Tension is escalating in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the police and soldiers are intervening to disperse the young demonstrators that took the streets this morning in protest against the extension of the transition and postponement of elections.

At least seven protestors were killed and hundreds more arrested in demonstrations on Thursday in various suburbs Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and in other urban areas.

President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo told diplomats on Tuesday that he had ordered his army to begin disarming, immediately, thousands of foreign rebels in the east of his country.

The EU special representative to Africa's Great Lakes region, Aldo Ajello, said on Friday the Union might support military action against Rwandan Hutu rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo if they refuse to disarm and return home.

Although 15,000 former militiamen in the Democratic Republic of Congo's northeastern district of Ituri have been disarmed, the UN mission in the country, known as MONUC, says it is concerned over the regrouping and rearming of the fighters, despite intense UN military operations.

Despite prevailing insecurity in the east and northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the postponement of presidential elections, the Independent Electoral Commission launched its registration campaign of 3.5 million voters in Kinshasa on Monday.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has repatriated the first group of 42 Congolese in Angola, some of whom had been there since 1996, the agency's head of external relations in Kinshasa, Jens Hensmann, said on Monday.

An Indian UN peacekeeper was killed and two others were wounded in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Monday after being hit by stray bullets in an exchange of fire between government troops and unidentified gunmen, a military spokesman of the UN mission in the country said.

At least 1,700 people have fled villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) Katanga Province following attacks by Mayi-Mayi militiamen, a UN official told IRIN on Tuesday.

Voter registering is due to start in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on 20 June, a spokesman for the country's independent electoral commission announced on Monday.