KINSHASA (Reuters) – Rights activists are calling on Democratic Republic of Congo to ensure justice for victims of atrocities cited in a United Nations’ report or see their grievances poison an already dire security situation.

The report published on Friday charts massacres from 1993-2003 that it says may amount to “genocide” if proven in a competent court, and urges Congo to seek to prosecute perpetrators, whether they come from Congo or its neighbors.

KINSHASA (Reuters) – A ban on mining activity and exports in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo has left millions of dollars’ worth of tin ore stuck in the conflict-strewn zone and put thousands of people out of work. Rising insecurity in Congo’s eastern Walikale district, home to most of the country’s cassiterite — tin ore — and where more than 300 rapes took place in a rebel attack last month, prompted the government on September 11 to ban mining in North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema provinces.

Emmanuel Ndimubanzi, head of the mining division of North Kivu, where the industry makes up 90 percent of provincial government receipts and which is the source of most of Congo’s cassiterite, said more than 50,000 people were affected.

KINSHASA, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo is
still seeking political stability, battling economic woes and
must decide on the future role of U.N. peacekeepers ahead of
elections, due next year.

The polls for the presidency and parliament, due to start in
November 2011, will be the second since the official end to the
1998-2003 war, which drew in six foreign armies and resulted in
the deaths of 5 million.

LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – Membership at the governor’s new gym costs $300 a month, the gastronomic menu at the new $350-a-night hotel is going down a treat and traffic guided by lemon yellow-uniformed police runs smoothly under sunny skies.

While Congo is more often associated with rebel killings, labelled by the United Nations as the world’s rape capital, filled with red tape and river journeys into the depths of jungled gloom, Congo’s copperbelt, in the southern Katanga province, seems a world apart.

KINSHASA, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Canada’s First Quantum (FM.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)
said on Saturday that Kazakh mining group ENRC’s (ENRC.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)
acquisition of mining rights in Congo violated a tribunal order
freezing the sale of a contested mining project.

ENRC announced on Friday that it agreed to buy a majority
stake in Camrose Resources Ltd, which through an off-shore
company has secured a new permit to take over the Kolwezi
project after First Quantum put $750 million into developing it.

KINSHASA, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Hundreds of illegal miners have
rioted and blocked export traffic at Freeport-McMoRan’s (FCX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)
Tenke Fungurume copper and cobalt mine in southern Democratic
Republic of Congo, halting hundreds of trucks from mines further
north, the company and local sources said on Wednesday.

This is the second time this month that miners have staged
such protests at the country’s $2 billion mine site, where Tenke
has failed to resolve a dispute with illegal miners who continue
to dig the copper-rich soil within its vast concession.

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Three Indian United Nations peacekeepers were killed in a surprise attack on their base in Democratic of Republic of Congo by 50 fighters armed with machetes, spears and traditional weapons, the U.N. mission MONUSCO said on Wednesday.

About a dozen U.N. peacekeepers battled some 50 unidentified attackers in the early hours of Wednesday at their base in Kirumba, in eastern Congo’s troubled North Kivu province, where several armed groups are engaged in combat.

KINSHASA, Aug 16 (Reuters) – Democratic Republic of Congo
has given Eni (ENI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) permission to take a share in an oil
block, according to documents seen by Reuters, in an agreement
marking the Italian energy firm’s entry into the country.

A slew of deals has raised interest in Congo’s oil prospects
in recent months. Eni first signalled its interest in the vast
country’s largely unexplored oil reserves last year.

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebels have abducted 697 people in central Africa in the past 18 months, killing many of them, according to a human rights group investigation.

“The LRA has killed at least 255 adults and children, often by crushing their skulls with clubs,” said Human Rights Watch, whose researchers spent a month gathering evidence on attacks in Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo.

KINSHASA, Aug 10 (Reuters) – Illegal miners in Democratic
Republic of Congo burned trucks and stole copper from the $2
billion Tenke Fungurume mine in a dispute with Freeport-McMoRan
(FCX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the country’s largest foreign investor, a provincial
minister said.

Illegal mining is widespread throughout the mineral-rich
country as close to 1 million individuals working on their own
dig land that is in many cases privately owned, pitting them
against foreign-owned firms and adding to investor woes in
Congo’s difficult business climate.