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United Nations Daily Highlights, 97-07-01United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.orgDAILY HIGHLIGHTSTuesday, 1 July 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
After an absence of twelve years, the Union Jack was raised once again over UNESCO Headquarters in Paris marking United Kingdom's return to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Speaking at the flag-raising ceremony, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for International Development Claire Short said her country acted quickly to implement its commitment to rejoin UNESCO, the organization that the United Kingdom helped to create. She said the United Kingdom's decision to rejoin UNESCO underlined the fulfillment of her country's pledge on UNESCO and also the new British Government's commitment to the United Nations and to its role in development. "The objectives of UNESCO are central to that process of development. In my view, education is the great liberator of humanity," Ms. Short said. "My priority and the priority of my department in working with the organization will be focused on the eradication of poverty and the education of the excluded". The United Nations Economic and Social Council, which is currently meeting in Geneva, took up the subject of United Nations operational activities for international development cooperation. During Tuesday's discussion of the funding of such activities, the Council heard statements from UN Under-Secretary-General Nitin Desai who is in charge of the new Economic and Social Affairs Department, and James Gustave Speth, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. The Council is expected to hold a high-level meeting on Wednesday focusing on the fostering of a favourable environment for development. The participants will have before them a report of the Secretary-General which notes that an "enabling environment", in its broadest sense, encompasses national and international policies, measures and institutions in the economic, social, legal and political domains that influence the development prospects of a country. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday travelled to Geneva where he will, among other things, participate in the high-level segment of the Economic and Social Council. On the final day of his visit to Hong Kong, Mr. Annan met with the Foreign Minister of Switzerland, Flavio Cotti. The two leaders, among other things, discussed Hong Kong's transition, United Nations reforms and the question of the United States' financial arrears. The Swiss Foreign Minister extended an official invitation to the Secretary- General to visit Bern, Switzerland. Later in the day, Mr. Annan met with President Ernesto Samper of Columbia, who was in Hong Kong in his capacity as President of the Non-Aligned Movement. Their discussions focused on Security Council reform, the debt burden of developing countries, peacekeeping and international drug trafficking. The United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator has completed his four-day humanitarian mission to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which is suffering from the effects of three years of continuous flood damage. Under-Secretary-General Yasushi Akashi's visit to the country was aimed at monitoring the human effects of the serious food crisis and to assess the most appropriate response of the international and other donors. In an interview with UN Radio after his four-day visit, Mr. Akashi said he would recommend substantial increase in food aid in the immediate future. He also called for stepped up medium term assistance to help the country rebuild dikes and bridges destroyed by devastating floods in 1995 and 1996. While in Pyongyang Mr. Akashi met with senior political, agriculture and relief officials. Mr. Akashi said he discussed with the DPRK an increase in UN personnel in the country, unimpeded access for monitoring relief delivery and the holding of a comprehensive nutritional survey. The United Nations earlier this year appealed for US$126 million dollars in international food, medical and other help, but so far has only received commitments for 45 percent of the required funds, with more resources urgently needed for medical and food security items. The World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Tuesday the arrival of a shipment of urgently needed food aid to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The WFP said in a statement that the shipment would be the first food aid delivered directly to the hard-hit northeast where aid agencies had not previously been able to operate. Government authorities had given the permission to open two sub-offices in the northeast port cities of Chongjin and Hamhung, said the UN food agency. According to the World Food Programme, authorities had also approved an additional sub-office in Sinuiju in the extreme northwest near the Chinese border and had provided a helicopter for charter by WFP to use in monitoring of food distribution if donors supplied the necessary funds. The UN food agency said that to date, it had received almost all the US$95.5 million in food aid it sought from international donors under its current emergency operation to help prevent famine in the country. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has announced the launching of an international appeal for the supply of about 50,000 tons of fertilizer to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The UN agency, charged, among other things, with the rising of levels of nutrition and standards of living, said the fertilizer would be distributed to farmers for rice cultivation for an area of over 500,000 hectares. Stressing that without international assistance the country would face an important fertilizer gap this year, the agency said the appeal would ensure a total rice supply for some sixty days. It said rice production could be increased by about 370,000 tons through the delivery of fertilizer within the next six weeks and by latest on 25 July for the planting season. The agency stated that during 1996 only up to 30 per cent of the country's fertilizer needs were covered. Germany and Ethiopia have honoured their financial obligations to the United Nations, a UN spokesman announced on Tuesday. Germany contributed US$96,496,142 and Ethiopia paid US$106,508 as part of the assessed contributions to the UN regular budget. UN Spokesman Juan Carlos Brandt said outstanding contributions now amounted to over US$2.4 billion, of which US$700 million was for the Organization's regular budget and US$1.7 billion was for peace-keeping. 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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