Nairobi- The Democratic Republic of Congo's armed forces are undermining the prospects of peace by working alongside rebel groups to mine tin and gold in the east of the resource-rich African nation, independent watchdog Global Witness said Wednesday.

The DR Congo's army (FARDC), supported by the United Nations peacekeeping force, is supposed to be fighting the Hutu Forces Democratiques pour la Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), a group implicated in the 1994 massacre in neighbouring Rwanda.

However, Global Witness said that Congolese soldiers were collaborating with the FDLR in order to profit from the mining industry.

Nairobi/Kinshasa - The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has denied it is playing a direct military role in an operation launched against Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

Media reports at the beginning of the week said that MONUC and the DR Congo armed forces (FARDC) had been sent to protect civilians from the LRA.

Nairobi/Kinshasa - The United Nations and the Democratic Republic of Congo have started a military operation directed against Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), news reports said.

Kony is refusing to sign a final peace deal after two years of negotiations and is believed to have been using the time to rearm.

The LRA, which is well-known for recruiting child soldiers, has in recent months been attacking villages and abducting people in southern Sudan, Congo and parts of the Central African Republic, United Nations and military officials said.

Washington, August 30: Almost 10 per cent of elephants have been killed in Congo's troubled Virunga National Park by armed groups, soldiers, and poachers, allegedly driven by rising Chinese demand for ivory.

Surveys carried out in the 1960s found 2,889 elephants in the park. By 2006 that number had dropped to 400. Just two years later, it's estimated there are as few as half that number.

Nairobi/Kinshasa - Fighting has broken out between rebels and the army in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC) said that rebels aligned with rebel General Laurent Nkunda and government soldiers exchanged fire for around eight hours in the North Kivu province on Thursday.

The fighting was the first major clash since a peace deal was signed with various rebel factions in the eastern town of Goma this January.

New Delhi, July 14 : The Defence Ministry today said that the Indian Army has taken discipl