Eight-nation summit discusses DRC

Eight nations in Southern and Central Africa are meeting to discuss the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC.
The one-day mini-summit is taking place in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo.
The leaders are meeting to assess the peace and security situation in the sub-region, but issues about the electoral process in the DRC will be top on the agenda.
The meeting brought together many members of the the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR).
Participating countries are Angola, Botswana, Congo, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.
Five of them were represented by their Presidents, while the others sent Foreign Ministers or other officials.
The DRC elections will choose a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who has been in charge of the volatile mineral-rich country for nearly 18 years.
Kabila was due to step down at the end of 2016 after reaching his constitution-limited two terms in office.
But he stayed on, invoking a care-taker clause in the Constitution.
The elections were postponed until the end of 2017 under a deal brokered by the powerful Catholic church – and then again until 2018, when Kabila eventually confirmed he would not run again.
The country’s election commission then moved the date from December 23 to December 30 after fire destroyed voting equipment.
Voting in two regions hit by violence has been postponed to March.
Despite this, the timetable for the presidential elections will not be affected, with the next Head of State scheduled to be sworn in on January 18.