At a Headquarters press briefing this morning, President Miguel Angel Rodriguez Echeverria of Costa Rica said Latin American countries currently held closer relationships than ever thanks to trade agreements in different sub-regions which allowed them to have closer access to other markets.
Colombia would not accept any type of intervention in the conflict between the Government and rebels opposing it, President Andres Pastrana Arango said at a Headquarters press conference Monday afternoon. The solution had to be a political one reached through dialogue and agreement.
Carol Bellamy, the Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference that the "quite extraordinary" spread of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa risks wiping out the gains made in children's health in the last two decades.
At a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa said his country would pursue with others the need to restructure the United Nations.
Following today's noon briefing by the Spokesman for the Secretary-General, David McLachlan-Karr, acting head of the Asia-Latin America section of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), briefed reporters on the current state of humanitarian operations in East Timor.
At a press conference sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Albania to the United Nations, Hashim Thaci told correspondents at Headquarters this morning that the division of the northern city of Mitrowica implied that a partition of Kosovo was taking place contrary to Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
At a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon, the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Madam Justice Navanethem Pillay, urged ratification of the Rome Statute setting up a permanent international court to deal with specified crimes including genocide and crimes against humanity.
