PRESS BRIEFING BY UNAMSIL PUBLIC INFORMATION CHIEF

From January to today, the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone  (UNAMSIL) had helped with the voluntary disarmament of just over 16,000 combatants and was involved in negotiations for the release of about 2,600 child combatants, UNAMSIL's Chief Public Information Officer, Margaret Novicki, told correspondents this afternoon at a Headquarters press briefing. 

‘SIGNIFICANT NARROWING OF DIFFERENCES’ IN LEAD-UP TO DURBAN RACISM CONFERENCE,

SAYS UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Significant progress had been made on the most sensitive issues contained in the draft official documents to be presented to the World Conference Against Racism, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said in Geneva this morning.

PRESS CONFERENCE BY UNITED NATIONS WORKING GROUP ON INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS

At a Headquarters press conference today marking the International Day of the World's Indigenous People, Human Rights Officer and Secretary of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations, Julian Burger, welcomed the establishment last July of a new United Nations body that was expected to elevate the concerns of indigenous peoples within the United Nations hierarchy.

PRESS BRIEFING BY DESA ON CENSUS TAKING

The Director of the Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Hermann Habermann, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing today that the census was the most important data collection that any country undertook; the process, one way or another, sought to touch everybody in a country.

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL CONNOR ON LEBANON VIDEOTAPES

PRESS CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE BY G-77 CHAIRMAN

PRESS CONFERENCE ON SMALL ARMS BY FOREIGN MINISTER OF COLOMBIA

PRESS CONFERENCE BY FOUNDER OF SOUTH AFRICAN YOUTH PROGRAMME

South Africa was a beautiful country, but it had a lot of wounded children, Jackey Maarohanye, Soweto youth programme director, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference today.

HEADQUARTERS PRESS CONFERENCE TO MARK FIRST YEAR OF ‘GLOBAL COMPACT’

The United Nations-led initiative known as "The Global Compact" was really a call on businesses to be global corporate citizens.  That meant going beyond the financial bottom line to embrace the social agenda, George Kell, Senior Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, said today at a Headquarters press briefing to mark the year since the launch of the programme.  

PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL ENVOY FOR HIV/AIDS IN AFRICA

On 1 September 2001 the Government of Nigeria will begin a process of anti-retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS -- which initially will be on a larger scale than anywhere else on the African continent, Stephen Lewis, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa told correspondents yesterday.