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 has said it plans to resume flights to two remote areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s Kasaļ Oriental Province in response to requests from the humanitarian organistions.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has issued a two-page report to the Security Council in which he gave details of almost US $190 million in additional costs the UN requires to support upcoming elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

An inquiry team of forensic and human rights experts was sent by the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) to a village in the east of the nation where over the weekend at least 39 people were killed, some burned alive in their homes, in an armed attack.

Two mass graves believed to contain the remains of 39 civilians killed on Saturday in Ntulumamba village, in Kalonge Chiefdom 75 km north of Bukavu, have been reported to the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), a UN spokeswoman said.