Africa: UN Rejects Private Peacekeepers

As the United Nations continues to face a shortage of well-equipped, professionally trained soldiers for its growing peacekeeping operations overseas, a proposal to hire private security forces to rectify the shortfall has been greeted with scepticism. A proposal to double the current peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the possibility of a new 10,000-strong U.N. mission in Sudan are expected to bolster the total number of U.N.