PRESS CONFERENCE BY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT

Noting a “dramatic transformation” in Sierra Leone, following his recent visit there, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, called on the international community not to shift their attention away from that country at such a crucial moment. 

PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNITED KINGDOM SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

“The one and only certain thing we know is that Iraq has not complied fully, actively and immediately on substance, and there is overwhelming evidence that it has made no attempt to do so”, said the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom, Jack Straw, today at a Headquarters press conference.

PRESS BRIEFING BY SECRETARY-GENERAL’S REPRESENTATIVE FOR GUINEA-BISSAU

Guinea-Bissau may be a very small country, but it has the potential to cause considerable instability in that region of fragile economies and fragile political systems, the Representative of the Secretary-General for Guinea-Bissau, David Stephen, said today at a Headquarters press briefing.

PRESS CONFERENCE ON G-8 CONTACT GROUP ON FOOD SECURITY IN AFRICA

The Group of Eight (G-8) Contact Group’s ministerial-level meeting on food and security in Africa had been held to give momentum to the search for solutions, rather than to replace those who were already working in the field, Pierre-Andre Wiltzer, Minister for Cooperation of France, said today at a Headquarters press conference.

PRESS CONFERENCE BY EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

At a Headquarters press conference today, four members of the European Parliament in New York to convey a “message of peace to the American people”, said the Parliament’s support for peace in Iraq was both about averting a war and charting an independent European foreign policy. 

PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENT

The most “delicate question” currently before the Security Council -– that of Iraq –- would be taken up in an open morning meeting on 7 March, this month’s President of the Council, Mamady Traore, Permanent Representative of Guinea, said this afternoon at Headquarters as he briefed correspondents on the programme of work.

PRESS BRIEFING ON ANNIVERSARY OF ANTI-PERSONNEL MINE CONVENTION

Under the 1999 mine-ban treaty, 30 million anti-personnel mines had been destroyed by 55 countries, and 44 of the 45 countries that had pledged to eliminate their stockpiles by the treaty’s fourth anniversary had done so, correspondents were told at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

PRESS BRIEFING BY POPULATION DIVISION

“HIV/AIDS is a disease of mass destruction”, the Director of the United Nations Population Division said today at a Headquarters press briefing describing the key findings of the “2002 Revision of the official United Nations population estimates and projections”.

PRESS CONFERENCE ON SANCTIONS BY SWEDEN

Sanctions offered a peaceful approach to addressing global conflicts, when words were not enough but military action was not desirable, Hans Dahlgren, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, said today at a Headquarters press conference.

Not for use before

7 p.m. (EST) Tuesday, 25 February

PRESS BRIEFING BY PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL BOARD

Long-term economic development was not feasible when an effective drug control system was absent or lacking, the President of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), Philip Emafo, said today at a Headquarters press briefing.