PRESS BRIEFING BY SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT

Briefing correspondents at Headquarters today on the Council’s schedule for September and taking several questions on Iraq, Emyr Jones Parry (United Kingdom) said that “the time had come to accept that we are where we are and we need to move forward as soon as possible to transfer responsibility back to the Iraqis”.

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COORDINATOR

At a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon, Tun Myat, United Nations Security Coordinator, said there were some 646 staff members in Iraq, including 308 in Baghdad at the time of the Tuesday terror attack against the United Nations headquarters there.  They included staff from 22 different United Nations agencies and organizations.

PRESS BRIEFING ON WORLD DAY OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

While the plight of the world’s indigenous people had slowly gained increasing international attention, greater efforts were needed to learn more about them, protect their lands and sacred places and to safeguard their human rights and fundamental freedoms, speakers stated this morning at a Headquarters press briefing.

PRESS CONFERENCE ON RWANDA TRIBUNAL

Gerald Gahima, the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Rwanda, told correspondents today that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its current form had been ineffective and had failed to achieve the goals for which it was established, and he had, thus, called on the Security Council to support Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s proposal to name a separate Prosecutor for that body.

PRESS BRIEFING ON IRAQ DEMOGRAPHICS

Given the dearth of demographic information about Iraq’s population over the past several decades, the receipt of the national report of Iraq’s 1997 Population and Housing Census by the United Nations Statistics Division was an important development, correspondents were told at a Headquarters press briefing today.

PRESS BRIEFING BY UN POLICE COMMISSIONER IN TIMOR-LESTE

The newly appointed Police Commissioner for the United Nations mission in Timor-Leste, Sandra Peisley, described for correspondents the role of the United Nations Police, her focus as Commissioner, and the current security situation in the country at a Headquarters press briefing today. 

PRESS BRIEFING ON LIBERIA HUMANITARIAN APPEAL

Two senior United Nations officials today appealed to the international donor community to support the $69 million emergency funding appeal for Liberia to stop a civil war there they said had degenerated “into a human catastrophe of horrific proportions”.

PRESS BRIEFING BY ASSISTANT SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR PEACEKEEPING

The United Nations today began the airlift of the first of the two Nigerian battalions scheduled to be part of the forward Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) forces participating in the multinational force authorized by the Security Council for Liberia, correspondents were told at a Headquarters briefing today.

PRESS BRIEFING BY SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT

Syria’s presidency of the Security Council commenced with the adoption of a resolution on the first day of August aimed at immediately restoring peace to Liberia, Council President Mikhail Wehbe of Syria, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

PRESS BRIEFING ON ECONOMIC REPORT ON AFRICA

The performance of African economies fell short of expectations in 2002, according to the Economic Report on Africa 2003 -- Accelerating the Pace of Development, launched today at a Headquarters press briefing by Carl Gray and Adam Smith, both Economic Affairs Officers in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).