The Independent Electoral Commission of the Democratic Republic of Congo has said 2.9 million people in Kinshasa, the capital, had signed up to vote in the 2006 elections by the time registration centres closed on Sunday.

The UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1616 (2005) on Friday which extends an existing two-year arms embargo in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for at least one more year.

Uganda and Rwanda have denied statements contained in a report issued on Wednesday by the UN Security Council that the two countries had delayed to give information to officials monitoring arms sanctions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Registration of voters started on Monday in two provinces outside Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as preparations continued for general elections scheduled for 2006, officials said.

Uganda said on Monday it would not allow the newly-created rebel Congolese Revolutionary Movement or any other armed group to launch attacks from its territory on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

At least 13 civilians were killed during the night between Thursday and Friday in the South Kivu province, in east Democratic Republic of Congo.

United Nations peacekeepers and some regular Congolese army units in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today launched their third offensive in just over two weeks to oust Rwandan Hutu militia who daily harass local communities, burning a rebel base camp.

A new armed group, the Congolese Revolutionary Movement (MRC), which claims it is fighting for the rights of the people in the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern Ituri and North Kivu regions, was apparently founded last month in neighbouring Uganda.

Thousands of civilians - at least 13-thousand according to the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs - have fled from the area of Ntulumamba, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where between July 9 and 10 thirty-nine civilians were killed in an armed attack.

The UN said on Tuesday that some 32,000 civilians were displaced from their homes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) Kalonge Chiefdom, in Sud Kivu Province, following an attack earlier in July by Hutu Rwandans militias.