News About Congo

Millions of Congolese children immunized against polio

Thousands of vaccination teams have traversed the vast Democratic Republic of Congo on foot, by motorbike, boat and car, in a campaign to immunize at least 14 million children against polio, the UN Children's Fund said.

This report online: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94070

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U.S. troops to central Africa to help hunt down the leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army

President Barack Obama is sending about 100 U.S. troops to central Africa to help hunt down the leaders of the notoriously violent Lord's Resistance Army.

"I have authorized a small number of combat-equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield," Obama said in letter to the House Speaker John Boehner and Daniel Inouye, president pro tempore of the Senate. Obama was making a reference to the head of the guerrilla group.
"I believe that deploying these U.S. Armed Forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa."
U.S. military personnel will advise regional forces working to target Kony and other senior leaders. The president said the troops will not engage Lord's Resistance Army forces "unless necessary for self-de
fense." Obama said the United States has backed regional military efforts since 2008 to go after the group, but these efforts have been unsuccessful. Obama notes that the Lord's Resistance Army "has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women, and children in central Africa" and "continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.

Prudent Use of Abundant Resources to Spur Development

It is no secret that Congo could be the economic engine of Africa. But it is no secret that Congo is squandering it resources.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39986&Cr=democratic&Cr1=congo#

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the capacity to become the driving force of Africa’s economic development if its vast forests, water resources and trillions of dollars worth of mineral reserves are used prudently, according to the findings of a United Nations assessment released today.
The DRC has half of Africa’s forests and water resources, but faces alarming rates of deforestation, species depletion, heavy metal pollution and land degradation from mining, according to the study entitled ‘Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment of the DRC’ and jointly carried out by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Government.
The country also faces an acute drinking water crisis which has left an estimated 51 million Congolese without access to potable water, the two-year assessment today in Kinshasa, by UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner, and DRC’s Environment Minister, José Endundo, shows.