United Nations Daily Highlights, 00-07-21

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

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE NOON BRIEFING
BY FRED ECKHARD
SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK

• The Security Council held closed consultations to discuss the Secretary-General’s report on Children and Armed Conflict, which was issued today. Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in the report that the best way to reduce the harm done to children is to prevent armed conflict in the first place and build a &quot;culture of prevention,&quot; called for by the Security Council last November.

• Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette will open the Council’s open debate on "Children and Armed Conflict," to be held on Wednesday, July 26. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, and the Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Carol Bellamy, will brief the Council. The Council will hold consultations on a draft resolution on children and armed conflict next week.

• The Council was briefed by Ambassador Robert Fowler of Canada on the World Diamond Congress held last week in Antwerp, Belgium.

• The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Terje Roed-Larsen, returns to Lebanon over the weekend.

• On Monday, he will meet with President Emile Lahoud and Prime Minister Selim Al-Hoss, and brief them on state of progress of inspection of the &quot;Line of Withdrawal&quot; along the Israeli border.

• The joint inspection by the UN Interim Mission in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and Lebanese Army officers is due to be completed today. Two technical Israeli violations remain, which the Israeli government has agreed to rectify by 31 July.

• Larsen will also focus on the UN’s assistance to Lebanon in securing a successful donor process, which will start with the ambassadorial conference scheduled for next Thursday.

• Fighting in Equateur Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has triggered a new refugee exodus to neighbouring Republic of Congo.

• Staff from the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in northern Republic of Congo have received alarming reports of some 20,000 refugee arrivals in villages along the Ubangui River - villages that are still cut off from humanitarian assistance.

• The fighting and presence of DRC military vessels in the region have brought traffic along the busy river to a virtual standstill. UNHCR has appealed urgently to both governments to safeguard humanitarian operations and facilitate the immediate travel of a barge carrying tons of desperately needed relief supplies.

• UNHCR received reports of another group of 5,000 refugees who fled last week’s fighting in the Equateur towns of Dongo and Imese.

• The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the DRC, Kamel Morjane, issued a statement this week on the cease-fire violation in Equateur province calling on the parties to stop the fighting - a sentiment echoed in a press statement by the Security Council on Wednesday evening.

• Available today is the Secretary General’s report on the Situation in Abkhazia, Georgia, in which he recommends a further six-month extension of the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). &quot;The results of the coordinating council session held 11 July have opened prospect for constructive engagement between the parties,&quot; he said.

• Nevertheless, he stressed that, for the long term, no serious progress can be achieved without the demonstration of substantial political will from both sides.

• Following two serious security incidents, the Secretary General also called on both sides to guarantee the safety of the UNOMIG personnel on the ground.

• Today, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) upheld a Bosnian Croat’s 10-year conviction for the rape and torture of a Bosnian Muslim woman in May 1993 in Vitez, Central Bosnia.

• The judgment brought to a close the case of Anton Furundzija, a 31-year-old former paramilitary commander, who was found guilty of two counts of violations of the laws and customs of war.

• It was the Tribunal’s first ruling in a case dealing exclusively with a single rape as a war crime.

• Today’s briefing notes from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) highlight the closure of a UNHCR office in a West Timor border town following a series of security incidents aimed at obstructing the return of East Timor refugees. UNHCR also reported an influx of Rwandan refugees into Tanzania.

• The President of the Economic and Social Council, Ambassador Makarim Wibisono of Indonesia, today forwarded to the Group of 8 Summit in Okinawa, Japan, the ECOSOC Ministerial Declaration on Information Technology. Adopted at the conclusion of ECOSOC’s high-level segment, the Declaration outlines means to close the world’s digital divide.

• With an agreement to be signed in Vienna on Monday, 24 July, the Netherlands has pledged $4.3 million to the UN International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).

• Mexico became the 103^rd Member State to be paid in full for the 2000 regular budget with a payment of just over $10.4 million.

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