President Joseph Kabila of Congo was last week urged by Human Rights Watch to use his visit to the United Nations General Assembly to announce the release of one of the country’s leading human rights defenders. N’sii Luanda Shandwe has been held in Kinshasa for more than four months and is charged with treason and sheltering criminals. He is facing trial before the Military Order Court, and could be sentenced to death if found guilty.

Young people in both the Congos are alerting one another about the deadly risks of HIV/AIDS and how to prevent infection in an initiative supported by international and private sector partners. Nearly 250 students and teachers in the Republic of the Congo and from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo gathered recently at a conference in Brazzaville to expand the project.

The UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has expressed concern over recent advances made by rebel troops and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) into territory recently vacated by the Ugandan army.

The humanitarian situation in the region of Ituri, in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) "remains worrying", the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the DRC reported on Tuesday, with an estimated 10,000 families having been displaced in the city of Bunia due to fighting in July and in the past couple of weeks.

Joseph Olenghankoy, president of the Forces of Innovation for Solidarity and Union (FONUS), a political party with disputed links to the government, has threatened to "break" the local media rights group Journalists in Danger (JED). He has also publicly criticised BBC correspondent Arnaud Zajtman for reporting JED's campaign to free jailed Achille Ekele N'Golyma, publisher of the satirical newspaper Pot-Pourri.

Fighting has intensified between Rwandan forces and ethnic Hutu Interahamwe rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a Rwandan official has said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has completed a preliminary distribution of plastic sheeting and blankets to 600 displaced families in the town of Minembwe, most of whom had fled nearby villages almost completely destroyed during recent clashes in the Haut Plateaux region of South Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The city of Bunia in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was reported to be calm but tense on Monday following several days of intense fighting among ethnic groups, rebel militias and the Ugandan People's Defence Forces (UPDF).

The UN World Food Programme regional director for Central Africa, Holdbrook Arthur, has said that US $14,212 million is needed to help some 1.2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This amount equals 38 percent of the annual agency's budget for the country.

At least 350 people fleeing fighting between Mayi-Mayi militias and troops of the Rwandan-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) rebel movement arrived in Kindu from the village of Kailo, some 50 km to the north, in east-central Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN spokesman Hamadoun Toure said last Thursday.

A large plume of ash over Mount Nyimuragira, which erupted last Thursday, poses no immediate danger to man, but may hurt animals in the Masisi area, west of the volcano, Dario Tedesco, the resident volcanologist of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said on Sunday.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will provide aid to some 39,000 people displaced by war in northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo. WFP Regional Director for Central Africa Holdbrook Arthur arrived in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, last Wednesday to meet with government authorities on matters of food security and WFP aid.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has mobilised 10 mt of emergency relief supplies worth US $64,000 to fight a cholera outbreak in Kalemie, in the north of Katanga Province, southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to a UNICEF press release issued last Wednesday.

Volcanic eruptions and other activity continued last Saturday on mounts Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but still posed no immediate danger to the nearby city of Goma, Kalendi Sadaka Kavotha, director of the Goma Volcano Observatory, told IRIN.

Police in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)last Monday shot dead 14 demonstrators demanding autonomy for Bas-Congo Province, in southwestern DRC, media sources and a civil society group reported.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) will provide aid to some 39,000 people displaced by war in northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The International Secretariat of the OMCT has been informed by ASADHO Kinshasa, a member of the OMCT network, of the dismissal of seven workers and the impending dismissal of a further 10,000 workers by a company called La Gécamines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We request you kindly to write to the authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo asking them to take all necessary measures to guarantee the respect for economic, social and cultural rights and labour rights of the workers.

The United Nations and international aid agencies are sending their first humanitarian evaluation mission to the region around Uvira, South Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where fighting has displaced over 50,000 people.

Humanitarian organisations in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have stepped up their efforts to contain a cholera epidemic in the region that continues to strike more people.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Education of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Belgium has initiated a project to produce five million primary school textbooks for Congolese children and teachers, Belgian Secretary of State for Cooperation and Development Eddy Boutmans has said.