United Nations Daily Highlights, 02-11-26

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

OF THE NOON BRIEFING

BY HUA JIANG

DEPUTY SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS

UN

HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK

Tuesday, November 26, 2002

NEW STUDY SHOWS IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS ON AFRICAN FAMINE

World AIDS Day will fall on Sunday, but the Day is being observed today at UN Headquarters.

To mark the occasion, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) launched its 2002 AIDS update in conjunction with the World Health Organization.

The report shows that famine in Africa is worsened by the impact of HIV/AIDS. In farming communities in sub-Saharan countries, the disease has greatly decreased the capacity to survive famine, with output being reduced by up to 60 percent. Since 1985, 7 million agricultural workers in 25 African countries have died from AIDS.

The epidemic is also expanding in new areas such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where drug use by injection is the main mode of transmission. The report cites several successes in the fight against AIDS from South Africa to Ethiopia to Brazil.

Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Fréchette is scheduled to give opening remarks at a panel discussion this afternoon on the theme Live and let live. The discussion will be moderated by Ann Curry of the Today Show and will feature guest of honor Whoopi Goldberg.

Other activities today include a panel discussion for high school students, the screening of the documentary Pandemic: Facing AIDS and the opening of an exhibit in the Visitors Lobby.

UN TEAM LEADERS READY TO CONDUCT FIRST INSPECTIONS

Today in Baghdad, the leaders of the UN weapons inspections teams gave a technical briefing to the press on their inspection activities, which will begin on Wednesday.

Dimitri Perricos, the director of the Division of Planning and Operations of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), who is leading the chemical, biological and missiles inspections teams, and Jacques Baute, who is leading the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) action team in the nuclear field, explained the ways and means of conducting their respective inspections and exhibited some of the instruments they plan to employ.

Seventeen inspectors, who arrived in Baghdad Monday, spent the day preparing for the resumption of inspections on Wednesday. They will leave the Baghdad Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Centre, their central base, for the first inspections early Wednesday morning.

SECURITY COUNCIL DISCUSSES CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, LIBERIA

This morning, the Security Council met in closed consultations on the Central African Republic. Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Tuliameni Kalomoh briefed the Council on the latest political developments in that country.

Afterwards, members resumed their closed consultations on Liberia, which had begun on Monday.

Today is the last day this month for which the Council has scheduled work, before Colombia takes over the rotating Presidency of the Council from China on Sunday, December 1.

The Council has also agreed that, next month, the five nations that are to join the Security Council next year Angola, Chile, Germany, Pakistan and Spain will be invited to attend the Councils consultations and the meetings of its subsidiary bodies.

COUNCIL BRIEFED ON IRAQ INSPECTIONS BY UNMOVIC HEAD

On Monday afternoon, Council members heard from the Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), Hans Blix.

Blix briefed Council members in closed consultations on his, and IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradeis, recent visit to Baghdad as well as the discussions they had with the Iraqi authorities.

Following more closed consultations, the Security Council unanimously adopted two resolutions. The first was resolution 1442, which extends the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus until June 15, 2003.

The second resolution extends Phase XII of the UN oil for food program for Iraq for a further nine days, until December 4.

ANNAN CONCLUDES OFFICIAL VISIT TO FRANCE

Secretary-General Kofi Annan had a series of private meetings in Paris this morning before meeting with Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), with whom he discussed the United States decision to return to UNESCO this year after an 18-year absence.

They discussed, among other subjects, the UN Literacy Decade, which starts next February, preparations for the next meeting of the UN Chief Executives Board in Paris next March and French President Jacques Chiracs proposal for a Convention on Cultural Diversity.

They also discussed bio-ethics and the need for greater cooperation within the UN system to deal with ethically complex issues such as cloning and the handling of genetic data, and Matsuura said he would convene a meeting of UN agency representatives to discuss the issue.

The Secretary-General raised the issue of the preservation of monasteries in Kosovo, where religious sites are threatened by inter-communal violence and neglect, and Matsuura responded that UNESCO was already focusing on that issue.

The Secretary-General left Paris in the early afternoon, and will return to New York by the weekend.

UN MISSION UNIFIES ADMINISTRATION OF MITROVICA

On Monday evening in Kosovo, the Secretary-Generals Special Representative, Michael Steiner, signed a directive placing all of the northern city of Mitrovica under a single municipal administration, with the UN Mission moving into the parallel structures that had been set up in northern Mitrovica and establishing offices of the UNMIK Administration-Mitrovica there.

The move by the UN Mission into northern Mitrovica is part of the effort, announced recently by Steiner, to restore normalcy to the city, which has been divided in recent years into a Serb-majority north and an Albanian-majority south.

Steiner on Monday gave a press conference in Mitrovica, in which he said that northern Mitrovica had left an administrative grey zone and that the UN Mission had filled the vacuum in northern Mitrovica by ensuring that it has a functioning administration.

UNRWA PROTESTS TREATMENT OF STAFF BY ISRAELI ARMY

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has filed a protest with the Israeli Defence Forces at the treatment of one of the Agencys international staff members and her family.

In the early hours of November 22, an Israeli combat unit surrounded the Bethlehem home of Allegra Pacheco, UNRWAs Field Legal Officer. Pacheco was held at gunpoint in the open air for two hours while her house was searched, her mobile phone was taken from her and her car was used as a prop for Israeli weapons. Pacheco repeatedly protested her UN status to the troops. Those protests were ignored.

In addition, Pachecos husband, who is recognized by the UN as a dependent of a staff member, was forced to partially strip before being taken into Israeli custody. The agency has since learned that an 11-day detention order has been issued in respect of Pachecos husband, Abed Al-Ahmar.

Currently 23 of UNRWAs Palestinian staff in the West Bank are being detained by the Israeli authorities. All but three are being held without charge. UNRWA has requested explanations for each arrest but has received no reply and is refused access to its staff after their arrests.

IRAQI OIL EXPORTS DOUBLE IN VOLUME IN PAST WEEK

The Office of the Iraq Programme reports that the volume of Iraqi oil exports last week doubled from the previous weeks total, standing at 17.1 million barrels, or an average of more than 2.4 million barrels per day.

The estimated revenue generated from the weeks sales was about $365 million.

To date, more than $25.3 billion worth of humanitarian supplies and equipment have been delivered to Iraq under the oil-for-food program.

UN REFUGEE CHIEF TO VISIT INTERNALLY DISPLACED IN COLOMBIA

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers today begins a four-day mission to Colombia, where he will focus on one of the worlds most serious internal displacement situations, with more than two million Colombians having been displaced by the continuing internal conflict.

This year alone, according to UNHCR, more than 200,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, and tens of thousands of others have sought refuge outside Colombia.

Lubbers is to arrive in Bogotá today, where he will meet with President Alvaro Uribe and other senior officials. During his visit, the UN system will also present a humanitarian plan of action for Colombia.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

In Luanda today, the Secretary-Generals Special Representative for Angola, Ibrahim Gambari, launched the consolidated inter-agency appeal for 2003 by voicing his hope that this years appeal will be the last UN emergency appeal for Angola. In announcing the appeal, which aims to raise $386 million dollars, Gambari said that, now that peace is virtually irreversible in Angola, the international community should continue to support the consolidation of peace, and he appealed to all Angolans to continue to make efforts for national reconciliation and the development of democracy, as well.

The Secretary-Generals Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, will begin a three-week mission to five countries Wednesday. Lewis will travel to Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe to meet with government, non-governmental and aid agency officials as well as with people affected by HIV/AIDS. He will also visit a range of UN projects in some of the worst affected areas to see what has been achieved and what extra action is needed.

Today in Geneva, High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello addressed the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and said the Committees initiative to adopt a general comment on water would contribute meaningfully to the World Water Forum, to be held next March. He also discussed with the Committee the Secretary-Generals recent reform initiatives for the United Nations, which include reform proposals on the UNs human rights work, and asked the Committee to reflect on the Secretary-Generals proposals and submit their views.

Asked about the meeting between the Secretary-Generals Special Advisor on Cyprus, Alvaro de Soto, and the Turkish Foreign Minister Yasir Yakis, the Spokeswoman said the meeting was going to take place later today in Berlin.

The United Nations Environment Programme today announced that about 100 governments are about to agree on a major funding package for the Montreal Protocols Multilateral Fund. The new funds will assist developing countries in the phasing out of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other ozone-depleting substances. It is estimated that developing countries will need between $530 million and $568 million to meet their 2005 targets under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

UNEP also announced the launch of a multi-million dollar project, backed by the Global Environment Fund, to help nomads and communities in three African Countries to conserve and boost the prospects for native flowers, shrubs and trees. The projects in Kenya, Botswana and Mali will educate local people and others on the issues of land management and indigenous species conservation.

This morning, Jordan became the 144th country to sign the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.

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