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The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) announced today it has deployed nearly six hundred troops and police in a massive operation to support school testing in the rebel-held north of country, which has been divided since a failed 2002 coup sparked a civil war.

One of two operations in which hundreds of helicopter-backed United Nations peacekeepers were helping the army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) dislodge militia has been called off so that the Congolese soldiers involved can receive better training and preparation, a spokesman said today.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s Chef de Cabinet, Mark Malloch Brown, who has played a key role in United Nations reform and development efforts, was today named Deputy Secretary-General as of 1 April, when current incumbent Louise Fréchette steps down.

United Nations Member States showed “strong resolve” during a just-concluded weeklong session on drafting a comprehensive Convention on Terrorism, the Chairman of the committee convening the meetings said today, as he urged countries to continue with their efforts to reach consensus.

Aid workers in strife-torn Somalia should be able to operate in safety with full access to those in need, a senior United Nations official said today, in the wake of the recent abduction and release of a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) staff member in the south of the impoverished Horn of Africa country.

After reporting earlier in the week that refugees were fleeing violence in Chad into the equally troubled Darfur region of Sudan, the United Nations affirmed today that some 100 to 125 Sudanese also continue to arrive at a camp in eastern Chad each day.

The Security Council today reiterated its demand that Eritrea lift all restrictions on the operations of the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), in the wake of a peacekeeper’s death after a medical evacuation that took much longer than necessary due to the ban on UN helicopter flights.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said today that a Compliance Committee for the Kyoto Protocol, the environmental treaty aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, has begun operations, with an enforcement branch dealing with countries having difficulties meeting their commitments.

The civil nuclear cooperation agreement reached today between India and the United States is a milestone that could consolidate efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear arms and combat nuclear terrorism, the United Nations agency entrusted with curbing such weapons proliferation said in a statement welcoming the deal.

The head of the United Nations agency entrusted with curbing the spread of nuclear arms today welcomed the scheduled meeting tomorrow between European foreign ministers and Iranian officials and called on Iran to show “full transparency” over a nuclear programme seen by some as an effort to produce weapons.