The rest it sucks into its system through contracts made with other diamond producers, and by dispatching its buyers, whose clipped British accents and pressed cotton shirts mark them out as the sort who might otherwise be employed by Her Majesty's secret service, to vacuum up diamonds that seep onto the market in such places as Angola and Congo-Kinshasa.

ECONOMIST: THE DIAMOND BUSINESS

Africa also boasts many huge, rapidly growing cities, but it's hard to identify many of these places--like Lagos, Nigeria, Luanda, Angola or Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo--as bright prospects.

FORBES: New Geographer

Until recently, world-class pickers in places like Kinshasa, Congo, and Bamako, Mali, not to mention rural townships in South Africa or beach towns in Madagascar, also knew little about one another.

NPR: African Guitarists Have Arrived at a New Style

On 25 November, the BBC World Service is broadcasting a special one-hour debate in front of a Kinshasa audience: Is DR Congo a failed state?

BBC: Failed state: Can DR Congo recover?

Goalkeeper Lousseni Issa made several superb saves as AS FAN added Motema Pembe of the DR Congo to their list of victims with a goalless Kinshasa draw taking them through 1-0 on aggregate.

BBC: Holders Malien out of Confed Cup

And the government, which is sitting way over in Kinshasa - thousands of kilometers away - does not have the capacity to govern the eastern Congo.

NPR: U.S. Non-Intervention In Syria Could Mirror Outcome In Congo

The statement said the fighting violated the letter and spirit of the Pretoria power-sharing deal signed on 17 December by the Kinshasa government, the main rebel groups and DR Congo's political opposition.

BBC: DR Congo refugee crisis worsens