Press Centre
January 1999 - June
1999
Nobel laureate to highlight mine-awareness
in Kosovo
Monday, 28 June 1999: Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams and
Canada's Ambassador for Mine Action, Jill E. Sinclair, will visit Kosovo
30 June - 1 July to highlight UNICEF's mine-awareness activities there
and appeal for an intensification of demining in the war-torn province.
UNICEF pledges to school all Kosovo children
Thursday, 24 June 1999: UNICEF today pledged to give every primary
school age child in Kosovo the opportunity to be back in school by the
start of the academic year in September, despite huge challenges posed
in the wake of widespread carnage and destruction of the province's
infrastructure.
Debt denies children's and women's rights
Wednesday, 16 June 1999: UNICEF said today that perpetuating the debt
crisis denies the social and economic rights of hundreds of millions
of impoverished children and women, and it urged G8 nations meeting
in Cologne, Germany, from 18-20 June to take real steps to break the
debt bondage of the world's poorest countries.
UNICEF begins relief operation in Kosovo
Monday, 14 June 1999: UNICEF today began distributing essential medical
supplies, high protein biscuits and baby hygiene materials to several
thousand internally displaced persons located around Pristina. UNICEF's
priority in the initial stages of the return to Kosovo will be to provide
immediate life-saving assistance to some 5,000 infants, 50,000 children
and 10,000 women.
Haiti faces major education challenge
Thursday, 20 May 1999: Less than half of all Haitians can read and write.
Over half of the nation's children fail to reach the fifth grade. And
only one in five young people reach secondary school. These figures
reflect an educational crisis found throughout the developing world,
a situation which leaves one billion people illiterate, with girls outnumbering
boys two to one among of those who receive no education at all, UNICEF
says.
Children should lead world peace campaign
Wednesday, 12 May 1999: Children and young people should be given a
primary place in future efforts toward world peace, UNICEF said today
at the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference. UNICEF Executive Director
Carol Bellamy said the international community had utterly failed to
live up to the vision of a just and peaceful world, and added that a
broad acceptance of children's role in peacemaking could help generate
new ideas for breaking patterns of violence and discrimination.
Children need protection in armed conflict,
UNICEF says
Friday, 30 April 1999: Armed conflicts around the world are taking an
increasingly horrific toll on the rights of children, UNICEF Executive
Director Carol Bellamy said in Bogota today. "In Angola, in Kosovo,
in Colombia, and in many other places, we are witness to the criminal
violation of child rights, including forced displacement, abduction,
sexual abuse, conscription into military service and the use of children
as spies and human shields," Ms.Bellamy said.
Immunization of refugee children starts in
Macedonia
Monday, 26 April 1999: The first round of immunization for Kosovar children
in refugee camps in Macedonia begins today, in an effort to prevent
the spread of major childhood diseases. More than 8,900 children under
five years of age in the camps will be vaccinated against polio, measles,
mumps, rubella, diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus. Newborn infants
will be vaccinated against tuberculosis.
Crises elsewhere eclipsed by Kosovo, UNICEF
says
Thursday, 22 April 1999: The expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Kosovars
from their homes and the violence that many have endured in recent weeks
is an unspeakable tragedy that deserves the world's attention, UNICEF
said today, but it should not eclipse the plight of more than 22 million
other people worldwide who have been displaced by wars and civil conflicts.
UN Wire covers
human development issues
Thursday, 22 April 1999: UN Wire, a daily news summary on the United
Nations, global affairs and key international issues, is now available
on the Web. Sponsored by the United Nations Foundation, it covers a
wide range of issues, including: women, children and population, health,
the environment and sustainable development, humanitarian aid, and peacekeeping
and security. It offers links to full-text, audio, video and additional
Internet sources of information.
Teachers' site to foster child-friendly
learning
Tuesday, 20 April 1999: The UNICEF Web today launches a site to help
teachers foster child-friendly learning environments. Teachers Talking
About Learning allows teachers to explore ideas, obtain information,
discuss and take action through interactive pages and online projects.
Teachers can reflect on their teaching goals, find special interest
groups and decide what they want to achieve with their students.
Kosovo refugees face trauma and stress
Tuesday, 13 April 1999: UNICEF said today that addressing the acute
distress and trauma faced by hundreds of thousands of children who have
been driven from their homes in Kosovo is one of the main challenges
facing relief workers. "Beyond the initial, overwhelming physical
needs faced by these children is the devastating, lasting psychological
shock of what they've experienced," said UNICEF Executive Director
Carol Bellamy, just back from visiting refugees in Albania.
UNICEF helps Kosovar children
Wednesday, 31 March 1999: UNICEF said today that children are suffering
enormously as refugees are fleeing Kosovo and warned that Albania, Montenegro
and Macedonia, among the poorest countries in Europe, only have a limited
capacity to host the refugees. Tomorrow 1 April, UNICEF will be air-lifting
emergency health kits, blankets, oral rehydration salts, water purification
kits and other emergency relief items into the Albanian capital Tirana,
to assist the thousands of refugees.
Glimmer of hope in Sierra Leone
Thursday, 18 march 1999: Despite Sierra Leone's recent history of brutality
against children, and the existence of daunting obstacles to the delivery
of humanitarian assistance, UNICEF said today that a window of opportunity
might finally be opening for the war-torn nation in western Africa,
citing the apparently growing flow of children who have been released
to the children's agency by rebel forces in recent days.
UK joins Vitamin A initiative
Tuesday, 16 March 1999: UNICEF today welcomed the United Kingdom to
the Global Vitamin A Partnership, which includes WHO, donor governments
and private groups. The initiative aims to provide urgently needed vitamin
A supplementation to 100 million children around the world, either by
fortifying foods with the vitamin or providing cheap and efficient vitamin
A capsules. Such supplements can increase children's chances of survival
by 23 per cent.
A new tool
for teaching about HIV/AIDS
Thursday, 11 March 1999: The UNICEF Voices of Youth is offering an HIV/AIDS
Quiz as a trilingual Internet resource for teaching about HIV/AIDS prevention
and human rights worldwide. Activists and health care workers can use
this quiz to encourage exploration of the issues, feelings and facts
about HIV/AIDS and what youth can do to combat this epidemic.
HIV/AIDS increasingly claims girls and women
Monday, 8 March 1999: Girls and women are becoming the principal victims
of the rampant HIV/AIDS pandemic in the developing world, UNICEF said
on International Women's Day. Women or girls now account for 43 per
cent of the estimated 33 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS.
In Zambia three times as many girls are infected as boys.
Call for greater effort as landmine treaty
becomes binding
Monday, 1 March 1999: Although the treaty to ban anti-personnel landmines
becomes binding on its ratifiers today, UNICEF said that a widely-expanded
effort is needed to help the convention bear fruit. The children's agency
called for universal ratification of the treaty and an international
commitment to see that every child in a mined area knows proper safety
procedures.
In Bangladesh, arsenic mitigation
gets boost
Monday, 1 March 1999: UNICEF has announced US$500,000 in additional
funding for arsenic mitigation in Bangladesh. Ever since arsenic was
discovered in Bangladesh's tubewell water, the imperative has been to
save children and all others from the serious health risks of drinking
water contaminated by this a natural but toxic substance found in some
rock formations.
UNICEF hails Guatemala truth commission report
Friday, 26 February 1999: UNICEF today praised the publication of the
Guatemala Truth Commission Report as a groundbreaking document that
throws a spotlight on the horrific violations inflicted on Guatemalan
children during the 36-year-long armed conflict, and draws lessons to
ensure that such violence will never happen again.
Adolescents hold 'key to 21st century'
Thursday, 25 February 1999: There are more than a billion adolescents
worldwide, and how effectively they cope with the perils of growing up
will be a crucial element in whether humanity can surmount the challenges
of the next century, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said in remarks
prepared for delivery tonight. She also highlighted the tremendous potential
of adolescents to participate in society and be a positive force for change,
pointing to experiences from Colombia, Rwanda and South Africa.
G7 asked to end 'free-fall' in aid
Friday, 19 February 1999: At a time when even modest increases in aid
to the world's poorest countries could save the lives of millions of
children and women, assistance to these nations is in a state of virtual
free-fall, UNICEF said today. The childen’s agency spoke on the
eve of this weekend’s meeting of G7 Finance Ministers in Bonn,
and said the gathering presented an excellent opportunity to reverse
a grim decline since 1990 in international aid to the poorest countries.
UNICEF responds to Colombia quake
Wednesday, 27 January 1999: UNICEF today dispatched an emergency team
to three districts in Colombia in the wake of the most disastrous earthquake
in the country's modern history. UNICEF said its priority is to bring
immediate assistance to an estimated 10,000 children who have been victimized
by the catastrophe.
Young children most vulnerable in Eastern European
schools
Friday, 22 January 1999: As economic and social crises engulf many of
the 27 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
republics known as the Commonwealth of Independent States, support for
public education is dwindling and young children and teachers are the
main victims, UNICEF said today. Across the region, more than 32,000
pre-schools have closed, 23,000 in Russia alone, and the number of children
attending kindergartens has fallen from 61 to 44 per cent.
UNICEF urgently seeks $136 million for emergencies
Tuesday, 19 January 1999: UNICEF today urgently appealed to donors for
$136 million in emergency assistance for an estimated 48 million children
and women who are victims of war, natural disasters, extreme poverty
and other forms of violence and exploitation. It said seldom in history
has such a large number of people been in such danger. Only four years
ago, UNICEF was working in some 15 countries gripped by civil conflict.
Today that number has risen to more than 55 nations where situations
exist that profoundly threaten the lives and welfare of children and
women. (See Humanitarian Response to Children
1999.)
Senegal bans female genital mutilation
Thursday, 14 January 1999: UNICEF applauded the Parliament of Senegal
for its approval late yesterday of legislation to ban female genital
mutilation, a painful, traumatic and dangerous procedure which partially
or totally removes female genitalia. "Senegal's action is of great
significance," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said, "because
it reflects the resolve of African women to end a cruel and unacceptable
practice which violates the right of all girls to free, safe and healthy
lives."
Older Newsline Items
Please email media@unicef.org if you need to
refer to earlier Newsline items.
|
