UN pleased with Sudan aid assessment progress

A statement issued yesterday by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's office said that Annan, "has expressed his satisfaction in noting that the United Nations Inter-agency humanitarian assessment mission to the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement Army (SPLM/A)-held areas of the Nuba Mountains, in the South Kordofan state of the Sudan, began yesterday and is proceeding positively."

The statement said this is the first access the mission has had to this area since the early 1980s, adding that the mission was to be completed tomorrow.