title: Bulgaria

text: Bulgarian cuisine is similar to that of other Balkan countries and demonstrates strong Turkish and Greek influences. Yogurt, lukanka, banitsa, shopska salad, lyutenitsa and kozunak are among the best-known local foods. Meat consumption is lower than the European average, given a cultural preference for a large variety of salads. Bulgaria was the world's second-largest wine exporter until 1989, but has since lost that position. The 2016 harvest yielded 128 million litres of wine, of which 62 million was exported mainly to Romania, Poland and Russia. Mavrud, Rubin, Shiroka melnishka, Dimiat and Cherven Misket are the typical grapes used in Bulgarian wine. Rakia is a traditional fruit brandy that was consumed in Bulgaria as early as the 14th century.


title: Bulgaria

text: Bulgaria appeared at the first modern Olympic games in 1896, when it was represented by gymnast Charles Champaud. Since then, Bulgarian athletes have won 55 gold, 90 silver, and 85 bronze medals, ranking 25th in the all-time medal table. Weight-lifting is a signature sport of Bulgaria. Coach Ivan Abadzhiev developed innovative training practices that have produced many Bulgarian world and Olympic champions in weight-lifting since the 1980s. Bulgarian athletes have also excelled in wrestling, boxing, gymnastics, volleyball and tennis. Stefka Kostadinova is the reigning world record holder in the women's high jump at , achieved during the 1987 World Championships. Grigor Dimitrov is the first Bulgarian tennis player in the Top 3 ATP rankings.


title: Bulgaria

text: Football is the most popular sport in the country by a substantial margin. The national football team's best performance was a semi-final at the 1994 FIFA World Cup, when the squad was spearheaded by forward Hristo Stoichkov. Stoichkov is the most successful Bulgarian player of all time; he was awarded the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball and was considered one of the best in the world while playing for FC Barcelona in the 1990s. CSKA and Levski, both based in Sofia, are the most successful clubs domestically and long-standing rivals. Ludogorets is remarkable for having advanced from the local fourth division to the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League group stage in a mere nine years. Placed 39th in 2018, it is Bulgaria's highest-ranked club in UEFA.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Democratic Republic of the Congo ( ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in Central Africa. It is bordered to the northwest by the Republic of the Congo, to the north by the Central African Republic, to the northeast by South Sudan, to the east by Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, and by Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika), to the south and southeast by Zambia, to the southwest by Angola, and to the west by the South Atlantic Ocean and the Cabinda exclave of Angola. By area, it is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 108 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous officially Francophone country in the world. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the nation's economic center.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Centered on the Congo Basin, the territory of the DRC was first inhabited by Central African foragers around 90,000 years ago and was reached by the Bantu expansion about 3,000 years ago. In the west, the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the Congo River from the 14th to 19th centuries. In the northeast, center and east, the kingdoms of Azande, Luba, and Lunda ruled from the 16th and 17th centuries to the 19th century. King Leopold II of Belgium formally acquired rights to the Congo territory in 1885 and declared the land his private property, naming it the Congo Free State. From 1885 to 1908, his colonial military forced the local population to produce rubber and committed widespread atrocities. In 1908, Leopold ceded the territory, which thus became a Belgian colony.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Congo achieved independence from Belgium on 30 June 1960 and was immediately confronted by a series of secessionist movements, which culminated in the seizure of power by Mobutu Sese Seko in a 1965 coup d'état. Mobutu renamed the country Zaire in 1971 and imposed a harsh personalist dictatorship until his overthrow in 1997 by the First Congo War. The country then had its name changed back and was confronted by the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003, which resulted in the deaths of 5.4 million people. The war ended under President Joseph Kabila who governed the country from 2001 to 2019, under whom human rights in the country remained poor and included frequent abuses such as forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and restrictions on civil liberties. Following the 2018 general election, in the country's first peaceful transition of power since independence, Kabila was succeeded as president by Félix Tshisekedi, who has served as president since. Since 2015, the Eastern DR Congo has been the site of an ongoing military conflict in Kivu.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Democratic Republic of the Congo is extremely rich in natural resources but has suffered from political instability, a lack of infrastructure, corruption, and centuries of both commercial and colonial extraction and exploitation, followed by more than 60 years of independence, with little widespread development. Besides the capital Kinshasa, the two next largest cities, Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, are both mining communities. The DRC's largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of its exports in 2019. In 2019, DR Congo's level of human development was ranked 175th out of 189 countries by the Human Development Index. , following two decades of various civil wars and continued internal conflicts, around 600,000 Congolese refugees were still living in neighbouring countries. Two million children risk starvation, and the fighting has displaced 4.5 million people. The country is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, African Union, East African Community, COMESA, Southern African Development Community, and the Economic Community of Central African States.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Democratic Republic of the Congo is named after the Congo River, which flows throughout the country. The Congo River is the world's deepest river and the world's second-largest river by discharge. The "Comité d'études du haut Congo" ("Committee for the Study of the Upper Congo"), established by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1876, and the International Association of the Congo, established by him in 1879, were also named after the river.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Congo River was named by early European sailors after the Kingdom of Kongo and its Bantu inhabitants, the Kongo people, when they encountered them in the 16th century. The word "Kongo" comes from the Kongo language (also called "Kikongo"). According to American writer Samuel Henry Nelson: "It is probable that the word 'Kongo' itself implies a public gathering and that it is based on the root "konga", 'to gather' (trans[itive])." The modern name of the Kongo people, "Bakongo", was introduced in the early 20th century.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been known in the past as, in chronological order, the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, the Republic of the Congo-Léopoldville, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Zaire, before returning to its current name the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: At the time of independence, the country was named the Republic of the Congo-Léopoldville to distinguish it from its neighbour the Republic of the Congo-Brazzaville. With the promulgation of the Luluabourg Constitution on 1 August 1964, the country became the DRC but was renamed to Zaire (a past name for the Congo River) on 27 October 1971 by President Mobutu Sese Seko as part of his "Authenticité" initiative.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The word "Zaire" is from a Portuguese adaptation of a Kikongo word "nzadi" ("river"), a truncation of "nzadi o nzere" ("river swallowing rivers"). The river was known as "Zaire" during the 16th and 17th centuries; "Congo" seems to have replaced "Zaire" gradually in English usage during the 18th century, and "Congo" is the preferred English name in 19th-century literature, although references to "Zaire" as the name used by the natives (i.e. derived from Portuguese usage) remained common.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In 1992, the Sovereign National Conference voted to change the name of the country to the "Democratic Republic of the Congo", but the change was not made. The country's name was later restored by President Laurent-Désiré Kabila when he overthrew Mobutu in 1997. To distinguish it from the neighboring Republic of the Congo, it is sometimes referred to as "Congo (Kinshasa)" or "Congo-Kinshasa".


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The geographical area now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo was populated as early as 90,000 years ago, as shown by the 1988 discovery of the Semliki harpoon at Katanda, one of the oldest barbed harpoons ever found, believed to have been used to catch giant river catfish.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Bantu peoples reached Central Africa at some point during the first millennium BC, then gradually started to expand southward. Their propagation was accelerated by the adoption of pastoralism and of Iron Age techniques. The people living in the south and southwest were foraging groups, whose technology involved only minimal use of metal technologies. The development of metal tools during this time period revolutionized agriculture. This led to the displacement of the hunter-gatherer groups in the east and southeast. The final wave of the Bantu expansion was complete by the 10th century, followed by the establishment of the Bantu kingdoms, whose rising populations soon made possible intricate local, regional and foreign commercial networks that traded mostly in slaves, salt, iron and copper.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Belgian exploration and administration took place from the 1870s until the 1920s. It was first led by Henry Morton Stanley, who undertook his explorations under the sponsorship of King Leopold II of Belgium. The eastern regions of the precolonial Congo were heavily disrupted by constant slave raiding, mainly from Arab–Swahili slave traders such as the infamous Tippu Tip, who was well known to Stanley.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Leopold had designs on what was to become the Congo as a colony. In a succession of negotiations, Leopold, professing humanitarian objectives in his capacity as chairman of the front organization "Association Internationale Africaine", actually played one European rival against another.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: King Leopold formally acquired rights to the Congo territory at the Conference of Berlin in 1885 and made the land his private property. He named it the Congo Free State. Leopold's regime began various infrastructure projects, such as the construction of the railway that ran from the coast to the capital of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), which took eight years to complete.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In the Free State, colonists coerced the local population into producing rubber, for which the spread of automobiles and development of rubber tires created a growing international market. Rubber sales made a fortune for Leopold, who built several buildings in Brussels and Ostend to honor himself and his country. To enforce the rubber quotas, the "Force Publique" was called in and made the practice of cutting off the limbs of the natives a matter of policy.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: During the period of 1885–1908, millions of Congolese died as a consequence of exploitation and disease. In some areas the population declined dramatically – it has been estimated that sleeping sickness and smallpox killed nearly half the population in the areas surrounding the lower Congo River.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: News of the abuses began to circulate. In 1904, the British consul at Boma in the Congo, Roger Casement, was instructed by the British government to investigate. His report, called the Casement Report, confirmed the accusations of humanitarian abuses. The Belgian Parliament forced Leopold II to set up an independent commission of inquiry. Its findings confirmed Casement's report of abuses, concluding that the population of the Congo had been "reduced by half" during this period. Determining precisely how many people died is impossible, as no accurate records exist.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In 1908, the Belgian parliament, in spite of initial reluctance, bowed to international pressure (especially from the United Kingdom) and took over the Free State from King Leopold II. On 18 October 1908, the Belgian parliament voted in favour of annexing the Congo as a Belgian colony. Executive power went to the Belgian minister of colonial affairs, assisted by a Colonial Council (Conseil Colonial) (both located in Brussels). The Belgian parliament exercised legislative authority over the Belgian Congo. In 1923 the colonial capital moved from Boma to Léopoldville, some further upstream into the interior. The transition from the Congo Free State to the Belgian Congo was a break, but it also featured a large degree of continuity. The last governor-general of the Congo Free State, Baron Théophile Wahis, remained in office in the Belgian Congo and the majority of Leopold II's administration with him. Opening up the Congo and its natural and mineral riches to the Belgian economy remained the main motive for colonial expansion – however, other priorities, such as healthcare and basic education, slowly gained in importance.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Colonial administrators ruled the territory and a dual legal system existed (a system of European courts and another one of indigenous courts, "tribunaux indigènes"). Indigenous courts had only limited powers and remained under the firm control of the colonial administration. The Belgian authorities permitted no political activity in the Congo whatsoever, and the "Force Publique" put down any attempts at rebellion.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Belgian Congo was directly involved in the two world wars. During World War I (1914–1918), an initial stand-off between the "Force Publique" and the German colonial army in German East Africa turned into open warfare with a joint Anglo-Belgian-Portuguese invasion of German colonial territory in 1916 and 1917 during the East African campaign. The "Force Publique" gained a notable victory when it marched into Tabora in September 1916 under the command of General Charles Tombeur after heavy fighting.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: After 1918, Belgium was rewarded for the participation of the "Force Publique" in the East African campaign with a League of Nations mandate over the previously German colony of Ruanda-Urundi. During World War II, the Belgian Congo provided a crucial source of income for the Belgian government in exile in London, and the "Force Publique" again participated in Allied campaigns in Africa. Belgian Congolese forces under the command of Belgian officers notably fought against the Italian colonial army in Ethiopia in Asosa, Bortaï and Saïo under Major-General Auguste-Eduard Gilliaert.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In May 1960, a growing nationalist movement, the Mouvement National Congolais led by Patrice Lumumba, won the parliamentary elections. Lumumba became the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then known as the Republic of the Congo, on 24 June 1960. The parliament elected Joseph Kasa-Vubu as president, of the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO) party. Other parties that emerged included the Parti Solidaire Africain led by Antoine Gizenga, and the Parti National du Peuple led by Albert Delvaux and Laurent Mbariko.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Belgian Congo achieved independence on 30 June 1960 under the name "République du Congo" ("Republic of Congo" or "Republic of the Congo" in English). As the neighboring French colony of Middle Congo ("Moyen Congo") also chose the name "Republic of Congo" upon achieving its independence, the two countries are more commonly known as "Congo-Léopoldville" and "Congo-Brazzaville", after their capital cities.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Shortly after independence the "Force Publique" mutinied, and on 11 July the province of Katanga (led by Moïse Tshombe) and South Kasai engaged in secessionist struggles against the new leadership. Most of the 100,000 Europeans who had remained behind after independence fled the country, opening the way for Congolese to replace the European military and administrative elite. After the United Nations rejected Lumumba's call for help to put down the secessionist movements, Lumumba asked for assistance from the Soviet Union, who accepted and sent military supplies and advisers. On 23 August, the Congolese armed forces invaded South Kasai. Lumumba was dismissed from office on 5 September 1960 by Kasavubu who publicly blamed him for massacres by the armed forces in South Kasai and for involving Soviets in the country. Lumumba declared Kasavubu's action unconstitutional, and a crisis between the two leaders developed.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: On 14 September, Colonel Joseph Mobutu, with the backing of the US and Belgium, removed Lumumba from office. On 17 January 1961, Lumumba was handed over to Katangan authorities and executed by Belgian-led Katangan troops. A 2001 investigation by Belgium's Parliament found Belgium "morally responsible" for the murder of Lumumba, and the country has since officially apologised for its role in his death.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: On 18 September 1961, in ongoing negotiations of a cease-fire, a plane crash near Ndola resulted in the death of Dag Hammarskjöld, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, along with all 15 passengers, setting off a succession crisis. Amidst widespread confusion and chaos, a temporary government was led by technicians (the Collège des commissaires généraux). Katangan secession ended in January 1963 with the assistance of UN forces. Several short-lived governments of Joseph Ileo, Cyrille Adoula, and Moise Kapenda Tshombe took over in quick succession.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Meanwhile, in the east of the country, Soviet and Cuban-backed rebels called the Simbas rose up, taking a significant amount of territory and proclaiming a communist "People's Republic of the Congo" in Stanleyville. The Simbas were pushed out of Stanleyville in November 1964 during Operation Dragon Rouge, a military operation conducted by Belgian and American forces to rescue hundreds of hostages. Congolese government forces fully defeated the Simba rebels by November 1965.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Lumumba had previously appointed Mobutu chief of staff of the new Congo army, Armée Nationale Congolaise. Taking advantage of the leadership crisis between Kasavubu and Tshombe, Mobutu garnered enough support within the army to launch a coup. A constitutional referendum the year before Mobutu's coup of 1965 resulted in the country's official name being changed to the "Democratic Republic of the Congo." In 1971 Mobutu changed the name again, this time to "Republic of Zaire".


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Mobutu had the staunch support of the United States because of his opposition to communism; the U.S. believed that his administration would serve as an effective counter to communist movements in Africa. A single-party system was established, and Mobutu declared himself head of state. He periodically held elections in which he was the only candidate. Although relative peace and stability were achieved, Mobutu's government was guilty of severe human rights violations, political repression, a cult of personality and corruption.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: By late 1967 Mobutu had successfully neutralized his political opponents and rivals, either through co-opting them into his regime, arresting them, or rendering them otherwise politically impotent. Throughout the late 1960s, Mobutu continued to shuffle his governments and cycle officials in and out of the office to maintain control. Joseph Kasa-Vubu's death in April 1969 ensured that no person with First Republic credentials could challenge his rule. By the early 1970s, Mobutu was attempting to assert Zaire as a leading African nation. He traveled frequently across the continent while the government became more vocal about African issues, particularly those relating to the southern region. Zaire established semi-clientelist relationships with several smaller African states, especially Burundi, Chad, and Togo.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Corruption became so common the term ""le mal Zairois"" or "Zairian sickness", meaning gross corruption, theft and mismanagement, was coined, reportedly by Mobutu. International aid, most often in the form of loans, enriched Mobutu while he allowed national infrastructure such as roads to deteriorate to as little as one-quarter of what had existed in 1960. Zaire became a kleptocracy as Mobutu and his associates embezzled government funds.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In a campaign to identify himself with African nationalism, starting on 1 June 1966, Mobutu renamed the nation's cities: Léopoldville became Kinshasa (the country was known as Congo-Kinshasa), Stanleyville became Kisangani, Elisabethville became Lubumbashi, and Coquilhatville became Mbandaka. In 1971, Mobutu renamed the country the "Republic of Zaire", its fourth name change in eleven years and its sixth overall. The Congo River was renamed the Zaire River.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: During the 1970s and 1980s, Mobutu was invited to visit the United States on several occasions, meeting with U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union U.S. relations with Mobutu cooled, as he was no longer deemed necessary as a Cold War ally. Opponents within Zaire stepped up demands for reform. This atmosphere contributed to Mobutu's declaring the Third Republic in 1990, whose constitution was supposed to pave the way for democratic reform. The reforms turned out to be largely cosmetic. Mobutu continued in power until armed forces forced him to flee in 1997. "From 1990 to 1993, the United States facilitated Mobutu's attempts to hijack political change", one academic wrote, and "also assisted the rebellion of Laurent-Desire Kabila that overthrew the Mobutu regime."


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: By 1996, following the Rwandan Civil War and genocide and the ascension of a Tutsi-led government in Rwanda, Rwandan Hutu militia forces (Interahamwe) fled to eastern Zaire and used refugee camps as bases for incursions against Rwanda. They allied with the Zairian Armed Forces to launch a campaign against Congolese ethnic Tutsis in eastern Zaire.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: A coalition of Rwandan and Ugandan armies invaded Zaire to overthrow the government of Mobutu, launching the First Congo War. The coalition allied with some opposition figures, led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, becoming the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo. In 1997 Mobutu fled and Kabila marched into Kinshasa, naming himself as president and reverting the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Kabila later requested that foreign military forces return to their own countries. Rwandan troops retreated to Goma and launched a new Tutsi-led rebel military movement called the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie to fight Kabila, while Uganda instigated the creation of a rebel movement called the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo, led by Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. The two rebel movements, along with Rwandan and Ugandan troops, started the Second Congo War by attacking the DRC army in 1998. Angolan, Zimbabwean, and Namibian militaries entered the hostilities on the side of the government.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Kabila was assassinated in 2001. His son Joseph Kabila succeeded him and called for multilateral peace talks. UN peacekeepers, MONUC, now known as MONUSCO, arrived in April 2001. In 2002-03 Bemba intervened in the Central African Republic on behalf of its former president, Ange-Félix Patassé. Talks led to a peace accord under which Kabila would share power with former rebels. By June 2003 all foreign armies except those of Rwanda had pulled out of Congo. A transitional government was set up until after the election. A constitution was approved by voters, and on 30 July 2006 DRC held its first multi-party elections. These were the first free national elections since 1960, which many believed would mark the end to violence in the region. However, an election-result dispute between Kabila and Bemba turned into a skirmish between their supporters in Kinshasa. MONUC took control of the city. A new election took place in October 2006, which Kabila won, and in December 2006 he was sworn in as president.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Laurent Nkunda, a member of Rally for Congolese Democracy–Goma, a Rally for Congolese Democracy branch integrated to the army, defected along with troops loyal to him and formed the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), which began an armed rebellion against the government. They were believed to be again backed by Rwanda as a way to tackle the Hutu group, Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). In March 2009, after a deal between the DRC and Rwanda, Rwandan troops entered the DRC and arrested Nkunda and were allowed to pursue FDLR militants. The CNDP signed a peace treaty with the government in which it agreed to become a political party and to have its soldiers integrated into the national army in exchange for the release of its imprisoned members. In 2012 Bosco Ntaganda, the leader of the CNDP, and troops loyal to him, mutinied and formed the rebel military March 23 Movement (M23), claiming the government had violated the treaty.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In the resulting M23 rebellion, M23 briefly captured the provincial capital of Goma in November 2012. Neighboring countries, particularly Rwanda, have been accused of arming rebels groups and using them as proxies to gain control of the resource-rich country, an accusation they deny. In March 2013, the United Nations Security Council authorized the United Nations Force Intervention Brigade to neutralize armed groups. On 5 November 2013, M23 declared an end to its insurgency.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Additionally, in northern Katanga, the Mai-Mai created by Laurent Kabila slipped out of the control of Kinshasa with Gédéon Kyungu Mutanga's Mai Mai Kata Katanga briefly invading the provincial capital of Lubumbashi in 2013 and 400,000 persons displaced in the province . On and off fighting in the Ituri conflict occurred between the Nationalist and Integrationist Front and the Union of Congolese Patriots who claimed to represent the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups, respectively. In the northeast, Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army moved from their original bases in Uganda and South Sudan to DR Congo in 2005 and set up camps in the Garamba National Park.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The war in the Congo has been described as the bloodiest war since World War II. On 8 December 2017, fourteen UN soldiers and five Congolese regular soldiers were killed in a rebel attack at Semuliki in Beni territory. The rebels were thought to be Allied Democratic Forces. UN investigations confirmed that aggressor in the December attack.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In 2009, "The New York Times" reported that people in the Congo continued to die at a rate of an estimated 45,000 per month – estimates of the number who have died from the long conflict range from 900,000 to 5,400,000. The death toll is caused by widespread disease and famine; reports indicate that almost half of the individuals who have died are children under five years of age. There have been frequent reports of weapon bearers killing civilians, of the destruction of property, of widespread sexual violence, causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes, and of other breaches of humanitarian and human rights law. One study found that more than 400,000 women are raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo every year. In 2018 and 2019, Congo reported the highest levels of sexual violence in the world. According to the Human Rights Watch and the New York University-based Congo Research Group, armed troops in DRC's eastern Kivu region have killed over 1,900 civilians and kidnapped at least 3,300 people since June 2017 to June 2019.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In 2015, major protests broke out across the country and protesters demanded that Kabila step down as president. The protests began after the passage of a law by the Congolese lower house that, if also passed by the Congolese upper house, would keep Kabila in power at least until a national census was conducted (a process which would likely take several years and therefore keep him in power past the planned 2016 elections, which he is constitutionally barred from participating in). This bill passed; however, it was gutted of the provision that would keep Kabila in power until a census took place. A census is supposed to take place, but it is no longer tied to when the elections take place. In 2015, elections were scheduled for late 2016 and a tenuous peace held in the Congo.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: On 27 November 2016 Congolese foreign minister Raymond Tshibanda told the press no elections would be held in 2016, after 20 December, the end of president Kabila's term. In a conference in Madagascar, Tshibanda said that Kabila's government had "consulted election experts" from Congo, the United Nations and elsewhere, and that "it has been decided that the voter registration operation will end on July 31, 2017, and that election will take place in April 2018." Protests broke out in the country on 20 December when Kabila's term in office ended. Across the country, dozens of protesters were killed and hundreds were arrested.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: According to Jan Egeland, presently Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, the situation in the DRC became much worse in 2016 and 2017 and is a major moral and humanitarian challenge comparable to the wars in Syria and Yemen, which receive much more attention. Women and children are abused sexually and "abused in all possible manners". Besides the conflict in North Kivu, violence increased in the Kasai region. The armed groups were after gold, diamonds, oil, and cobalt to line the pockets of rich men both in the region and internationally. There were also ethnic and cultural rivalries at play, as well as religious motives and the political crisis with postponed elections. Egeland says people believe the situation in the DRC is "stably bad" but in fact, it has become much, much worse. "The big wars of the Congo that were really on top of the agenda 15 years ago are back and worsening". Disruption in planting and harvesting caused by the conflict was estimated to escalate starvation in about two million children.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Human Rights Watch said in 2017 that Kabila recruited former March 23 Movement fighters to put down country-wide protests over his refusal to step down from office at the end of his term. "M23 fighters patrolled the streets of Congo's main cities, firing on or arresting protesters or anyone else deemed to be a threat to the president," they said.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Fierce fighting has erupted in Masisi between government forces and a powerful local warlord, General Delta. The United Nations mission in the DRC is its largest and most expensive peacekeeping effort, but it shut down five UN bases near Masisi in 2017, after the U.S. led a push to cut costs.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: On 10 May 2018, Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his effort to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: A tribal conflict erupted on 16–17 December 2018 at Yumbi in Mai-Ndombe Province. Nearly 900 Banunu people from four villages were slaughtered by members of the Batende community in a deep-rooted rivalry over monthly tribal duties, land, fields and water resources. Some 100 Banunus fled to Moniende island in the Congo River, and another 16,000 to Makotimpoko District in Republic of Congo. Military-style tactics were employed in the bloodbath, and some assailants were clothed in army uniforms. Local authorities and elements within the security forces were suspected of lending them support.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: On 30 December 2018 a general election was held. On 10 January 2019, the electoral commission announced opposition candidate Félix Tshisekedi as the winner of the presidential vote, and he was officially sworn in as president on 24 January. However, there were widespread suspicions that the results were rigged and that a deal had been made between Tshisekedi and Kabila. The Catholic Church said that the official results did not correspond to the information its election monitors had collected. The government had also "delayed" the vote until March in some areas, citing the Ebola outbreak in Kivu as well as the ongoing military conflict. This was criticized as these regions are known as opposition strongholds. In August 2019, six months after the inauguration of Félix Tshisekedi, a coalition government was announced.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The political allies of Kabila maintained control of key ministries, the legislature, judiciary and security services. However, Tshisekedi succeeded in strengthening his hold on power. In a series of moves, he won over more legislators, gaining the support of almost 400 out of 500 members of the National Assembly. The pro-Kabila speakers of both houses of parliament were forced out. In April 2021, the new government was formed without the supporters of Kabila.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: A major measles outbreak in the country left nearly 5,000 dead in 2019. The Ebola outbreak ended in June 2020, which had caused 2,280 deaths over 2 years. Another, smaller Ebola outbreak in the Équateur Province began in June 2020, ultimately causing 55 deaths. The global COVID-19 pandemic also reached the DRC in March 2020, with a vaccination campaign beginning on 19 April 2021.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Italian ambassador to the DRC, Luca Attanasio, and his bodyguard were killed in North Kivu on 22 February 2021. On 22 April 2021, meetings between Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the Tshisekedi resulted in new agreements increasing international trade and security (counterterrorism, immigration, cyber security, and customs) between the two countries. In February 2022, allegations of a coup d'état in the country led to uncertainty, but the coup attempt failed.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The DRC is located in central sub-Saharan Africa, bordered to the northwest by the Republic of the Congo, to the north by the Central African Republic, to the northeast by South Sudan, to the east by Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, and by Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika), to the south and southeast by Zambia, to the southwest by Angola, and to the west by the South Atlantic Ocean and the Cabinda Province exclave of Angola. The country lies between latitudes 6°N and 14°S, and longitudes 12°E and 32°E. It straddles the Equator, with one-third to the north and two-thirds to the south. With an area of , it is the second-largest country in Africa by area, after Algeria.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: As a result of its equatorial location, the DRC experiences high precipitation and has the highest frequency of thunderstorms in the world. The annual rainfall can total upwards of in some places, and the area sustains the Congo rainforest, the second-largest rain forest in the world after the Amazon rainforest. This massive expanse of lush jungle covers most of the vast, low-lying central basin of the river, which slopes toward the Atlantic Ocean in the west. This area is surrounded by plateaus merging into savannas in the south and southwest, by mountainous terraces in the west, and dense grasslands extending beyond the Congo River in the north. The glaciated Rwenzori Mountains are found in the extreme eastern region.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The tropical climate produced the Congo River system which dominates the region topographically along with the rainforest it flows through. The Congo Basin occupies nearly the entire country and an area of nearly . The river and its tributaries form the backbone of Congolese economics and transportation. Major tributaries include the Kasai, Sangha, Ubangi, Ruzizi, Aruwimi, and Lulonga.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Congo River has the second-largest flow and the second-largest watershed of any river in the world (trailing the Amazon in both respects). The sources of the Congo River are in the Albertine Rift Mountains that flank the western branch of the East African Rift, as well as Lake Tanganyika and Lake Mweru. The river flows generally west from Kisangani just below Boyoma Falls, then gradually bends southwest, passing by Mbandaka, joining with the Ubangi River, and running into the Pool Malebo (Stanley Pool). Kinshasa and Brazzaville are on opposite sides of the river at the Pool. Then the river narrows and falls through a number of cataracts in deep canyons, collectively known as the Livingstone Falls, and runs past Boma into the Atlantic Ocean. The river and a wide strip of coastline on its north bank provide the country's only outlet to the Atlantic.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Albertine Rift plays a key role in shaping the Congo's geography. Not only is the northeastern section of the country much more mountainous, but tectonic movement results in volcanic activity, occasionally with loss of life. The geologic activity in this area also created the African Great Lakes, four of which lie on the Congo's eastern frontier: Lake Albert, Lake Kivu, Lake Edward, and Lake Tanganyika.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The rift valley has exposed an enormous amount of mineral wealth throughout the south and east of the Congo, making it accessible to mining. Cobalt, copper, cadmium, industrial and gem-quality diamonds, gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, germanium, uranium, radium, bauxite, iron ore, and coal are all found in plentiful supply, especially in the Congo's southeastern Katanga region.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: On 17 January 2002 Mount Nyiragongo erupted, with the lava running out at and wide. One of the three streams of extremely fluid lava flowed through Goma, killing 45 and leaving 120,000 homeless. Four hundred thousand people were evacuated from the city during the eruption. The lava poisoned the water of Lake Kivu, killing fish. Only two planes left the local airport because of the possibility of the explosion of stored petrol. The lava passed the airport, ruining a runway and trapping several airplanes. Six months after the eruption, nearby Mount Nyamuragira also erupted. Mount Nyamuragira then erupted in 2006 and again in January 2010.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The rainforests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo contain great biodiversity, including many rare and endemic species, such as the common chimpanzee and the bonobo, the African forest elephant, the mountain gorilla, the okapi and the white rhinoceros. Five of the country's national parks are listed as World Heritage Sites: the Garumba, Kahuzi-Biega, Salonga and Virunga National Parks, and the Okapi Wildlife Reserve. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of 17 Megadiverse countries and is the most biodiverse African country.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Conservationists have particularly worried about primates. The Congo is inhabited by several great ape species: the common chimpanzee ("Pan troglodytes"), the bonobo ("Pan paniscus"), the eastern gorilla ("Gorilla beringei"), and possibly the western gorilla ("Gorilla gorilla"). It is the only country in the world in which bonobos are found in the wild. Much concern has been raised about great ape extinction. Because of hunting and habitat destruction, the chimpanzee, the bonobo and the gorilla, each of whose populations once numbered in the millions, have now dwindled down to only about 200,000 gorillas, 100,000 chimpanzees and possibly only about 10,000 bonobos. The gorillas, chimpanzee, bonobo, and okapi are all classified as endangered by the World Conservation Union.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Major environmental issues in DRC include deforestation, poaching, which threatens wildlife populations, water pollution and mining.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Displaced refugees cause or are otherwise responsible for significant deforestation, soil erosion and wildlife poaching. Another significant issue is environmental damage from the mining of minerals, especially diamonds, gold, and coltan – a mineral used to manufacture capacitors.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The country is currently divided into the city-province of Kinshasa and 25 other provinces. The provinces are subdivided into 145 territories and 32 cities. Before 2015, the country had 11 provinces.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: After a four-year interlude between two constitutions, with new political institutions established at the various levels of government, as well as new administrative divisions for the provinces throughout the country, a new constitution came into effect in 2006 and politics in the Democratic Republic of the Congo finally settled into a stable presidential democratic republic.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The 2003 transitional constitution had established a parliament with a bicameral legislature, consisting of a Senate and a National Assembly.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Senate had, among other things, the charge of drafting the new constitution of the country. The executive branch was vested in a 60-member cabinet, headed by a President and four vice presidents. The President was also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The transitional constitution also established a relatively independent judiciary, headed by a Supreme Court with constitutional interpretation powers.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The 2006 constitution, also known as the Constitution of the Third Republic, came into effect in February 2006. It had concurrent authority, however, with the transitional constitution until the inauguration of the elected officials who emerged from the July 2006 elections. Under the new constitution, the legislature remained bicameral; the executive was concomitantly undertaken by a President and the government, led by a Prime Minister, appointed from the party able to secure a majority in the National Assembly.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The government – not the President – is responsible to the Parliament. The new constitution also granted new powers to the provincial governments, creating provincial parliaments which have oversight of the Governor and the head of the provincial government, whom they elect. The new constitution also saw the disappearance of the Supreme Court, which was divided into three new institutions. The constitutional interpretation prerogative of the Supreme Court is now held by the Constitutional Court.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Although located in the Central African UN subregion, the nation is also economically and regionally affiliated with Southern Africa as a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The global growth in demand for scarce raw materials and the industrial surges in China, India, Russia, Brazil and other developing countries require that developed countries employ new, integrated and responsive strategies for identifying and ensuring, on a continual basis, an adequate supply of strategic and critical materials required for their security needs. Highlighting the DR Congo's importance to United States national security, the effort to establish an elite Congolese unit is the latest push by the U.S. to professionalize armed forces in this strategically important region.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: There are economic and strategic incentives to bring more security to the Congo, which is rich in natural resources such as cobalt, a strategic and critical metal used in many industrial and military applications. The largest use of cobalt is in superalloys, used to make jet engine parts. Cobalt is also used in magnetic alloys and in cutting and wear-resistant materials such as cemented carbides. The chemical industry consumes significant quantities of cobalt in a variety of applications including catalysts for petroleum and chemical processing; drying agents for paints and inks; ground coats for porcelain enamels; decolorant for ceramics and glass; and pigments for ceramics, paints, and plastics. The country possesses 80% of the world's cobalt reserves.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: It is thought that due to the importance of cobalt for batteries for electric vehicles and stabilization of electric grids with large proportions of intermittent renewables in the electricity mix, the DRC could become an object of increased geopolitical competition.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In the 21st century, Chinese investment in the DRC and Congolese exports to China have grown rapidly. In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including DRC, have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities. In 2021, President Félix Tshisekedi called for a review of mining contracts signed with China by his predecessor Joseph Kabila, in particular the Sicomines multibillion 'minerals-for-infrastructure' deal.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The "Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo" (FARDC) consist of about 144,000 personnel, the majority of whom are part of the land forces, also with a small air force and an even smaller navy. The FARDC was established in 2003 after the end of the Second Congo War and integrated many former rebel groups into its ranks. Due to the presence of undisciplined and poorly trained ex-rebels, as well as a lack of funding and having spent years fighting against different militias, the FARDC suffers from rampant corruption and inefficiency. The agreements signed at the end of the Second Congo War called for a new "national, restructured and integrated" army that would be made up of Kabila's government forces (the FAC), the RCD, and the MLC. Also stipulated was that rebels like the RCD-N, RCD-ML, and the Mai-Mai would become part of the new armed forces. It also provided for the creation of a "Conseil Superieur de la Defense" (Superior Defence Council) which would declare states of siege or war and give advice on security sector reform, disarmament/demobilisation, and national defence policy. The FARDC is organised on the basis of brigades, which are dispersed throughout the provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Congolese troops have been fighting the Kivu conflict in the eastern North Kivu region, the Ituri conflict in the Ituri region, and other rebellions since the Second Congo War. Besides the FARDC, the largest peacekeeping mission of the United Nations, known as MONUSCO, is also present in the country with about 18,000 peacekeepers.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: A relative of Mobutu explained how the government illicitly collected revenue during his rule: "Mobutu would ask one of us to go to the bank and take out a million. We'd go to an intermediary and tell him to get five million. He would go to the bank with Mobutu's authority and take out ten. Mobutu got one, and we took the other nine." Mobutu institutionalized corruption to prevent political rivals from challenging his control, leading to an economic collapse in 1996.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Mobutu allegedly stole as much as US$4–5 billion while in office. He was not the first corrupt Congolese leader by any means: "Government as a system of organized theft goes back to King Leopold II," noted Adam Hochschild in 2009. In July 2009, a Swiss court determined that the statute of limitations had run out on an international asset recovery case of about $6.7 million of deposits of Mobutu's in a Swiss bank, and therefore the assets should be returned to Mobutu's family.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: President Kabila established the Commission of Repression of Economic Crimes upon his ascension to power in 2001. However, in 2016 the Enough Project issued a report claiming that the Congo is run as a violent kleptocracy.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In June 2020, a court in the Democratic Republic of Congo found President Tshisekedi's chief of staff Vital Kamerhe guilty of corruption. He was sentenced to 20 years' hard labour, after facing charges of embezzling almost $50m (£39m) of public funds. He was the most high-profile figure to be convicted of corruption in the DRC. However, Kamerhe was released already in December 2021.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In November 2021, a judicial investigation targeting Kabila and his associates was opened in Kinshasa after revelations of alleged embezzlement of $138 million.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The International Criminal Court investigation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was initiated by Kabila in April 2004. The International Criminal Court prosecutor opened the case in June 2004. Child soldiers have been used on a large scale in DRC, and in 2011 it was estimated that 30,000 children were still operating with armed groups. Instances of child labor and forced labor have been observed and reported in the U.S. Department of Labor's "Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor" in the DRC in 2013 and six goods produced by the country's mining industry appear on the department's December 2014 "List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor".


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Violence against women seems to be perceived by large sectors of society to be normal. The 2013–2014 DHS survey (pp. 299) found that 74.8% of women agreed that a husband is justified in beating his wife in certain circumstances.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in 2006 expressed concern that in the post-war transition period, the promotion of women's human rights and gender equality is not seen as a priority. Mass rapes, sexual violence and sexual slavery are used as a weapon of war by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and armed groups in the eastern part of the country. The eastern part of the country in particular has been described as the "rape capital of the world" and the prevalence of sexual violence there described as the worst in the world.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Female genital mutilation (FGM) is also practiced in DRC, although not on a large scale. The prevalence of FGM is estimated at 5% of women. FGM is illegal: the law imposes a penalty of two to five years of prison and a fine of 200,000 Congolese francs on any person who violates the "physical or functional integrity" of the genital organs.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In July 2007, the International Committee of the Red Cross expressed concern about the situation in eastern DRC. A phenomenon of "pendulum displacement" has developed, where people hasten at night to safety. According to Yakin Ertürk, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women who toured eastern Congo in July 2007, violence against women in North and South Kivu included "unimaginable brutality". Ertürk added that "Armed groups attack local communities, loot, rape, kidnap women and children, and make them work as sexual slaves". In December 2008, GuardianFilms of "The Guardian" released a film documenting the testimony of over 400 women and girls who had been abused by marauding militia.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In June 2010, Oxfam reported a dramatic increase in the number of rapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and researchers from Harvard discovered that rapes committed by civilians had increased seventeenfold. In June 2014, Freedom from Torture published reported rape and sexual violence being used routinely by state officials in Congolese prisons as punishment for politically active women. The women included in the report were abused in several locations across the country including the capital Kinshasa and other areas away from the conflict zones.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In 2015, figures both inside and outside of the country, such as Filimbi and Emmanuel Weyi, spoke out about the need to curb violence and instability as the 2016 elections approached.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The Central Bank of the Congo is responsible for developing and maintaining the Congolese franc, which serves as the primary form of currency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2007, The World Bank decided to grant the Democratic Republic of Congo up to $1.3 billion in assistance funds over the following three years. The Congolese government started negotiating membership in the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA), in 2009.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The DRC is widely considered one of the world's richest countries in natural resources; its untapped deposits of raw minerals are estimated to be worth in excess of US$24 trillion. The DRC has 70% of the world's coltan, a third of its cobalt, more than 30% of its diamond reserves, and a tenth of its copper.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Despite such vast mineral wealth, the economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has declined drastically since the mid-1980s. The DRC generated up to 70% of its export revenue from minerals in the 1970s and 1980s and was particularly hit when resource prices deteriorated at that time. By 2005, 90% of the DRC's revenues derived from its minerals. Congolese citizens are among the poorest people on Earth. DR Congo consistently has the lowest, or nearly the lowest, nominal GDP per capita in the world. The DRC is also one of the twenty lowest-ranked countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The DRC is the world's largest producer of cobalt ore, and a major producer of copper and diamonds. The latter come from Kasai province in the west. By far the largest mines in the DRC are located in southern Katanga province and are highly mechanized, with a capacity of several million tons per year of copper and cobalt ore, and refining capability for metal ore. The DRC is the second-largest diamond-producing nation in the world, and artisanal and small-scale miners account for most of its production.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: At independence in 1960, DRC was the second-most industrialized country in Africa after South Africa; it boasted a thriving mining sector and a relatively productive agriculture sector. Foreign businesses have curtailed operations because of uncertainty about the outcome of long-term conflicts, lack of infrastructure, and the difficult operating environment. The wars intensified the impact of such basic problems as an uncertain legal framework, corruption, inflation, and lack of openness in government economic policy and financial operations.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Conditions improved in late 2002, when a large portion of the invading foreign troops withdrew. A number of International Monetary Fund and World Bank missions met with the government to help it develop a coherent economic plan, and President Kabila began implementing reforms. Much economic activity still lies outside the GDP data. Through 2011 the DRC had the lowest Human Development Index of the 187 ranked countries.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The economy of DRC relies heavily on mining. However, the smaller-scale economic activity from artisanal mining occurs in the informal sector and is not reflected in GDP data. A third of the DRC's diamonds are believed to be smuggled out of the country, making it difficult to quantify diamond production levels. In 2002, tin was discovered in the east of the country but to date has only been mined on a small scale. Smuggling of conflict minerals such as coltan and cassiterite, ores of tantalum and tin, respectively, helped to fuel the war in the eastern Congo.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Katanga Mining Limited, a Swiss-owned company, owns the Luilu Metallurgical Plant, which has a capacity of 175,000 tonnes of copper and 8,000 tonnes of cobalt per year, making it the largest cobalt refinery in the world. After a major rehabilitation program, the company resumed copper production operations in December 2007 and cobalt production in May 2008.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In April 2013, anti-corruption NGOs revealed that Congolese tax authorities had failed to account for $88 million from the mining sector, despite booming production and positive industrial performance. The missing funds date from 2010 and tax bodies should have paid them into the central bank. Later in 2013, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative suspended the country's candidacy for membership due to insufficient reporting, monitoring and independent audits, but in July 2013 the country improved its accounting and transparency practices to the point where the EITI gave the country full membership.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In February 2018, global asset management firm AllianceBernstein defined the DRC as economically "the Saudi Arabia of the electric vehicle age," because of its cobalt resources, as essential to the lithium-ion batteries that drive electric vehicles.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Ground transport in the Democratic Republic of Congo has always been difficult. The terrain and climate of the Congo Basin present serious barriers to road and rail construction, and the distances are enormous across this vast country. The DRC has more navigable rivers and moves more passengers and goods by boat and ferry than any other country in Africa, but air transport remains the only effective means of moving goods and people between many places within the country, especially in rural areas. Chronic economic mismanagement, political corruption and internal conflicts have led to long-term under-investment of infrastructure.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Rail transportation is provided by the Congo Railroad Company (Société nationale des chemins de fer du Congo), the Office National des Transports Congo and the Office of the Uele Railways (Office des Chemins de fer des Ueles, CFU). Like much of the infrastructure in the Congo, the railways are poorly maintained, dirty, crowded and dangerous.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The DRC has fewer all-weather paved highways than any country of its population and size in Africa — a total of , of which only is in good condition. To put this in perspective, the road distance across the country in any direction is more than (e.g. Matadi to Lubumbashi, by road). The figure of converts to of paved road per 1,000,000 of population. Comparative figures for Zambia and Botswana are and respectively.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The DRC has thousands of kilometres of navigable waterways. Traditionally water transport has been the dominant means of moving around in approximately two-thirds of the country.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: , DR Congo had one major national airline (Congo Airways) that offered flights inside DR Congo. Congo Airways was based at Kinshasa's international airport. All air carriers certified by the DRC have been banned from European Union airports by the European Commission, because of inadequate safety standards.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Several international airlines service Kinshasa's international airport and a few also offer international flights to Lubumbashi International Airport.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Both coal and crude oil resources were mainly used domestically up to 2008. The DRC has the infrastructure for hydro-electricity from the Congo River at the Inga dams. The country also possesses 50% of Africa's forests and a river system that could provide hydro-electric power to the entire continent, according to a UN report on the country's strategic significance and its potential role as an economic power in central Africa.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The generation and distribution of electricity are controlled by Société nationale d'électricité, but only 15% of the country has access to electricity. The DRC is a member of three electrical power pools. These are Southern African Power Pool, East African Power Pool, and Central African Power Pool.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Because of abundant sunlight, the potential for solar development is very high in the DRC. There are already about 836 solar power systems in the DRC, with a total power of 83 MW, located in Équateur (167), Katanga (159), Nord-Kivu (170), the two Kasaï provinces (170), and Bas-Congo (170). Also, the 148 Caritas network system has a total power of 6.31 MW.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: French is the official language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is culturally accepted as the "lingua franca", facilitating communication among the many different ethnic groups of the Congo. According to a 2018 OIF report, 49 million Congolese people (51% of the population) could read and write in French. A 2021 survey found that 74% of the population could speak French, making it the most widely spoken language in the country.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In Kinshasa, 67% of the population in 2014 could read and write French, and 68.5% could speak and understand it.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Approximately 242 languages are spoken in the country, of which four have the status of national languages: Kituba (Kikongo), Lingala, Tshiluba, and Swahili. Although some limited number of people speak these as first languages, most of the population speak them as a second language, after the native language of their own ethnic group. Lingala was the official language of the "Force Publique" under Belgian colonial rule and remains to this day the predominant language of the armed forces. Since the recent rebellions, a good part of the army in the east also uses Swahili, where it competes to be the regional lingua franca.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Under Belgian rule, the colonizers instituted teaching and use of the four national languages in primary schools, making it one of the few African nations to have had literacy in local languages during the European colonial period. This trend was reversed after independence, when French became the sole language of education at all levels. Since 1975, the four national languages have been reintroduced in the first two years of primary education, with French becoming the sole language of education from the third year onward, but in practice many primary schools in urban areas solely use French from the first year of school onward.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Portuguese is taught in the Congolese schools as a foreign language. The lexical similarity and phonology with French makes Portuguese a relatively easy language for the people to learn. Most of the roughly 175,000 Portuguese speakers in the DRC are Angolan and Mozambican expatriates.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Over 200 ethnic groups populate the DRC, of which the majority are Bantu peoples. Together, Mongo, Luba, Kongo peoples, Mangbetu and the Azande peoples constitute around 45% of the population.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In , the UN estimated the country's population to be /1e6 round 0 million, a rapid increase from 39.1 million in 1992 despite the ongoing war. As many as 250 ethnic groups have been identified and named. The most numerous people are the Kongo, Luba, and Mongo. About 600,000 Pygmies are the aboriginal people of the DR Congo.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Christianity is the predominant religion of the DRC. A 2013-14 survey, conducted by the Demographic and Health Surveys Program in 2013–2014 indicated that Christians constituted 93.7% of the population (with Catholics making up 29.7%, Protestants 26.8%, and other Christians 37.2%). A new Christian religious movement, Kimbanguism, had the adherence of 2.8%, while Muslims made up 1%. Other recent estimates have found Christianity the majority religion, followed by 95.8% of the population according to a 2010 Pew Research Center estimate, while the CIA World Factbook reports this figure to be 95.9%. The proportion of followers of Islam is variously estimated from 1% to 12%


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: There are about 35 million Catholics in the country with six archdioceses and 41 dioceses. The impact of the Catholic Church is difficult to overestimate. Schatzberg has called it the country's "only truly national institution apart from the state." Its schools have educated over 60% of the nation's primary school students and more than 40% of its secondary students. The church owns and manages an extensive network of hospitals, schools, and clinics, as well as many diocesan economic enterprises, including farms, ranches, stores, and artisans' shops.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Sixty-two Protestant denominations are federated under the umbrella of the Church of Christ in the Congo. It is often referred to as "the Protestant Church", since it covers most of the DRC Protestants. With more than 25 million members, it constitutes one of the largest Protestant bodies in the world.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Kimbanguism was seen as a threat to the colonial regime and was banned by the Belgians. Kimbanguism, officially "the church of Christ on Earth by the prophet Simon Kimbangu", has about three million members, primarily among the Bakongo of Kongo Central and Kinshasa.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Islam has been present in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the 18th century, when Arab traders from East Africa pushed into the interior for ivory- and slave-trading purposes. Today, Muslims constitute approximately 1% of the Congolese population according to the Pew Research Center. The majority are Sunni Muslims.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The first members of the Baháʼí Faith to live in the country came from Uganda in 1953. Four years later the first local administrative council was elected. In 1970 the National Spiritual Assembly (national administrative council) was first elected. Though the religion was banned in the 1970s and 1980s, due to misrepresentations of foreign governments, the ban was lifted by the end of the 1980s. In 2012 plans were announced to build a national Baháʼí House of Worship in the country.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Traditional religions embody such concepts as monotheism, animism, vitalism, spirit and ancestor worship, witchcraft, and sorcery and vary widely among ethnic groups. The syncretic sects often merge elements of Christianity with traditional beliefs and rituals and are not recognized by mainstream churches as part of Christianity. New variants of ancient beliefs have become widespread, led by US-inspired Pentecostal churches which have been in the forefront of witchcraft accusations, particularly against children and the elderly. Children accused of witchcraft are sent away from homes and family, often to live on the street, which can lead to physical violence against these children. There are charities supporting street children such as the Congo Children Trust. The Congo Children Trust's flagship project is Kimbilio, which works to reunite street children in Lubumbashi. The usual term for these children is "enfants sorciers" (child witches) or "enfants dits sorciers" (children accused of witchcraft). Non-denominational church organizations have been formed to capitalize on this belief by charging exorbitant fees for exorcisms. Though recently outlawed, children have been subjected in these exorcisms to often-violent abuse at the hands of self-proclaimed prophets and priests.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: In 2014, the literacy rate for the population between the ages of 15 and 49 was estimated to be 75.9% (88.1% male and 63.8% female) according to a DHS nationwide survey. The education system is governed by three government ministries: the "Ministère de l'Enseignement Primaire, Secondaire et Professionnel (MEPSP"), the "Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et Universitaire (MESU)" and the "Ministère des Affaires Sociales (MAS)". Primary education is not free nor compulsory, even though the Congolese constitution says it should be (Article 43 of the 2005 Congolese Constitution).


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: As a result of the First and Second Congo Wars in the late 1990s—early 2000s, over 5.2 million children in the country did not receive any education. Since the end of the civil war, the situation has improved tremendously, with the number of children enrolled in primary schools rising from 5.5 million in 2002 to 16.8 million in 2018, and the number of children enrolled in secondary schools rising from 2.8 million in 2007 to 4.6 million in 2015 according to UNESCO.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Actual school attendance has also improved greatly in recent years, with primary school net attendance estimated to be 82.4% in 2014 (82.4% of children ages 6–11 attended school; 83.4% for boys, 80.6% for girls).


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The hospitals in the DRC include the General Hospital of Kinshasa. The DRC has the world's second-highest rate of infant mortality (after Chad). In April 2011, through aid from Global Alliance for Vaccines, a new vaccine to prevent pneumococcal disease was introduced around Kinshasa. In 2012, it was estimated that about 1.1% of adults aged 15–49 were living with HIV/AIDS. Malaria and yellow fever are problems. In May 2019, the death toll from the Ebola outbreak in DRC surpassed 1,000.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Maternal health is poor in DRC. According to 2010 estimates, DRC has the 17th highest maternal mortality rate in the world. According to UNICEF, 43.5% of children under five are stunted.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: United Nations emergency food relief agency warned that amid the escalating conflict and worsening situation following COVID-19 in the DRC, millions of lives were at risk as they could die of hunger. According to the data of the World Food Programme, in 2020 four in ten people in Congo lacked food security and about 15.6 million were facing a potential hunger crisis.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Air pollution levels in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are very unhealthy. In 2020, annual average air pollution in the Democratic Republic of the Congo stood at 34.2 µg/m³, which is almost 6.8 times the World Health Organization PM2.5 guideline (5 µg/m³: set in September 2021). These pollution levels are estimated to reduce the life expectancy of an average citizen of the DRC by almost 2.9 years. Currently, the DRC does not have a national ambient air quality standard.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Given the often unstable situation in the country and the condition of state structures, it is extremely difficult to obtain reliable migration data. However, evidence suggests that DRC continues to be a destination country for immigrants, in spite of recent declines in their numbers. Immigration is very diverse in nature; refugees and asylum-seekers – products of the numerous and violent conflicts in the Great Lakes Region – constitute an important subset of the population. Additionally, the country's large mine operations attract migrant workers from Africa and beyond. There is also considerable migration for commercial activities from other African countries and the rest of the world, but these movements are not well studied. Transit migration towards South Africa and Europe also plays a role.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Immigration to the DRC has decreased steadily over the past two decades, most likely as a result of the armed violence that the country has experienced. According to the International Organization for Migration, the number of immigrants in the DRC has fallen from just over one million in 1960, to 754,000 in 1990, to 480,000 in 2005, to an estimated 445,000 in 2010. Official figures are unavailable, partly due to the predominance of the informal economy in the DRC. Data are also lacking on irregular immigrants, however given neighbouring countries' ethnic links to DRC nationals, irregular migration is assumed to be a significant phenomenon.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Figures for Congolese nationals abroad vary greatly depending on the source, from three to six million. This discrepancy is due to a lack of official, reliable data. Emigrants from the DRC are above all long-term emigrants, the majority of whom live in Africa and to a lesser extent in Europe; 79.7% and 15.3% respectively, according to estimated 2000 data. New destination countries include South Africa and various points en route to Europe. The DRC has produced a considerable number of refugees and asylum-seekers located in the region and beyond. These numbers peaked in 2004 when, according to UNHCR, there were more than 460,000 refugees from the DRC; in 2008, Congolese refugees numbered 367,995 in total, 68% of whom were living in other African countries.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The culture reflects the diversity of its hundreds of ethnic groups and their differing ways of life throughout the country—from the mouth of the River Congo on the coast, upriver through the rainforest and savanna in its centre, to the more densely populated mountains in the far east. Since the late 19th century, traditional ways of life have undergone changes brought about by colonialism, the struggle for independence, the stagnation of the Mobutu era, and most recently, the First and Second Congo Wars. Despite these pressures, the customs and cultures of the Congo have retained much of their individuality. The country's 81 million inhabitants (2016) are mainly rural. The 30% who live in urban areas have been the most open to Western influences.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: The DRC has its influences on Cuban rumba, originally kumba from Congo and merengue. And those two later give birth to soukous. Other African nations produce music genres derived from Congolese soukous. Some of the African bands sing in Lingala, one of the main languages in the DRC. The same Congolese soukous, under the guidance of "le sapeur", Papa Wemba, have set the tone for a generation of young men always dressed up in expensive designer clothes. They came to be known as the fourth generation of Congolese music and mostly come from the former well-known band Wenge Musica.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Many sports are played in the DRC, including football, basketball, and rugby. The sports are played in numerous stadiums throughout the country, including the Stade Frederic Kibassa Maliba. As Zaire they participated in the 1974 FIFA World Cup.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Internationally, the country is especially famous for its professional basketball NBA and football players. Dikembe Mutombo is one of the best African basketball players to ever play the game. Mutombo is well known for humanitarian projects in his home country. Bismack Biyombo, Christian Eyenga, Jonathan Kuminga, and Emmanuel Mudiay are others who gained significant international attention in basketball. Several Congolese players and players of Congolese descent—including strikers Romelu Lukaku, Yannick Bolasie, and Dieumerci Mbokani—have gained prominence in world football. DR Congo has twice won the African Cup of Nations football tournament.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: DR Congo's women's national volleyball team lastly qualified for the 2021 Women's African Nations Volleyball Championship. The country featured a national team in beach volleyball that competed at the 2018–2020 CAVB Beach Volleyball Continental Cup in both the women's and the men's section.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Newspapers of the DRC include "L'Avenir", "Radion Télévision Mwangaza", ', ', "Le Phare", "Le Potentiel", "Le Soft" and "LeCongolais.CD", a web-based daily. Radio Télévision Nationale Congolaise (RTNC) is the national broadcaster of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. RTNC currently broadcasts in Lingala, French, and English.


title: Democratic Republic of the Congo

text: Congolese authors use literature as a way to develop a sense of national consciousness amongst the people of the DRC. Frederick Kambemba Yamusangie writes literature for the between generations of those who grew up in the Congo, during the time when they were colonised, fighting for independence and after. Yamusangie in an interview said he felt the distance in literature and wanted to remedy that he wrote the novel, Full Circle, which is a story of a boy named Emanuel who in the beginning of the book feels a difference in culture among the different groups in the Congo and elsewhere. Rais Neza Boneza, an author from the Katanga province, wrote novels and poems to promote artistic expressions as a way to address and deal with conflicts.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: Lily-Rose Melody Depp (born 27 May 1999) is a French-American actress and model. Depp began her acting career with a small role in "Tusk" (2014), and went on to star in the period drama "The Dancer" (2016), in which she played Isadora Duncan; "Planetarium" (2016); and "The King" (2019). Depp has been nominated for César Awards for Most Promising Actress for her performances in "The Dancer" and "A Faithful Man" (2018). Since 2015, she has been a Chanel brand ambassador.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: Lily-Rose Melody Depp was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, west of Paris, on 27 May 1999. She is the daughter of the American actor, producer, and musician Johnny Depp and the French singer, actress, and model Vanessa Paradis. Depp has a younger brother, Jack (John Christopher Depp III). The French actress Alysson Paradis is her aunt. Depp claims to have Native American ancestry through her father.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: In 2012, after 14 years together, Depp's parents separated and arranged joint custody of Depp, who divides her time between Los Angeles, Paris, and New York City.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: Depp began her acting career with a cameo role in "Tusk", which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2014. She acted alongside her friend Harley Quinn Smith, her father, and the film's director Kevin Smith.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: In 2015, Depp appeared with the Irish rapper Rejjie Snow in his music video "All Around the World", which was released in October. In addition to film work, Depp appeared on the cover of various fashion magazines, and has been the Chanel brand ambassador since 2015. She was chosen by Karl Lagerfeld when she was 15 years old. In 2016, Depp was announced by Lagerfeld as the face of Chanel's iconic fragrance, Chanel No. 5 "L'Eau".


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: Depp reprised her "Tusk" role in "Yoga Hosers", a spin-off that focuses on her and Harley Quinn Smith's characters. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: In May 2016, "The Dancer", in which Depp plays Isadora Duncan, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the "Un Certain Regard" category. The film is Stéphanie Di Giusto's directorial debut. For her performance in the film, Depp was nominated for Most Promising Actress at the 42nd César Awards and Most Promising Actress at the 22nd Lumières Awards. In the same year, Depp and Natalie Portman co-starred in Rebecca Zlotowski's "Planetarium" as two spiritualist sisters in 1930s France. It was Portman who picked Depp to play her younger sister in the film. The film had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September 2016.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: In 2018, Depp starred opposite Laurent Lafitte in "Les Fauves" ("Savage"), a French film directed by Vincent Mariette. The film was premiered in France in October 2018. In the same year, Depp starred in "A Faithful Man", directed by Louis Garrel and co-written by Oscar winner Jean-Claude Carrière. The film was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and released in France in December 2018. It had its U.S. debut at the New York Film Festival, and was released in New York and Los Angeles in July 2019. She was once again nominated for Most Promising Actress at the 44th César Awards.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: Depp next appeared in the Netflix short documentary "Period. End of Sentence." with Priyanka Chopra explaining how The Pad Project helped the women in Delhi start their own business making sanitary pads. The documentary won Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 91st Academy Awards. It was distributed by Netflix in February 2019. In April 2019, Depp was nominated for Most Promising Actress at Romy Schneider Award.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: In June 2019, Depp starred alongside her aunt Alysson Paradis in the French independent short film "Quel Joli Temps Pour Jouer Ses Vingt-ans" ("My Last Lullaby"), in which Depp played Paloma, a girl who experiences a great loss of a grandfather. The film won Best Picture at the 2019 New York Film Awards, and Best Narrative Short at the 2019 Los Angeles Film Awards. Mor Cohen of the New York Film Awards wrote, "Great performances by all actors, led by Lily-Rose Depp, who were so nuanced and intuitive that it was hard to remember these are fictional characters and not real people". For her performance in "My Last Lullaby", Depp won best actress award at the 2019 Los Angeles Film Awards. Les Brandt for the Los Angeles Film Awards noted, "Depp displays sonic waves of artistic expression with her eyes and internal work that was so subtle yet massively powerful and at such a young age was an exciting thing to watch."


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: Depp next starred in "The King", in which she plays Catherine of Valois, opposite Timothée Chalamet as Henry V. It had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September 2019 and has been distributed by Netflix since November 2019. Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" wrote, "Lily-Rose Depp makes her presence felt, for perhaps the first time ever, as Catherine of Valois, whose delicate worldliness matches Henry’s", and Rory O'Connor for "The Film Stage" called it "an excellent cameo".


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: In 2021, Depp starred in the opioid crisis thriller "Crisis" alongside Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, and Evangeline Lilly, and also in Neil Burger's sci-fi thriller "Voyagers" alongside Colin Farrell, Tye Sheridan, Isaac Hempstead Wright, and Fionn Whitehead. She appeared in a Christmas comedy "Silent Night" with Keira Knightley and Roman Griffin Davis among the cast. Depp starred alongside George MacKay in Nathalie Biancheri's "Wolf".


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: Depp is set to reprise her "Tusk" and "Yoga Hosers" role in "Moose Jaws". She will be making her television debut in the upcoming HBO drama series "The Idol", where she will star alongside recording artist Abel 'The Weeknd' Tesfaye. Depp will also have two upcoming movie projects including A24's erotic drama "The Governesses" and Robert Eggers’ gothic horror "Nosferatu".


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: Depp is the goddaughter of novelist François-Marie Banier and singer Marilyn Manson. Since her birth, Depp has been the subject of tabloid and media reporting, including birthdays, attendance at society events, and reviews of her fashion choices. She is fluent in both English and French, and has both French and US citizenship. Depp dropped out of high school in 2016 to focus on her acting career. She has struggled with anorexia in the past and has since recovered.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: In August 2015, Depp posed for iO Tillett Wright's Self-Evident Truths Project, stating she falls somewhere "on the LGBTQA spectrum". Depp later clarified she was simply making a statement on defining oneself, and not on her own sexuality.


title: Lily-Rose Depp

text: In 2016, although Depp was then under the legal voting age, she supported Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Depp and her mother Vanessa Paradis were photographed for "Our City of Angels" magazine in February 2017; the sales proceeds for the issue were donated to Planned Parenthood.


title: Paul Walker

text: Paul William Walker IV (September 12, 1973 – November 30, 2013) was an American actor. He was known for his role as Brian O'Conner in the "Fast & Furious" franchise.


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker began his career as a child actor in the 1980s, gaining recognition in the 1990s after appearing in the television soap opera "The Young and the Restless"; he received praise for his performances in the teen comedy "She's All That" and the comedy-drama "Varsity Blues" (both 1999), and saw international fame by starring in "The Fast and the Furious" (2001).


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker also starred in the commercially successful road thriller "Joy Ride" (2001), becoming an action star. He followed this with the box-office disappointments "Into the Blue" (2005) and "Running Scared" (2006), although he earned praise for his performance in the survival drama "Eight Below", and for his portrayal of Hank Hansen in "Flags of Our Fathers" (both 2006). Outside of these, Walker largely appeared in low budget action films, but starred in the commercially successful heist film "Takers" (2010).


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker died of injuries sustained from a single-vehicle collision on November 30, 2013, while speeding. His father and daughter filed separate wrongful death lawsuits against Porsche, which resulted in settlements. At the time of his death, Walker had not completed filming "Furious 7" (2015); it was released after rewrites and stand-ins, including his brothers Cody and Caleb, both of whom filled in for Walker, while the song "See You Again" by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth was commissioned as a tribute.


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker was born on September 12, 1973, in Glendale, California. His mother, Cheryl (née Crabtree), was a fashion model, and his father, Paul William Walker III, was a sewer contractor and former amateur boxer, who was a two-time Golden Gloves champion. Walker's paternal grandfather, William, had a short-lived boxing career as "Irish" Billy Walker, while another raced factory cars for Ford in the 1960s.


title: Paul Walker

text: Raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Walker had four younger siblings: Aimee, Ashlie, Caleb, and Cody. He spent the majority of his early life in the Sunland neighborhood of Los Angeles, and graduated from Village Christian School in 1991. Walker subsequently attended several community colleges in Southern California, majoring in marine biology.


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker began a modelling career as a toddler, starring in a television commercial for Pampers at age two. He continued to appear in commercials, most notably for Showbiz Pizza in 1984, before beginning an acting career on television that year, appearing in the teen anthology series "CBS Schoolbreak Special". Walker continued to work in television until 1996, across a number of genres; he appeared in two episodes of the fantasy drama "Highway to Heaven" between 1984 and 1986, and secured his first leading role in 1987, appearing as Jeremy Beatty in the sitcom "Throb". He continued to feature on sitcoms in the early 1990s, with guest roles in "Charles in Charge", "Who's the Boss?", and the short-lived "What a Dummy". In 1993, he portrayed Brandon Collins on the soap opera "The Young and the Restless"; he and co-star Heather Tom, who played Victoria Newman, gained fame, and were nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor and Actress in a Soap Opera at the Youth in Film Awards. Walker's final television role was on "Touched by an Angel", although he appeared as himself, alongside his sister Ashlie, as contestants on a 1988 episode of the game show "I'm Telling!", in which they finished in second place.


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker began his film career in 1986, appearing mainly in low budget B films. His first role was in the horror comedy "Monster in the Closet", and a year later, starred in The Retaliator (retroactively subtitled "Programmed to Kill"), a science fiction film. In 1994, he returned to film, starring in "Tammy and the T-Rex", but secured his first feature film role in the comedy "Meet the Deedles" in 1998; although commercially and critically unsuccessful, it allowed Walker to secure supporting roles in the films "Pleasantville" (1998), "Varsity Blues" (1999), "She's All That" (1999), and "The Skulls" (2000).


title: Paul Walker

text: In 2001, Walker's breakthrough role was starring opposite Vin Diesel in the action film "The Fast and the Furious"; it was commercially successful, and subsequently launched a media franchise. The film also established Walker as a film star and leading man, as his performance garnered the MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Team (shared with Diesel) in 2002. Walker starred in the critically successful thriller "Joy Ride" (2001), also focusing on car-related action, and reprised his role as Brian O'Conner in the 2003 sequel "2 Fast 2 Furious". After this, he starred either in low-budget or commercially unsuccessful films for a time, notably "Timeline" (2003) and "Into the Blue" (2005).


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker portrayed Hank Hansen in Clint Eastwood's war film "Flags of Our Fathers" (2006) and starred in the survival drama "Eight Below", both released in 2006. "Eight Below" garnered critical acclaim and opened in first place at the box office, grossing over US$20 million during its opening weekend. Walker then starred in the independent film "The Lazarus Project", which was released on DVD on October 21, 2008.


title: Paul Walker

text: Despite initial reluctance, Walker reprised his role as Brian O'Conner after seven years, in "Fast & Furious" (2009). The film became the highest-grossing film in the franchise up until that point. He then reprised his role in the fifth and sixth installments of the franchise, which were commercially successful, while his performances were praised. Walker was nominated for Choice Movie Actor – Action at the 2011 Teen Choice Awards for the former, and nominated for Choice Movie: Chemistry (with Diesel and Dwayne Johnson) and won his second MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo with Diesel for the latter. Walker also starred in the heist film "Takers" (2010), and returned to modelling in 2011, appearing as the face of fragrance brand Cool Water. In 2012, he founded the film production company Laguna Ridge Pictures, which signed a first-look deal with "Fast & Furious" distributor Universal Pictures.


title: Paul Walker

text: After his death in 2013, four films starring Walker were released; the thriller film "Hours" (2013), the action film "Brick Mansions" (2014), itself a remake of the French film "District 13" (2004). He also served as executive producer on the film "Pawn Shop Chronicles" (2013), while "Furious 7", originally slated for release in 2014, was pushed back to recreate Walker's likeness. The filmmakers hired Peter Jackson's Weta Digital visual effects house to complete this, using existing reference materials, Walker's brothers Caleb and Cody, as well as actor John Brotherton, as stand-ins, and outtakes or older footage, to create an accurate remodel of Walker's face. The film was then released in 2015, and Walker won the award for Choice Movie Actor: Action at the 2015 Teen Choice Awards, and was nominated for Choice Movie: Chemistry (shared with Diesel, Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, and Ludacris).


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker was also set to play Agent 47 in the film adaptation "" (2015), but died before production began. It was later revealed Walker declined the role of Superman in "Superman Returns" (2006), allegedly due to the "Superman curse" and the celebrity associated with the role.


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker was raised in a Latter-day Saint household, but later became a non-denominational Christian. He lived in Santa Barbara with his dogs. He and Rebecca Soteros, a one-time girlfriend, had a daughter named Meadow Rain Walker, who lived with her mother in Hawaii for 13 years and then moved to California to live with Walker in 2011. Her godfather is Vin Diesel, with whom Walker shared a close bond; Diesel gave him the nickname "Pablo", while Walker's mother referred to her son as Diesel's "other half". Walker was also close friends with fellow "Fast & Furious" co-star Tyrese Gibson. At the time of his death, Walker was in a relationship with Jasmine Pilchard-Gosnell.


title: Paul Walker

text: He held a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Ricardo "Franjinha" Miller at Paragon Jiu-Jitsu and was awarded his black belt by Miller posthumously. Walker founded the humanitarian aid nonprofit charity Reach Out Worldwide (ROWW) with financial adviser Roger Rodas in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. He traveled to a number of disaster-stricken areas to supply aid until his death.


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker had an interest in marine biology, and joined the board of directors of The Billfish Foundation in 2006. He fulfilled a lifelong dream by starring in the National Geographic Channel series "Expedition Great White" (retroactively retitled "Shark Men"), which premiered in June 2010. Walker spent 11 days catching and tagging seven great white sharks off the coast of Mexico. The expedition, led by Chris Fischer, founder and CEO of Fischer Productions, and Brett McBride and Michael Domeier of the Marine Conservation Science Institute, took measurements, gathered DNA samples, and fastened real-time satellite tags to the great white sharks, in order to study migratory patterns, especially those associated with mating and birthing, over a five-year period.


title: Paul Walker

text: A car enthusiast, Walker competed in the Redline Time Attack racing series in which he raced on the AE Performance Team driving a BMW E92 M3. His car was sponsored by Etnies, Brembo Brakes, Öhlins, Volk, OS Giken, Hankook, Gintani, and Reach Out Worldwide. Walker had been preparing for an auto show prior to his death. Walker owned Always Evolving, a Valencia high-end vehicle performance shop, where Rodas, a pro-am racer, acted as CEO.


title: Paul Walker

text: Walker also had a large car collection of about 30 cars, a portion of which he co-owned along with Rodas. In January 2020, twenty-one vehicles owned by Walker were sold for a combined $2.33 million during spirited bidding at an annual car auction in Arizona.


title: Paul Walker

text: On November 30, 2013, at about 3:30 p.m. PST, Walker, 40, and Roger Rodas, 38, left an event for Walker's charity Reach Out Worldwide for victims of Typhoon Haiyan, with Rodas driving his 2005 Porsche Carrera GT. Traveling between and in a


title: Paul Walker

text: The curve where Walker and Rodas died is a popular spot for drifting cars. No alcohol or other drugs were found in either man's system, and neither mechanical failure nor road conditions appeared to play a role. Police found no evidence of drag racing. The investigation concluded that the car's speed and age of the tires were the primary reasons for the crash.


title: Paul Walker

text: With "Furious 7" in the middle of filming at the time of Walker's death, Universal announced an indeterminate hiatus on the production, citing a desire to speak with his family before determining what to do with the film.


title: Paul Walker

text: Numerous friends and movie stars posted tributes to Walker on social media. His body was cremated and his ashes were buried in a non-denominational ceremony at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. His life was later chronicled in the documentary "I Am Paul Walker", which was released on August 11, 2018.


title: Paul Walker

text: In December 2014, Walker's father filed a wrongful death claim against Rodas's estate, seeking the return of or "a proportionate share" of revenue generated by a group of automobiles that were jointly owned by both Walker and Rodas.