At a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon, Karl Paschke, Inspector-General of the United Nations, presented to correspondents the report of the Secretary-General on the programme performance of the United Nations biennium 1996-1997.
United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture is to be commemorated for the first time tomorrow, Friday 26 June, Bacre Waly Ndiaye, the new Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, announced at a Headquarters press briefing this morning. An exhibition on torture would be opened at Headquarters.
Lebanon and Syria were ready to sign a peace agreement in three months if Israel decided to go ahead with peace negotiations, Prime Minister Rafic Hariri of Lebanon said at a Headquarters press conference this afternoon. That position was very clear and highly appreciated by the United States Government, he added.
Accountability, transparency and measures against corruption were the focus of the Second Africa Governance Forum, the Special Adviser for the United Nations Special Initiative on Africa, Trevor Gordon-Sommers, said this afternoon at a briefing to announce the holding of the Forum next week on 25 and 26 June in Accra, Ghana.
