Author: Congo Times

In response to renewed U.S. sanctions imposed under President Donald Trump’s second term, the government of Denis Sassou Nguesso is intensifying its diplomatic outreach to secure Congo-Brazzaville’s removal from the American “Travel Ban” list. Behind closed doors in Washington, negotiations are progressing, combining talks on access to strategic resources with proposals for regional geopolitical alignment. The outcome may soon reshape bilateral ties. Congo-Brazzaville, currently listed under the controversial U.S. travel restrictions, has been quietly but actively seeking to restore normalized relations with Washington. Over recent weeks, discreet talks have been held in the U.S. capital, with growing indications that these…

Silence as a Deliberate Instrument of Power The press appearance of Club 2002-PUR’s Secretary-General, Juste Désiré Mondelé, was as notable for what it declined to dramatize as for what it declared. His insistence that the absence of daily riposte from his movement should not be misconstrued as frailty echoes a long-standing Brazzaville tradition in which restraint is deployed to signal institutional confidence. By affirming, with carefully weighted diction, that neither the Rassemblement pour la démocratie et le développement nor any other political formation can intimidate the Majority Presidential coalition, Mondelé effectively re-centered the conversation on the coalition’s capacity to govern…

Strategic Grid Rehabilitation Begins When Claudio Descalzi, the long-time chief executive of Eni, emerged from an audience with President Denis Sassou Nguesso this week, he confirmed that technicians had already set foot along the 600-kilometre Brazzaville–Pointe-Noire transmission axis. Dormant pylons dating back to the early 1990s are being reinforced, insulators replaced and digital monitoring devices added to bring the corridor in line with contemporary reliability standards. Government planners underline that once the 225 kV circuit is fully rehabilitated, the Djeno gas-to-power complex will be able to dispatch up to 300 MW toward the capital without the voltage drops that have…

Strategic Geography at the Confluence of Basins The Republic of the Congo straddles the equatorial hinge where the Atlantic seaboard meets the vast Congo Basin, offering a rare mix of riparian access and ocean frontage. The 160-kilometre coastline may appear modest on a continental map, yet the Kouilou estuary, the rugged Mayombé Massif and the deep Niari depression establish a natural corridor from deep-water anchorage to the heart of the plateau. These overlapping reliefs create micro-climates that sustain both dense rain forest and open savanna, a duality that has historically shaped trade flows as well as security considerations. Diplomatic observers…

Strategic Overview of Congo-Brazzaville From the banks of the Congo River to the Atlantic littoral, the Republic of Congo projects a paradoxical profile: modest in population, yet strategically prominent in Central Africa. The nation’s hydrocarbon endowment supplies roughly two thirds of export revenues, and its deep-water blocks continue to draw multinational capital even amid volatile global prices (IMF 2022). Under President Denis Sassou Nguesso, in office for most of the period since 1979, the state has privileged macro-stability and security, widely viewed in diplomatic circles as prerequisites for any developmental leap. The administration’s current narrative emphasises continuity of peace and…

Pointe-Noire consultative summit sets benchmark The methodical ritual by which the Republic of Congo determines its reference prices for hydrocarbons unfolded once again between 10 and 12 July in the Atlantic hub of Pointe-Noire. Presided over by Minister of Hydrocarbons Bruno Jean Richard Itoua, the session gathered specialists from the Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo, representatives of international operators and fiscal planners from the Ministry of Finance. After examining loading programmes, cargo realisations and the evolving Brent curve, the experts converged on a quarterly average of 66.401 USD per barrel, reflecting a modest negative differential of 0.668 USD against…

Congolese Handball Seeks Institutional Maturity For nearly a decade, the Republic of Congo’s handball community has oscillated between triumphs on the court and administrative turbulence off it. The announcement of an elective congress on 16 August in Brazzaville, validated by the Independent Electoral Commission chaired by Tunisian jurist Mouadh Ben Zaied, marks a deliberate step toward institutional consolidation. Athletes, coaches and sponsors alike interpret the calendar as evidence that the federation is prepared to align more closely with the rigorous compliance culture promoted by the International Handball Federation and the African Handball Confederation. In the words of a senior official…

Brazzaville’s Evening of Textile Statecraft Under the ornate ceilings of a downtown hotel on 11 July, the Congolese capital offered more than a fashion spectacle; it staged a textbook exercise in cultural diplomacy. Designer Penda Sako chose the telling theme “Between Tradition and Modernity” to mark her label’s second anniversary, positioning fabric as both archive and outlook. According to local daily Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, more than four hundred guests—among them diplomats, business leaders and foreign correspondents—filled the hall, signalling the rising geopolitical currency of Congo-Brazzaville’s creative sector. Ancestral Drums, Contemporary Cadence The show opened to the cadence of ngoma…

Civil society momentum in Brazzaville gathers pace The Maison de la Société Civile, a discreet colonial-era villa tucked behind the central bank in Brazzaville, seldom attracts the attention of world capitals. Yet from 10 to 11 July 2025 it became the epicentre of a conversation that matters to every chancery accredited to the Republic of Congo: how to safeguard the credibility of the 2026 presidential election. Convened under the auspices of Céphas Germain Ewangui, Permanent Secretary of the Consultative Council for Civil Society and Non-Governmental Organisations, six leading networks working on governance, human rights and peacebuilding adopted a declaration urging…

Paris podium amplifies Brazzaville’s message Few amphitheatres rival the symbolism of the Palais Bourbon when it comes to projecting diplomatic intent. Before delegates from some forty parliaments gathered from 9 to 13 July, Speaker Isidore Mvouba opened Congo-Brazzaville’s contribution to the fiftieth session of the Parliamentary Assembly of La Francophonie with an oratory calibrated for both gravity and hope. Recalling that the French-speaking world is stitched together by a “dialogue of cultures”, he argued that such dialogue constitutes more than an identity marker; it is a strategic resource for stabilising an international order where multilateral reflexes appear increasingly fragile (APF…