At a press conference sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Grenada this morning, the Secretary-General of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), Simon Molina Duarte, said that the Association was working on a regional collaborative effort to tackle natural disasters such as the recent volcano eruption in Montserrat.
The Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission set up under Security Council resolution 687 (1991), Richard Butler, this afternoon briefed correspondents on that body's recent activities with respect to the disposal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The 1997 Trade and Development Report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was introduced this morning by Anthony Woodfield, a senior economist with UNCTAD's Globalization and Development Strategies Division in Geneva, during a press briefing at United Nations Headquarters.
At a Headquarters press conference this morning, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, Pierre Sane, said he had told the Security Council today that, in preventing and managing conflicts and in ensuring the rebuilding of societies, serious consideration should be given to human rights and reports of human rights violations.
At a Headquarters press conference yesterday morning, the Minister of Information of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Radmila Milentijevic, said the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections to be held on 21 September would be the most democratic experienced in Serbia since the country had switched form a one-party to a multiparty system in 1990.
James 0.C. Jonah, the Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference today that in his Government's view, the international media had presented "a rather distorted picture" of events in Sierra Leone in the last few weeks. He wished to correct the record.
At a Headquarters press conference yesterday afternoon, members of the Democratic Party of Japan recounted highlights of a meeting they had held with Secretary-General Kofi Annan earlier in the day. Party co-leader Yukio Hatoyama spoke for the four other parliamentarians: Siji Maehara, Yukihisa Fujita, Mitsuhara Warashina and Yukiko Kawahashi.
