that songs from Kinshasa to Cape Town are already streamed in São Paulo, Seoul and Seattle. The question is how Brazzaville can convert that global curiosity into a durable…

A stadium reclaimed for civic harmony The refurbished Omnisports Stadium of Kinkala, once an understated municipal venue, now stands polished and symbolically recalibrated. Local authorities completed an accelerated sanitation and renovation campaign in late July, responding to Mayor Edwige Ndebeka Biyengui’s call for a “population that remains obedient, cohesive and forward-looking.” The operation, executed largely by volunteer residents, did more than remove debris; it repositioned public space at the centre of a regional dialogue on coexistence. Whether grass was clipped or terraces repainted, every gesture served as a tacit reminder that physical infrastructure is inseparable from the social contract it…

Strategic Signals from the Potomac The recent Washington tour of Dr. Françoise Joly, Personal Representative of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, unfolded with the discretion typical of high-level diplomacy yet radiated unmistakable intent. Received by Acting Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Corina Sanders, Dr. Joly devoted two intensive days to what one senior Congolese official described as “a comprehensive stock-taking of a relationship ripe for elevation” (Congolese Foreign Ministry brief, 2024). Washington, for its part, appeared keen to widen the aperture beyond the narrow security lens that has long framed its engagement with Central Africa, a shift reflected in the unusually…

An Unexpected Diplomatic Asset In the rarely intersecting worlds of competitive Scrabble and high diplomacy, few episodes have attracted as much regional attention as the audience granted by Prime Minister Anatole Collinet Makosso to seventeen-year-old world champion Briny Oscar Kouba Matouridi on 26 July 2025. The encounter, confirmed by the Primature’s communiqué and echoed by regional press agencies (Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, 27 July 2025), showcased far more than ceremonial protocol. It revealed the government’s strategic instinct to convert an individual sporting accomplishment into a vector of national storytelling. Mind sports seldom occupy headline space in Central Africa, yet the…

Historical Context and Geostrategic Setting Since gaining independence in 1960, the Republic of Congo has occupied an understated but pivotal corridor between Central and West Africa. Its 342-kilometre Atlantic frontage, coupled with river access toward the deep hinterland of the Congo Basin, grants Brazzaville leverage as both a maritime and fluvial hub. The country’s relief—an alternation of fertile plateaus, equatorial forest and savannah—has historically encouraged a dual economic identity rooted in timber extraction and petroleum production. At the same time, the nation’s demography remains concentrated along the narrow corridor connecting Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville, reflecting the pragmatic marriage of geography and…

Geostrategic Coordinates of a Quiet Hub From the Mayombé foothills to the Atlantic littoral, the Republic of the Congo occupies a stretch of west-central Africa that appears modest on most maps yet assumes outsized significance in regional diplomacy. Its hundred-mile shoreline grants an Atlantic window coveted by many landlocked neighbours, while the Congo River corridor links the capital Brazzaville to Kinshasa, creating the world’s busiest fluvial frontier. Diplomats often remark that few capitals can look across a mere kilometre of water and converse with another sovereign state; Brazzaville does so daily, turning geography into perpetual dialogue. The country’s borders with…