Kampala  - Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday said that the massacre of up to 900 civilians by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo was a sacrifice for future peace in their country.

"Sacrifices are paid by people in bad situations," Museveni told a press conference. "You can talk of 900 people who died but how about those who died due to the high infant mortality rate in the area when the LRA was there?"

Goma, DR Congo - Standing near the Corniche border crossing between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Rogatien Lubula watches several transport trucks carrying blue-helmeted soldiers rumble past in a cloud of dust.

"My country has been destroyed," the 65-year-old trader complains.

"With all of their weapons," he says, motioning towards the United Nations vehicles, "they could have stopped the war long ago if they weren't more interested in sitting around eating peanuts and making money."

Paris  - A French aid worker was raped an robbed by several armed men in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Le Parisian newspaper said in its internet edition on Friday.

The men, who wore uniforms, robbed a group of aid workers, among them three women. The two other women were also victims of sexual aggression, the paper said.

It remained unclear whether the culprits were members of a rebel militia or soldiers of the Congolese army. The non-governmental organization the victim worked for was not named.

The aid workers were urgently repatriated to France where the women, who are all in their early 20s, receive psychological treatment, and are expected to file charges.

Rumangabo, DR Congo  - After seven days marked by about- faces, a dramatic betrayal and hopeful talks of peace, the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has taken another twist.

On Tuesday in the town of Rumangabo, 40 kilometres west of Goma, the Congolese army held a ceremony to bring its bitter enemies, Tutsi rebel group the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), into its ranks.

The CNDP late last year routed the Congolese army during a major offensive that sent 250,00 civilians fleeing.

Amsterdam - The defence team of former Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is due to address the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the first time on Tuesday.

Lubanga is standing trial at the ICC in The Hague on charges of recruiting child soldiers for war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to the prosecution, Lubanga was responsible for the development and operation of an entire child soldier infrastructure during the bloody Congolese civil war between 1998 and 2003.

Amsterdam - The alleged victims of former a Congolese militia leader being tried in the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday became the first victims of war crimes to be represented as equal parties in the case, alongside the prosecution and the defence.

A total of 93 victims have been accepted as party to the trial in which Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is charged with recruiting child soldiers in the bloody civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 1998 and 2003.