Mr. Brahimi also had meetings with senior Italian officials, including Foreign Minister, Renato Ruggiero, spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters in New York.
As Mr. Brahimi headed to Rome, his Deputy, Francesc Vendrell, left for Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to pursue contacts with Afghan parties and individuals.
Meanwhile inside Afghanistan, UN agencies continued their race to immunize all Afghan children under five years of age against polio. The effort, which is being carried out jointly by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), involves organizing volunteers, distributing polio vaccines and vitamin A, and monitoring the campaign across Afghanistan.
According to a UNICEF spokesman, the immunizations have started as scheduled, with no incidents reported. "To raise awareness about the vaccinations among the Afghan public, the Dari and Pashto language services of the BBC and VOA have been broadcasting related announcements," spokesman Chulho Hyun told the press in Islamabad. "The local television station in Faizabad, the only operating TV station in the country, has also been airing such messages since 1 November."
UN key to bringing political solution in Afghanistan - President Chirac
Speaking at a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York on Tuesday evening, President Chirac said he had discussed with Secretary-General Kofi Annan the actions taken by Lakhdar Brahimi, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, as well as ways in which they could proceed.
The French President noted that while the military process in Afghanistan would take a long time, political action was crucial. He added that the present Taliban regime was not appropriate from the perspective of human rights, women's rights and the current misery of the Afghan people.
Stressing the need to foster an Afghan Government rooted in democracy, the President said the UN "naturally" would have a role in this process.
President Chirac also expressed concern about the plight of vulnerable Afghan civilians. "We are engaged in a process that risks being translated into a humanitarian catastrophe," he said, adding that such an outcome would be unacceptable.
Emphasizing that the UN would be decisive in preventing a catastrophe, he said he had suggested to the Secretary-General that he appoint an eminent personality to coordinate humanitarian assistance. Mr. Brahimi, the President added, was certainly qualified but simply did not have the time, as he was taken up with overseeing the entire mission.
President Chirac said he had also suggested to Mr. Annan that he convene an urgent meeting of donors to accelerate the aid effort and the Secretary-General had responded positively to that suggestion.
The President said France, working with the United Kingdom, was preparing a draft resolution on Afghanistan for the Security Council, which would hold an open debate on the situation in that country on 13 November. If all went well, the draft would be adopted by the end of that week, he added.
Brahimi heads to Rome for meeting with former Afghan King
7 November – Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, left Tehran today for Rome where he met with the former King of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah, according to a United Nations spokesman.
7 November – Underscoring that political action was essential in establishing a system that would be appropriate for Afghanistan and its neighbours, President Jacques Chirac of France has stressed the importance of the United Nations in helping to bring about a political solution in the country.
 |
|
The agency is delivering the aid by Ilyushin cargo aircraft via Turkmenabad in neighbouring Turkmenistan.
"The Ilyushins will enable us to get food immediately into our warehouses in Turkmenabad so that we can send it by truck into the less accessible regions of Afghanistan," said Daly Belgasmi, WFP's regional manager for Central Asia.
North Afghanistan is considered to be the country's "hunger belt," where WFP is seeking to help about 3 million people stay alive until the harvest next year. The agency needs to airlift 7,000 tonnes of wheat from Quetta to Turkmenabad to cover the gap in supplies to north Afghanistan. However, due to limited resources, only 2000 tonnes could be sent in the coming few days. The United States has announced that it will provide $2 million to WFP to cover the cost of the operation.
Turkmenabad is an important logistical hub in the WFP regional emergency operation because it straddles the border with Uzbekistan and sits on routes leading both east and west.
WFP, which first began working in Afghanistan in 1964, is now carrying out a $230 million operation aimed at feeding up to 7.5 million Afghans, including 6 million people inside the country. The food aid agency, the largest in the world, is undertaking the airlift as another means of meeting its target of shifting 52,000 metric tonnes a month into Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today said it was encouraged by progress being made in establishing new refugee sites in Baluchistan and North West Frontier Province in Pakistan. The agency also estimated the total number of new arrivals from Afghanistan since September 11 at approximately 135,000.
UN human rights expert urges steps to prevent security vacuum in Afghanistan
"As the possibility of the existing regime losing control becomes imminent, certain critical steps need to be taken as a matter of the utmost urgency to prevent a vacuum in which men, women and children could be exposed to the risk to their lives and property resulting from a breakdown of law and order and from possible massacres, as had happened in the past when territory changed hands," writes Kamal Hossain, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, in a report released today. The document is an addendum to an in-depth report on the same subject prepared in August.
The report also recommends the establishment of internal security arrangements in areas over which the existing regime loses control "in order to prevent massacres and protect the life and property of citizens." In addition, the expert says access should be provided to media, including the possible establishment of a UN-sponsored radio station to give voice to Afghan people. "This would harness the energies of Afghans in building consensus and mobilizing opinion in support of any political plan which emerges," he writes.
The report notes that overall, while the events of 11 September and their aftermath have in certain critical areas exacerbated the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, they have also given rise to "opportunity and space for the Afghan people to become active participants in bringing about fundamental change."
As for the global response to the terror attacks against the United States, the Special Rapporteur calls on the international coalition to review the conduct of its military operations so as to strictly comply with international humanitarian law. "Appropriate measures must be taken immediately to prevent damage to civilian lives and property and disruption in the delivery of humanitarian assistance," he says.
Security Council consults on Liberia's compliance with sanctions regime
In a press statement issued after closed-door consultations, the Council's current President, Ambassador Patricia Durrant of Jamaica, said that the 15-member body had "full and detailed discussions" centring on whether the sanctions were having the desired effect, as well as on prospects for modifications in the present regime, the possibility of additional measures, and ways of ensuring that the present embargo remained targeted.
During their deliberations, Council members focused on the implementation of Council resolution 1343, which asks Liberia to end financial and military support to the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Sierra Leone, to expel rebel members from Liberia and to prohibit their activity on its territory. The resolution also reapplied an arms embargo against the country.
As part of the discussions, the Council reviewed several reports, including the report of a committee monitoring the sanctions, the report of the Panel of Experts on Liberia (S/2001/1015), and reports by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Liberia (dated 31 October, 11 October, 5 October, and 30 April).
The Council members decided to request the committee monitoring the embargo to review recommendations made by the expert panel and to "submit a report on these recommendations to the Council for consideration as soon as possible."
UN helicopter crashes into sea off Sierra Leone coast
According to the spokesman at UN Headquarters in New York, the aircraft was carrying seven UN personnel when it crashed around 8 p.m. Sierra Leone time.
One body has been retrieved and UNAMSIL was continuing its search and rescue operations throughout the evening, the spokesman said.
To win fight against poverty, environmental damage must be reversed: UN report
UNFPA's State of World Population 2001: Footprints and Milestones: Population and Environmental Change warns that global poverty cannot be alleviated without reversing the environmental damage caused by rising affluence and consumption as well as growing populations. It calls for increased attention and resources to balancing human and environmental needs.
The report, which examines the close links between environmental conditions, population trends, and prospects for alleviating poverty in developing countries, finds that expanding women's opportunities and ensuring their reproductive health and rights are critically important, both to improve the well-being of growing human populations and to protect the natural world.
Introducing the report at a press conference in New York, UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid noted that over the last 70 years, world population had tripled but water use had increased sixfold. In the last century, world population had quadrupled but carbon dioxide emissions increased twelve-fold.
The world's wealth was some $30 trillion, but half of the world lived on $2 a day or less, she said. According to the report, there are now 6.1 billion people on Earth, twice as many as in 1960, and the population is projected to grow by half - to 9.3 billion, by 2050.
"Of course, increasing population does not by itself mean increasing damage to the environment," she noted. "Growing populations can equip themselves to sustain and protect their environment, but to be sustainable, growth must be accompanied by access to resources and technology, and the political will to use them responsibly."
By the same token, she pointed out, slower population growth by itself offered no guarantees of environmental protection. Industrial countries were using resources and creating waste at many times the rate of developing countries.
"What we need now is the political will and the tenacity to stay the course: to invest in the future of all of us by investing in the human development of those among us who are marginalized and excluded," she said.
Great Lakes: UN mission chief in DR of Congo salutes Rwanda/Uganda meeting
In a statement issued in Kinshasa, the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) said the "mini-summit" came at a crucial moment of rising tensions between the neighbouring countries - both of which are implicated in the conflict in the DRC - and coincided with a resurgence of violence in the eastern part of the country.
The talks also came in advance of the 9 November meeting of the political committee and the UN Security Council on the preparations to enter MONUC's third phase, which involves the deployment of UN troops and military observers towards the east of the country, MONUC said.
"For all these reasons, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in the DRC, Mr. Namanga Ngongi, salutes the London meeting, which has the support and encouragement of the Security Council and the Secretary-General [Kofi Annan]," the statement said. "[He hopes] that the meeting will contribute to eliminating all misunderstandings between the two countries, to the great benefit of the peace process and the upcoming additional deployment of UN troops in the DRC."
Mr. Ngongi also invited all the signatories to the Lusaka peace accords to increase high-level contacts that favour the path to peace rather than to a military solution. Due to the frank discussions that such meetings engender, such talks also help to eliminate numerous obstacles in the path to peace by "maintaining and reinforcing the current momentum in favour of dialogue and harmony," the MONUC statement said.
UN agencies respond to river flooding in Southern Somalia
In a statement issued in Nairobi, Kenya, OCHA said that heavy seasonal rainfall in catchment areas of the Juba and Shabelle Rivers had led to rising water levels and limited flooding. On Wednesday, senior UN officials, including the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Representative and staff from the World Food Programme (WFP) flew to the affected area to conduct an aerial survey.
Already, more than 750,000 people face a serious humanitarian crisis across Somalia, following the failure of the rains during the main Gu season from May to July in key food-producing areas. Drought conditions away from the riverine areas have left thousands of families without access to food, and malnutrition rates have risen dramatically in the past three months, OCHA said.
"Let's be clear. The current river flooding will not alleviate drought conditions. These different events are happening at the same time in different locations," said Randolph Kent, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia. "Flooding along the Juba and Shabelle Rivers will in fact increase hardship if riverine crops are destroyed."
River flooding in southern Somalia is a chronic seasonal problem. While many parts of southern Somalia still have not received rain, heavy rains in Ethiopia have caused the rivers downstream in Somalia to swell.
From bases in the Lower Juba, Middle Shabelle and Bay regions, UNICEF is now providing emergency supplies to flood-affected families. UN agencies are assessing additional requirements for medical, food and seed assistance while calling upon Somali communities to ensure secure conditions for access to allow urgent humanitarian activities to be carried out.
Climate change not just environmental issue, Annan says
In his message to the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Secretary-General said the adverse impacts of climate change endangered economic and social progress and that the world community's response to it would require significant, long-term changes in economic and social behaviour.
He also emphasized that following the agreement last July in Bonn on the climate change treaty, joining forces against global threats to human society and the planet has never been more important.
"Success in Marrakech would sustain this momentum, generating hope that the Kyoto Protocol could be ratified by the industrialized countries and enter into force in time for next year's Johannesburg Summit," Mr. Annan said, referring to the UN conference on sustainable development, in the statement delivered on his behalf by Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
Meanwhile UNEP warned today that harvests of some of the world's most important food crops could fall by as much as a third in some crucial parts of the planet as a result of climate change, with the decline coming at a time when there was an urgent need to raise yields to feed a growing global population.
In addition, key cash crops such as coffee and tea in some of the major growing regions would also be vulnerable over the coming decades to global warming, forcing desperate farmers into higher, cooler, mountainous areas and resulting in greater pressure on sensitive forests and threatening wildlife and the quality and quantity of water supplies.
Scientists have found evidence that that rising temperatures, linked with emissions of greenhouse gases, can damage the ability of vital crops such as rice, maize and wheat, to flower and set seed, UNEP said in a statement. The new studies indicated that yields could tumble by as much as 10 per cent for every one degree Celsius rise in areas between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, including large swathes of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Dialogue among civilizations essential for UN goal of preventing conflict: Annan
"Dialogue does not mean appeasement of the arrogance of violence or the arrogance of might," Mr. Annan says in his report to the UN General Assembly on the UN Year of Dialogue among Civilizations and the work of his Personal Representative for the Dialogue, Giandomenico Picco. Instead, it can help lessen the fear of diversity and serve as a tool in the ongoing struggle against terrorism.
"It may be a soft tool of diplomacy but, in the long term, it can prevail," writes the Secretary-General.
The idea of a dialogue has generated wide interest among academic societies, non-governmental organizations and international institutions, Mr. Annan says, and several countries, along with the UN system, have throughout the year held various activities to promote and celebrate the International Year.
"The conferences and activities have also shown that the United Nations remains the natural home of dialogue among civilizations; the forum where such dialogue can flourish and bear fruit in every field of human endeavour," Mr. Annan says. "Without this dialogue taking place every day among all nations - within and between civilizations, cultures and groups - no peace can be lasting and no prosperity can be secure."
At a UN press conference in New York, Mr. Picco and some members of the Secretary-General's Group of Eminent Persons for the Dialogue among Civilizations launched a new book, "Crossing the Divide."
The book explains the context and the goal of the Dialogue, and sets out a new paradigm of global relations and advocates a key role for the UN. "The United Nations itself was founded in the belief that dialogue can triumph over discord, that diversity is a gift to be celebrated and that the world's peoples are united by their common humanity far more than they are divided by their separate identities," Mr. Annan writes in his foreword to the book.
UN Foundation announces $35 million in new grants
The docket of grants, spread over 18 different projects submitted by UN agencies and programmes, was approved today by the UN Foundation Board of Directors at a meeting in New York. Of the $35 million approved, $25 million comes from the Foundation itself, while the remaining $10 million was funded by its partners.
"When Ted Turner made his $1 billion commitment to the United Nations, he promised to use his gift as a catalyst to encourage the public-private partnerships necessary to address the world's most pressing challenges," Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation, told a press conference in New York. "With nearly half of the funds we are announcing today coming from other sources, we are making good on that promise."
The new projects include a one-year effort by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) to support a campaign to address the grave health emergency now facing Afghan women. Other projects address safe motherhood, HIV/AIDS, renewable energy, sustainable development, children's health, conflict prevention and human rights.
Speaking to reporters in New York, Mr. Turner, who serves as Chairman of the Board for the UN Foundation, said efforts were made to funnel as much money as possible into the developing world to "basically in a small way to make a contribution to making a more equitable world."
Explaining his reason for contributing such a large sum of money to the UN, he said, "about 10 years ago I started to become wealthy, and you can't just sit on money, it doesn't do any good - it's not like eggs, you don't hatch and grow chickens with it, so I thought I'd just hold on to it for a little while and pass it on to somebody that needed it more than I did."
UN agency calls for greater efforts to end forced labour in Myanmar
Myanmar had taken steps to address the problem after a 1998 ILO commission of inquiry reported that forced labour was a "widespread practice" in the country. In October 2000, the Myanmar authorities adopted, for the first time, a framework of measures banning forced labour and criminalizing the practice.
A recent four-week ILO mission to the country, in findings released today, concluded that the impact of the legislation had been limited. "In particular forced labour is practiced in its various forms (portering, building of military camps, agricultural work, etc.) in areas affected by military presence and especially in border areas where fighting may still be ongoing," the agency said.
The report identifies a number of obstacles which might explain the limited result, including the de facto impunity of the military from criminal prosecution and the authorities' lack of alternative arrangements to carry out public works in the absence of forced labour.
In response, the report calls for economic modernization in Myanmar, a consistent effort to eliminate forced labour there, and the engagement of the international community in this campaign.
The ILO notes that "the eradication of forced labour represents not only the discharge of a fundamental moral and legal obligation for Myanmar but also offers an historic opportunity for this country to accomplish its modernization."
UNICEF raises $60 million through art auction
Last night's auction at Christie's in New York of 25 sculptures and paintings by modern masters raised $73 million, of which more than $60 million will go to the UN agency.
The collection belonged to René and Jane Gaffé and was left to UNICEF on Mme. Gaffé's death in October 2000.
Among the paintings, one by Fernand Léger sold for $16.7 million, a record for the artist. Two paintings by Joan Miro sold for $12.6 million, also a record, and $11 million, while a Picasso sold for $5 million.
"UNICEF is enormously grateful to have received this generous bequest from Mme. Gaffé," the agency said in a statement. "The monies raised at auction last night will allow UNICEF to help millions of children to be immunized, to go to school, and to be protected from conflict, HIV/AIDS and discrimination."
New UN agricultural study to help reduce poverty among small farmers
Entitled "Farming Systems and Poverty: Improving livelihoods in a changing world," the study by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank says governments and institutions intent on helping farmers in developing countries must first understand the world in which they live and the many choices they have to make each day.
Detailed analyses were conducted on 20 of the world's 70 farming systems, which together support nearly two billion farmers and their families, about 80 per cent of the agricultural population of the developing world.
According to FAO, in some systems, farmers may escape poverty principally by intensifying or diversifying their production. In others, increasing rural non-farm employment offers the best pathway out of poverty, while in some of the poorest systems, many farm families will inevitably abandon their farms and seek better lives in the cities.
The feasibility and attractiveness of these different options depends not so much on which province, state or even country the farmers live in, but rather upon the nature of the farming system in which they live, the UN agency says.
The emphasis on poverty reduction calls for increased attention to support farm level diversification and growth of off-farm income to supplement intensification of existing production patterns, FAO says.
"The farming systems approach will help [the World Bank and other development agencies] set their priorities for investment in food security, poverty reduction and economic growth by funding broad-based agricultural development that reaches and benefits the poorest and hungriest small-scale farm families," says John Dixon, FAO senior farming systems officer and one of the co-authors of the report.
7 November – Seeking to prevent a dangerous and destabilizing security vacuum in a post-Taliban Afghanistan, a United Nations human rights expert has outlined a series of measures geared towards protecting the country's people.
7 November – After an extensive discussion of the effectiveness of sanctions against Liberia, members of the United Nations Security Council today reaffirmed their commitment to remain engaged with the country and its people and encouraged positive developments in the region.
7 November – A helicopter with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) plunged into the sea this evening near the coast of the capital, Freetown, a UN spokesman said on Wednesday.
7 November – Human activity is altering the planet on an unprecedented scale, with more people using more resources - and leaving a bigger "footprint" on the earth - than ever before, according to a new report released today by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
7 November – The United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today saluted the meeting held on Tuesday in London between Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
7 November – United Nations agencies and partner organizations are working to save lives and protect agricultural land across flood-affected areas of southern Somalia, the Office for the UN Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.
7 November – The fight against climate change is not just an environmental issue but also a matter of fundamental development, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today in a message to ministers and policy-makers gathered in Marrakech, Morocco, to finalize rules for implementing the Kyoto Protocol.
7 November – Dialogue among civilizations is essential in order for the United Nations to achieve one of its main goals - preventing conflict through the creation of understanding and mutual respect, Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a new report.
7 November – The United Nations Foundation - set up to execute philanthropist Ted Turner's $1 billion gift in support of UN causes - announced today a major round of investments totalling $35 million to various projects around the world.
7 November – The United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO) today reported that despite new legislation in Myanmar, forced labour still existed in the country.
7 November – The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has raised more than $60 million through the auction of an art collection bequeathed to the agency by a Belgian benefactor.
7 November – With international investment in agriculture at an all-time low and more than 70 per cent of the world's poor living in rural areas, a landmark United Nations study on the future of agriculture in developing countries identifies options for poor farmers in more than 70 different farming systems around the world.
Previous Editions
Return to UN Home Page
Send messages and enquiries to unnews@un.org.