DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Jan Fischer, Spokesman for the General Assembly President.

Spokesman for the Secretary-General

Good afternoon. 

**Secretary-General at Children’s Summit

The Secretary-General this morning opened the General Assembly special session on children, saying that the gathering was about the future of humanity.  He said “... there is no issue more unifying, more urgent or more universal than the welfare of our children”.  He pointed out that this was the first time that children themselves had the opportunity to speak at such an event and urged the adults to listen attentively to them, adding, “To work for a world fit for children, we must work with children.”

He went on to say that the adults of the world had failed children and that they should be made to pay for our failures.  “Who among us”, he said, “has not looked into the eyes of a disappointed child, and been humbled?  The children in this room are witnesses to our words.  They and their peers in every land have a right to expect us to turn our words into action, and ... to build a world fit for children.”

This afternoon, the Secretary-General will address the NGO plenary, and we have the full text of both speeches available upstairs.

**Middle East

We put out a statement last night, saying that the Secretary-General was appalled by the suicide bomb attack that took place earlier that day in the town of Rishon Letzion in Israel, in which at least 16 people were killed and many others wounded.  He reiterated in the strongest possible terms his utter condemnation of all indiscriminate terrorist attacks against civilians.  Such attacks are morally repugnant, he said, and only set back the prospects for a peaceful settlement.  The Secretary-General extended his heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims of this despicable act and to the Government of Israel.

The Secretary-General’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, also issued a statement expressing his dismay and disgust at the attack, and calling it “a cynical act, which is both illegal and immoral”.  That statement is also available upstairs.  We also have a condemnation from High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, calling on the Palestinian Authority to bring those responsible to justice.

Roed-Larsen today met in Ramallah with Abu Ala, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and is conducting other talks today with Palestinian officials.

**Response to General Assembly Vote

The General Assembly has requested the Secretary-General to “present a report, drawing upon the available resources and information, on the recent events that took place in Jenin and in other Palestinian cities”.  On the basis of this resolution, the Secretariat will review available information.  It will also request the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to provide information.  The report will be prepared by the Secretariat.

The scope of the report called for in the General Assembly resolution covers “Jenin and other Palestinian cities”.  This is broader than the scope called for by the Security Council in its resolution 1405, which specified only “recent events in the Jenin refugee camp”.  We hope that the parties will cooperate fully with us as we prepare this report.  We will do this as expeditiously as possible, bearing in mind that we will need to gather and review all available information, and that we hope that the parties will provide us with information.

**Security Council

The draft resolution on the Iraq goods review list is being discussed at the experts level today.  As of now, no informal consultations of the Security Council have been scheduled.  We will keep you posted if there is a change.

The Council, which held an open meeting on children and armed conflict yesterday afternoon, issued a presidential statement,which strongly condemned the targeting and use of children in armed conflicts.

**International Criminal Court

The Secretary-General has circulated to Member States the text of the letter from the United States received on Monday, in which it declared it had no intention of ratifying the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and, therefore, has no legal obligations as a signatory.  The Secretary-General regrets this decision.

Still, with 66 Member States having ratified the Statute, the Court will become a reality on the first of July.  Its creation is a long-term investment in international justice.  The Secretary-General hopes that, in time, the United States will see it to be not only in its interest, but in the global interest to support the new Court and actively participate in it.

Copies of the Secretary-General's transmission note are available in English and in French.

**Human Rights

The Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Dato' Param Cumaraswamy, issued a statement today expressing his deep concern at the United States’ action in "unsigning" the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).  Responding to concerns that the Court may not be accountable, he asserts, “the ICC cannot be a rogue actor.  It is bound by its Statute and the law and members of the Court can be removed in the event of proven misconduct”.  We have the full press release upstairs.

We also have another press release noting that the Special Rapporteur on the question of the use of mercenaries, Enrique Bernales Ballesteros, is visiting El Salvador and Panama on an official mission, at the invitation of the Governments of those two countries.  He will be in El Salvador from 5 to 8 May, and in Panama from 8 to 11 May.

**East Timor

More than 80 nations have so far accepted invitations from Secretary-General Kofi Annan and East Timor’s Second Transitional Government to send delegations to the independence ceremony.  The ceremony, which will be held on 19-20 May on the outskirts of Dili, will launch East Timor as the first new nation of the millennium.

The Secretary-General and General Assembly President Han Seung-soo will join up to 200,000 East Timorese at the ceremony.  The Secretary-General and Mr. Han will address East Timor during the final minutes of the United Nations’ two-and-a-half-year transitional administration.  At midnight, the Secretary-General will hand over power to Parliament President Francisco Guterres.  The next morning, the Government of East Timor will be sworn in, and the National Parliament -– elected in August 2001 to draft a constitution –- will hold its inaugural session.

We have the summary of the key events for the celebrations available upstairs.

**Angola

The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has started distributing food aid to thousands of severely malnourished people who are being discovered in areas of Angola, now open to aid workers after last month's peace agreement was signed between the Government and UNITA rebels.  To avoid the fighting, they have been hiding in the countryside for the past four years, and many were dying of hunger-related diseases, according to WFP.

We have a press release with more details upstairs.

**UNHCR

We have two press releases from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

In one, UNHCR announces that it is ending refugee status for all Eritreans who fled their country as a result of the war of independence and the recent border conflict with Ethiopia.  The worldwide cessation will take effect on

31 December and will affect hundreds of thousands of Eritreans in neighbouring countries.

The second press release concerns Afghan refugees.  United Nations refugee agency chief Ruud Lubbers hails the return of more than 500,000 Afghan refugees since the UNHCR began helping Afghans homewards nine weeks ago, but warns that more must be done inside the war- and drought-ravaged country to ensure the sustainability of the returns.

**Afghanistan

In a letter on the racks today, the Secretary-General replaces one member of the group monitoring implementation of measures against the Taliban and Al Qaeda organization.  He replaces Michael D. Langan of the United States with Victor D. Comras, also of the United States.  We have a short biography of the new member.

**OCHA

We have two updates from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) -– one on Liberia, the other on Somalia.

In Bong County, Liberia, fighting between government forces and alleged dissidents has caused an estimated 3,000 internally displaced persons to flee the town of Weinshu.  The 29,000 displaced persons who had recently registered at camps near the town of Gbarnga are believed to be on the move again, as well.

On Somalia, OCHA says most of Mogadishu’s 1.2 million people will be affected by the suspension of humanitarian activities due to the kidnapping of a UNDP staff member. A UNICEF polio vaccination campaign has been suspended, affecting all the children who would have benefited from receiving the vaccine.

**Secretary-General at Global Leadership Awards

This evening, the Secretary-General will make remarks at a dinner hosted by the United Nations Association of the United States, in honour of Bill and Melinda Gates and the Gates Foundation for their work in the fight against HIV/AIDS.  As soon as we get the Secretary-General’s remarks, we will distribute them.

**Oral Rehydration Therapy

This morning, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a new formula for oral rehydration salts.  Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Director-General of WHO, launched the new formula here in New York, saying that oral rehydration therapy was one of the great public health successes of our time.  She said, “ Reducing childhood deaths from diarrhoea by half in 10 years is a notable success, but, despite this progress, diarrhoea remains a major cause of death.”  She added that at the special session on children this week, governments would endorse a new goal to further reduce deaths by diarrhoea by 50 per cent by 2010.  The new formula will reduce the severity of diarrhoea and vomiting and the need for costly intravenous fluid treatment.

We have a press release with more information.

**Signings

We have a number of countries signing and ratifying the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child today.  This afternoon, Venezuela will deposit its instrument of ratification for the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, bringing the number of parties to 24.  This Protocol will be signed this afternoon by Croatia, Federated States of Micronesia and Sri Lanka, bringing the number of signatories to 99.

The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict will also be signed this afternoon by Croatia and the Federated States of Micronesia, bringing the number of signatories for that Protocol to 104.

**Press Conferences

Today’s press conferences are posted on the Web site, and press conferences for tomorrow will be posted there in the course of this afternoon. 

That is all I have for you.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Right now the American and Pakistani military operation is in the area of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.  How has it affected the return of Afghani refugees?

Answer:  I do not have any information on that.  We can call the Mission right after this briefing and see if we can get an answer for you.

[Later, the Spokesman informed correspondents that the High Commissioner for Refugees was cautioning Afghans against returning to some regions deemed insecure, including those along Pakistani border from Paktika to Kandahar and parts of northern Afghanistan.]

Question:  Can you be more specific who in the Secretariat will be conducting the inquiry into Jenin and other areas?  Will they be using some of the materials that the team had begun to assemble in Geneva?  Will the team authorized by the Assembly include any of the people who had begun the process?

Answer:  It will be primarily personnel from the Department of Political Affairs.  It will include at least one person who had been assigned by that Department to the fact-finding team in Geneva.  They will be using all information available, so that would include anything that the fact-finding team had assembled in Geneva before it was disbanded. 

Question:  Who from the Department of Political Affairs will lead this inquiry, and who is the one person who is the carry-over?

Answer:  We are not prepared to give any specific names at this time.  It is a Secretariat study.  Secretariat professionals will do it, and DPA is in the lead.

Question:   Why was Mr. Langan replaced?

Answer:  Oh, I don’t know.  We will have to ask for you afterwards.  I wasn’t given that information.  [“Personal reasons” is what was given.]

Question:  From a press conference by Catholic activists today, it seems that the United Nations is working on a process trying to bring the United Nations to the Holy See to address alleged abuses of children.  Do you have anything on that yet?

Answer:  What did you say it was?  Was it an NGO?

Correspondent:  It is a conglomeration of organizations.  They say they met with a member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and that there is a commitment to bring forth reports ...

Answer:  I have got nothing on that.  I do not know whether Jan does.

Question:  Besides the DPA, what other departments will be involved in the Secretariat’s inquiry?

Answer:  I do not know that there will be other departments.  You know, this just happened last night.  We are still preparing ourselves to comply with the General Assembly resolution, so I have no further details to give you at this time.

[Later in the briefing, the Spokesman added:]  To a question on what other departments might be involved in this study, among the resources of the Secretariat we will be employing there will be any military expertise we have.  That could involve the military adviser to the Secretary-General who sits in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Question:  Can you give us any update on the Secretary-General setting time and place for further talks with the Iraqi delegation?

Answer:  We do not have any dates to discuss at this time.  Last thing we told you was that we thought it would be something like within a month, so that would take us roughly to the end of this month.  I mean, that is roughly the time frame, but we have not yet agreed on dates.

Question:  Is the Secretary-General concerned enough about the Iraqi delegation’s visa problems to hold the next round of talks in Vienna?

Answer:  We aren’t saying anything about where the next round will be, and I don’t know that the visa problems were a factor, but I would have to ask to get something definitive on that.  We were aware from the Iraqis that some of them had visa problems coming into this country for the last round of talks.

Spokesman for General Assembly President

As there are quite a few new faces in the room today, I should just mention that I am Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly and also for the special session.  That, however, does not mean that I will be able to answer every single question you may have about the session.  Questions like, “If the Member States can’t agree on paragraph x in the outcome document, what will this mean for the spread of HIV/AIDS in region y”, should be asked of UNICEF, which will be here after this briefing.

Let me start with the emergency special session of yesterday before we go to the special session on children.  We heard a total of 35 speakers, ending with Spain around 6 p.m.  The meeting was then recessed for almost two hours to allow the membership time for consultations on the draft resolution.  You will recall that the first draft resolution was revised in the afternoon and slightly amended later on.

Just before the vote on the resolution, one Member State proposed that the draft resolution be voted paragraph by paragraph, so we ended up having a total of 25 rounds of voting.  When it came to the vote on the draft resolution as a whole, it was adopted with 74 in favour, 4 against and 54 abstentions.  Two Member States spoke in explanation of vote before the vote (Peru, Israel) and 10 spoke after the vote (Canada, Iran, Australia, Spain, Paraguay, Guatemala, Russian Federation, Chile, Japan and the observer for Palestine).  More information is available in Press Release GA/10015.

Well, with almost eight months’ delay, the special session on children got under way this morning.  The head of delegation and First Lady of the Republic of Korea presided over the opening of this the twenty-seventh special session of the General Assembly.  After a couple of organizational matters, the Assembly elected by acclamation Dr. Han Seung-soo, the President of the fifty-sixth session, as President of the special session.  He then delivered his statement in which he said, among other things, that, “Looking into the future, we still have a long journey ahead of us.  We must be serious and open about the challenges that remain –- about the unfinished business of the last decade.  And we must ask some searching questions.  Why are so many children still out of school?  Why have we made so little progress on maternal mortality?  In a world of unprecedented wealth, why are so many children still born into abject poverty and deprivation? And why are children still exposed to the horrors of conflict?”

The full text is available in the media centre.

The President then gave the floor to the Secretary-General who was followed by Ambassador Durrant, the Chair of the Preparatory Committee, who outlined the work of the Preparatory Committee.  The special session then constituted itself, whereupon the President listed various entities and representatives which will participate over the next three days.

Then, for the first time ever, two children addressed the plenary of the General Assembly.  The many heads of State or government and other representatives first heard Ms. Gabriela Azurduy Arrieta, a 13-year old girl from Bolivia, and then Ms. Audrey Chenynut, a 17-year old girl from Monaco.  Please remember, both were chosen by the children who participated in the Children’s Forum.

After this, we heard the first of the 25 Member States that are scheduled to speak this morning.  There are 32 speakers listed for the afternoon meeting which will run from 3 to 7 p.m.  In addition, the Executive Director of UNICEF and the High Commissioner for Refugees will be the last two speakers.  Each Member State is allotted five minutes.  This afternoon, round table 1 will meet at 3 p.m. and will be co-chaired by the Prime Minister of Mongolia and the President of Romania. As it will run till 6:30 p.m., the press briefing following the round table will take place tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. here in room S-226.  The second round table, co-chaired by the President of Finland and the President of Mexico, is scheduled for tomorrow from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.  The press briefing will take place at 3 p.m. in room S-226.

I have, unfortunately, not been able to get together some statistics on participation for you, but hope to have this for tomorrow.

Questions?

Question:  Are any American children involved here?

Answer:  No, not in the plenary or round tables -– in other events.  UNICEF would have that.

Question:  Do you know anything about this process?  [referring to the press conference by Catholic activists mentioned earlier]

Answer:  No.  I have not heard anything about it at all, and from what I know, from the General Assembly side of affairs, nothing.

Question:  I heard the President mention who will be presiding over the committees, including the Sixth Committee.

Answer:  He outlined who would be presiding over various committees.  That is a standard thing before a special session.

Question:  But the Ambassador of Haiti is not an ambassador here, and he should not preside over the committee.

Answer:  I presume that he presides after he is elected as Chairman of the Sixth Committee in his personal capacity.

Question:  We are making a terrible mistake where a man is presiding over a committee who is neither an ambassador nor a diplomat here.

Answer:  I will get back to you on that.

Thank you very much.

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