At least 300,000 Congolese civilians have weapons in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a report released by a research group in Brussels said on Monday. According to the report by the Group of Information and Research on Peace (GRIP), at least 80 per cent of men have weapons in the province of Kivu and Katanga. The investigators of GRIP questioned some 10,000 heads of families in these regions that are, or have been, the theatre of clashes between armed groups and the Congolese government forces.

'Every quarter, more than a hundred women with fistulas - including many younger than 20 years old - are admitted for surgery in Maniema province,' says nurse Julie Mawazo. 'The number of affected women who don't have the means or awareness to come in must be far greater.' Each year, sexual violence, early marriage and complications in childbirth lead to some 12,000 recorded cases of vaginal fistulas - in which a hole develops between either the rectum and vagina or between the bladder and vagina - according to the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ministry of Public Health.

Sometime in the next two months, activists and survivors of horrific violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo will find out if Callixte Mbarushimana will stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Mbarushimana is the executive secretary of the FDLR - the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda – a rebel movement which has operated in the eastern part of the DRC since 2005. The prosecution alleges that he directed FDLR fighters to murder, torture and rape civilians in the provinces of North and South Kivu in 2009, as a strategy to strengthen the rebel movement's hand in negotiations with the Rwandan government. Judges will confirm or reject each of eleven charges before the end of November.

'For the past several months, Congolese newspapers, chat rooms and listservs have resonated with discussions about the divided opposition,' writes Mvemba Dizolele on 'Starting in February, when only Etienne Tshisekedi and Vital Kamerhe had declared their intents to run, Congolese have expected the opposition to come together and fight incumbent Joseph Kabila as a united front. Now that more contenders have joined the fray, the need for a united opposition is more pressing, as no party can win alone.'

Political parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo are struggling to recruit women into their ranks to run for parliament, despite a legal requirement to do so and a belief that greater numbers of female parliamentarians are critical to advancing women’s rights.

It is not uncommon for elderly people on the streets of Goma, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (CRD), to be mistreated by their families. Unable to look after themselves due to a lack of income, most elderly people live with their children, where they encounter various forms of abuse, including at times, accusations of witchcraft.

Voting equipment for Democratic Republic of Congo's election is stranded abroad and costs are spiralling, according to documents and officials, threatening to delay a poll that is due at the end of November. Opposition politicians have already accused President Joseph Kabila of trying to rig his re-election in the vast, mineral-rich country's second vote since its 1998-2003 war.

Unidentified armed men torched the studios of a private television station that aired programmes favorable to Democratic Republic of Congo opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, local journalists and news reports said.

DRC President Joseph Kabila has warned national institutions not to shoot their expenditures out of control. The president has had a big issue with his prime minister, Adolphe Muzito, on this matter. In the past two years, President Kabila has prevented the premier from signing documents related to big expenditures. He has accused the Prime Minister of excessive spending in disregard of the allocated budget.

The idea that the Dodd-Frank Act in the US will stop mineral exploitation by armed groups is flawed, argues this article. 'Mineral exploitation, the object of activism and legislation, is but one source of revenue for these armed groups. They literally rule over the territories they control, taxing every economic activity and terrorizing the civilians into submission. Losing access to the mines will marginally affect their capacity to generate funds, considering that weapons and ammunitions are relatively inexpensive. In other words, if there were no minerals, the conflict would still rage on as armed groups would find other sources of revenue.'

Crimes under international law, including rape and murder, continue to be committed by the Congolese army and armed groups in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo following decades of similar crimes across the country, Amnesty International has said. A new Amnesty International report 'The time for justice is now; new strategy needed in the Democratic Republic of Congo' calls for the reform and strengthening of the country's national justice system to combat impunity that has been fostering a cycle of violence and human rights violations for decades.

This blog article tackles the issue of how to end conflict in the DRC. 'Ending the world's deadliest conflict is no easy task, but a growing consensus of Congolese civil society, electronics and metals companies, investors, and governments are now taking action to do so. A chief driver of their work is the Dodd-Frank legislation on conflict minerals, which is why a coalition of 40 Congolese human rights groups called it "the leverage needed to instill and impose ethical business practices in the Great Lakes region."'

Blog Black Looks reports on 'Blood in the Mobile', a documentary which traces the mobile phone to it’s source in the eastern DRC. The mineral cassiterite is mined in deep holes by men and boys and is then transported by foot through dense wet forests for two days before reaching the nearest town.

Lingering armed conflicts have kept 40 per cent of African children out of school, according to a global report released recently in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The 2011 Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report, which focuses on crisis and their underlying causes, said the impact of armed conflicts on education had been widely neglected, becoming a 'hidden crisis' which is 'reinforcing poverty, undermining economic growth and holding back the progress of nations'. The report was presented at the 26-28 July Kinshasa Round Table on 'Education, Peace and Development', organised by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has entrusted a Canadian company with managing a vast section of its forest, including containing deforestation, the environment ministry has announced. Ecosystem Restoration Associates (ERA) will handle a project covering nearly 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) of woodlands in the Mai-Ndombe forest, in western Bandundu province, the statement said. The project is part of the country's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation (REDD+) programme.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has appealed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to prevent forthcoming conflict-mineral rules from causing a 'de- facto embargo' on trade from the Central African nation. The commission was asked to develop the guidelines last July under the Dodd-Frank Act to help cut the link between Congo’s mineral trade and armed groups. The SEC rules, which are expected as early as next month, will apply to US companies involved in the trade in tin ore, tantalum, tungsten and gold shipped from Congo and nine neighboring countries.

More than three years ago, peace accords signed in the North Kivu provincial capital, Goma, were supposed to signal the end of violence and displacement in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, as the country heads for general elections in November, armed factions continue to destabilize the country. In this analysis, IRIN explores the sticking points in the protracted conflict, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.

DR Congo's National Independent Electoral Commission has registered 31.4 million voters for the November elections. The announcement was made by the commission chairman, the Rev Daniel Ngoy Mulunga, following the completion of the first phase of the updating of the electoral roll. DRC’s population is estimated to be 65 million people. With 48 per cent of these already enrolled to vote, this will be a big increase compared to the last election in 2006.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the Democratic Republic of Congo's ban of a private broadcaster favourable to opposition presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi. Radio Lisanga Télévision (RLTV), based in the capital, Kinshasa, lost its signal without formal notice, the station's director-general, Basile Olongo Pongo, told CPJ. The same day, Congolese Communication Minister Lambert Mende issued a decree indefinitely banning the station across the country over 'programs that are promoting violence and contribute to disturb public order,' according to news reports.

Outbreaks of measles and cholera in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed hundreds of people, with thousands more infected, says an official of the UN World Health Organisation (WHO). 'Since September 2010, 115,484 measles cases and 1,145 related deaths have been reported in South Kivu, Katanga, Maniema, Kasaï Occidental, Equateur, Bas Congo and Kasaï Oriental provinces,' Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO media and advocacy officer, told IRIN. According to Jasarevic, a lack of government funding halted follow-up mass immunisation activities in the regions, leading to the measles outbreak.