CONGO

European and American health authorities have identified a number of cases of monkeypox this week, a surprising outbreak of an illness that has previously been limited mostly to central and western Africa

Congolese government officials say that rebels in eastern Congo attacked a village near a mine in Ituri province, killing at least 52 people

A spokesman for Congo’s government says at least eight people are dead in the country’s east after an explosion at a bar in a military camp

The central African nation of Congo has joined the East African Community, widening the trade bloc’s footprint with the admission of its seventh member

Congo’s M23 rebel group denies it shot down a United Nations helicopter that crashed in eastern Congo, killing all eight people onboard

Congo’s army says rebels in the country’s east have shot down a United Nations helicopter carrying eight peacekeepers and U.N. observers

A Belgian businessman sanctioned by the U.S. over allegations of illicit gold trade in Congo said Friday the action undermines efforts to improve transparency in a region seeing rising official exports of the mineral

The Vatican says Pope Francis is planning to visit Congo and South Sudan in July.

CBS2's Lonnie Quinn has your First Alert Forecast for February 16 at 6 p.m.

Authorities in eastern Congo have announced an evening curfew and new security checkpoints.

A bomb has exploded at a restaurant as patrons gathered on Christmas Day in an eastern Congolese town where Islamic extremists are known to be active

Congolese health authorities have declared an end to the Ebola outbreak in the country's east that had killed at least six people since October.

The World Health Organization says officials have begun vaccinating people in eastern Congo against Ebola, after it was confirmed last week that the disease killed a toddler.

The French government has called on the head of the World Health Organization to uphold his pledge for an “action plan” to combat sexual abuse and exploitation by WHO employees.

A panel commissioned by the World Health Organization has identified more than 80 alleged cases of sex abuse implicating at least 21 WHO staffers during its response to an Ebola outbreak in Congo, making it the biggest-ever sex abuse scandal in U.N. history.

The World Health Organization has appointed a new official to address the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, following revelations that staffers allegedly traded jobs for sex during a deployment to Congo to fight an Ebola outbreak, the U.N. agency said Friday. Dr. Gaya Gamhewage, a 20-year WHO veteran, will seek to streamline and improve internal efforts to fight sexual misconduct. WHO spokeswoman Marcia Poole confirmed the appointment of Gamhewage, who has years of expertise in health emergencies and has voiced her concerns about sexual exploitation and abuse.

Congo on Monday banned public gatherings for two days in Beni, after the eastern city was hit by two explosions.

Thousands of people are returning to Goma and a surrounding region in eastern Congo hoping to find their homes intact weeks after a volcano erupted, but fearing the worst.

The head of the World Health Organization acknowledged the U.N. health agency's response to sexual abuse allegations involving employees who worked in Congo during an Ebola outbreak was “slow,” following an Associated Press investigation that found senior WHO management knew of multiple cases of misconduct. As WHO’s highest decision-making body meets this week, countries were tackling subjects like how to reform the U.N. health agency's emergencies program after its missteps in responding to the coronavirus pandemic. The World Health Assembly hasn't devoted a specific agenda item to the alleged misconduct in Congo, but a roundtable talk on preventing “sexual exploitation and abuse” is scheduled for Friday.

Tens of thousands of people are fleeing the city of Goma in eastern Congo fearing another volcanic eruption by Mount Nyiragongo, which spewed lava near the city last week.

The U.N. humanitarian chief says despite last year’s U.N. call for global cease-fires to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, many conflicts never stopped including in Syria, Yemen and Congo and new ones erupted

Officials say the volcanic eruption in eastern Congo two days ago has killed has risen to at least 32 people, while residents search for missing loved ones amid destroyed homes on the outskirts of the eastern city of Goma where aftershocks were detected.

The volcano, which had not erupted in nearly two decades, caused thousands to flee, many across the border to Rwanda. But the lava didn't appear to be flowing toward Goma, a city of nearly 2 million.

Officials and survivors say a volcanic eruption in Congo and the ensuing chaos have killed at least 15 people and destroyed more than 500 homes.

Authorities in Congo say Mount Nyiragongo has erupted for the first time in nearly two decades.

British, European and American diplomats and donors have voiced serious concerns about how the World Health Organization handled sex abuse allegations involving its own staff during an outbreak of Ebola in Congo, as reported this week by The Associated Press. On Tuesday, the AP published an investigation documenting that senior WHO management was informed of multiple sex abuse allegations involving at least two of its doctors during the epidemic in 2018. A notarized contract obtained by the AP showed that two WHO staffers signed off on an agreement between WHO’s Dr. Jean-Paul Ngandu and a young woman he allegedly impregnated in Congo.

When Shekinah was working as a nurse’s aide in northeastern Congo in January 2019, she said, a World Health Organization doctor offered her a job investigating Ebola cases at double her previous salary — with a catch. A WHO staffer and three Ebola experts working in Congo during the outbreak separately told management about general sex abuse concerns around Diallo, The Associated Press has learned. WHO has been facing widespread public allegations of systemic abuse of women by unnamed staffers, to which Tedros declared outrage and emergencies director Dr. Michael Ryan said, “We have no more information than you have.”

FILE- In this Sunday March 7, 2021 file photo, people walk past an election poster featuring opposition presidential candidate Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, in downtown Brazzaville, Congo. Kolelas, who was hospitalized with COVID-19 complications on election day, has died, a spokesman said Monday, March 22, 2021. The 61-year-old politician was last seen in a video circulating Saturday on social media in which he told supporters he was fighting death. (AP Photo/Lebon Chansard Ziavoula, File)BRAZZAVILLE – Republic of Congo's top presidential opposition candidate Guy Brice Parfait Kolelas, who was hospitalized with COVID-19 complications on election day, has died, a spokesman said Monday. Republic of Congo, with a population of about 5.4 million people, has had fewer than 10,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, with 134 confirmed deaths.

Luca Attanasio, Italian ambassador to the Congo, an Italian Carabineri bodyguard and a Congolese driver were killed in the area that is home to myriad rebel groups, according to the Foreign Ministry and local people. The U.N. has said the road had been declared “green” by the U.N. and cleared for travel without security escorts or armored vehicles. The WFP says it is cooperating in the Italian, Congolese and U.N. investigations. Barrow said the U.N. probe would scrutinize the preparatory meetings leading up to the mission itself as well as whether security protocols were followed. “The main focus of the fact-finding mission will be on what security protocols were undertaken, how they were followed and what steps were taken to minimize any sort of risk to any of those who were on this mission,” he said.

In this image taken from video, United Nations peacekeepers guard the area where a U.N. convoy was attacked and the Italian ambassador to Congo killed, in Nyiragongo, North Kivu province, Congo Monday, Feb. 22, 2021. The Italian ambassador to Congo Luca Attanasio, an Italian carabineri police officer and their Congolese driver were killed Monday in an attack on a U.N. convoy in an area that is home to myriad rebel groups, the Foreign Ministry and local people said. (AP Photo/Justin Kabumba)ROME – The Italian ambassador to Congo, an Italian Carabinieri police officer and their Congolese driver were killed Monday when gunmen attacked a U.N. convoy traveling to a school in eastern Congo, the Italian Foreign Ministry and residents said. Eastern Congo is home to myriad rebel groups all vying for control of the mineral-rich Central African nation that is the size of Western Europe. The interior ministry said the provincial authorities of North Kivu were not aware of the presence of the Italian ambassador, which did not allow them to provide him with security measures.

WorldView: New charge for deposed Myanmar leader; Australia and New Zealand cities end lockdowns As protests against the military continue in Myanmar, deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi is facing a new criminal charge. Meanwhile, officials in Melbourne, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand, are lifting recent coronavirus lockdowns. And actress Ashley Judd is sharing photos from her accident in the Congo where she shattered her leg. CBS News foreign correspondent Roxana Saberi joins "CBSN AM" with the latest on those headlines from around the world.

WorldView: New charge for deposed Myanmar leader; Australia and New Zealand cities end lockdowns As protests against the military continue in Myanmar, deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi is facing a new criminal charge. Meanwhile, officials in Melbourne, Australia, and Auckland, New Zealand, are lifting recent coronavirus lockdowns. And actress Ashley Judd is sharing photos from her accident in the Congo where she shattered her leg. CBS News foreign correspondent Roxana Saberi joins CBSN AM with the latest on those headlines from around the world.

FILE-In this Aug. 12, 2012 file photo, Park rangers patrol in the Virunga National Park near Rumangabo, some 60 kms (40 miles) north of Goma, eastern Congo. Gunmen have killed at least six rangers Sunday Jan. 10, 2021, in the Virunga National Park, the latest attack in the part of eastern Congo that is home to some of the world's last mountain gorillas, officials said Sunday. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay,file)KINSHASA – Gunmen have killed at least six rangers in Virunga National Park, the latest attack in the part of eastern Congo that is home to some of the world's last mountain gorillas, officials said Sunday. In April 2020, an ambush near the Virunga National Park killed 12 rangers and five civilians, and critically injured several others. More than 200 rangers have been killed since Virunga became a national park in 1925, officials say.

U.N peacekeepers soldiers patrol at the entrance of Kangbay prison in Beni, Congo, Tuesday, Oct. 20. 2020, An official in eastern Congo says more than 1,300 inmates have escaped from the central prison in Beni after an attack by rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces. (AP Photo/Al-hadji Kudra Maliro)BENI – More than 1,300 inmates have escaped from the central prison of Beni in eastern Congo after an attack by rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces, the town's mayor said Tuesday. Mayor Modeste Bakwanamaha told The Associated Press that one inmate had died in the attack on Kangbayi prison. The escape comes three years after another attack on the Kangbayi prison in which about 100 inmates had fled and dozens were killed.

Diyabanza was fined 2,000 euros ($2,320) for trying to take a 19th-century African funeral pole from a Paris museum. He streamed the incident online in a protest against colonial-era injustice like the plundering of African art. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)PARIS – A Congolese activist was fined 2,000 euros ($2,320) on Wednesday for trying to take a 19th-century African funeral pole from a Paris museum in a protest against colonial-era injustice that he streamed online. In the Quai Branly protest, Diyabanza and other activists dislodged the funeral pole from its perch while he gave a livestreamed speech about plundered African art. The presiding judge insisted the trial should focus on the specific funeral pole incident and that his court wasn’t competent to judge France’s colonial era.

And this peace needs justice, truth and reconciliation.”The doctor has a groundswell of support in Bukavu where thousands marched Thursday to demand justice and action from Congo's government and the international community. The report detailed mass killings, sexual violence, attacks on children, and other abuses by rebel groups, foreign armies and Congolese armed forces. In August, Congo President Felix Tshisekedi said that he wants the government to combat the abuses and crimes through justice for past and present crimes. International justice coupled with national jurisdiction could be key “to be able to say simply to all criminals: ‘That’s not accepted. The award was shared with Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who was raped by Islamic State militants in Iraq and has become a global advocate for victims of sexual violence.

In this Nov. 14, 2008, file photo, a woman receives a bag of maize meal from the World Food Program in the town of Rutshuru, eastern Congo. The World Food Program chief warned Thursday, Sept. 17, 2020, that millions of people are closer to starvation because of the deadly combination of conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic and he urged donor nations and billionaires to help feed them and ensure their survival. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)TANZANIA – The World Food Program chief warned Thursday that millions of people are closer to starvation because of the deadly combination of conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic and he urged donor nations and billionaires to help feed them and ensure their survival. And in Nigeria and South Sudan, millions more people have become food insecure because of the pandemic, he said. He said WFP needs $4.9 billion to feed 30 million people who will die without the program's assistance for a year.

People gather at the scene of a gold mine collapse near the town of Kamituga, South Kivu province, in eastern Congo Friday, Sept. 11, 2020. More than 50 people are dead after landslides collapsed three artisanal gold mines near the town of Kamituga in eastern Congo's South Kivu province on Friday, officials said. (Jeff Mwenyemali/Maisha RDC via AP)KINSHASA – More than 50 people are dead after landslides collapsed three artisanal gold mining wells near the city of Kamituga in eastern Congo’s South Kivu province on Friday, officials said. “The diggers and the transporters of the stones were swallowed up by the waters,” said the Kamituga mayor, Alexandre Bundya. Artisanal mining quarries are often unsafe in eastern Congo and the Kasai region.

The family of Congolese independence icon Patrice Lumumba will soon receive the only known remains of the assassinated leader, a tooth removed after his death by a Belgium man whose family apparently held on to it for nearly 60 years, the federal prosecutor's office in Belgium announced on Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020. (AP Photo, File)BRUSSELS The family of Congolese independence icon Patrice Lumumba will soon receive the only known remains of the assassinated leader, a tooth removed after his death by a Belgium man whose family apparently held on to it for nearly 60 years. If such a test had been done it would have destroyed the tooth itself, he said. A Belgian parliamentary probe later determined that the government was morally responsible for Lumumbas death. However, Belgian authorities say they only have recovered one tooth, which will soon be returned to his family.

FILE - In this June 30, 1961 file photo, Congo celebrates the first anniversary of independence from Belgium with a large military parade in Leopoldville, the capital before it was later renamed in 1966 to Kinshasa, in Congo. On Tuesday, June 30, 2020 Congo is marking the 60th anniversary of achieving independence from the colonial rule of Belgium. (AP Photo/Horst Faas, File)KINSHASA Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi vowed to root out the corruption and impunity that has hindered the country since its independence from Belgium as the nation marked its 60th anniversary amid a global reckoning over racial inequality. After independence in 1960, Congo soon fell under the repressive rule of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko who ruled for 32 years. Education, employment, health, infrastructure nothing works because of the poor management and mediocrity of the Congolese political class, Lutunu said.

In this June 10, 2020, photo, a statue of Belgium's King Leopold II is smeared with paint and graffiti in the center of Brussels. The protests sweeping the world after George Floyd's death in the U.S. have added fuel to a movement to confront Europe's role in the slave trade and its colonial past. On Wednesday, an internet petition to rid the capital, Brussels, of any Leopold statue swept past 70,000 signatures. Leopold ruled Congo as a fiefdom, forcing many of its people into slavery to extract resources for his personal profit. Museum Director Guido Gryseels fully understands the challenges and the sensitivities, especially after a Leopold statue was defaced in the gardens outside the museum last week.

Hands were also cut off and later images of these hands were sold as chocolate candies in Belgium stores and bakeries. King Leopold and Belgium became wealthy as the need for rubber for automobiles rose. King Leopold engaged in barbarism in the slave system of Europe that became known as colonialism. Under this system severed hands were put in baskets by the dozens so that Belgium police forces could account for the number of villagers who refused to meet their quota. Unfortunately, the Congo is still a victim of what Leopold did long ago to foster African tribal conflicts.

Hands were also cut off and later images of these hands were sold as chocolate candies in Belgium stores and bakeries. King Leopold and Belgium became wealthy as the need for rubber for automobiles rose. King Leopold engaged in barbarism in the slave system of Europe that became known as colonialism. Under this system severed hands were put in baskets by the dozens so that Belgium police forces could account for the number of villagers who refused to meet their quota. Unfortunately, the Congo is still a victim of what Leopold did long ago to foster African tribal conflicts.

Kinshasa, Congo -- A Congolese official says the man who became the second confirmed Ebola case in the city of Goma has died. He was isolated at an Ebola treatment center on Tuesday. The second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history was declared a rare global health emergency days after the first Goma case was confirmed. The virus has killed more than 1,700 people in the current outbreak, despite the widespread use of an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine. The first confirmed Ebola case in Goma was a 46-year-old preacher who managed to pass through three health checkpoints on the way from Butembo.

Officials in Congo on Tuesday said a second Ebola case had been confirmed in Goma, the city of more than 2 million people whose first confirmed case in this yearlong outbreak was reported earlier this month. For months health officials had feared that an Ebola case would be confirmed there. Days after the first Goma case was announced, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak a rare global emergency. This has become the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, with more than 1,700 people killed despite the widespread use of an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine. The first confirmed Ebola case in Goma was a 46-year-old preacher who managed to pass through three health checkpoints on the way from Butembo.

Geneva The deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo is now an international health emergency, the World Health Organization announced on Wednesday. More than 1,600 people have died since August in the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, which is unfolding in a region described as a war zone. A declaration of a global health emergency often brings greater international attention and aid, along with concerns that nervous governments might overreact with border closures. "The (international emergency) should not be used to stigmatize or penalize the very people who are most in need of our help," he said. There was no immediate reaction to WHO's emergency declaration from Congo's health ministry, which had lobbied against it.

Geneva The deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo is now an international health emergency, the World Health Organization announced on Wednesday. More than 1,600 people have died since August in the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, which is unfolding in a region described as a war zone. A declaration of a global health emergency often brings greater international attention and aid, along with concerns that nervous governments might overreact with border closures. WHO defines a global emergency as an "extraordinary event" which constitutes a risk to other countries and requires a coordinated international response. There was no immediate reaction to WHO's emergency declaration from Congo's health ministry, which had lobbied against it.

An 8-year-old mauled by a chimp in Congo will get facial reconstruction surgery at a hospital on New York's Long Island. WCBS-TV's Dr. Max Gomez reports.

Anderson Cooper makes some new friends -- the young bonobos at a sanctuary in Congo. Watch 60 Minutes on Sunday for the full story.

2/12: Remembering Bob Simon; Joy in the Congo Bob Simon's way with words was so extraordinary that calling him a wordsmith doesn't do him justice. "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley, a colleague of Simon's for years at "60 Minutes," remembers Simon as a courageous reporter with an unrivaled ability to bring a story to life; and, In honor of the late Bob Simon, the "CBS Evening News" aired a condensed version of his popular "60 Minutes" piece: Joy in the Congo.

"Joy in the Congo" on tour Since their 2012 introduction on 60 Minutes, Congo's Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra has gained some notoriety, from L.A. to the U.K.

Producer finds musical "sweet spot" in the Congo Go to the heart of the Congo with a 60 Minutes producer as she finds the only all-black amateur symphony orchestra in the world

Beethoven's Ninth in the Congo The seed of a musical miracle took root in the Congo 20 years ago. Watch as the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra rehearses Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in their rented warehouse