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United Nations Daily Highlights, 96-11-15United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.orgDAILY HIGHLIGHTSFriday, 15 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 Security Council on Friday decided to extend the mandate of the UN Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) until 15 July 1997. Unanimously adopting resolution 1079 (1996), the Council decided to maintain the United Nations presence in the region until the end of the extended transitional period as provided for in the Basic Agreement. The Council called upon the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the local Serb community to cooperate with UNTAES in creating the conditions and taking the steps necessary for holding local elections in that region. United Nations officials today described as "a mass of humanity" an 80 mile stretch of road as some 50,000 refugees from the north Goma area crossed into Rwanda. Another three- to four-hundred thousand people were reportedly heading back from eastern Zaire into Rwanda, the Secretary-General's Spokesman, Sylvana Foa announced today. She said the UN and the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have food stocks for four-hundred fifty thousand people in Rwanda. "UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says it has household goods ready for seventy thousand people. They have three hundred buses and trucks waiting at the border to take people directly back to their communes. The rate of return was estimated at 10 000 every hour crossing the border," the Spokesman said. The Spokesman told UN correspondents that Secretary-General Boutros Boutros- Ghali would launch a United Nations Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for the Great Lakes Region early next week. "The appeal will cover three months from November 1996 to January 1997 and will include the requirements of the principal humanitarian organisations responding to the crisis", she added. Meanwhile, the UN and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies agreed today to provide emergency reproductive health care for refugees in the Great Lakes region. The initiative represents the first time that reproductive health care will be included in emergency assistance at the outset of a crisis. The project will be funded by $500, 000 from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The General Assembly has called upon all States to cooperate in the promotion of the objectives of the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic. They are also to refrain from any action inconsistent with those objectives and with the United Nations Charter and relevant resolutions of the organisation, particularly action which may create or aggravate situations of tension and potential conflict in the region. By a recorded vote of 117 in favour to none against, with 1 abstention (United States), the Assembly asked the relevant organisations, organs and bodies of the United Nations system to render all appropriate assistance which States of the Zone may seek. Under another resolution adopted without a vote, the Assembly asked the United Nations and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to continue cooperating in the their common search for solutions to global problems. It urged the United Nations system, especially the lead agencies, to provide increased technical and other forms of assistance to the Conference. The General Assembly, underlining the unanimous conclusion of the International Court of Justice that an obligation exists to conclude negotiations on nuclear disarmament, would call upon all States to fulfil that obligation by commencing multilateral negotiations in 1997 for a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting development or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination, according to a draft resolution approved by the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security). The Court's Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons was issued in July of this year. By the text approved, the Assembly would include an item on follow-up to the Court's opinion in the provisional agenda for its next session. In a separate development, the Assembly would call upon all States, particularly those with outer space capabilities, to contribute to the peaceful use of outer space and the prevention of an arms race in outer space, according to one of 13 disarmament-related draft resolutions approved by the Committee. By further terms of the text, the Assembly would reiterate that the Conference on Disarmament had the primary role in negotiating a multilateral agreement on preventing an arms race in outer space. It would ask the Conference to re-establish the ad hoc committee to conclude such an agreement at the beginning of its 1997 session. The role of treaty bodies in ensuring implementation of international human rights conventions, while important, should not be exaggerated, the representative of China has told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural). He said States parties were primarily responsible for implementing treaty provisions and they had the right to formulate implementation measures in light of their own national conditions and law. Noting that States should not be criticised for needing long periods of preparation before acceding to or making reservations over a treaty, he said certain countries, due to various motives, forced developing countries to accede to a human rights instrument or withdraw their reservations by exerting political pressure on them. Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose Ayala- Lasso told the Committee that Human Rights were an integral part of peace and development, and together the three constituted the trilogy upon which the United Nations was established. Mr. Ayala-Lasso said working in concert would help all participants in the field of human rights understand the inter-relatedness of actions, strengthen teamwork and facilitate a single, shared vision. He said high priority should be given to establishing a constant dialogue with Member States, adding that continuous cooperation among all United Nations agencies was important to ensure a shared vision of human rights in the Organisation. The Secretary-General should be authorised to create a mechanism, in cooperation with member States, to retrieve more than $3 million stolen from the United Nations through fraud in 1994 - 1995 or to confiscate properties bought with that money, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) was told. Calling for the mechanism to address fraud, the representative of Ghana said that 148 cases of fraud and presumptive fraud discovered from 1994 to 1995 impugned United Nations credibility. The Secretary-General's hands should be strengthened to deal with embezzlement and mismanagement, he added. The representative of Pakistan said the recovery of only $612,000 from what had been lost to fraud and presumptive fraud was a laughable percentage of recovery. A transparent and effective system of accountability should be established to avoid incidents of fraud, he noted. He also said it would not be in the United Nations interest to extend the present term of office of the Board of Auditors. Earlier, during the debate on the Proposed Medium Term Plan, the Committee heard that the medium term plan for 1998 - 2001 should reflect the priority accorded to the work of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) as the focal point within the UN system for the integrated treatment of development, including trade, finance, technology and investment. Official United Nations population estimates and projections indicate that currently 4.59 billion persons, 80 per cent of the world's population, live in the less developed regions, and 1.18 billion persons live in the more developed regions. The report says that the average annual growth rate is about 1.8 per cent in the less developed regions and 0.4 per cent in the others. In the middle of 1996, world population stood at 5.77 billion. Between 1990 and 1995, the world population grew at 1.48 per cent per annum, with an average of 81 million persons added each year. This is below the 1.72 per cent per annum at which had been growing between 1975 and 1990, and much below the 87 million persons added each year between 1985 and 1990, which stands now as the peak period in the history of world population growth. The figures are from the recently released 1996 Revision of the official United Nations Population Estimates and Projections, prepared by the Population Division of the Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis (DESIPA). Women must play a crucial role in curbing the crisis of malnutrition which contributes to the death of more than six million children under the age of five every year, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The Agency said as guardians of food security for the family and principal caregivers of young children, women are key partners in efforts to improve child nutrition. "By acknowledging the role of women in nutrition, the Summit can address the vital link between food security and strengthening of family nutrition, health and care. In our efforts to ensure food security, protecting women's rights and improving their health and nutrition is just as important as improved agricultural technology and trade", according to Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, at the World Food Summit in Rome. The Executive Director stressed that improved child nutrition depended on improved child health and child care practice as well as the availability of food. She said UNICEF would continue to support community based efforts to promote household food security, disease control and prevention and sound child care and feeding practices, such as breast- feeding. Specialists from the higher education community of the Latin American and Caribbean region will meet from 18 to 22 November in Havana, Cuba, as part of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's (UNESCO) preparations for its 1998 World Conference on Higher Education. The Havana meeting is the first of a series of regional consultations leading up to the World Conference, which will treat university, vocational, adult and other forms of post-secondary education. The World Conference on Higher Education, to be held at headquarters in 1998, will be on the theme, "Higher Education in the 21st Century". Its purpose will be to draw up fundamental principles for in-depth reform of higher education systems throughout the world to strengthen their contribution to building peace. 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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