UN Peace Operations

(Reuters) - Shortly after Friba joined the Afghan National Police, she gave herself the nickname "dragon" and vowed to bring law and order to her tormented homeland.

DR Congo troops have entered the eastern mining city of Goma, two days after rebel M23 fighters withdrew in line with a regionally brokered deal.  But the rebels said they would retake the city if the government failed to meet their demands within 48 hours.

Africa is covered in epithets, like graffiti. It has been labelled dark, lost, hopeless. But generalisations about Africa are dangerous. The only certainty is its size: it could contain the United States, China and India and still have room to spare. Recently it has been dubbed rising, hopeful, the continent of the future. But Africa cannot be declared successful until its vast, rich heart, the Congo, is peaceful and prosperous.

KAMPALA, Uganda — Fighting inched perilously close to one of Congo’s largest cities on Sunday, and United Nations forces turned to heavy aerial bombardments to stop a rebel advance that broke into a sprint over the weekend, according to witnesses and officials of Congo’s army.

AFP - UN leader Ban Ki-moon vowed that peacekeepers will stay in the DR Congo city of Goma after UN combat helicopters and government troops failed to stop a rebel advance amid growing international alarm.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan is the newest nation in the world and it is facing "a number of challenges" as it struggles to find its footing in the midst of road blocks that need to be removed to achieve peace and security, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told Xinhua in a recent interview.

November 12, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement rebel group led by Mini Minawwi (SLM-MM) has strongly criticized the UN-AU Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) for airlifting government soldiers who were wounded in a battle last week, a charge peacekeepers admitted but contended that it falls under their mandate.

A U.N. official says peacekeepers are on track to leave East Timor by year's end, but the international community will remain engaged in one of the world's youngest nations through other channels.