DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
20001018The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Susan Markham, Spokeswoman for the President of the General Assembly.
Briefing by Deputy Spokesman for Secretary-General
Good afternoon. Before we start the briefing, two announcements. One, that our guest today is Gillian Sorensen, the Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations who, after my briefing and Sue's briefing, will be joining us here to talk to you about the first-ever gathering of United Nations messengers of peace and goodwill ambassadors, which will be taking place here at Headquarters next Monday. I also want to acknowledge the presence among us today of the Humphrey Fellows from the University of Maryland. Thank you.
**Secretary-General/Security Council
We expect the Secretary-General to be landing back in New York mid-afternoon today, returning from his 10-day trip to the Middle East.
We do not anticipate that he will be in the building this afternoon; however, he will coming in some time in the course of the day tomorrow.
On Friday, he is expected to meet with the Security Council in closed consultations. This is expected to happen in the morning and, of course, the theme will be his recent trip to the Middle East. Afterwards, he will have -- as previously scheduled -- his monthly luncheon with the members of the Security Council.
In the afternoon, he will inform the tenth emergency session of the General Assembly about his Middle Eastern trip, as requested by Member States through the President of the General Assembly.
Since we are talking about the Council and General Assembly, let me tell you that this morning the Council met in closed consultations to hear the presentation by the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hedi Annabi, on the Secretary-Generals latest progress report on the United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP).
The report has been available since Monday, as we announced to you two days ago.
The consultations have already concluded. At the end of them, Council members expressed hope that the recent democratic changes in Belgrade will have a positive impact on the situation in Prevlaka.
There are no consultations scheduled for tomorrow.
**Statement on Adolf Ogi
The Secretary-General, as we told you before, transited through Paris on the way back to New York and, this morning in Paris, he issued a statement where he said that he had just heard the news that his friend Adolf Ogi had resigned as President of the Swiss Confederation.
As President, he said, Ogi made a major contribution by strengthening Switzerland's international engagement, not least with the United Nations and its agencies."
The Secretary-General continued, saying that He is a leader of great energy and a man with an exceptional capacity for human contacts. I have no doubts that these qualities will assure him success in whatever he decides to do next. And he concluded, wishing Mr Ogi well.
The text of the statement is available in our office and on our web site.
**Ebola Virus Outbreak
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports the number of cases of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in Uganda has risen to 94, with 39 confirmed deaths. In addition to Gulu, cases have been confirmed in Aswa county, and there are unconfirmed reports of cases in the neighbouring district of Kitgum. We have available in our office upstairs a map of the region, which shows you where these cases are occurring.
WHO is coordinating the international response to the outbreak and will be joined by teams from the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the NGO Médecins sans Frontières. The number of international staff working closely with the Ugandan Ministry of Health will be 15 by Friday.
The World Health Organization is supporting the Ugandan Government in a public education campaign of radio spots that was started last week, and further efforts are at the planning stage. District health personnel in unaffected areas will attend training courses, and isolation facilities are in place in Gulu.
A second shipment of protective equipment is expected in Uganda on 20 October and will be followed on 23 October by a shipment of disinfectants.
**Côte d'Ivoire
On Tuesday, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Abidjan, Côte dIvoire, informed the international community that the United Nations would no longer be involved in the coordination of the international observers sent in for the presidential elections this coming Sunday.
However, the United Nations electoral assistance unit will continue to provide some technical assistance to the electoral commission of Côte dIvoire.
**Reports
Available on the racks today is the report of the 11-member Security Council mission that travelled to Sierra Leone and other West African nations last week. As you will recall, we have been announcing this report, and there was a delay in having it ready for distribution.
Also out is a progress report by the Secretary-General on the implementation of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s. In this report, the Secretary-General notes that official development assistance levels to Africa continued to fall over the past decade; but he adds, in the last few years, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have shown that the aid target of 0.7 per cent of donor gross national product can be met or exceeded. He says that if others can match that example, resource flows for Africa will take on a new dynamic.
**Kosovo/International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
We have the briefing notes for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo available upstairs. In addition, we have a press release issued by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on a report reviewing the Kosovo criminal justice system. As you know, OSCE is responsible for institution building and the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. Today's press briefing notes from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia mention that an ad hoc arrangement has been made between the Tribunal and the Government of Germany allowing Dusko Tadic, a Bosnian Serb who was convicted of crimes against humanity, to serve his sentence in Germany.
Tadic, who has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for torture and other crimes, committed at the Omarska prison, is expected to be transferred to Germany shortly.
By the way, the Appeals Chamber for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is expected to decide tomorrow on the appeal of Jean Kambanda, the former Rwandan Prime Minister who has appealed his sentence of life imprisonment on genocide charges. The decision will be made at The Hague tomorrow at 3:30 in the afternoon.
**Budget
Today, Haiti has become the 137th member to pay its regular budget assessment this year, with a contribution of $21,000.
**Press Releases
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) will hold a Special Session of the African Ministerial Conference of the Environment in Dakar from 19 to 21 October to discuss key areas of concern to Africa. A meeting on trade and environment will be held in Geneva on 23 October. Press releases are available upstairs.
Also, more information is available upstairs with a press release telling you that the largest public health initiative in West and Central Africa has been launched in an attempt to immunize over 70 million children against polio. The initiative involves hundreds of thousands of health-care workers and volunteers over several days.
We also have upstairs an accreditation form for journalists made available by the United Nations office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. This is in relation to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which is expected to be adopted by the General Assembly this coming November, and the instruments will be open for signature at a high-level conference to be held in Palermo, Italy, from 12 to 15 December.
This accreditation is for those who wish to cover the event, but in particular, for a seminar entitled "Transnational Organized Crime and the Media", which will focus primarily on professional aspects of reporting on crime and corruption, including management of and access to information. Investigative journalists specializing in coverage of organized crimes in all parts of the world have been invited to participate.
We also have available a press release from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Mark Malloch Brown, the UNDP administrators participation in the Digital Dividends Conference, which is happening in Seattle today.
My last announcements are to tell you that, today, the World Chronicle Programme will be with Professor Thomas Johansson, Director of the Energy and Atmosphere Programme of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Division at UNDP, and this programme will be shown on in-house television channels 3 or 31 at 2:30 in the afternoon.
Tomorrow, our guest at the noon briefing will be Tun Myat, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq.
The last announcement before we take your questions is from the United Nations Correspondents Association, who asked us to remind all members that they are invited for the opening of an exhibit today, the Flags of the World Created in Blossoms. This will happen today, from 6 till 8 at the UNCA Club, here on the third floor. This is selected flags of United Nations Member States, designed by Rebecca Sergerstrom and photographed by Susumu Sato.
Any questions before we move on to Sue?
**Questions and Answers
Question: First, a matter of curiosity, the Secretary-General is flying by Concorde?
Deputy Spokesman: No.
Question: Has the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or either Serbia or Montenegro applied so far for membership of the United Nations?
Deputy Spokesman: No. No application had been received at Headquarters yet. Thank you, Sue?
Briefing by Spokeswoman for President of General Assembly
Thank you. This morning, the plenary continued its discussion that had begun yesterday on the Report of the Security Council. There were 25 speakers listed, and we expect it to finish this morning.
This afternoon, the Tenth Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly will resume to consider illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the
rest of the occupied Palestinian territory. A list of speakers is available in the Spokesman's office, but we expect that only the first four speakers will speak this afternoon, and then the Emergency Special Session will adjourn until Friday. As Manoel mentioned, the Secretary-General will speak to the General Assembly in the afternoon, and then we expect the session to resume following that.
As you know, the Tenth Emergency Special Session was first convened in 1997, and it has had four sessions since then -- two also in 97, another in 98, and the fourth in 1999 -- for five separate sessions. So this afternoon, it will be a resumption of that Emergency Special Session and the sixth meeting of it, or the sixth session, should I say.
The President this afternoon will be the keynote speaker at a luncheon in observance of World Food Day; we have his remarks upstairs.
In the Committees, there are two new items I'd like to draw your attention to. The Third Committee, this morning, had introductory statements on the issue of racism. The Executive Coordinator of the World Conference Against Racism -- which, as you know, will be held next year in South Africa -- Jyoti Singh, is the Executive Coordinator, and he gave an introductory statement, which we can make available to you.
Also, the Special Rapporteurs on Mercenaries and on Measures to Combat Racism spoke this morning. And we don't often have these Special Rapporteurs here in New York, so I draw your attention to them being here.
Yesterday, I drew your attention to the programme of introductory statements for next week, of the other Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights issues.
The Sixth Committee, this morning, began their discussion on the International Criminal Court and, this afternoon, it will discuss measures to enhance the protection of Diplomatic and Consular Missions and Representatives.
In the Second Committee, there was an introduction of a draft resolution on science and technology. Those are the new items in the Committees this morning.
Just to let you know also, the President will be attending the UNCA event at six oclock, that Manoel mentioned, to receive a flag in flowers or, at least, a photograph of a flag in flowers. Thats all I have.
Deputy Spokesman: If there are no questions, may I invite Gillian Sorensen to join us please.
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