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PRESS TV

Human Rights Watch has urged Libya to reveal the fate of missing people in the country, including the prominent Shia cleric Imam Moussa Sadr.

The call by the New York-based rights watchdog comes as the 22nd Arab League summit opens in Libya with Israel's expansion policies in Jerusalem al-Quds high on its agenda.

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman has boycotted the summit in Sirte amid a lingering dispute with Libya over the disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr, and has sent his country's envoy to Cairo instead, AFP reported on Saturday.

Sadr vanished on August 31, 1978, while he was reportedly in Tripoli with two companions, who also went missing.

In 2008, Lebanon issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi over Sadr's disappearance.

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SABC

Afriforum says it will help Zimbabwean farmers seize property owned by President Robert Mugabe's government in Cape Town on Tuesday this week.

This is in compensation for farms and property seized under his controversial land reform programme. Afriforum says because the properties in Cape Town are of a non-diplomatic nature, they can be attached.

Last month, the North Gauteng High Court upheld a ruling by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal directing the Zimbabwe government to compensate farmers who had lost properties through land reform. Zimbabwe has ignored that ruling and its High Court has rejected the SADC tribunal judgment.

The SADC tribunal in November 2008 ruled that Zimbabwe violated international law with its 2005 constitutional amendment. It allowed the seizure of white-owned farms without compensation. AfriForum says the SADC ruling will become part of South African law and will be enforceable in this country.

It would also mean that to a large extent people who have been affected by the land reform process can start claiming their damages in South African courts and enforce these damage claims through the execution against government or Zimbabwean assets in South Africa.

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SABC

Carlo Apolis, the South African national in the British army who was killed in Afghanistan earlier this month, was laid to rest in Malmesbury this weekend. The rifleman was given a semi military funeral by the British Army and a special message from the Queen, in which she praised Apolis's bravery, was also already read at the funeral.

The Queen praised Apolis's bravery and that he sacrificed his life for the country. A tribute was also paid by Secretary of State for Defence Bob Ainsworth who said he was very sorry to learn of his death. A bravery medal from the Queen was presented to his family.

Rifleman Carlo Apolis was a South African who moved to the United Kingdom in 2004, and later became a British citizen. The 28-year old worked in a hotel before joining the Army in 2007. Apolis was described as a big brother figure by fellow soldiers. He was killed by a gunshot wound resulting from small arms fire in Helmand province.

Members of the British Army and Representatives of the South African army and navy were also in attendance. Close on 300 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the start of the war against terrorism.

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John Nyashanu, SABC Harare

At least 13 journalists were killed last year in Africa while on duty says the Federation for African Journalists – who is now appealing to the African Union to help provide conducive working environments for media practitioners on the continent.

The federation is holding its second congress in Harare to deliberate on various issues affecting journalists and to elect a new leadership. Scores of journalists have perished in the line of duty and political intervention may now be the solution, say the journalists.

Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Foster Dongozi says: "We essentially have one daily newspaper whose contents can also be mirrored in the state broadcaster, so really from a democratic perspective or point of view that is not very healthy; and women are looked down upon, even in better developed societies of Africa. The 70% to 30% ratio against them in South Africa has triggered an outcry."

Media Workers Association of South Africa, Lungile Lushozi says: "Women take a back seat most of the time because they are not given opportunities; if they are they are not given opportunities that allow them to be part of decision making."

It is generally accepted that in a democratic society, the media is the fourth estate after the executive, judiciary and legislature. But in Africa the job is proving to be no walk in the park.

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SABC

The ANC alliance has asked the community of Matatiele in Kokstad to move closer to each other and be united. Today the community held a rally to celebrate the recent Constitutional Court ruling that the town remains in the Eastern Cape as per parliamentary decision.

During the celebrations at the local stadium it was evident that divisions that had plagued the community over the demarcation issue were still there. There was a strong police presence at the stadium where a large group pro the Eastern Cape Province filled the centre of stadium while a smaller group pro KwaZulu Natal filled the smaller stands on the sideline.

Alliance speakers and civic groups concurred that boundaries are not an issue but attention should be given to service delivery. The celebration rally was also used to call on people to prepare for the local government elections. The ANC alliance said if divisions persist they will create problems for the organization.

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SABC

The South African Government has intensified its fight against human trafficking as several cabinet ministers joined by about a thousand people visited the Mantsopa cave in Ladybrand in Free State.

The gathering was to ask for blessings from the ancestors as the country battles with social ills like human trafficking. Those present included several government ministers, deputy ministers, the Free State premier and his executive council. The government emphasised its stance against human trafficking and pleaded for a united front against it.

Minister for Women, Youth, Children and People with Disabilities, Noluthando Mayende-Sibiya: "Young people should take great care of themselves and ensure that they are safe so that they can progress in life. She says "the whole of South Africa is responsible to fight the scourge of human trafficking and ensure that humanity is safe”

The Lesotho government also attended and offered its support.

Lesotho’s Minister for Gender and Youth, Mathabiso Lepono said: "Women ,especially children, should be discouraged from believing that there is plenty of work in South Africa" and she called on parents to monitor the movement of their children as Lesotho is one of the countries where trafficking occurs.

The delegation visited several job-creation projects. A special visit was also paid to a sand-stone house donated by the Lesotho government to one of the women who participated in the 1956 anti-pass march.

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SABC

Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan has warned that South Africa faces increased risks of power cuts from next year to 2013. Hogan says this is unless co-generation projects come on line and consumers begin to conserve electricity.

The warning is contained in her written response to questions in Parliament. Hogan says if initiatives aimed at saving energy fail, the risk of blackouts will increase.

South Africa is battling a chronic power shortage. Eskom is planning to invest R461-billion to boost generating capacity. It's also seeking to diversify from reliance on coal-fired power stations, which provide about 95 % of the country's power.

Meanwhile, thousands of delegates from power utility suppliers in seven Southern Africa Development Community countries are presently meeting in Bloemfontein. The delegates are sharing their experiences on the successes and challenges in their countries such as electricity tariff hikes.

SIRTE, Tripoli (Reuters) - Libya's relations with the European Union have returned to normal after a row over visas was settled but a dispute with Switzerland remains unresolved, Libya's foreign minister said on Sunday.

The visa crisis, which had threatened growing business ties between the EU and oil exporter Libya, was defused on Saturday after the bloc scrapped a travel black-list Switzerland had imposed on senior Libyans, and expressed its regrets.

"This issue has been resolved," Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa said in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of an Arab League summit in the Libyan town of Sirte.

"We have good relations with the Europeans and we have cooperation together. Just the problem of the Swiss when they put a blacklist. This was very bad."

Tripoli retaliated against the Swiss visa blacklist of 188 Libyans, including Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and members of his family, by barring entry to citizens from the Schengen borderless travel zone, which includes most states in Europe.

"Now I think it's solved because the European Union, they decided to take off this blacklist and it's over now and everbody is welcome to come."

SWISS ARREST

But when asked by Reuters whether this development would influence Libya's dispute with Switzerland, Koussa said: "This is a separate issue."

The two countries have been locked in a fierce diplomatic row since July 2008, when one of the Libyan leader's sons, Hannibal Gaddafi, was arrested in Geneva on charges -- which were later dropped -- of mistreating two domestic employees.

Soon after the arrest, two Swiss businessman were barred from leaving Libya. One of them, Max Goeldi is now serving a four-month sentence in a Libyan prison. Libyan officials say his case is not linked to Hannibal Gaddafi's arrest.

Koussa said Libya would take part in talks on the dispute in the near future which he said would be mediated by Spain, holder of the EU's rotating presidency, and Germany.

Asked about the prospects for an agreement, the foreign minister said: "That's up to them (the Swiss). If they want to solve it we are ready. If they don't want to it's up to them."

Libya viewed Hannibal Gaddafi's arrest as a deliberate act of humiliation. It has also demanded that Switzerland reverse the result of a referendum it held last year banning the construction of minarets.

Muammar Gaddafi has called for a "jihad" against Switzerland. The term is commonly used to describe an armed struggle, but a Libyan diplomat said subsequently thay Gaddafi had been referring to a trade embargo on the Swiss.

A senior Libyan official, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters on Friday that Goeldi would be freed "very soon", although this has not been confirmed by the government. Goeldi's lawyer said if his client was to be released early it would happen after the summit ends on Sunday.

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SABC

The South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) in the North West is calling for the dissolution of the provincial South African Local Government Association (Salga). The call was made during Sanco's general council meeting at Klerksdorp in the North West. Sanco says many elected SALGA officials, including most at both provincial and local government, should be expelled, for allegedly fuelling factionalism within the ANC. Sanco claims that they have close links with the disbanded Provincial Executive Committee.

The general council meeting is preparing for its elective provincial conference later this year. Sanco lamented the state of local government in the province which it described as being in a state of collapse. It says fraud, corruption, and maladministration are affecting service delivery in the province.

Sanco demands that allegedly corrupt and rotten officials must be expelled from structures of governance.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Food & Allied Workers' Union( Fawu) members from the four provinces of Gauteng, North West, Mpumalanga and the Free State, marched to the Labour department offices in Klerksdorp.

They are demanding intervention from the Labour department, against alleged exploitation by their employers. The department has promised to look into the challenges faced by the workers as a matter of urgency.

SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Arab leaders failed at their summit on Sunday to reach a consensus on whether the Palestinians should resume stalled talks with Israel.

The Arab League scheduled an extraordinary summit for later this year to tackle issues it had been unable to resolve during its two days of meetings in the Libyan city of Sirte.

The Palestinians have said indirect talks with the Israelis will not take place unless Israel cancels a decision to build 1,600 new homes in a settlement near east Jerusalem, dealing a fresh blow to an already troubled Middle East peace process.

The Arab League had given its blessing to the Palestinians, before the Israeli decision was announced, to conduct the so-called proximity talks with Israel, so the organisation's stance now on whether those negotiations should still go ahead is potentially decisive.

After two days of talks in the Libyan town of Sirte, a committee of foreign ministers from some member states produced a resolution saying that a halt to all settlement activity was necessary for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to go ahead.

But that decision was not adopted by the full summit and, in a sign of the lack of consensus, Syria's foreign minister said his country would not recognise the document as representing the view of the Arab League.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said after the summit ended that another, extraordinary meeting of heads of state would take place at an unspecified date later in the year to deal with outstanding issues.

He acknowledged the urgency of taking a collective decision on the Israeli-Palestinian talks.

"Within the next few weeks we have to decide what to do: whether to continue with the negotiations or to completely shift course," he told a news conference.

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SABC

The African National Congress (ANC) says at this stage it will not comment on a reported fist fight during the ANC Women's League provincial conference in Polokwane, Limpopo.

Rivals for the provincial chairperson's position Maite Marutha and Makoma Makhurupetji reportedly exchanged blows in full view of delegates. It is believed the scuffle ensued after Makhurupetji accused Marutha of lacking leadership skills

Meanwhile the Amathole ANC Youth League regional congress underway at the Walter Sisulu University campus near King William's Town has elected Pumlani Mkolo as regional chairperson with Tembalethu Ntutu as regional secretary.

A group of disgruntled delegates earlier smashed the podium and tables, demanding a postponement of the ruling party’s congress. It claimed that the conference was marred by gross irregularities. The group had been removed from the venue.

The congress has announced that out-going provincial secretary Ayanda Matiti is their candidate for the chairmanship position in the upcoming Eastern Cape Youth League provincial congress. Eastern Cape Youth Commission chairperson Mlimandlela Ndamase is also contesting the position.

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SABC

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, China's largest private-run car maker, agreed today to buy Ford Motor's Volvo car unit for $1.8 billion, the country's biggest overseas auto purchase. The takeover underscores China's arrival as a major force in the global auto industry and ends nearly two years of talks with Geely over Volvo -- the last sale from Ford's former premier group, which also held Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover.

Geely said in a statement it had secured all the necessary financing to complete the deal and "significant working capital" to fund Volvo's business. "Today represents a milestone in the history of Geely," Geely chairperson Li Shufu told a news conference, adding that Volvo Cars would remain a separate company with its own management team based in Sweden.

The deal, which both sides aim to close in the third quarter, will free up cash for the number two US automaker and enable it to focus on its core Ford brand. Geely, parent of Geely Automobile Holdings, was named by Ford as the preferred bidder for its loss-making Swedish unit in October 2009.

The Chinese carmaker, which clinched Volvo at a price tag well below the $6.5 billion Ford paid for it in 1999, plans to keep the brand and operations in Sweden. Geely chairman Li Shufu is already planning a factory in Beijing which will make 300 000 Volvo branded cars, or as many Volvos for China as are now made abroad for foreigners.

Made-in-China Volvo may also get a boost from Beijing's plan to support domestic brands and replace Volkswagen AG's Audi A6 as Chinese state officials' car of choice. China raced past the United States to become the world's top auto market last year, with sales surging 46% to a record 13.6 million units. It is keen to move into Western markets but has so far lacked the technology and brand recognition to do so.

The Volvo deal should help the Chinese carmaker to get around some of those obstacles more quickly.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A leader of a moderate Sufi militia group that signed a power-sharing deal with the Western-backed Somali government this month has vowed to rid the country of radical Islamists.

The government brought Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca on board ahead of an expected military push against hardline Islamist rebels threatening to topple the administration.

"Together, we are going to eliminate radical Islamists from the country. We will confront Shabaab directly not through the media," chairman Maalim Muhamud told Reuters late on Saturday.

Muhamud said his group, which controls large swathes of central Somalia, had the capacity with the government, to ruin al Shabaab, which professes loyalty to al Qaeda and holds vast areas in the south and the capital.

In January this year, al Shabaab, which seeks to impose a strict version of Islamic sharia law in Somalia, attacked Ahlu Sunna's positions in a bid to take control of strategic towns, but the Sufis defended them successfully.

Under the deal signed between the group and the government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Ahlu Sunna will get five ministerial posts and appoint the army's deputy chief of staff.

The Sufis' quarrel with the rebels is mainly ideological.

Somalia has a rich Sufi tradition going back more than five centuries. Sufis have been angered by the desecration of graves, the beheading of clerics, and bans on celebrating the birth of the Prophet imposed by the hardline Wahhabi insurgents.

The latest round of grave attacks occurred this week in Mogadishu after similar incidents in Kismayu and Baidoa in the south and in other areas, over the last two years.

"This is an unacceptable matter. The ones who are doing this are not true Muslims, they are far from the religion. We must launch a jihad against them," Muhamud said, adding there were passages in the Koran allowing them to kill those who destroy graves.

SHABAAB DISMISSES DEAL

An al Shabaab official said the alliance between the Sufis and government would not impact the balance of power.

"We have heard from the media about the deal they signed in Addis Ababa, but it will not have any impact on us. Our Mujahedeen are ready and are well trained," Sheikh Ali Hussein, chairman of al Shabaab in the capital told reporters.

The deal between Ahlu Sunna and the government was opposed by several members of the militia group, including Muhamud's deputy, Hassan Qorey, who says they were not well represented in talks that led to the agreement.

"Yes there are some Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca scholars who are opposed to the deal we have signed but we are going to solve our problems through talking to the rest of our group," Muhamud said. "On the government side there is also some opposition, so we hope the other side will also do so."

The chairman would travel to Mogadishu this week for a meeting of a joint technical committee of the alliance on implementing the power sharing deal, he said.

Somalia has had no effective central government for 19 years and Western nations and neighbours say the country is used as a shelter by militants intent on launching attacks in the region and further afield.

The Islamists launched their insurgency at the start of 2007 to drive out Ethiopian troops propping up the government. Ethiopians left at the start of 2009 but the conflict continued.

A smaller rebel group, Hizbul Islam, has an alliance with the al Shabaab in Mogadishu, where the government has been hemmed into a few blocks since a rebel offensive last May.

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PRESS TV

Violent clashes in Somalia erupted between military forces and local fighters have claimed the lives of at least 17 people.

According to Press TV correspondent in the capital Mogadishu, at least 17 people, including seven soldiers, were killed in the ongoing violence on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the fighters claim they have launched attacks on two military bases, one of them belonging to the African Union forces.

The bloody clashes come hours after a bomb explosion killed a Mogadishu district official and two of his bodyguards earlier in the day. Police say the blast claimed the life of a civilian woman as well.

In a statement following the roadside bomb blast, the al-Shabab fighters claimed responsibility for the attack.

"Our bombs unit was responsible for the bomb that killed a senior official of the infidel government," read the statement, according to Reuters.

Mogadishu has witnessed several clashes in recent weeks owing to the government's pledge to reduce militant's capabilities.

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PRESS TV

Shocking evidence of an undisclosed massacre of at least 321 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo last December has just been surfaced.

The massacre, discovered Sunday, took place when insurgents from the infamous Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) of Uganda attacked several villages, including Mabanga Ya Talo, in a remote part of north-eastern Congo, BBC reported.

According to the report, the rebels came to the Mabanga Ya Talo village on December 13 while pretending to be Congolese soldiers who had spent months on duty in the forests.

The rebels first asked the villagers to provide them with food and other goods, but eventually caught them off guard and killed scores of them in a brutal attack.

After raiding their homes, the fighters kidnapped some 250 people to carry looted goods and abducted more than 80 children from the village to become sex slaves and fighters.

This pattern was reportedly repeated in villages all the way to Tapili, some 45km (30 miles) away.

One abductee, 17-year-old Jean-Claude Singbatile, said he spent days carrying bags of salt after being captured with a group of friends.

"As we marched, the LRA killed people - two at one village, three at the next and then four at the next," he told the BBC.

"They wanted to kill me, but the leader said I should be kept alive, as they needed strong soldiers."

He said he eventually made a run for it after one of the rebel leaders warned that he would also be killed and should take his chance to flee.

"He warned me because he is an Azande, like me," said Jean-Claude, referring to his ethnic group.

Human Rights Watch has verified 321 deaths while other activists have given far higher estimates.

The incident has been described as “one of the worst massacres” carried out by the LRA, which was alledgedly established to install a theocracy in Uganda based on the Biblical Ten Commandments.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali pirates said on Sunday they had captured a Spanish fishing vessel in the Indian Ocean.

A pirate who gave his name as Ibrahim told Reuters by phone: "My men have hijacked a Spanish fishing vessel from the Indian Ocean. They are on board and safe."

Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based East Africa Seafarers Assistance Programme told Reuters by phone they were aware a fishing vessel had been seized, but its ownership was unclear.

The Spanish foreign ministry in Madrid said it was checking the reports.

Mwangura said pirates had demanded a $3 million ransom for a North Korea-flagged cargo ship captured early last month.

The pirates were threatening to kill the 10-man Syrian crew of the Libyan-owned MV RIM, he said. Somali pirates have received millions of dollars in ransom payments for various ships in recent months.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - The United Nations must boost peacekeeping forces in areas of Africa where Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels operate to stop massacres such as one that killed more than 300 people in December, a rights group said.

The Ugandan rebel group has killed and abducted people on a regular basis for the last 23 years, from Uganda, Sudan, Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch noted in a report.

It said the United Nations has fewer than 1,000 peacekeepers in this vast and and often impenetrable areas where the rebels mount their attacks.

The U.N. says the LRA killed more than 1,200 people in a 10-month period throughout 2008 and 2009, while the rights group puts the death toll in a massacre previously unreported in the remote northeast last December at 321.

"The four-day rampage demonstrates that the LRA remains a serious threat to civilians and is not a spent force, as the Ugandan and Congolese governments claim," Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher at HRW, said.

HRW also wants the Congolese government to work with mobile phone companies to bring network coverage to the area.

One witness cycled 60 km (40 miles) to find a telephone to inform the U.N. of the massacre, and villages that were subsequently attacked knew nothing of nearby attacks.

Other recommendations in its report charting LRA atrocities, released late on Saturday, include donor funding for a comprehensive strategy, better coordination, community radio, helicopter support and deploying elite military groups.

"High-level attention, bold steps and courageous leadership are necessary to develop and implement a comprehensive regional strategy that resolves the LRA threat," said the report, which said one source of hope comes from the U.S. government.

The U.S. military's African Command (Africom) provides communications, logistical and intelligence support for Uganda's national army in its pursuit of the LRA, and the U.S. is considering legislation to ensure a strategy to catch the LRA leadership.

"The number of peacekeepers we have on the ground is already not enough to cover Congo, but it's not only about blue helmets -- we need more cooperation among the three countries in the fight against the LRA," a spokesman for the U.N. mission, known as MONUC, said.

KAMPALA, March 28 (Xinhua) -- The Ugandan army said Sunday that it has sent teams in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) to verify reports that the Ugandan rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), killed at least 321 civilians in late 2009.

"In our view, that is an exaggerated figure; we are, however, asking our forces, because they were not there, to do verification," Ugandan army spokesman Felix Kulayigye told Xinhua by telephone.

Human Rights Watch said Sunday in a report titled "Trail of Death: LRA Atrocities in Northeastern Congo" that the LRA had killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others, including at least 80 children, during a previously unreported four-day rampage in the Makombo area of Haute Uele district in DR Congo.

The report said the killing spree occurred on Dec.14-17 last year.

Kulayigye said that it was illogical for a massacre of such a magnitude to have occurred in the sparsely populated area.

"Logically that is not possible, unless these people were living in a camp and the LRA found them in one place," he said."It is very difficult for a force under 100 to collect over 500 people in one place."

The report also revealed other atrocities by the LRA in DR Congo in 2009 and early 2010, saying that the rebel group remains a serious threat to civilians and is not a spent force, as the Ugandan and Congolese governments claimed.

It said a regional strategy was needed to end the rebel group's atrocities and apprehend its leaders, some of whom are wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in northern Uganda for almost two decades.

The LRA has waged one of the longest guerrilla wars in Africa since 1986, roaming between Uganda, Sudan, DR Congo and the Central African Republic. Its guerrilla-style warfare has left tens of thousands dead and 2 million homeless over years.

The three neighboring countries launched an anti-LRA operation last December, declaring they had wiped out 80 percent of the rebel group at the end of the crackdown in March.

Although the joint military action dismantled the LRA's main base in the Garamba national park, its remnants killed more than 900 civilians in retaliation afterwards, sparking an outcry from human rights activists.

MOGADISHU, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Somali pirates has seized a Spanish fishing ship in the Indian Ocean, media reported on Sunday.

The details about crew members were unclear so far.

The development came after a regional maritime official confirmed on Wednesday that a private security guards aboard a Spanish fishing boat off the coast of Somalia killed a Somali pirate after pirates attacked their vessel.

East Africa's Coordinator of Seafarers Assistance Program Andrew Mwangura said the incident took place on the Indian Ocean waters on Tuesday.

"The private security guards killed one Somali pirates along the Indian Ocean waters. I have not established the name of the Spanish fishing boat which was under attack by Somali pirates," Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone from Mombasa.

Piracy involving small boats and cargo vessels has been a major problem in the sea of Somalia, growing each year over the past decade and targeting at ships traveling through pirate- infested waters in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. The Horn of Africa nation's coastline is considered one of the world's most dangerous stretches of water because of piracy.

Somalia has been plagued by factional fighting and has not had a functioning central administration since 1991.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels killed at least 290, and maybe more than 300 people in Congo in a previously unreported massacre in December 2009, U.N. officials told Reuters on Saturday.

The killing spree took place in villages in Democratic Republic of Congo's remote northeast and followed warnings of rebel threats after similar massacres the year before.

"The men were tied by the chest by the same rope and killed with wood sticks on the back of the head and neck -- it was really brutal and fast," said the United Nations' Liliane Egounlety, who led the investigation into the killings in the Haut-Uele district.

"They also used machetes. Many witnesses found it too hard to talk about."

One villager cycled 60 km (40 miles) to find a phone to tell the United Nations about the massacre.

News of the killings will fuel the debate over the role and future of the much-criticised U.N. mission, which complains it lacks resources to protect civilians but is also under pressure from the government to pull out of Congo by next year.

The United Nations has a base at Niangara, about 50 km (30 miles) to the east, though there are fewer than 100 troops and no helicopters.

"We have confirmed 290 at least have been killed and 150 abducted," said Egounlety, whose team interviewed 31 witnesses in Tapili, one of the villages where the massacre took place.

Todd Howland, director of the joint U.N. human rights office in Congo, said the number "could easily reach over 300".

The LRA fought a two-decade long insurgency in northern Uganda before crossing into Congo in 2005. Its jungle bases were then attacked by a Ugandan-led multi-national force in late 2008, and the LRA rebels have splintered into groups.

Most of the fighters crossed into Sudan and Central African Republic, where they have carried out waves of attacks but experts think one group remains based in Congo.

Howland said it had taken so long for the United Nations to carry out the investigation because the area was remote and had no mobile phone network coverage. U.N. vehicles struggled to reach the site and helicopters could not land.

The United Nations sent a research team in January and again this month, and also drew on information from the local Red Cross, national army and non-governmental organisations.

TAKING THREAT SERIOUSLY?

Most of the U.N. mission's 22,000 troops are stationed in the east of the country, where a U.N.-backed operation to oust Rwandan Hutu rebels is taking place.

About 4,000 are scattered throughout the rest of the country, which is the size of western Europe and is still recovering from a 1998-2003 war that killed millions.

Despite fighting in the east and north, Congo has asked the U.N. soldiers to withdraw next year, during which presidential elections are due to be held.

Howland questioned whether the international community was taking the threat to civilians "sufficiently seriously".

"The government is asking the peacekeeping mission to leave and the international community is thinking that might be acceptable. In another situation we would have sent peacekeepers straight in," he said.

"The reason (it carries on) is that the LRA doesn't threaten anybody -- they don't threaten the government in Kinshasa or Kampala. It threatens the people in that particular place, and they are not significant numbers of voters."

In December, the United Nations said the LRA had killed 1,200 people and abducted 1,400 others -- including 630 children and over 400 women -- in a 10-month period in Congo throughout 2008 and 2009.

"We put out a report in December calling into question what the international community is doing, and then this massacre happened after that," Howland said.

"The international community needs to be more robust - the minimum objective is to provide proactive protection," he said.