At least 38 people have died and at least 1,300 others are diagnosed with a disease the UK-based medical NGO Merlin calls a highly contagious form of pneumonic plague, which broke out in July in the remote diamond mining area of Libaku ya Suka in the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern Maniema Province.

One of two army battalions in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that the military reported as missing on 26 August, may not have been absent; while the other battalion has since returned to its barracks, Defence Minister Adolphe Onusumba said on Thursday.

The International Monetary Fund announced on Thursday that it would increase low-interest lending to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by US $39.2 million while the World Bank announced that it will provide a new grant of US $150 million to improve the country's health services and control malaria.

The day after a dissident army leader in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) called for an insurrection, the 53rd Army Battalion and four companies of the 2nd Mixed Battalion in the east of the country went missing.

Congolese Defence Minister Adolphe Onusumba has confirmed a cholera outbreak among government troops in Goma, in North Kivu. The Minister specified that 10 soldiers of the fourth army brigade have died and 150 are infected. The army brigade of 3,200 men was headed in the past three days toward Ituri. Onusumba added that antibiotics and health material has been sent.

There are about 12,500 young girl soldiers that fought in the Dem. Republic of Condo (RDC) in the regular army ranks as well as in the various pro or anti-government militias.

Hundreds of former militiamen now serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo's 4th army Brigade deployed to the troubled northeastern district of Ituri have been infected with cholera, Defense Minister Adolphe Onusumba said on Thursday.

Uganda has given six members of new rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo - the Congolese Revolutionary Movement - up to Thursday afternoon to leave the east African country or face arrest and prosecution, Interior Minister Ruhakana Rugunda has said.

Some 12,500 girls currently belong to government and non-government forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and a programme to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate all militias into society is failing them, Save the Children, an NGO, said in an August 2005 report.

Rwandan Hutu rebels in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have until 30 September to disarm or else face "severe" consequences, ministers of regional cooperation from DRC, Rwanda and Uganda said on Thursday.