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UN Council to hold emergency DR Congo talks
[Bangla Daily Star] The UN Security Council was to meet in an emergency session yesterday after UN attack helicopters launched missions against rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo or Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
, diplomats said.

La Belle France's UN mission announced on its Twitter account that it had called for a meeting of the 15-nation body on the offensive launched by M23 rebels and that talks would start at 3:00pm (2000 GMT).

The UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, said in a statement that M23 rebels had launched an offensive with "heavy weapons" early Saturday and that it had put peacekeepers into action as part of its mandate to "protect civilians."

"As part of this, 10 missions were carried out by its attack helicopters," the statement said.

The attack helicopters, provided by Ukraine, were put on standby on Friday after M23, former government troops who launched a mutiny in March, launched a surprise attack against the army just north of the Nord Kivu bustling provincial capital of Goma.

The new fighting is concentrated around the town of Kibumba, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Goma.

"MONUSCO is following the situation closely and will not tolerate any advance or action by M23 troops which would provoke panic in the civilians population," said the UN mission's statement.

Posted by: Fred 2012-11-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=356292