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Friday, 31 May 2002 |
UN ROUND-UP: Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed the holding of elections in Colombia, and submitted an updated report on the UN Mission in Golan Heights to the Security Council. The Council held consultations on the Iraq Oil for Food Program and the peace process involving Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that over 10 million people in Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe are in danger of starving and require immediate emergency food assistance. In other news, the Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who has previously contributed to helping Afghan refugees, was named an official good-will ambassador by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
IMF & WORLD BANK ROUND-UP: IMF Managing Director Horst Köhler pledged to support Uruguays economic reform efforts and announced the IMF would send a team to visit Uruguay to negotiate an accelerated financing schedule. The IMF also reminded Turkey that it should continue to adhere to a three-year stand-by agreement in order to help the flagging economy deal with ongoing political instability. The World Bank released a report on China, called "Corporate Governance and Enterprise Reform in China: Building the Institutions of Modern Markets," that recommends that the government divest state-run enterprises and provide better incentives for local officials and businessmen.
OVER 6,000 DELEGATES PARTICIPATED IN THE FOURTH AND FINAL draft preparatory meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which will be held Johannesburg, South Africa, in late August. The meeting, which took place in Bali, is expected to produce a draft declaration to be endorsed by world leaders at the summit. As debate on the draft got under way, several NGOs and delegations criticized the USs resistance to detailed time targets for the declarations overarching goals -- which include the need to develop public services in rural areas and the recognition of women’s role in sustainable development |
