DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
20001215The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Susan Markham, Spokeswoman for the President of the General Assembly.
Briefing by the Spokesman of the Secretary-General
**Zedillo Heads Panel on Financing for Development
As you have just heard, the Secretary-General has appointed former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo to head a new high-level panel on Financing for Development. We have a press release on it if you havent seen it -- we gave it out on an embargoed basis yesterday -- which lists all of the panel members. It is not an exhaustive list. You will see that there is a possibility that there could be additions. One such addition we expect to come from Japan. We also have fact sheets and backgrounders on Financing for Development available. If you want further information, please call Tim Wall.
**Security Council
From the Security Council, this afternoon at 3:00 p.m. in closed consultations, the Secretary-General will brief the Council on his recently completed trip, which included stops in Geneva, Sierra Leone, Benin, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Italy and Algeria.
**Palermo Signing Ceremony Ends
Today in Palermo, Italy, the signing ceremony for the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which the Secretary-General opened on Tuesday, wrapped up, with the Convention receiving signatures from 124 nations.
Also, the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children -- which is a supplement to the Convention -- received 76 signatures, and another supplement to the Convention, the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, received 73 signatures.
In his closing statement to the Conference, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNDCP), Pino Arlacchi, declared that never before had an international convention attracted so many signatures barely four weeks following adoption by the General Assembly. He said that the delegations that had spoken during the Conference had left no doubt that there was a strong and clear international commitment to achieving
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early ratification of the Convention. He added, "Let us not lose the momentum we have achieved so far."
**Secretary-General Sends Message to ECOWAS Summit
At a summit meeting of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Bamako, Mali, the Secretary-General today drew attention to the deteriorating situation along the border of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which risks destabilizing the countries and the region as whole.
We have available the message, which was to have been delivered by his Special Representative for Sierra Leone, Oluyemi Adeniji. As youll recall, the Secretary-General issued a statement earlier this week appointing Adeniji as his Special Envoy and asking him to travel to Guinea and Liberia to assess the situation and make recommendations on how best the United Nations could help the governments concerned and ECOWAS to stabilize the situation.
Meanwhile, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that more refugees are fleeing areas of south-western Guinea amid rumours of possible attacks. More arrivals have been reported in Guineas capital, Conakry. You can see the briefing notes for more details.
**Enrique Román-Morey appointed Deputy Secretary-General Of Conference on Disarmament
The Secretary-General is pleased to announce the appointment of Enrique Román-Morey as Deputy Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament, with effect from 18 December. Mr. Román-Morey will bring to the Conference his long- standing knowledge and expertise in disarmament and extensive diplomatic experience in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Peru.
We have in the Spokesman's Office a full press release, including further information and biographical data.
**Henry Hans Holthuis Named Registrar of Yugoslavia Tribunal
The Secretary-General has decided to appoint Henry Hans Holthuis of the Netherlands to be the Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The Secretary-General made the appointment in consultation with Judge Claude Jorda, President of the Tribunal, in accordance with the Tribunals statute.
**POLISARIO Releases 201 Moroccan Prisoners of War
In Western Sahara, the United Nations Mission has confirmed that the Polisario Front yesterday released 201 Moroccan prisoners of war, who were escorted to the Moroccan town of Agadir with the assistance of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The release of the prisoners was announced as a
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gesture of goodwill for Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.
**UNHCR Launches Annual Appeal
Today in Geneva, the UNHCR launched its annual appeal. The refugee agency said it needs $953.7 million next year to care for more than 22 million people who have been driven from their homes worldwide.
The outgoing High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata, said that the agency could not make any further budget cuts without jeopardizing the essence of its work. Only about two per cent of the agencys annual budget is covered by regular contributions from the United Nations system. The remainder comes in the form of donations, mostly from about 14 industrialized countries.
Also from UNHCR, the agency this morning said it continued to be very concerned about the plight of Afghan refugees who are living in a desperate health and security situation along the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. At this point, there are some 10,000 refugees, but their numbers are growing as more families arrive. For more information on both these items, see the notes in my office.
**WFP Says It Needs Urgent Funding for Angola Operation
The World Food Programme (WFP) announced today that it is in need of urgent new funding for its Angola emergency aid operation. The programme warned that unless new funding was received immediately, it would be forced to drastically cut back on food distribution in the war-devastated country.
More than one million Angolans are at risk of being affected by this cutback. The complete press release from WFP is available in my office.
**International Migrants Day to be Observed at Headquarters
This coming Monday, the United Nations will observe the first International Migrants Day with a panel discussion here at Headquarters organized by the UNHCR, the International Labour Organization and the International non-governmental organization Committee on Human Rights.
International Migrants Day was created by a General Assembly resolution on 4 December. For more information, we have a press release upstairs.
**Reports
On the racks today, we have two documents concerning Ethiopia and Eritrea. One is on the financing of the United Nations mission there, and the other is the text of the peace agreement signed earlier this week in Algiers.
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**Poster Exhibition
At noon on Monday, the Secretary-General will open an exhibition of posters entitled, For a better world. Consisting of 125 posters that have been used in United Nations initiatives and campaigns, the exhibition chronicles the development of the United Nations and features the works of many famous artists.
**Press Conferences
Press conference. This afternoon, at 1:15 p.m.., Leonard She Okitundu, the Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will be here to take your questions.
**The Week Ahead
We have the week ahead for you, which I wont highlight now, but you can pick up copies in my office.
I will take any questions; then we go to Sue. Sue, why dont you step up here to the podium.
**Questions and Answers
Question: I just got a report from Abidjan saying that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) told people that they dont want United Nations military observers or anyone else moving around in rebel-held areas until [RUF leader] Foday Sankoh is freed. I dont know if you have any information on that.
Spokesman: We did see that. In fact, it was in a press release posted on their web site, which, I think, occurred just at the time that their acting leader, Mr. Cisse, was meeting with the United Nations Force Commander and handing over some United Nations equipment that had been stolen. We are not aware at this time that they have officially communicated this to us, but let me double check that after the briefing. But as I said, we did see this press release on their web site.
Question: And one other housekeeping point. I am sure that you know that as important as this commission is, on a Friday, announcing it at noon, it is pretty difficult for everyone who comes out of the Western Hemisphere to use. I realize that we had an advance on this under embargo. The press release was quite bad. I am wondering if, in future, that very good statement from the Secretary-General might have been included, because a lot of the substance is now not in the stories that were written. This is just advice from a friend here.
Spokesman: I will relay your view. Thank you. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.
Daily Press Briefing - 5 - 15 December 2000
Briefing by the Spokeswoman of the President of the General Assembly
There was no plenary this morning, but there have been informal consultations of the plenary on the General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, which will be held next year. The system for the preparations for the Special Session is to be modelled on that for the Millennium Summit. There will be no preparatory committee, but the plenary itself will meet in informal consultations under the chairmanship of the President of the General Assembly to discuss the preparations and prepare the draft declaration, which will be the outcome document.
A conference room paper is available, showing what the recommendations of the President are for the organization of the Special Session and also the participation of civil society actors, particularly, those organizations representing people who are affected by HIV/AIDS. The informal open-ended consultations will meet twice in a kind of formal way, once from 26 February to 2 March next year, and then from 23-27 April. In between those, there will be a series of even more informal informals.
On Thursday, the President of the General Assembly will hold a press conference in Room 226 at 11:15 a.m. Correspondents are invited. He will give a wrap-up of the General Assembly, including what the main issues were and what has been accomplished during the four months of the present part of the session. He will look forward to what will happen in the remaining months of the Assembly session next year. The Assembly does not really conclude until 10 September, although it will recess on 22 December.
In response to a question on how the Fifth Committee would conclude its deliberations on the Brahimi report and the report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, the spokeswoman said that her understanding was that the Committee would produce a draft resolution. That draft resolution would be acted on by the Committee on or around Wednesday, 20 December, the final day the Committee was expected to meet. There was no draft resolution yet, and as such, the Spokeswoman could not comment on what would be in it. The Committee was expected to take action on all its remaining drafts on that day. The last meeting of the General Assembly would be on Friday, 22 December, when it would take up the reports of the Fifth Committee. All the reports of the Committee would be taken up at the same time. If the Fifth Committee finished very late on 20 December or went on to 21 December, the plenary may not meet on Friday morning, but later in the day on Friday.
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