The Office of the Prosecutor has requested two new arrest warrants. The first one relates to Bosco Ntaganda for the crimes committed as a top commander of Thomas Lubanga's militia, the UPC/FPLC. The second was filed against a leader of one of the most active militia in the Kivu provinces, Sylvestre Mudacumura, the Supreme Commander of the FDLR-FOCA.

The Congolese army has regained control of the areas of Masisi and Rutshuru, in North Kivu province, which were occupied last week by mutinous soldiers loyal to renegade general Bosco Ntaganda. DR Congo’s Army Chief of Staff, General Didier Etumba, said in a press release on Sunday that military operations against the “undisciplined” soldiers have been suspended.

President Joseph Kabila and the Congolese Army Chief of Staff General Didier Etumba arrived in Goma on Monday to deal with the security threat posed by the defections of former rebels integrated into the army under a peace deal. General Etumba said that “those who do not want to submit to the republican order will be hunted down by the army.”

The Congolese government said on Thursday that “irregular troop movements” have been observed in eastern Congo since last weekend. The troop movements are believed to be a show of force by General Bosco Ntaganda, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court, amid renewed calls for his arrest after his former boss, Thomas Lubanga, was convicted by the ICC on March 14 for using child soldiers.

At least 26 people have been killed in attacks by a Rwandan militia group in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the Congolese army says. It says several remote villages in South Kivu province have been targeted since the start of January.

Presidential candidate Vital Kamerhe held a meeting at Independence Square in Bukavu, South Kivu Province, on Monday. The president of the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) told his many supporters in his hometown that if elected his priority will be “restoring state authority.”

With only 6 weeks left before presidential and parliamentary elections, President Kabila, at a wide-ranging news conference on Tuesday, said that he is confident he will win re-election in November. “I know one thing for sure, I will not lose,” Mr. Kabila replied when asked if he thinks there is a candidate who could beat him.

A former Rwandan rebel leader has appeared before the International Criminal Court facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, told The Hague court that Mbarushimana represented the “respectable public face” of the FDLR, a Rwandan Hutu rebel group that attacked civilians in Congo's North and South Kivu provinces in 2009.

Major industries are seeking to alter the proposed US reporting rules on “conflict minerals” mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In a bid to stem the flow of money from minerals mined in eastern Congo, widely seen as fuelling the ongoing conflicts, the US government included a clause in the financial reform legislation of July 2010, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

“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.