Congo

09 Aug

Millions Meant for a National ID System Instead Benefited Congo’s Elites

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsarchitecture, cities, Congo, Government, Kinshasa, Private Equity, Real Estate, shopping, Technology, Unemployment, World Bank

In Congo’s second city of Lubumbashi, a blue glass-and-steel shopping mall towers over the dust-blown skyline, dwarfing the surrounding colonial-era architecture. In 2018, then President Joseph Kabila was guest of honor at the development's opening ceremony, using a pair of golden scissors to cut a ribbon printed in Congo’s national colors of yellow, red and blue.Six years later, the $25 million Hypnose complex stands as a monument to the corruption that has long dogged the vast central African nation. It illustrates how money intended to develop a national ID system was leveraged to serve a small number of elite with…

06 Aug

Lethal Outbreak of New Mpox Strain Erupts in Central Africa

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsafrica, BAVARIAN NORDIC A/S, Central African Republic, cities, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya, public health, Rwanda, Technology, World Bank

Countries in central Africa are racing to contain a multinational outbreak of a mutated mpox strain that’s killed almost 500 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone since January.The fast-spreading virus is suspected to have infected more than 12,300 people in 2024 in the DRC, where it was first reported less than a year ago. Recent cases in Ivory Coast, Kenya and at least three other African countries have raised concern of an explosive contagion carried along newly built roads and highways connecting remote mining sites to cities and camps housing hundreds of thousands of conflict-displaced Congolese. Source…