A campaign by US activists to capture alleged Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony has gone viral on the web. Invisible Children's half-hour film on the use of child soldiers by Kony's Lord's Resistance Army has been viewed nearly 10 million times on YouTube. Critics, however, have questioned the methods of the non-profit group.

A joint mission of the African Union (AU) and the United Nations has ended its visit to the Central African Republic, vowing "to act and ensure the eradication of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)." The "urgent need to finish LRA" was voiced by the head of the UN Regional Bureau for Central Africa (UNOCA), Abou Moussa, and the AU special envoy on the issue of LRA, Francisco Madeira.

"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. 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," President Barack Obama wrote to the U.S. Congress on Friday.

The former DR Congo Vice-President, who lost the second round of the 2006 presidential elections to President Joseph Kabila, remains a political force to be reckoned with. His support is actively being sought by opposition candidates running for president in this year’s one-round presidential election.

“There has been significant progress regarding the security situation in recent years in eastern DRC,” said Roger Meece, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and head of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO), in a briefing to the Council.

The United Nations Security Council should ensure that the UN mission in Congo has adequate and appropriate resources to protect civilians from attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and to avert election-related violence, a coalition of 47 international and Congolese organizations said today.

The main opposition party in the Democratic Republic of Congo is in disarray after firing its leader, making it even more difficult to mount a challenge against President Joseph Kabila in upcoming elections.

Eleven heads of state and government are to meet Wednesday in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, at a Great Lakes regional summit to look at the problem of illegal exploitation of natural resources in eastern Congo and the negative consequences this has had for the region.

US President Barack Obama has outlined a plan to disarm one of Africa's most feared rebel militias, the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army. LRA leaders initially claimed to be fighting to install a theocracy in Uganda based on the Biblical 10 commandments. But they now roam across parts of Sudan and Central African Republic (CAR), as well as north-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Supporters of former Congolese rebel leader and former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba say his war crimes trial is politically motivated. He faces two counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.