, By pleading guilty in Britain and the United States to grand corruption and paying out some US$1.5 billion in penalties, commodity giant Glencore has been trying to draw a line under its history of lucrative dealings with criminal intermediaries. It has admitted to corruption in many resource-rich countries, including Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Congo-Kinshasa, but within strictly defined time limits and on specific projects.
Nairobi has assembled regional states to fight Congolese armed groups, but they include the very countries the groups depend on for aid, An agreement by regional governments to form a joint military force to deploy against armed groups in Congo-Kinshasa looks like a diplomatic masterstroke by Kenya, which is coordinating the move. After a period of relative quiet, the tempo of insurgent activity, from gold-mine-controlling thugs to Islamist militias, has prompted action from the authorities in Kinshasa and regional capitals. But there are huge in-built risks of failure, warn experts familiar with Congo-K s troubled east because the countries Nairobi has signed up include the very ones that often sponsor the insurgents: Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.
An accord with Kinshasa allows the sanctioned businessman to control cash from what Washington officials label as opaque and corrupt deals, In a dramatic about-turn, President Félix Tshisekedi is offering to help one of his predecessor s closest business allies currently under United States sanctions for obtaining assets in Congo-Kinshasa via grand corruption. A tentative and yet-to-be published arrangement backed by President Tshisekedi would allow Dan Gertler, an Israeli mining magnate, to keep royalty rights valued at billions of dollars. Gertler s ties with former President Joseph Kabila dominated the country s mining industry for two decades and caused heavy losses, according to multiple investigations.
A pact to take back tainted mining assets could be part of wider damage-limitation by a notorious fixer and his partners, A multi-billion dollar corruption scandal over some of the world s most prized copper and cobalt mines is heading towards dénouement, after Congolese authorities signed what they called a friendly agreement with the man at the centre of it all: Israeli mining magnate Dan Gertler.
President Tshisekedi s move against his intelligence chief François Beya was about consolidating power, not thwarting a coup plot, Three weeks after President Félix Tshisekedi ordered the arrest of his senior security advisor François Beya for plotting a coup, a shroud of silence still surrounds the affair. Beya had managed relations with former President Joseph Kabila and his family, and the president s move carries risks. Beya s ties with the Kabila clan remain close.