United Nations Daily Highlights, 97-11-26

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Wednesday, 26 November 1997

HEADLINES

• Secretary-General's investigative team scheduled to meet with President of Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• AIDS epidemic far worse than previously thought, according to new United Nations report.
• UNICEF survey finds that nearly one million children in Iraq are malnourished.
• UN official, returning from Afghanistan, reports dire conditions for women.
• World Food Programme plans to expand its assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
• President of Philippines offers to host international conference on migration and development.

Spokesman Fred Eckhard said that members of the team met yesterday for an hour and a half with Etienne Mbaya, the Minister for National Reconstruction and Emergency Relief, who has been designated by the Government to deal with the UN team. "The Minister said that as far as he was concerned, the team was free to go anywhere in the Congo they wished", Mr. Eckhard said.

"We continue to be hopeful that this will be the final okay that we need to go into the field", he added.

On Tuesday, Mr. Eckhard told reporters that the Secretary-General had been on the verge of pulling the team out of the country, but he decided to postpone his decision after consulting with several Member States. "The Secretary-General feels he cannot justify much longer retaining the team in Kinshasa, if it cannot move into the field immediately to conduct the investigations it was sent there to carry out", Mr. Eckhard said.

The team had been sent to Kinshasa on 24 August, but it was not allowed to deploy in the field. The Secretary-General then recalled the team to New York for consultations. He sent them back to the country on 11 November, following an agreement with the Government brokered by the Ambassador of the United States.

"The more we know about the AIDS epidemic, the worse it appears to be" said Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS which published the new report.

Only one in 10 infected people are aware of their HIV status, according to the report. Some 2.3 million people have died of AIDS so far this year. That represents a 50 per cent increase over 1996.

Sub-Saharan Africa was the hardest hit, with 7.4 per cent of those between the ages of 15 and 49 now thought to be infected. Although infection rates in Asia are lower, the numbers remain large: in Cambodia, HIV has hit one in 20 pregnant women, one in 16 soldiers and policemen, and one in two prostitutes. The epidemic is also taking a heavy toll in Latin America and the Caribbean, where it is spreading mostly among poorer and less educated people. Drug injection accounts for most of the 10,000 new infections in Eastern Europe this year.

The report finds that AIDS is falling in the industrialized world, thanks to the use of new antiretroviral drugs. In Western Europe, evidence suggests that new AIDS cases will drop by 30 per cent this year.

According to the survey, more than 30 per cent of children under age five -- some 960,000 children -- are chronically malnourished. That represents a 72 per cent increase since 1991.

"What we are seeing is a dramatic deterioration in the nutritional well- being of Iraqi children since 1991," said Philippe Heffinck, UNICEF's representative in Baghdad. He expressed particular concern that there had been "no sign of any improvement" since the "oil-for-food" programme began.

The educational picture was also grim, with more than one quarter of primary school age children not in school. "It is clear that children are bearing the brunt of the current economic hardship", said Mr. Heffinck. "They must be protected from the impact of sanctions. Otherwise, they will continue to suffer, and that we cannot accept."

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced that it was planning to airdrop urgent food supplies to central Afghanistan to help tens of thousands of people who face starvation because the Taliban authorities have refused entry of a truck convoy of emergency food relief.

Addressing reporters on her return from a visit to the country to assess United Nations activities there, Ms. King said the lack of central government in the country made it difficult for the United Nations to interact with the authorities. "It does produce a situation where there is a feeling of fear, even in those areas that are relatively stable", she said.

Ms. King's trip to Afghanistan from 12 to 24 November was part of a mission aimed at developing a "principle-centred approach" in response to continued restrictions on women's rights in the country. The mission also worked on developing guidelines for United Nations assistance to the country and preparing indicators for measuring their use by agencies.

The United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, Yasushi Akashi expressed "dismay" at the recent blockade, saying it was a particularly serious threat to the welfare of people just weeks before winter cuts off road access. He urged the Taliban authorities to permit the food convoys immediate entry.

An estimated 1.2 million people are affected by the blockade in the north- central Afghan city of Bamyan. Because the Taliban would not allow the delivery of humanitarian aid there, a convoy of 40 trucks bearing 600 tonnes of urgently needed wheat remained in Kabul, according to WFP.

Under the proposed expansion announced by the agency on Wednesday, WFP would reach 7.5 million people. Currently, it provides $144 million in food aid to 4.7 million people.

"North Korea is still gripped by a severe food crisis, and the international community has to help", said WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini. "People are still threatened by hunger. It's imperative that we reach the weakest and most vulnerable in their hour of need."

WFP decided to expand its assistance after a United Nations assessment mission to the country found that the country is facing a third year of severe food shortages caused by natural disasters and economic problems.

Delivering the Raphael M. Salas Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), President Ramos also urged all countries to accede to the International Covenant on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

Reviewing the global economic scene, he called on the international community to pool resources for development. "We urge our friends in the developed world to meet the United Nations target of committing 0.7 per cent of their gross national product (GNP) for official development assistance, or to the United Nations."

President Ramos recalled that the Cairo Programme of Action adopted by the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development estimated that $17 billion would be needed to fund reproductive health programmes and related activities up to the year 2000. "Considering the great human good that it will do, this is a low-cost budget", he said, recalling that the UNFPA State of World Population 1997 report had noted that the world spends that more money on one week of military expenditure. "Surely, if we pull together in a world economy of $25 trillion in size, we can pay this bill."

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

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