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UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon/FILE

World

Conflict and crisis at UN summit

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

The presidents of Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda could meet at the General Assembly amid recriminations between the two over rebels battling the army and UN peacekeepers in the resource-rich eastern DR Congo.

The Congo government and UN experts say Rwanda is backing the M23 rebels who, according to the UN, have set up a “de-facto administration” in territory they control.

A UN meeting on DR Congo is due to be held Thursday with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, who denies backing the rebels, and Congo’s President Joseph Kabila alongside African and Western leaders.

African nations are discussing a possible monitoring force for the DR Congo-Rwanda border.

A high-level meeting on the Lord’s Resistance Army rebels still spread around DR Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda and South Sudan will be held Tuesday.

The United Nations estimates that more than 500,000 people are displaced in eastern DR Congo.

SOMALIA

The international community is trying to encourage Somalia’s new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, while also warning him that he must act fast to stop the failed state in the Horn of Africa from sinking deeper into trouble.

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The message will be driven home at a meeting Wednesday with British Prime Minister David Cameron and the US secretary of state.

The UN Security Council hailed Mohamud’s election this month as a “milestone” for a country that has lacked effective government for more than two decades.

But it also called for a clampdown on corruption and a tougher fight against rebels who staged an assassination attempt against Mohamud just two days after his election.

The United Nations wants funds for the 15,000-plus African troops propping up the government and for the hundreds of thousands needing food and shelter. Somali pirates are also a major threat.

YEMEN

Yemen, a pioneer in the Arab Spring protests, now faces fears that supporters of ex-strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh are trying to undermine efforts by President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi to keep a political transition on the rails.

A Friends of Yemen foreign ministers’ meeting, organized by Britain and Saudi Arabia, is due to be held on Thursday. The government is battling Al-Qaeda insurgents and warlords, and an estimated one million children face malnutrition. Yemen says it needs almost $12 billion.

Global donors Tuesday made aid pledges to Yemen worth $6.4 billion, half of what Sanaa says it needs to weather a rough political transition triggered by pro-democracy protests.

SOCIAL ILLS

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Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono have taken on the challenge of leading an international panel to decide new development goals after the 2015 deadline for the Millennium goals runs out.

The panel, which will meet for the first time Tuesday, has a year to draw up a report and the leaders are under pressure to set targets that take in climate change and governance as well as the longstanding battle to eliminate poverty and boost health for the world’s poor.

Presidents, prime ministers and ministers also have a packed agenda of events to press the case for women’s rights, better education, water security, sustainable energy and the rights of small states.

On Monday, about 100 heads of state, government, ministers and UN officials will talk at a meeting on the rule of law.

Actor Sean Penn will join Haiti’s prime minister at an event the same day to raise the impoverished country’s profile.

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