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Late Breaking News on Habitat II

Last updated 9 June 1996 --

Negotiation of implementation issues reached a standstill Saturday in Working Group II, chaired by Glynn Khonje of Zambia (right) as G-77/China and OECD country representatives could not find compromise positions.
In its first discussion of implementation and follow-up of the Global Plan of Action, Working Group II heard general statements but then adjourned before being able to resume debate. The EU, US and Canada said that the role of the UN Centre for Human Settlements in follow-up to the Habitat Agenda could not be defined yet. The G-77/China said delegates should reaffirm the central role of UNCHS in implementation and the Centre's need for greater resources. Observers said the early adjournment left the issue to negotiation in the corridors and among groups of countries.

Working Group I discussed population, health, waste management, transboundary pollution, sustainable energy use and other issues under the Habitat Agenda section on sustainable human settlements in an urbanizing world.

Details on debate from the Conference's sixth day are in Monday's Earth Negotiations Bulletin's from Habitat II.

Editor's Note: The ENB's photo coverage has been at least temporarily interrupted. Our roving camera was last seen touring Istanbul, all by itself in the back of a taxi where I left it. Stay tuned. (-=- sw)
To catch up on the Conference to date, check out Late Breaking News from We will continue our live coverage of Habitat II through 14 June. We have recorded RealAudio interviews and daily issues in English and French of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. More pictures (maybe) and sound coming soon. Stay tuned!!

ENB will not be covering most of the Plenary statements. These statements and press releasesare available on the Conference Secretariat's WWW site.

Here is the conference document that is being debated in Istanbul.

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The Third Session of the Preparatory Committee for the UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) ended in New York during February. Although the spirit of negotiation was good, procedural bottlenecks and the volume of work to be finished produced less than favorable results.

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin prepared a comprehensive summary of the Third Session of the PrepCom, which includes an analysis of the process through PrepCom 3.

In addition, we have posted RealAudio recordings of the final statements If you have any late-breaking news, updates or recent material on Habitat II, send us e-mail at enb@igc.apc.org

We published daily issues of the Earth Negotiations Bulletinin French and English from New York. Our daily issues are 2000-word summaries of the official proceedings.

Here is a link to the UN's gopher for press releases on Human Settlements.