KINSHASA, Aug 6 (Reuters) – A court-appointed liquidator
said on Friday it has taken over the running of Toronto-listed
First Quantum Minerals’ (FM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Kingamyambo Musonoi Tailings
(KMT) copper and cobalt project at Kolwezi in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.

On Wednesday, the firm said a Congolese court had initiated
proceedings to liquidate the $750 million project, the latest
step in a row between the company and the government.
[ID:nN04345576]

KINSHASA, Aug 5 (Reuters) – India has signed a deal with
Democratic Republic of Congo to extend a $42 million credit line
for building a hydroelectric plant, Congolese and Indian
officials said on Thursday.

The deal falls under a $263 million loan commitment from
India that it agreed with Congo late last year.

TORONTO/KINSHASA, Aug 4 (Reuters) – First Quantum Minerals
(FM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Wednesday that a court in Congo has initiated
proceedings to liquidate its Kingamyambo Musonoi Tailings (KMT)
project at Kolwezi, as the dispute between the Canadian miner
and the DRC escalates.

First Quantum has said it was still seeking to resolve the
row but Congolese Mines Minister Martin Kabwelulu confirmed to
Reuters on Wednesday that he had signed a deal handing the
rights to the KMT project to a third party.

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Almost 90,000 people have fled fighting in eastern Congo in the past month, aid agencies said, underscoring a worsening security situation despite the official end of Congo’s 1998-2003 war.

Conflicts between rebel groups, former militias and army troops simmer in Democratic Republic of Congo, and more than 1.9 million people are still displaced, up from 1.6 million in 2009.

NUMBI, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – Marie keeps her cash hidden in her “I love Jesus” hat, Samy in his socks. Selling gold and gemstones to other countries, the smugglers are small-time players in an illegal trade worth tens of millions of dollars hidden deep in Congo’s troubled wilderness.

New efforts to clamp down on Congo’s armed groups that finance their existence with minerals sourced from the country’s conflict-wracked east — much of which ends up in laptops, cell phones and jewellery around the world — have been criticised for trying to achieve the impossible and risking the livelihoods of a million people in the area who depend on mining.

KINSHASA (Reuters) – As many as 138 people died when an overloaded boat carrying passengers and goods capsized in rough water in Democratic Republic of Congo, police said on Thursday.

Congo’s government confirmed the incident, but gave a lower toll and said it may have been caused by low water levels on the river due to the dry season.

KINSHASA (Reuters) – When Pascal’s little brother got sick, his family accused him of witchcraft and took him to a pastor who forced him to drink pigeon’s blood and oil.

Denied food and beaten for three days, the ten-year-old managed to escape, joining some 250,000 other street children in Congo for three years until he was scooped up by a children’s center in Kinshasa’s tough east end.

KINSHASA/KIGALI (Reuters) – A U.S. drive to clean up the trade in Congo’s minerals puts the onus on industry and the central African country to step up efforts to regulate the sector or risk seeing it fall apart.

Much of Congo’s minerals, including gold, cassiterite and tantalum that end up in jewelry, laptops and cell phones, come from its troubled east, where conflict among government forces and rebel groups have displaced more than 1.4 million people.

KINSHASA, July 15 (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo’s
move to strip Britain’s Tullow Oil Plc (TLW.L: Quote, Profile, Research) of oil rights has
added to concerns over the local business climate that are
putting off foreign investment, insurers and fund managers said.

The Central African state handed to new sector entrants two
sought-after oil blocks on Lake Albert that had previously been
awarded to Tullow, according to documents seen by Reuters in
June. [ID:nLDE65N1EV]

KINSHASA, July 9 (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo’s
latest oil deal with two surprise South African entrants for two
coveted blocks in the east of the country will lose the country
millions of dollars of potential earnings, according to a lobby
group and contract documents seen by Reuters.

Blocks 1 and 2 of Congo’s northeastern Lake Albert, which
straddles the border with Uganda, were last month handed to two
companies registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI),
depriving two sets of competing companies to the blocks.