The Headquarters building would be closed from 1 p.m. on 31 December until 4 January to allow testing and servicing of Year 2000 (Y2K)-related contingency plans, correspondents were told this afternoon.
A lack of resources and a lack of the commitment necessary to prevent genocide constituted the overriding failure behind what happened in Rwanda in 1994, correspondents were told at a Headquarters news conference today.
The most fundamental social development question was whether globalization would result in a society for all, or in scattered islands of prosperity in a sea of poverty, anger and desperation, John Langmore, of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said at a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.
The Cyprus proximity talks at Headquarters have officially adjourned to allow for consultations and also for the holiday period, the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Cyprus told correspondents at a press briefing yesterday afternoon.
The International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, adopted last Thursday by the General Assembly, was introduced to correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this morning by Philippe Kirsch of Canada, the Chairman of the Assemblys Ad Hoc Working Group on terrorism, which prepared the text.
Now, more than ever, the 50-year-old United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had a role to play as a stabilizing force, if the final status talks on the Middle East were to yield a comprehensive and just peace.
At a Headquarters press conference today, the Foreign Minister of Honduras, ROBERTO BERMUDEZ, expressed concern about the response of the Government of Nicaragua to a maritime treaty about to enter into force between Honduras and Colombia.
By responding to the humanitarian crisis in Somalia, the United Nations was not merely "dumping resources into a black hole of need", but was enabling hundreds of thousands of Somalis to come to grips with their own lives, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia told correspondents this afternoon at a Headquarters press briefing.
