Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared today that Nepal is eligible to receive assistance from the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund, set up a year ago to help countries emerging from conflict consolidate their gains and avoid slipping back into war.

While considerable efforts have been made to assist hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict in Sri Lanka, more must be done to ensure their safety and access to livelihoods so that they can lead normal lives, according to an independent United Nations human rights expert who recently visited the country.

Condemning the deadly terrorist attack that killed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and at least a dozen others in the northern city of Rawalpindi, the United Nations Security Council called on all Pakistanis to show restraint in the wake of today’s tragedy.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the agreement reached by the Seven-Party Alliance that makes up the Government of Nepal on key issues of the country’s peace process, paving the way for the holding by April 2008 of a Constituent Assembly election that was postponed twice this year.