A proposal to grant duty- and tariff-free access to Northern markets for all exports by the world's 48 least developed countries (LDCs) has moved closer to reality. On 20 September the European Commission endorsed a plan to allow "everything but arms" from LDCs into the EU without duties or tariffs. The announcement goes beyond the previous European position, raised at the abortive World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in December 1999, of support for duty-free access for "essentially all" LDC exports. That formulation, developing countries argued, would allow the EU to exclude textiles, leather goods and agricultural products, which are of greatest interest to African, Caribbean and Pacific producers.
According to European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, the new proposal would cover all but 25 products that are weapons-related. Tariffs on bananas, rice and sugar would be phased out over three years. The measure would remove tariffs on over 1,000 products, affecting 1 per cent of LDC exports to the EU, which totaled some 8.7 bn euros in 1998. "There has been plenty of talk about how market access for poor countries is critical," Mr. Lamy noted. "It's time to put access to our markets where our mouth is. I hope the [European] Council and Parliament can adopt this proposal swiftly and that other developed countries quickly follow suit." EU development ministers have scheduled the proposal for consideration on 10 November, with final action by EU member states possible before the end of the year.
With Libya in compliance with all the UN Security Council's demands regarding the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) is pressing the UN Security Council to lift international sanctions against the country. In a letter to the Council in mid-September, the representatives of a five-member OAU committee (Cameroon, Ghana, Tunisia, Uganda and Zimbabwe) noted that it was 18 months since two Libyan suspects first appeared before a Scottish court in the Netherlands. It also was 5 months since the trial actually began. Despite the Security Council's own provision for lifting sanctions once the suspects had appeared in court and despite a report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan indicating that Libya had complied with all its commitments, the sanctions remain in place, the signers regret. The OAU, they say, "calls on the Security Council to lift the sanctions immediately and irrevocably."
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has joined the list of contenders for food-related patents that can affect African and other developing countries. The UN agency has been granted a patent in the United Kingdom for long-life coconut water. It has announced that it will share the information with all interested producers rather than seek to make a profit.
A favourite in coastal tropical regions, fresh coconut water is tasty and full of the salts, sugars and vitamins that might make it popular with athletes. Once exposed to air it deteriorates rapidly. Current processing techniques cook out the flavour along with bacteria. FAO's process -- a form of cold sterilization -- may make coconut water a new star in the world's $1 bn sports drink market and bring a new source of income to poor producers in developing regions.
Just a week after the Security Council held a rare summit meeting on Africa (see cover story), it approved a major new mission, authorizing on 15 September the deployment of up to 4,200 troops to monitor the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The action follows an 18 June cease-fire agreement that ended a two-year border war. The agreement, which calls for a demilitarized zone 25 kilometres wide and final demarcation of the disputed border, was reached under the auspices of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then president of the Organization of African Unity. The effort was assisted by the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Africa Mohamad Sahnoun, among others.
The Security Council first established the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) on 31 July, at the time authorizing up to 100 military observers. Humanitarian agencies put the number of civilians affected by the conflict at over 700,000. Their plight has been exacerbated by a regional drought that has left 8 million people at risk of hunger.
APPOINTMENTS
Mr. Mussagy Jeichande (Mozambique) is the Secretary-General's new Representative and Head of the UN Office in Angola. He led his country's delegation to the conference establishing the International Criminal Court, and, in addition to serving in his country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was a professor of international public law at the Institute of Applied Science and Technology in Maputo.
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Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed Nigeria's
former head of state General Abdulsalami Abubakar (right) as his
Special Envoy dealing with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 
Mr. Annan also has appointed Mrs. Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka
(Tanzania) as the new Executive Director of the UN Centre for Human Settlements
(Habitat), headquartered in Nairobi. At the time of her appointment, Mrs.
Tibaijuka was the Special Coordinator for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked
and Small Developing Countries at the UN Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD). Prior to that she was an associate professor of economics at the
University of Dar-es-Salaam.
Mr. Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, Permanent Representative
of Botswana to the UN, has been appointed by the UN Secretary-General as
his Special Representative to lead the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea
(UNMEE). In addition to numerous ambassadorial appointments since 1980,
Mr. Legwaila was the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative on South
Africa to the Organization of African Unity between 1992 and 1994. He has
been Vice-President of the UN General Assembly three times (1981, 1987 and
1991) and in 1996 served as President of the UN Security Council.