United Nations Daily Highlights, 01-04-19

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From: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.org

FROM THE NOON BRIEFING

BY MANOEL DE ALMEIDA E SILVA

DEPUTY SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS

UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK

Thursday, April 19, 2001

AIDS DRUGS: ANNAN WELCOMES WITHDRAWAL OF SUIT AGAINST SOUTH AFRICA

In a statement released through his Spokesman, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was delighted by the news that the pharmaceutical companies have withdrawn from their legal action against the Government of South Africa, after reaching an amicable settlement in the case brought against the South African government by a group of pharmaceutical companies concerning national legislation on parallel importing and compulsory licensing medicines, especially HIV/AIDS medicines.

The Secretary-General hopes that this will result in medicines to treat HIV/AIDS and other diseases becoming much more widely available in South Africa, at prices that those who need them can afford, and that it presages a new era of cooperation between governments and the private sector in the struggle for better health care throughout the developing world.

The credit for this positive outcome, the statement said, goes to the wisdom and perseverance of the parties concerned, and to the constructive intervention of President Thabo Mbeki.

Asked about the Secretary-Generals participation in securing this settlement, the Deputy Spokesman said that the Secretary-General had raised the issue of the lawsuit when he met on April 5 in Amsterdam with representatives of six large pharmaceutical companies. He told these representatives, he added, that it was not in the interest of either the companies or people living with HIV/AIDS that this case be prolonged. Since then, the Secretary-General has been in contact with both the companies involved in the suit and the South African government, he said.

UN HUMANITARIAN OFFICIAL BLOCKED AT ISRAELI CHECKPOINT IN GAZA

This morning in Gaza, Peter Hansen, the Commissioner General of the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) was blocked at an Israeli check point for an hour and half as he was heading from his office in Gaza City to the Khan Yunis and Rafah refugee camps to get a first-hand look at the recent damage from the fighting which took place there.

Hansen and his party were eventually allowed to proceed after UN staff contacted officials at the highest level at Israeli Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv.

Later in the day, Terje Roed Larsen, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), met with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Jerusalem. The two discussed a range of issues including security questions, political issues, the economic crisis in the Palestinian territories as well as the humanitarian situation. Larsen focused particularly on Israels restrictions on the movement of UN personnel in Gaza and the West Bank, referring to the incident involving Peter Hansen. These restrictions were in violations of Israeli international obligations, Larsen said. He also told Peres that UNRWAs work was of critical importance.

The Foreign Minister invited both Larsen and Hansen to meet with him in person Friday to discuss a full range of issues related to humanitarian access.

This evening Larsen is scheduled to meet with the President of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat.

ANNAN RELIEVED AT FAILURE OF BURUNDI COUP

The attempted coup in Burundi, led by a group of young officers, failed when the last of rebel soldiers who had seized the radio and TV station surrendered around 1 a.m.

This morning, as he entered the building, the Secretary-General told reporters: I am relieved that the coup failed [] I think this coup, if it had succeeded, would have complicated the situation further. So we are all relieved that it has not succeeded, but it also underscores the work we have to do to try and calm the situation in Burundi.

UN staff in Bujumbura reports that the atmosphere on the streets of the capital is calm and that no shots appeared to have been fired during the failed coup attempt.

They also inform us that President Pierre Buyoya landed back in Burundi about three hours ago.

ANGOLA SANCTIONS, ETHIOPIA-ERITREA ON SECURITY COUNCIL AGENDA

The Security Council began consultations this morning with a briefing by Assistant-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hédi Annabi on the bomb attack in Pristina yesterday. The attack was condemned as an outrage by the Secretary-Generals Special Representative for Kosovo Hans Haekkarup .

The Council then discussed the report by the Monitoring Mechanism dealing with sanctions against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola or UNITA, which was issued Wednesday.

Council members also received a briefing by Ibrahima Fall, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, on the failed coup attempt in Burundi.

Following the consultations, the Council moved into a formal meeting to listen to a briefing by Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guéhenno on the latest developments in particular the establishment of the Temporary Security Zone (TSZ) and the immediate challenges posed by it.

Another formal meeting is expected afterwards a view to vote on a resolution regarding the extension of the mechanism mandate.

TOP UN HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICIAL REPORTS ON CHILD ABDUCTION IN UGANDA

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Mary Robinson today told the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva that about a third of the more than 26,000 cases of abduction recorded in Uganda involved children under the age of 18.

Robinson, who informed the Commission about the work of her office's mission to Uganda, Sudan and Kenya over the past month to deal with the abduction of children in northern Uganda, said that hundreds of children are abducted each year by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army.

Many of those who are kidnapped, she said, will ultimately perish in the bush, either as a result of the harsh living conditions or at the hands of other captives. She noted cases where children had been beaten for death for trying to escape, and where girls had been taken to serve as wives for the Army's commanders and sometimes killed if they refused.

Wednesday night, the Commission on Human Rights voted in favor of a resolution calling on Cuba's Government to ensure respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. The vote passed with 22 countries in favor, 20 against and 10 abstentions.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( MONUC), issued a press release in which the Special Representative of the Secretary-General Kamel Morjane expressed gratitude to the Kinshasa-based ambassadors with a permanent seat on the Security Council for their timely initiative which helped lift all obstacles to the UN deployment to Kisangani. The agreement came after a visit to Goma in the eastern part of that country by the ambassadors to meet with the leadership of the rebel group Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD).Morjane urged all the parties to meet their obligations and support the UN missions efforts in the execution of its mandate.

The UN mission in Kosovo ( UNMIK) today reiterated its outrage at Wednesdays bomb attack against members of the Serb community in Pristina. The briefing notes from Pristina contain information on a KFOR operation launched at dawn today to clear roadblocks in Mitrovica set up to protest tax collection centers set up by the UN administration. KFOR says that the operation was mounted to re-establish freedom of movement for all people of Kosovo.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR) today reported that more than 10,000 Somali refugees have arrived in the Kenyan border town of Mandera in the past two weeks. A week-long UNHCR mission to the town reported yesterday that the flow of new arrivals has decreased significantly this week, with only a few dozen refugees crossing in the past few days.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland will receive the Global Leadership Award from the United Nations Association of the United States, tonight, at 7:30 p.m. at the University Club on West 54th Street in New York City. The Secretary-General will attend, and he will deliver remarks praising Brundtland's visionary approach to global interdependence and to the inextricable link between health and development.

Canada today became the 169th country to sign the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and this afternoon Tunisia will become the 170th to sign the same Protocol.

In response to a question on the participation of the Secretary-General at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, the Spokesman said the Secretary-General would not be in Quebec for the summit.

In response to a question on a possible trip by the Secretary-General to Moscow in May, as reported in the press, the Spokesman said he was not in a position to confirm these reports.

In response to a question on the case of Susan Madakor, a Brooklyn resident who had received wire transfers, mistakenly credited by Chase Manhattan Bank, that were intended for the UN Environment Programme ( UNEP), the Spokesman later added that Madakor was sentenced last week to two years in prison, following her convictions for bank larceny and bank fraud. U.S. District Judge Shirley Kram ordered her to begin serving her sentence by May 16, and also ordered her to pay restitution to the bank for more than $700,000.

Asked about updates on the case of the Rwandan national who had been working for the UN Mission in Kosovo and was arrested last week following murder allegations, the Spokesman later said that the United Nations is awaiting further information from the Government of Rwanda, which has asked for his extradition to stand trial there. A judge in Kosovo will have to decide whether to grant that extradition once the relevant information is presented. For now, the accused man, Callixte Mbarushimana, is at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.

Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General

United Nations, S-378

New York, NY 10017

Tel. 212-963-7162

Fax. 212-963-7055

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