DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20001115The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Marie Okabe, Associate Spokeswoman for the Secretary-General, and Susan Markham, Spokeswoman for the President of the General Assembly.
Briefing by Associate Spokeswoman for Secretary-General
Good afternoon. Therese Gastaut from the Department of Public Information should be joining me in a few minutes to talk to you about the World Television Forum, which will start on Thursday and run for two days.
**Secretary-General Back in New York
The Secretary-General returned yesterday afternoon to New York from his trip to Geneva, Bahrain and Qatar and is spending today at the residence where he is conducting some work by phone. He is expected to be back at United Nations Headquarters tomorrow.
Tonight, the Secretary-General will deliver an address at a dinner of the International Rescue Committee at which the Committee will bestow its Freedom Award on John Whitehead of UNA - USA. In his address, which is available upstairs but which is embargoed until 7:30 p.m tonight, the Secretary-General discusses the humanitarian impact of sanctions and how the cycle of prolonged sanctions can be broken.
He makes the case that sanctions need to be refined so that compliance with the sanctions' aims can be achieved and so that innocent vulnerable populations are not hurt.
**East Timor Mission
The Security Council mission to East Timor and Indonesia spent this morning in Atambua in West Timor -- a region that is close to the border with East Timor and is home to tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees. The Council mission spent the morning at the Haliwen refugee camp, which one refugee leader estimates holds some 4,800 families. The delegation talked about their views on returning home and on camp conditions.
Afterward, the mission's leader, Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia, said that the intimidation of refugees must stop, adding "All stages of the return process must be carried out in safety and security". Andjaba also announced in a meeting yesterday that Council members heard from the pro-integrationist UNTAS group that they had renounced violence and condemned the killings of three United Nations personnel in Atambua last September 6. The local police commissioner, he added, would follow up on information provided by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on cases of intimidation and would take firm action when necessary. The Council team then went to the UNHCR office in Atambua where the three UNHCR staff were killed in September and each member of the delegation laid flowers at the site of the compound. Andjaba said at the site that "we want to see the perpetrators of this heinous crime brought to justice".
The Council team flew in the afternoon to Jakarta where it would proceed to hold talks over the next two days with senior authorities. Further details are available in today's briefing notes from Dili, which is available upstairs.
**Security Council
Here in New York, the Security Council is holding an open debate this morning titled "No Exit without Strategy", which will examine the way the Council decides to end or substantially reduce its involvement in a mission.
No resolution will be adopted at this meeting but a working paper on the subject written by the Mission of the Netherlands, which is organizing this debate, is available on the racks.
There are 35 speakers, including all 15 Council members, who are expected to speak during this debate. The complete speakers list is available upstairs in the Spokesman's Office.
**Ethiopia and Eritrea
In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at a press conference today, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, said that the way the two parties choose to make use of the opportunity for peace following the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement will be critical.
Legwaila, who met with the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi yesterday, is traveling tomorrow to Asmara, Eritrea, and will divide his time between both capitals after that. He emphasized that, five months after the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, the two sides haven't shot at each other, and he praised the two armies for their discipline over the past five months.
We have a transcript of that press conference also available upstairs.
**Bosnia and Herzegovina
Also in the Spokesman's Office, we have a press release which details a raid performed on Monday by the United Nations International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with local police, in the town of Prijedor in Republika Srpska. In that raid on three nightclubs, United Nations and Prijedor police found after a preliminary investigation that 33 women and girls at the clubs -- including some as young as fourteen years old -- had been trafficked for the purpose of prostitution. The human trafficking victims came from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia.
Jacques Klein, the Head of the United Nations mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, responded that "the buying and selling of human beings has no place in modern society at the beginning of the twenty-first century", and called on those responsible for the crimes to be punished to the full extent of the law. For more details, please see the release.
**International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia mentions that Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has applied for a visa to visit Belgrade. Yesterday, the Prosecutor's Office made its first official contact with the new authorities in Belgrade, and Del Ponte plans to visit to re-open the Prosecutor's offices in Belgrade, possibly before the end of the year.
Florence Hartmann, Del Ponte's spokesperson, said the visit would not be a routine one, but would signify the beginning of the normalization of relations between the Yugoslavia Tribunal and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
**Climate Change Conference
We have an update from the Climate Change Conference which, as you know, is taking place in The Hague until 24 November.
Yesterday and today, some of the more than 6,000 registered participants have been meeting in informal groups to elaborate the texts on some of the outstanding issues, which include, among others, the reporting of emissions data, how to make technology transfer work and the special concerns of those countries most vulnerable to climate change.
The delegates will then meet in the subsidiary bodies over the weekend which will hand over their results to the Plenary on Monday, 20 November.
For more information you can go to the conference Web site, which is www.unfcc.org.
**Planet Project World Interactive Poll
There is also a press release today issued by the Department of Public Information in which the Secretary-General welcomes the so-called Planet Project Poll, a world interactive poll which is described as the largest Internet poll that will be held from 15 to 18 November, and the initiative would contribute to a greater understanding among people and help create a worldwide dialogue across cultures and geographic boundaries on issues of interest to all humanity.
Please pick up the press release and you can read all about that.
**Press Releases
Just a few other documents and press releases that we would like to highlight. In his latest report to the General Assembly on Central America, the Secretary- General says that recent electoral contests in the region have unfolded peacefully but voter turnouts continue to drop. He suggests that in some countries electoral laws need to be reformed to encourage voters. The Secretary-General adds: "The high levels of delinquency and violence in the region are a major preoccupation for the population and obviously a source of instability in the new democracies."
Among the press releases, we have one from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) which has called on donor countries to allocate $20 million over the next three years to the growing HIV epidemic in the Russian Federation.
And the World Food Programme in Rome today launched an appeal for $65 million to assist hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
**Press Conferences
And finally, following his briefing to the Security Council on the outcome of the recent elections in Kosovo, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, will join us in this room for a press conference and that should be around 1 p.m. tomorrow.
And then at 2:30 p.m., Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the United Nations Drug Control Programme, will brief in advance of the Conference for the Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, to be held in Palermo, Italy, from 12 to 15 December.
Before we turn over to Sue and to our guest, do you have any questions for me? Over to you Sue.
Briefing by Spokeswoman for President of General Assembly
Thank you Marie. This morning the plenary adopted the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and also two protocols to that Convention: one on the prevention of Trafficking in Persons especially women and children, and the other protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants, and the General Assembly decided to open them for signature at the high-level political signing conference to be held in Palermo, Italy in December. As Marie said, Pino Arlacchi head of the United Nations Office in Vienna and of course head of the crime and drug part of the United Nations, will be here tomorrow to brief you on the details of both the conference and the Convention.
Following that, this morning in the General Assembly, the plenary began a discussion on follow-up to the World Summit for Children. In his opening remarks on this issue, the President of the General Assembly noted that the special session on children next year is of personal interest to him since he had the honour of representing his country, Finland, at the World Summit for Children in September 1990. He noted that in the 10 years since, he feels that significant progress has been achieved but that the suffering of millions of children around the world shows that the goals and commitments of the Summit remain far from fulfilled.
The full text of his remarks is available in the Spokesman's Office and also of course on his Web site.
Yesterday afternoon, the President, as I had mentioned to you, met with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He had very positive discussions with the Managing Director of the IMF and other members of the board at which he discussed the process of financing for development. As you know this is a high- level meeting that is being prepared in the United Nations and will have its main event I believe in March 2002. This is the first time that the IMF has been approached to become involved in this process so that was a very positive development. As you know, traditionally the World Bank has more close cooperation with the United Nations, particularly through the Economic and Social Council. So his discussions with the World Bank will continue to find more concrete ways to build on this cooperation, particularly, for example, in preparation for the special session on HIV/AIDS coming up next year.
Later this morning, the President of the General Assembly went to visit the Sixth Committee. As you know he has been going around and visiting all the Committees. The Sixth Committee this morning, when he joined them, was having a discussion on measures to eliminate international terrorism.
Later today, the Sixth Committee will take action on a number of draft resolutions.
The other action in the Committees this afternoon and this morning, particularly this morning, is in the Second Committee, where a number of resolutions are being adopted. While I was down there just before the briefing they adopted by a recorded vote, the resolution on the permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people over their natural resources. It's a very long title but that's the gist of it.
Tomorrow in the plenary, we have a discussion on the Security Council and we expect that to be quite a long debate probably going on for two days. So you can be tuned into that. That would be very interesting I'm sure. Thank you that's all I have. Any questions?
Question: Was the meeting between the IMF and President done at his own initiative or was he mandated by the General Assembly?
Spokeswoman: No, it was done at his own initiative as part of what he is trying to do which is to bring other bodies into the work of the General Assembly, to make it more inclusive and to make also the work of the General Assembly more relevant to the rest of the United Nations bodies and the general public. So not only did he go to the IMF but he also held meetings with civil society members down there.
Question: Last year at the initiative of the President of the Economic and Social Council, the President of the World Bank and the IMF came to New York to discuss financing for development, is this continuation of this or is the General Assembly trying to bypass the Economic and Social Council?
Spokeswoman: No, there is no bypassing involved. It's really trying to make the General Assembly have a better relationship with the IMF. They have never really had a close working relationship and the President is trying to see how they can be brought into the financing for development process through the General Assembly as well as through the Economic and Social Council. It's a complementary process, one is not superseding the other. Any other questions?
Associate Spokeswoman: I would like to turn the floor over to Therese Gastaut who will brief on the Television Forum, which starts tomorrow.
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