WFP on Friday announced the launch of an "urgent" appeal for US $2.1 million to fund a six-month emergency humanitarian air operation to begin in early August in the DRC that will enable aid workers to reach remote areas to assess the needs of war-torn populations and set up relief operations.

The European Union commissioner for development has stressed the need for leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo to try to reunite the country if the DRC is to receive development aid, sources in Kinshasa told IRIN.

The decision by the Central African Republic (CAR) earlier this week to close its Ubangui River border with the DRC came as no surprise to Jean-Pierre Bemba's rebel Mouvement pour la liberation du Congo (MLC), which controls the neighbouring Equateur province, MLC secretary general Olivier Kamitatu told Radio France Internationale (RFI) on Thursday.

On Tuesday 17 July 2001, Joseph Mutambule, Joachim Diana Gikupa, Kipela Mondo and Mireille Kavungu, deputy director-general, publication director, principal editor-in-chief and management secretary, respectively, from the pro-government daily "L'Avenir", were summoned to the Public Prosecutor's Office's Criminal Investigation Department (Police judiciaire des parquets, PJP) in Kinshasa / Gombe.