Almost 25 million voters in the DRC could prepare the way for the country's first presidential and parliamentary elections if they accept the draft constitution that is to be presented to them on Sunday in a referendum, senior diplomats said in Kinshasa.

The search for possible victims of an earthquake near the lakeside town of Kalemie in eastern Congo (DRC) continued along the shores of Lake Tanganyika on Tuesday, humanitarian and provincial authorities in Goma, capital of North Kivu Province, said.

The French charity, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says that the army in northern Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has blocked relief workers from entering the area since beginning a military campaign against local militias there in mid-November.

A military delegation from the African Union (AU) has arrived in North Kivu in the troubled eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to assess the possible deployment of 7,000 troops to disarm foreign armed groups who have been attacking civilians, the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC) said.

The man in charge of elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was in Brussels on Monday to assure the Belgium government, which is providing him funding, that the first round of voting would take place as scheduled on 18 December.

Successful elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) would not only help the country's peace and transition process but would also greatly contribute to the achievement of stability in Africa's Great Lakes region, according to a UN Security Council delegation that visited the region from 4-11 November.

Some 1,000 people who had fled their homes to live in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital, Kinshasa, for six to nine years have returned to their villages in the provinces of Equateur in the northwest of the country and Orientale in the northeast, humanitarian aid workers said on Thursday.

In the latest joint UN-Congolese army military operation that started on Monday in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) military officers say at least 40 militiamen and three government soldiers have been killed and these figures are likely to rise.

Some 432 people, among them scores of children, arrested as vagrants by police on Friday in Kinshasa, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo, are still being held under harsh conditions, their parents said.

Reports that Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters have returned to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have not yet been substantiated, according to the military spokesman for the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC).