At least 2000 furious people violently demonstrated on Tuesday in Gemena, in the north-westernmost part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to demand the immediate release of Jean-Pierre Bemba. - Bemba was arrested on Saturday in Brussels after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against the former warlord and vice president on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in neighboring Central African Republic (CAR) in 2002-2003. A similar reaction took place in Mbandaka and more protests are reported in Zongo and other regional towns. “demonstrators are throwing stones at buildings and police who shoot back”, AfricaNews repo…

- Will Chimpanzees survive? Few months ago, I have talked about bush meat in the remote part of Equateur within the DR Congo. Many people are killing animals anyhow and most of them killed some species as Gorillas, elephants clandestinely. And their meats can be seen in the market or people sell them everywhere in the city. One day, I have been reading some reports listing species under threat of extinction but I could not find any Chimpanzee on any list. It’s unfortunate since there is the most endangered animal in this part of Africa – equatorial Africa. These animals are parts of Africa wealth but exterminating them is a horrible thing. In the village or local markets, chim…

- Few months ago I have talked about limber business. As we all know, DRC has one of the largest forest reserve in the world and part of this forest is here at Equator region. This region has different people among which we can fin pigmies and different cultures too. I am going to focus on pigmies, these people are bush men and they used to spend their whole life in the forest, few of them left the forest for village. These people are not recognized in many things while they have a strong culture and it some time interesting pigmies used to live in the forest and spend most of their life in the forest and it has becomes their home. But business men came with the exploitation of timber and t…

- Nord Kivu is one of the region in DRC that there is not peace at all. As every body knows, there is a bloody war now between Nkunda’s troops and FARDC. This is happening just within Virunga Park where the last mountain gorillas live. These animals’ guardians were disarmed by Nkunda’s men and they thought that it is safe for them to leave the place due to the situation. The villagers organized themselves to protect these abandoned animals. When these villagers realized that Nkunda troops wanted to enroll them by force in their troops, they ran away too and these poor gorillas are abandoned. We don’t know if animals have run away to Rwanda or if they were slau…

- The National Program of child vaccine against Poliomyelitis has lauched the vaccination of children from 0 to 5 year old and this started here at Gemena and the surroundings villages and towns. People who vaccinate are going house to house, at school even at the public place like market to make sure that all children have this. This program will last for one week. Even this vaccination is given to children but some case of infection still among the children .

- The new government of Equateur wants to revise some of the lumbering contracts because villagers never benefit from that business. A good example of this is the case of Libenge where deputies and people stopped the exploitation of a company which never respects laws. Apart from companies, there are individuals who ventured into this business illegally and who never pay taxes. Equateur is one of the regions in DRC that has a large forest comprising numerous kinds of trees and attracting many lumbering companies. Before the presidential election i.e. during the transition, there were different companies which were exploiting timber. This business has good revenue. Before the presidential ele…

- The north-western DR Congo city of Gemena is the second largest town of the Equateur province after Mbanda. The town is witnessing a post-war economic growth and business in various sectors is prospering.However, while humans tend to develop themselves economically, they seem to be creating a no-animal zone. A great portion of the Equateur province is covered by rain forests and savannah that are exploited not at all. Hunting in this area is still an economic and cultural activity for local populations, and the smoked bush meat is still the favorite meal for most of people. The population active in hunting is estimated at 20 percent Gemena inhabitants. Former regime wildlife-friend…