United Nations Daily Highlights, 97-07-24

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Thursday, 24 July 1997

HEADLINES

• President of Ireland meets with UN Secretary-General to discuss her new job as High Commissioner for Human Rights.
• UN and ECOWAS leaders certify Liberian elections as free, fair and credible.
• UN Secretary-General urges staff to join in a quiet revolution to create a new United Nations.
• FAO disposes of 370 tons of toxic pesticides in Zambia and Seychelles.
• UNICEF increases appeal for the children in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to over $14 million.
• UN technical team leaves for Congo-Brazzaville to assess feasibility of UN peacekeeping mission.
• Security Council welcomes appointment of Robin Kinloch as Special Representative for the Democratic Republic of Congo.
• UN Secretary-General says UN will spare no effort to help the two parties to the Georgia/Abkhaz conflict to achieve a comprehensive and lasting settlement.

Calling her new job a daunting and a very important task, Ms. Robinson told the press that the post fitted in well with the thinking of the Secretary- General that he had made so clear in the reform of the UN itself and its purposes.

Responding to reporters' questions, President Robinson said that she and the Secretary-General had discussed a number of issues including the date on which she might take up the position and the post of her deputy. She had also asked him to give her a little time to assess more from the position of knowing exactly both the potential candidates and the nature of the office. "I am certainly very aware of the importance of having good geographical balance, a good sense of bringing together North and South in a joint commitment to human rights and that will be central to assessing who would be the appropriate person for that position" Mrs. Robinson said.

In a joint certification statement issued on Thursday, the leaders of the two organizations said that they had received reports from their representatives in Monrovia indicating that the entire electoral process had been conducted in an impartial and transparent manner. There were no reports of irregularities or incidents of a nature that could have affected the credibility of the elections, according to the two leaders.

The Chairman of ECOWAS and the UN Secretary-General congratulated the Liberian people for demonstrating, through the electoral process, their commitment to peace and their desire for the establishment of a democratically elected government.

They also commended the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the international community who provided generous contributions and technical assistance to the electoral process. They said that ECOWAS and the United Nations intended to continue to be actively engaged in the reconstruction of Liberia and to assist in mobilizing international support for this purpose.

In remarks made Thursday on the occasion of the UN21 awards acknowledging the efforts of UN staff members who have contributed to enhancing the effectiveness of the UN Secretariat, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the international staff to turn promises into deeds and ideas into results.

The Secretary-General urged the staff to join him in "this quiet revolution to create a new United Nations -- the United Nations of the 21st century".

"Across this great Organization, there are outstanding staff members who are making major improvements in how we accomplish our global mission" the head of the UN said, adding that hundreds of staff members had designed more than 550 efficiency projects nearly half of which had been completed already and the rest were scheduled to be completed this year. "Together, you are bringing about a dramatic shift in the management culture of this Organization" the Secretary-General told UN staff members.

The UN agency said that storage sites were cleaned and highly dangerous and persistent chemicals like DDT, Lindane, Dieldrin, Atrazine, Diazinon, Captan, Malathion and HCH (Hexachlorocyclohexane) were, at a cost of $1.3 million, shipped to Europe for incineration.

The Dutch Government and the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) provided financial assistance for the removal of the pesticides.

The Food and Agriculture Organization said that donor countries, aid agencies, agrochemical companies and recipient governments were all responsible for the steady accumulation of obsolete pesticides estimated at more than 100,000 tons in developing countries of which 20,000 are in Africa.

According to FAO, developing countries do not have environmentally sound high-temperature incineration facilities hence the constant increase of stocks of toxic pesticides some of which are over 30 years old and are kept in the open or in containers that deteriorate and leak their contents into the soil, contaminating soil, water and groundwater.

Anthony Hewett, who is the representative of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) based in Bangkok, Thailand, told the press at UN Headquarters on Thursday that the alarming incidents of malnutrition developing in the country had led UNICEF to increase the appeal for DPRK from $4.7 million to nearly $14.4 million. According to Mr. Hewett, five per cent of children under five years of age in the country may be severely malnourished and at least 15 to 20 per cent are moderately malnourished. Citing government estimates, Mr. Hewett said that the total number of the malnourished children under five years of age was 38 per cent.

The situation had been compounded by the deterioration of the health system which lacked supplies and maintenance, Mr. Hewett said. This had become a serious health problem for children already weakened by malnutrition who could die from health problems such as respiratory infections, according to the representative of UNICEF.

Led by Colonel Peter Leentjes of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the UN Technical Survey Team will be composed of approximately ten members including political and military planning officers and logistics experts.

The team is expected to start in Gabon before proceeding to Congo- Brazzaville, staying in the region for ten days to two weeks. On the basis of the team's findings in Congo-Brazzaville, the UN Secretary- General will prepare a report to the Security Council.

In a letter to the UN leader, Council President, Ambassador Peter Osvald (Sweden) said that the members of the Security Council expressed their full support for the Special Representative in the fulfilment of his tasks, and looked forward to being kept closely informed of the work of the Special Representative.

Mr. Kinloch is currently the Director of the Office of Human Resources in the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in New York.

In a message to the talks which opened in Geneva on Wednesday under the chairmanship of his Special Envoy, Liviu Bota, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan noted that the primary responsibility for resolving the differences and finding a lasting political settlement rested with representatives of both Georgia and Abkhazia.

The Secretary-General noted that assistance, in the form of ideas, suggestions, technical and humanitarian help, economic support and the presence of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) peacekeeping force and the UN Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), could come from others in the international community. He stressed, however, that it was up to the two parties themselves to develop direct dialogue and make the necessary compromises to achieve a lasting settlement.

The Secretary-General said that he had convened the Geneva talks in order to sustain the recent developments, and to reinvigorate the role of the United Nations in the peace process. The goals of the talks, he said, were to map out areas where concrete political progress could be made, particularly on practical issues, and to re-establish a process of continuing work towards achieving the final goal of a comprehensive political settlement to the conflict which broke out in 1992 when local authorities in Abkhazia attempted to separate from Georgia.

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

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