Voter registration was extended for an additional week on Sunday in the Democratic Republic of Congo provinces of Orientale and Bas-Congo due to transport and security difficulties, the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Appollinaire Malu Malu, said.

While the armed groups of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo continue reaping terror, the financial dimension of the pillaging of natural resources, particularly in favour of Uganda and Rwanda, remains the key to their presence and justifies the decision adopted by the Security Council to extend the arms embargo: this is the picture' of the situation in the eastern provinces of ex-Zaire given by Mamadouh Bah, spokesman for the MONUC (United Nations Mission in DR-Congo), presenting a report of UN experts in the capital Kinshasa.

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).

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.

Humanitarian NGO Atlas Logistic has said it has suspended all aid to internally displaced people at Camp Aéro, adjacent to the Bunia's airport, in the troubled northeastern district of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Co

The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monuc) has denounced a violation of the arms embargo by a nearby country to the detriment of stability in the northeastern part of the country.

At least 15 people, for the most part fishermen, were killed by militias in an attack in Mokambo, in the north-east province of Ituri. The episode was reported by sources of the MONUC (United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo) and took place on June 30.

Nine people were killed on Sunday when about 100 soldiers went on the rampage to avenge the death of a comrade in Mbandaka, the largest town in Equateur province in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a UN spokesman in the country said.