In addition to DRC's shaky peace, her five World Heritage site national parks and their wildlife and unique ecosystems remain endangered. Although donors at a Unesco conference in Paris have just pledged $40m to protect DR Congo's natural heritage, conservationists on the ground have become victims of attacks by hundreds of roaming armed men who operate in the park's vast territory.

After Rwandan-backed rebels led an insurrection in the eastern city of Bukavu, the government in the DRC issued three directives restricting news coverage, authorities imprisoned four journalists, and attackers allegedly led by an army officer severely beat another journalists. These new attacks on the DRC press are explored in "Fragile Freedom," a special report by Julia Crawford, the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) Africa program coordinator. The report, is based on a two-week mission to the central African nation, more than 20 interviews, and a visit with the imprisoned journalists.

The Twa from the northeastern district of Ituri, in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Orientale Province, retracted on Monday statements they made in 2003 of having witnessed acts of cannibalism against their people by a former rebel group, the MLC. "That was a lie because we were pushed into saying things," Amzati Ndjeto, said in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital.

Editor of daily newspaper "Le Potential", Freddy Monsa Iyaka Duku was arrested on 13 September then released on bail on 14 September, due to a report he wrote which made "harmful allegations" towards Vice-President Arthur Z'Ahidi Ngoma.

The Field Coordinator will manage the Bunia office and participate in the implementation of the DDR National Program (Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration) for child soldiers in the Ituri district, among other duties related to International Rescue Committee projects.

The United Nations mission in Democratic Republic of Congo faces a stiff test when its first disarmament programme in the vast central African country starts in the northeastern Ituri province on Monday. An estimated 50,000 tribal militiamen are due to start laying down their weapons, but their leaders have remained non-committal and a flare-up of violence in the troubled province points to trouble ahead for the scheme.

Journalist Mbuyi Tshibwabwa, who is also known as "Mbote ya Kabambi" ("The Big Hello"), has been in hospital since 22 August 2004 after being severely beaten at a military court in Goma, North Kivu province's main city, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Tshibwabwa is a military journalist and host of the local television show "Armée et peuple" ("The Army and the People").

Violence and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Ituri District will not end until the government takes control of the extraction of natural resources there, said a newly released special report from the UN Mission in the DRC, known by its French acronym MONUC. "The competition for the control of natural resources by combatant forces, exacerbated by an almost constant political vacuum in the region, has been a major factor in prolonging the crisis in Ituri," said the special report on events in Ituri from January 2002-December 2003.

Amnesty International and medical experts from seven countries have sent an open letter to the heads of government in China, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Philippines, Iran, Sudan and the USA urging them to stop using the death penalty against children. The letter has been signed by 17 medical experts with outstanding credentials in the field of child and adolescent psychology, psychiatry and social development. Endorsing the call of the experts to abolish juvenile executions, Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said, "Child offenders should not be punished as if they were adults. Governments must amend their laws and practices to conform with international human rights standards and end the death penalty for offenders under the age of 18."

War in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) did not end when fighting ceased in 2003 in most parts of the country, according to Gen Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese army officer who led dissident troops in June to capture Bukavu, the capital of the eastern province of South Kivu. IRIN interviewed Nkunda on 21 August, in the eastern town of Goma, on his rebellion against the transitional government, his views on the integration of the national army and whether or not he would he would make real his threat to seize Bukavu.

On Friday 3rd September, the School of Oriental and African Studies in London is hosting a workshop on the role of the diaspora in the post conflict reconstruction in the DRC. The event is free.

Judges in the newly restored court in the Ituri district of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) must intensify efforts to prosecute serious human rights crimes, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released this week. Since 1999, armed conflict among rebel factions, local ethnic groups, and foreign fighters in the northeastern region has resulted in numerous atrocities that have gone unpunished. On August 17, the court in Bunia, Ituri's capital, handed down its most serious conviction so far. Human Rights Watch welcomed the court's prosecution of Commander Rafiki Saba Aimaible, the former security chief of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), an armed group in Ituri responsible for serious crimes. Commander Rafiki was found guilty of arbitrary arrests aggravated by torture, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

A group of seven NGOs, lobbying under the motto, Publish What You Pay, has urged the government to stop including confidential clauses in deals with oil firms and publicly commit to improving transparency. The move follows a recent International Monetary Fund mission to the country and its recommendations that more audits of state oil firms and other companies in the sector should be carried out to ensure that the revenues are being properly used. The country is expected to be sub-Saharan Africa's fourth biggest oil producer this year.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) recently began its first formal investigation to judge crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is urgent that the women's movement monitor whether the ICC effectively investigates and sanctions the perpetrators of sexual and gender crimes committed against women. Sexual violence as a weapon of war can no longer go unnoticed. This special issue of Women’s Human Rights Net addresses key aspects of the ICC, such as gender crimes and related case law, gender-sensitive proceedings and the possible implications of implementing international standards nationally to advance women's human rights.

In the aftermath of this month's massacre of 160 Congolese refugees in a temporary camp in Burundi, some advocacy groups say too little is being done to ensure the rights of refugees as outlined in the U.N.'s 1951 convention. "The massacre is the latest in the region's history of refugee camp disasters," says the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR). "It highlights yet again one of the dangers of refugee warehousing, the practice of confining refugees to camps or segregated settlements or otherwise depriving them of basic human rights."

The UN Security Council should consider and act on the recommendations of United Nations reports on economic exploitation and arms flow and place particular emphasis on isolating the armed groups in Ituri and applying pressure on neighbouring governments to cooperate in the elimination of such activities from within their borders in accordance with existing UN Security Council Resolutions. This is according to an International Crisis Group report 'Maintaining Momentum in the Congo: The Ituri Problem', which notes that the "international community is slowly awakening to the grim realisation that collapse of the Congo peace process and return to war are real prospects."

Four days after officially suspending his participation in the coalition transitional government of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Azarias Ruberwa, one of the four Congolese vice-presidents and leader of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) has announced he will return to the capital, Kinshasa. "The vice-president [Ruberwa] will return to his usual duties tomorrow, [Saturday]" Francis Bedi Mabele, the RCD-Goma secretary-general, told IRIN on Friday. Ruberwa is also scheduled to meet with South African President and mediator of the DRC crises, Thabo Mbeki.

The former main rebel group during the Democratic Republic of Congo's civil war are to suspend their participation in the power-sharing government. RCD-Goma leader Azarias Ruberwa, one of Congo's four vice-presidents, said the peace process had "broken down" and needed to be reassessed. The transitional government was set up to end the five-year conflict. But the massacre earlier this month of 160 Congolese refugees in Burundi prompted renewed warnings of war.

Oxfam UK

You will be responsible for managing Oxfam's strategic planning for, and immediate response to, humanitarian emergencies in eastern DRC and for co-ordinating all emergency response staff in the field. You must have at least three years of field experience in humanitarian work, some of it in a management position, and have an excellent knowledge of issue relating to emergency programming, humanitarian law and community empowerment.

Concern Worldwide

The position has three chief responsibilities. 1) The management and development of Concern's Kinshasa programme; 2) the provision of technical support for the mainstreaming of HIV/AIDS in all programmes and 3) assisting in advocacy initiatives related to Livelihoods, HIV/AIDS and conflict-based issues. The successful candidate will hold a degree in a relevant field and have at least 2 years experience in livelihoods programming, including HIV/AIDS, in Africa and preferably in the Great Lakes Region.