A/HRC/4/42 page 5 and its initial thematic priorities and programme of work (see A/61/341). The Working Group undertook official missions to Honduras (21-25 August 2006) and to Ecuador (28 August-1 September 2006), reflected below (A/HRC/4/42/Add.1 and 2). It sent communications to States, and held consultations with Governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. 6. The Chairperson presented the Working Group’s 2005 report to the Human Rights Council on 30 September 2006 and the Working Group’s annual report to the General Assembly on 6 November 2006. In presenting the report to the General Assembly, the Chairperson-Rapporteur noted the increasing phenomenon of outsourcing by States of core military and security functions to private companies, and expressed the concern that some PMSCs are committing human rights violations with impunity whilst operating in armed conflicts.1 The Chairperson-Rapporteur stated that such situations were often associated with the creation by transnational companies of satellite subsidiaries with legal personality in one country, providing services in another and recruiting personnel from third countries. 7. The Working Group sent a questionnaire to all Member States in mid-November 2005, and a reminder by note verbale on 12 June 2006. By 15 December 2006, the Working Group had received responses from 14 States: Armenia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ghana, Honduras, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, Panama and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of). A comprehensive survey of responses was included in the 2006 report of the Working Group to the General Assembly (A/61/341, paras. 46-64). Since this survey, the Working Group received a letter from the Government of Madagascar dated 18 September 2006, and welcomes its intention to accede to the International Convention on the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries (hereinafter the International Convention). The Working Group notes with appreciation the State responses received to date, and invites remaining States to submit their responses with a view to providing further analysis in a forthcoming report of the Working Group. 8. The Working Group sent a note verbale to 22 regional intergovernmental organizations on 25 April 2006, expressing an interest in initiating a dialogue and an exchange of views. By 15 December 2006, replies were received from the Organization of American States (OAS), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), expressing their willingness to cooperate. During 2007, the Working Group intends to take up these invitations of consultations to further exchange information and successful experiences. 9. In the course of 2006, the Working Group held numerous consultations, collectively and through the activities of individual Working Group members, with a variety of other of actors, including United Nations special procedure mandate-holders, non-governmental organizations and academic institutions. The Chairperson-Rapporteur held an initial consultation with the 1 The full statements of the Chairperson-Rapporteur to the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council in 2006 are available at http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/mercenaries/ index.htm.