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United Nations Daily Highlights, 96-11-06United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.orgDAILY HIGHLIGHTSWednesday, 6 November 1996This document is prepared by the Central News Section of the Department of Public Information and is updated every week-day at approximately 6:00 PM. HEADLINES
The Representative of the UN Secretary-General to Burundi, Mark Faguy has expressed satisfaction at the outcome of the Summit of the leaders of the Great Lakes region. The Summit was held in Nairobi, Kenya on Tuesday to assess the conflict in eastern Zaire. Mr. Faguy who attended the Summit as the UN Secretary-General's representative told UN Radio on Tuesday that the leaders of the region expressed concern at the deteriorating situation in eastern Zaire and agreed that a ceasefire should be established and strictly observed so as to allow the diplomatic effort to have a better chance of achieving lasting peace. He said the Summit called for non-intervention and an end to cross- border incursions and immediate setting up of safe corridors and temporary sanctuaries inside Zaire in order to facilitate humanitarian assistance and the repatriation of refugees. The Secretary-General's representative said the Summit called for the establishment of a neutral force and closer cooperation between the UN and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The Security Council and the General Assembly have elected five members to the International Court of Justice. They are Mohammed Bedjaoui of Algeria; Pieter Kooijmans of the Netherlands; Jose Francisco Rezek of Brazil; Stephen Schwebel of the United States and Vladlen Vereschetin of the Russian Federation. The new members would serve for a term of nine years beginning 6 February 1997. More than $440 million in real or anticipated contributions were pledged for development activities of the UN system at the two-day pledging conference which concluded on Tuesday. A total of 73 countries and observers addressed the event, with 52 announcing pledges and an additional eight making provisional pledges for the Organisation's funds and programmes during the 1996 UN Pledging Conference for Development. Including estimates of pledges yet to be announced, a total of $282 million was pledged to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and some $62.9 million for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). Pledges worth $90 million were received by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and some $5.02 million pledged to other UN trust funds and programmes. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has stressed the importance of mobilising private sector resources to implement the Programme of Action adopted by the International Conference on Population and Development which was held in Cairo during 1994. The Executive Director of the UNFPA, Dr. Nafis Sadik told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) at the start of the consideration of population and development issues that the Cairo Programme of Action affirmed the interrelationship between population, sustained economic growth and sustainable development. She said the Programme was anchored in a human rights approach that recognised the critical importance of meeting the needs of women and men and of improving the quality of their lives. Speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries and China, the representative of Costa Rica said the programme of Action had estimated that approximately two-thirds of the projected costs in implementing population and development programmes in developing countries would have to come from domestic resources. The other one-third, or approximately $5.7 billion by the year 2000, would come from the international donor community, she said. However, despite all the efforts, the resources now available were not enough and she called for innovative ways for mobilising resources to implement the Cairo outcome. Denial of the right to self-determination by occupying Powers was a serious step backward from the UN efforts to guarantee all people freedom and the right to choose their own destiny without foreign interference, the representative of Angola told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural). Speaking on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Angola said Member States should reaffirm their support and solidarity for the cause of the peoples of Western Sahara, East Timor and the Arab occupied territories in their struggle for emancipation. Introducing the report on the use of mercenaries as a means to violate human rights and to impede the exercise of the right of peoples to self- determination, the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, Enrique Bernales Ballesteros stressed that mercenary initiatives by private companies registered as security firms in a third country were a threat to national sovereignty. The representative of Ireland, speaking on behalf of the European Union and Associated countries told the Committee that the international community must ensure that national legislation or administrative practices did not discriminate on the basis of race, culture or ethnic origin. He said the genocide in Rwanda, the conflict in Burundi and the disastrous humanitarian situation in eastern Zaire were largely attributed to racial and ethnic hatred. He said human rights education and training were essential to promote knowledge, understanding and acceptance, in accordance with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The United Nations system should accord top priority to procurement reform due to the large sums of resources spent on, and the irregularities uncovered in acquisitions, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) was told as it took up financial statements and reports of the Board of Auditors and discussed human resources management. The suggestion was made on behalf of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) by its Chairman, Conrad S.M. Mselle, while introducing the ACABQ's views on the auditors' reports. He said that irregularities persisted in the recruitment of consultants. "Some of these practices give the impression of favouritism and cronyism on behalf of the old-boy network", he said. Introducing the Board's report on 14 United Nations organisations, the Chairman of the UN Board of Auditors, Osei Tutu Prempeh, said that the Board had qualified its audit statements on the financial reports of six organisations and peace-keeping operations. He said the Board had not received sufficient evidence from governments and non-governmental organisations to prove that funds advanced to them had been spent on the purposes intended. Speakers have praised the efforts of African countries to achieve the goals set five years ago by the UN New Agenda for Development in the 1990s. At the same time, as the General Assembly discussed what had been achieved mid-way through the decade, many have described as inadequate the efforts of the international community, in particular, the developed countries, to fulfil their obligations under the New Agenda. Representatives from Asia and from Latin America and Caribbean, among others, joined African speakers in calling upon the international community to redouble its efforts in support of Africa's sustainable development. The representative of Namibia said that five years after the international community had entered into new partnership with Africa, the situation in some African countries had worsened and the targets of the New Agenda remained distant. While struggling with debt and dealing with declining revenues and trade, Africa had succeeded in democratising, reforming and restructuring, but it remained unable to penetrate protected international markets, he said. The Government of Japan has made a special contribution of some $7.2 million for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the near East (UNRWA) food assistance programme to Palestine refugees. The Japanese contribution will be used to purchase flour and rice for the Agency's regular programme of food aid to refugee families receiving special hardship assistance. The Ambassador of Japan to Jordan Takayuki Kimura and UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen formalised the agreement at a signing ceremony in Amman, Jordan. The two officials also inaugurated an extension of UNRWA's headquarters building in Amman, which was funded out of Japan's contribution of $2 million toward the construction of the Agency's new headquarters buildings in Gaza and Amman. President Julio Maria Sanguinetti of Uruguay on Tuesday presented a new book to the Director-General of UN Educational and Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Federico Mayor, on the historic quarter of Colonia del Sacramento, a site that was added to the UNESCO's World Heritage List last December. The 304-page book, "Colonia del Sacramento, World Heritage," describes the historic quarter of Colonia, founded in 1680 by the Portuguese on the short peninsula jutting into the River Plata, and brings to life the conquests, alliances and cultural influences that shaped that site now considered of exceptional universal value. Illustrated with more than 150 full-colour photographs, the book is available in Spanish and English. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) announced on Tuesday that the 1996 UNEP Sasakawa Environment Prize had been awarded to Dr. Triloki Nath Khoshoo, a scientist from India, for his outstanding contributions to the protection and management of the environment. The Agency said that Dr. Khoshoo, for more than 30 years, had been an advocate of strong regional environmental planning for long-term ecological and economic security, particularly in the developing country context. "Dr. Khosoo has generated considerable new knowledge regarding the genetic- evolutionary race history of a number of plants. Based on this knowledge, he has delineated, for the first time, centres of their diversity and origin, circumscribed gene pools and standardised procedures for studying the taxonomy of cultivated plants," UNEP said. For information purposes only - - not an official record From the United Nations home page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.orgUnited Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article |
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