(Equateur, Kasai Oriental, Katanga and Maniema provinces) and has trained a team of FARDC (Congolese Joint Forces) technicians to operate MAG's Regional Construction Centre at the Central Logistics Base in Kinshasa. Destruction activities were completed in the First Military Region (Bandundu) in March 2008, and will be completed in the Secondary Military Region (Bas-Congo) over the coming months. Work will also soon begin in Kasai Occidental. In addition to this, MAG has been asked to intervene urgently in the 8th Military Region (Nord Kivu) to destroy unsafely stored ammunition in order to prevent another accident such as Camp Ngashi. In DRC, since May 2007, MAG has destroyed 70,000 weapons and over 150 tons of surplus ammunition previously held in Congolese Military stores. Partnerships and Coordination Since the opening of a liaison office in Kinshasa in January 2005, MAG has become increasingly active in establishing partnerships with the international NGO community, as well as working with the local UN Mine Action Coordination Centre. MAG also cooperates with local NGOs in the field who are able to provide invaluable information regarding local mine/UXO problems. A partnership for organisational and technical capacity building has been signed until 2012 with Humanitas Ubangi, a local organisation working on MRE in the province of Equateur and hoping to extend to the Kasais. Additionally, MAG maintains a regular dialogue with relevant government and military authority and has entered into a partnership agreement through an MOU with a national NGO Humanitas Ubangi to develop its organisational and technical capacity to undertake Humanitarian Mine Action activities. Iraq MAG has been conducting Humanitarian Mine Action in the heavily mine-affected north of the country since 1992, and since the most recent conflict efforts have concentrated on delivering vital services in northern and central areas of the country. This work significantly reduces the threat to both resident and transient populations, and has supported wider rehabilitation and socio-economic development initiatives. Up to date, MAG has cleared more than one and a half million landmines and items of UXO, freeing several million square metres of land for use by the local population. MAG's Iraq programme has recently also launched a dedicated project to safely remove and destroy small arms and light weapons, acting to support peace keeping initiatives which aim for long-term stability in Iraq. Currently, MAG Iraq has more than 750 national staff working in the programme. This capacity consists of 18 Mine