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The prospects for rehabilitation after the worst oil spill in the history of the Republic of Korea (ROK) are good, thanks to quick and effective action by the Korean authorities, according to a joint United Nations-European Commission Assessment Team.

Banditry continues to impede the efforts of humanitarian workers to deliver much-needed relief in eastern Chad, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported.

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia has called for the release of two female staff members of the international aid organization Medecins Sans Frontières who have been abducted in the strife-torn Horn of Africa nation.

The United Nations emergency teams that support Member States in coordinating disaster response within hours of tragedy striking conducted nine missions to the Americas this year, the highest ever, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported today.

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.

The United Nations is seeking an additional $4.1 million to aid storm victims in the Dominican Republic, bringing the total requested over the past two months to $18.5 million.

Former combatants from Government and rebel forces in Côte d’Ivoire began regrouping on schedule this weekend in what the United Nations peacekeeping mission hailed as an important stage on the road to restoring peace and stability in the divided West African country.

More than 100 female police recruits have completed basic training with the help of a United Nations-backed programme designed to increase the number of women in the Liberian National Police (LNP), now bringing the total number of female officers to 356 – or nearly 10 per cent of the force.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has set up a trust fund to help the Governments of Chad and Central African Republic (CAR) build the law and order capacity needed to ensure the security of hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) endangered by the spill over of violence from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced hope that an upcoming peace summit to be held in the troubled eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will help end a conflict that has caused tremendous suffering and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.