Republic Of Congo

Security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo have arrested about 100 armed men blamed for killing dozens of policemen in an attack in the country's isolated north last month, the government said Sunday. Villagers had killed 47 policemen sent to quell clashes over fishing rights between two villages in Equateur province, according to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo. The government disputed the death toll given by the United Nations but vowed last week to stem what it called the start of a new uprising.

Rebels overran an army base and seized the headquarters of a nearby gorilla park in intensified fighting Sunday in northeastern Congo. Since August, nearly 200,000 more people have been driven from their homes by fighting in a region where more than 1.4 million, or about one-fifth of the population, already have been displaced, aid officials say.

A Congolese warlord accused of sending child soldiers to fight in a vicious tribal conflict was ordered Monday to stand trial at the International Criminal Court. A three-judge chamber found evidence strong enough to "establish substantial grounds to believe" that Thomas Lubanga was responsible "for war crimes consisting of enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15," said presiding Judge Claude Jorda of France.

An outbreak of cholera in the Republic of Congo has reached the capital, Brazzaville, killing four people and pushing the death toll this year to 82, a senior medical official said. Cases of the waterborne disease were first recorded in early January in the coastal oil-exporting city of Pointe-Noire, 240 miles from the inland capital. The intestinal infection can be transmitted by food or water contaminated with feces.

Pygmy musicians performing at an annual festival in the capital, Brazzaville, were put up in a tent in a zoo by officials, prompting a protest from a human rights group that said their presence has attracted tourists who stare and take pictures. Other performers were lodged in hotels. Officials said they wanted the 10 women, nine men and one baby to feel more at home.

For five years, the Washington-based World Bank Group has been trying to save one of Earth's last great forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But the bank's private-sector arm is also an investor in a company that is drawing criticism for its connections to logging operations there. World Bank environmental officials say that deforestation is the second leading human contributor to global warming, after power plants and ahead of vehicle emissions.

A former Congolese militia leader and army general accused of masterminding the massacre of 200 villagers was taken into custody Thursday at the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Germain Katanga was the commander of the Patriotic Resistance Force in the lawless Ituri region of northeastern Congo when his fighters went on a rampage in Bogoro village in February 2003, prosecutors at the war crimes tribunal have said.

Heavy rains swamped Congo's sprawling capital, Kinshasa, killing 30 people in less than 24 hours, the government said. The death toll was likely to rise, an official at the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry said, because relief workers had not reached some neighborhoods. The heavy rain started falling Thursday in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Zaire. Officials said there were landslides and some bridges were out.

A Congolese woman who was repeatedly raped by prison officials allegedly investigating the assassination of President Laurent Kabila has been granted political asylum in the U.S., 16 months after her bid was initially denied. A federal immigration judge in San Antonio awarded asylum last week to the woman identified as Monique M, whose full name is being withheld to protect her and family members who remain in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Zaire.

The old man still recalls his nation's first election in 1960. After casting his vote, he partied in the streets with millions of others in a post-independence euphoria. Forty-six years later, decades filled with dictatorship and war, this Central African country returns to the polls today for the third free election in its history. This time, retired taxi driver Francois Mpaku Nsabu, 73, sees no reason to celebrate. Fearful that the election will spur violence, he's not sure he'll even vote.