DRC: Elections to be held on 30 July, polls body says (IRIN)

Independent Electoral Commission Chairman Apollinaire Muholongo Malumalu announced on Sunday that Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on July 30th.  The first elections to be held in the nearly 40 years since independence in the Democratic Republic of Congo will include 33 candidates.  Prominent opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi will not be among them.

BUNIA,(IRINwww.irinnews.org) - Thousands of Congolese civilians in the northeastern district of Ituri arrived on Thursday at the port town of Kasenyi on Lake Albert, on the border with Uganda, after they fled fighting between the national army and militia groups, a local official said.

The Democratic Republic of Congo must arrange its upcoming election itself, although the international community will help keep the peace during the polls, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday during a visit to the central African country. The DRC has "an extraordinary opportunity" to get on the right path toward democracy, Annan said of the planned June elections, the first in the country in 45 years. Click here for comments Annan made in honor of UN peacekeepers who have fallen in the DRC.   CNN/Associated Press