Fighting and war in Angola had resulted in 1.6 million displaced people, said Francesco Strippoli, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for that country, in a press briefing today at Headquarters.
World No Tobacco Day was the only global event dedicated to calling worldwide attention to the tobacco epidemic, Dr. David Kessler, Dean, Yale University School of Medicine and former Commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, told correspondents this morning at a Headquarters press conference given by the Coalition for World No Tobacco Day.
The Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Balkans, Eduard Kukan, told correspondents today that there was definite support for the inclusion of the United Nations in the process of finding a solution to the crisis in the Balkans, but differences in the extent and timing of that inclusion remained to be negotiated.
The Kosovo crisis had stalled the pace of the peace process in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Carlos Westendorp, the High Representative for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement on Bosnia and Herzegovina, said today at a Headquarters press briefing.
An alarming aspect of the crises in the Republic of the Congo had been the enrolment of approximately 15,000 youths in military action and a lack of funds to reintegrate them into civilian life, the Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator for the Republic of the Congo told correspondents this afternoon at a Headquarters press conference.
The actions being undertaken in the Balkans were necessary, the President of the Council of Former Presidents of the General Assembly said at a Headquarters press conference today. However, sidetracking the United Nations and giving it a secondary role in that kind of global security situation threatened to marginalize the Organization.
At a Headquarters press briefing today, the Director of the Asia and Pacific Division of the Department of Political Affairs, Francesc Vendrell, said that by the middle of June the entire United Nations mission should be deployed in East Timor.
