United Nations Daily Highlights 96-10-14

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Monday, October 14, 1996

HEADLINES

• UN Secretary-General says achievement of majority of goals for children in many countries is cause for celebration; commends member States for efforts toward nuclear disarmament.
• No significant progress in achieving comprehensive political settlement in Georgia/Abkhaz conflict, UN Secretary-General tells Security Council.
• Most pressing challenge for United Nations today is to serve genuine interests of all its member States, General Assembly is told.
• General Assembly is asked to appropriate millions for several UN Missions for peace-keeping operations.
• Global Investment Forum demonstrates need for more holistic approach to costs and benefits of international investment, President of ninth UN Conference on Trade and Development says.

He said the greatest progress had been in control of preventable diseases. "Immunisation continued to reach some 80 percent of all children before their first birthday, up fourfold in little over ten years and now saving three million young children every year", he said.

Outlining achievements in the fight against numerous diseases, Dr. Boutros- Ghali said polio had been eradicated from large parts of the world and, with "continued effort, this scourge should go the way of smallpox by the year 2000 or shortly thereafter", he noted. He said the rate of child mortality, while declining, was still, too slow to reach the year 2000 goal.

He said new estimates showed that maternal mortality was a bigger problem than it was previously thought. Dr. Boutros-Ghali urged the member States to increasingly use the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a social tool to "reach the unreached, to meet the needs and respect the rights of the most disadvantaged, the most vulnerable, and children of discriminated minorities".

Earlier, the Secretary-General addressed the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) outlining the accomplishments in the areas of nuclear disarmament. He said the race to nuclear disengagement and disarmament should become as relentless as was the nuclear arms race during the cold war.

Referring to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, which stated that there existed an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control, the Secretary- General expressed the hope that all States would extract from that particular aspect of the court's opinion the incentive to strive for concrete and attainable steps towards nuclear disarmament and non- proliferation.

In his report to the Security Council on the situation in Abkhazia, Georgia, the Secretary-General said the key unresolved issues remained the political status of Abkhazia and the return of refugees and displaced persons.

He said despite the fact that the UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) had to limit its patrolling of the Gali sector because of the continued mine threat, the Mission had been able to implement some of its mandated tasks in the region through its operations in the Zugdidi sector and through its weekly police and quadripartite meetings with both sides. "The Peace process continued to be stalled. Neither had there been progress on the question of the return of refugees and displaced persons to Abkhazia, Georgia", the Secretary-General stated.

The United Nations must meet that challenge, so as not to become a hostage to, or instrument of, any Member State, the representative of Cuba said, adding that the dilemma between serving all or serving a few was becoming more sharp in a time when globalisation did not spread wealth, but instead inequality.

The representative of China, Wang Xuexian said that genuine reform of the United Nations would enable it to better adapt to global changes and more effectively promote peace and development. He said major reforms should be discussed by the membership and endorsed by the majority of member States, rather than formulated according to the will of a small number of countries.

The Assembly would determine what to do with an unencumbered balance of some $2 million gross ($1.7 million net) for the period 16 May 1995 to 12 January `1996 in the account of the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). The Assembly would apply that balance to the future apportionments of the member States that paid up their dues and use it to reduce the arrears of those that had.

Speaking on the scale of assessments for apportioning the organisation's expenses among member States, the representative of the United States asked the UN to reduce its present heavy dependence on his country by lowering of the regular budget's maximum assessment rate from 25 to 20 per cent.

The majority of the speakers said that the rate should not be lowered further as it might shift costs to developing countries. They however, proposed that the floor rate of 0.01 per cent be lowered to 0.001 per cent. Based on the current floor rate, the lowest any country was assessed for 1996 was $128,557 gross.

The Chairman of the ninth UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Alec Erwin said the forum had provided lucid inputs in the international debate on the critical and controversial issue of a possible multilateral investment arrangement.

According to Mr. Erwin, it was clear that the dialogue on the arguments in favour of and against the need for a multilateral framework, and eventually its contents, must go on in UNCTAD, in close cooperation with other relevant intergovernmental organisations.

From the United Nations home page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.org

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