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United Nations Daily Highlights, 97-01-17United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.orgDAILY HIGHLIGHTSFriday, 17 January 1997This 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
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the Special Committee on Decolonisation that consultations due to reconvene, between administering Powers of Non-Self-Governing Territories and the Special Committee on Decolonisation should foster cooperation to help the United Nations achieve its goals regarding the remaining 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories. In a message, read on his behalf by Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Marrack Goulding, Mr. Annan said: "Your Committee will, I know, maintain its efforts to attain the goal of eradicating colonialism by the year 2000." The Secretary-General said the United Nations should help ensure that the Territories' peoples enjoyed the right to self-determination and help them determine the best courses for their future, adding that it should not do so by undermining the Administering Powers' efforts or by imposing any formula on the Territories' peoples. In an opening statement, the Chairman of the Committee, Utula Utuoc Saman of Papua New Guinea, said the Administering Powers should invite the Committee to be involved in free and fair electoral processes that should be applied to the Non-Self-Governing Territories. "Recent developments in the international community affirmed that a free and fair electoral process is one of the pillars of democracy," he said. UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator James Gustave Speth has called for a new partnership with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). Speaking in San Jose, Costa Rica at the International Conference on South- South Cooperation in Trade, Finance and Investment, Mr. Speth said the goal would be to develop a technical cooperation package "to assist developing countries to capitalise on opportunities offered by globalisation in the areas of trade, foreign investment, improved capital flows and access to technology." The UNDP Administrator added that South-South cooperation must support the development efforts of countries while working to ensure "the developing world's effective participation in the newly emerging global economic order." The United Nations has begun receiving funds from Iraqi oil sales, Acting Spokesman for the Secretary-General Fred Eckhard said today. A total of $68.8 million was deposited in the escrow account at the Banque Nationale de Paris on 15 January; $44 million more was deposited on 16 January; and another $16 million is expected to be deposited on 21 January, according to the Spokesman. The revenue from the oil sales will be used for the purchase of humanitarian supplies, for compensation to the Gulf War victims, to pay for the operating expenses of the Special Commission headed by Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, and to pay for the monitoring of the implementation of Security Council resolution 986, the oil-for-food plan, the UN Spokesman stated. The Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva, in preliminary, oral comments on a report from Myanmar, called for urgent efforts to end child military conscription and forced use of children as porters for the army. The panel also said attitudes in the country must change to reflect more clearly the best interests of children, and the laws and legislation must be reviewed to make them reflect the standards of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations Office at Geneva, U Aye, said some remarks and conclusions of the Committee were based on false information provided by opponents of the Myanmar Government, and the Government did not accept them. The human rights experts said they were dissatisfied with the explanations of a Government delegation appearing before the panel. Catherine Bertini, the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), has appealed for an urgent political solution to the refugee crisis in Eastern Zaire, where hundreds of thousands of Rwandans have sought refuge. She warned that the cost of delivering food relief to the region was now almost ten times higher than normal because rough terrain had forced WFP to rely mostly on air transport. "In the absence of a political settlement, it is difficult to see how relief agencies like WFP can sustain such an expensive and complicated relief effort over a long period of time, "Ms. Bertini said. "While we have no intention to pull out, we have been forced to look at new ways of delivering food to the region, but even these are very expensive." On average in the Great Lakes area, WFP has paid about $185 per ton to transport food, usually by rail or truck. However, in Eastern Zaire, where thick jungle and poor roads impede overland transport, WFP had been paying up to $1,600 per ton to airlift food to Rwandan refugees. In an effort to reduce the high costs of airlifting food, WFP earlier this month began moving two 250 ton shipments from Lusaka, Zambia, along what David Morton, WFP's chief of logistics, describes as a "tortuous" route extending over 2, 200 kilometers. The fight against desertification was part of the struggle to reach the goal of food security for all, the representative of Norway, Per Mogstad told the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for the Elaboration of an International Convention to Combat Desertification, as it continued its discussion of urgent action for Africa and interim actions in the Asian, Latin America and Caribbean, and Northern Mediterranean regions to implement the Convention. He added poverty was a driving force behind desertification in Africa. Several speakers stressed the need for education and public information campaigns to ensure the successful implementation of the Convention. The new health strategy of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), that has as its goal the realization of children's right to health as set down in the articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, will be reviewed by the Fund's Executive Board at its first regular session of 1997, to be held from 20 to 24 January at Headquarters. The Executive Board will also review the strategic priorities for UNICEF operations for children and women in emergencies and will consider 10 UNICEF country notes. The Board will also examine the results of the budget harmonisation measures taken by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Population Fund (UNFPA), and UNICEF, as well as UNICEF's revised integrated budget for the biennium 1996-1997. The development of democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union will get a boost from a programme by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which recently received US$1 million in new funding from Sweden, $200,000 from Switzerland, and $100,000 from the Czech Republic. The Democracy, Governance and Participation Project supports countries' transitions from controlled economies to market-oriented ones. The eleventh Hamilton Shirley Amerasinghe Fellowship on the Law of the Sea will be awarded this year to Dody Kusumonegoro of the Department of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia. Mr. Kusumonegoro intends to utilise the research opportunity provided by the Fellowship in order to assist the Government of Indonesia with the implementation of the Law of the Sea. He also intends to advise the Government on all legal aspects of marine affairs. 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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