Flood casualties in southern China have been significantly mitigated by the accurate and timely contribution of the United Nations. Specifically, scientists associated with the United Nations Global Programme for the Integration of Public Administration and the Science of Disasters in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs anticipated the heavy rainstorms and devastating floods that occurred in the area.

In January, the Global Programme in Beijing received a staff report forecasting large floods for southern China and alerted the Chinese Government which issued a warning to the concerned provinces who proceeded to strengthen and extend their dike systems along the Yangtze and other rivers, as well as to prepare personnel and materials to aid any flood victims. While devastating floods did inundate the southern provinces, the reinforced dike systems were strong enough to protect the cities, thereby mitigating social and economic losses.

Funding of $22,181,000 for 22 projects has been announced by Timothy Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation, which was set up to oversee the disbursement over 10 years of Ted Turner's gift of a billion dollars to United Nations causes. The $22.1 million pay-out is the first of four planned for 1998 totalling about $100 million. Most of the projects funded fell into three categories: children's health ($6.5 million); environment and climate change ($1.4 million); and women and population ($9.3 million). Landmine clearance got $2.6 million, with the remainder spread between food security, drug control and poverty alleviation.

Approved grants were selected from more than 90 proposals developed by the United Nations system at the end of 1997 and reviewed by the UN International Partnership Trust Fund (UNFIP) and its Advisory Board, on behalf of the Secretary-General, during the first quarter of 1998. The proposals were evaluated against programme criteria set up by the Washington D.C.-based United Nations Foundation in January. The Foundation was given a set of recommendations from the Secretary-General in late April. Its Board met on 12 May to review the proposals and approve the final grants. Mr. Wirth said the package of projects advanced "our priority programmes for the environment, population and women, children's health and institutional strengthening".

The programme performance of the United Nations in the biennium 1996-1997 had been, on several points, a success story, Under-Secretary-General Karl Paschke, Inspector-General of the United Nations, told the Press at Headquarters on 30 June. In presenting the Secretary-General's report on the subject, Mr. Paschke said that, despite all the financial constraints on the Organization and a very high vacancy rate of 13 per cent during the biennium, the United Nations had implemented 80 per cent of its mandated activities—higher than in all the previous two-year reporting periods, where the output rate was usually between 70 and 75 per cent.

After two years of negotiations, 95 countries unanimously agreed on a legally-binding Convention on international trade and hazardous chemicals and pesticides. A diplomatic conference will be held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in September to officially adopt the new Convention.

The Convention aims at protecting "human health, including the health of consumers and workers, and the environment" and requires that harmful pesticides and chemicals that have been banned or severely restricted in at least two countries shall not be exported unless explicitly agreed by the importing country (this is called Prior Informed Consent Procedure). The treaty is not a worldwide ban on these chemicals.

One out of three children born each year are at risk because they are not registered at birth, according to a new report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The Progress of Nations, an annual report on how effectively countries are improving the status of children, says that the 40 million children who are unregistered each year are deprived of key citizenship rights; 22 nations have no data on birth registration. Without proof of birth, a child cannot be legally vaccinated in at least 20 countries, according to the report. More than 30 States require birth registration before a child can be treated in a health centre. Most countries demand to see a birth certificate before enrolling a child in school, and many require one for supplemental feeding programmes.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) reported that a new maritime legal instrument—the International Safety Management (ISM) Code—which, among other things, emphasizes the role of sound management in safety and pollution prevention and compels operators of substandard craft to improve their ships and management systems, became mandatory on 1 July for all tankers, bulk and gas carriers, passenger ships and cargo high-speed craft of 500 gross tonnage and above.

At a signing ceremony held in Bucharest, Romania, on 3 June, representatives of the United Nations Centre for International Crime Prevention, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Romanian Government launched a project aimed at addressing instances of corruption in the country.