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United Nations Daily Highlights, 97-01-29United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.orgDAILY HIGHLIGHTSWednesday, 29 January 1997This document is prepared by the Central News Section of the Department of Public Information and is updated every week-day at approximately 6:00 PM. HEADLINES
The Security Council has noted with concern the decision by Libya that Libyan Arab Airways would resume international flights out of Libya immediately. The Council's action comes in the wake of a letter of 17 January 1997, in which the Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya informed the President of the Security Council that Libya would resume international flights out of Libya immediately. "The Council considers the position expressed in the letter of 17 January 1997 to be incompatible with Security Council resolution 748 (1992)," the President said. He said although resolution 748 (1992) did not prohibit overflights of Libyan territory, paragraph 4 (a) of the resolution prohibited all international flights to and from Libya. The Security Council would consider any such flights to be a violation of the terms of resolution 748 (1992), he added. Ambassador Owada said the Council took note of the reports that a Libyan- registered aircraft, in apparent violation of resolution 748 (1992), flew from Tripoli, Libya to Accra, Ghana, on 21 January 1997, where it landed and later departed. "The Council has requested the Committee established pursuant to resolution 748 (1992) to follow up this matter", the Council President said. He said the Council drew the attention of Member States to their obligations under resolution 748 (1992) in the event that Libyan- registered aircraft sought to land in their territory. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee has called upon all parties concerned to ensure the immediate and safe access of humanitarian organisations to those in need in eastern Zaire. Expressing concern about the lack of access to populations in need in eastern Zaire, caused by constraints from all the concerned parties, the Committee said effective planning for and provision of humanitarian assistance had been severely hampered throughout the crisis by extreme difficulties in reaching those in need. "The recent increase in fighting has further undermined the efforts already undertaken by relief organisations to provide assistance in an area with difficult terrain and challenging logistics", the Committee said. It said limitations on access were having a potentially devastating impact on vulnerable populations who were trapped in the middle of the conflict. The World Food Programme (WFP), Wednesday, announced a US$ 19.4 million food aid operation for Sierra Leone primarily aimed at encouraging the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by civil war over the past six years. The agency said about 775,000 people would benefit from the 6-month emergency operation for war-affected people in the west African nation. The majority of the food aid would be given to support resettlement, repatriation and rehabilitation programmes. The rest of the aid would be used to support Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea and Liberian refugees in Sierra Leone, where conditions in their home areas were not yet right for a return. The agency said its field reports indicated that more than one-third of the country's four million strong population were displaced by the six-year civil war. The civil conflict stabilised during 1996, marred by only a few violent episodes. The enhancement of women's economic autonomy and the elimination of systemic violence against women and children were two future priorities of the Canadian Government, according to Louise Bergeron-de Villiers, head of that country's delegation. She was at the time presenting periodic reports on Canada's implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. In introductory remarks to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Coordinator of Status of women of Canada, said the growth in women's employment had easily been one of the most significant changes in Canadian society over the last 20 years. However, economic restructuring and social change were creating opportunities for some women and hardships for others. She pointed out that, while women represented 45 per cent of all paid workers in 1994, the average earnings of women continued to be significantly lower. One of the federal initiatives aimed at encouraging women's economic autonomy, she stated, was a package of amendments to the Employment Equity Act of 1996. She said the new legislation broadened the application of the Act to include federal public service, as well as federally regulated companies. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says "days of tranquility" are urgently needed in Afghanistan so that four million children in that war- torn country could be immunised against polio. The regional Director of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office, Dr. Hussein A. Gezairy said that, in relative terms, there were few polio-endemic countries left in the world, but those that remained, including Afghanistan, were the most difficult ones to tackle. The agency said it was proposing two coordinated rounds of supplemental immunisation for those countries during 1997. All children under the age of five in Afghanistan, Northern Iraq, Tajikistan and parts of Turkey and Iran would be immunised annually in the course of the proposed three-year campaign. For information purposes only - - not an official record From the United Nations home page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.orgUnited Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article |
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