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

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 Stéphane Dujarric, Associate Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

**Secretary-General

Good afternoon.  I will start with the Secretary-General's programme.  He continues his stay in Geneva today.  As we speak he should be delivering the keynote address at the celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Graduate School of International Studies in Geneva, where he studied in 1961 and 1962.

Globalization has transformed the context in which the United Nations works, he said in his keynote address.  In 1945, it was assumed that any threat to world order would come from aggression by one sovereign State against another.  "What keeps people awake at night" now, he said, is "the fear of what might be done by a handful of fanatics -- perhaps armed only with box-cutters, like those who attacked the United States last September."

Yet even the best-organized States are not finding globalization easy to manage, he went on to say.  The security challenges are economic, physical, environmental and psychological in nature and can make even a strong State look weak.  For example, population movements bring people from different cultural backgrounds into formerly stable communities, prompting questions about how inclusive a nation should be, and what its identity should be based on.

What's needed, he concluded, is a kind of ladder of institutions that allows people to link up with each other in an emerging world community, starting at the village level and culminating in the United Nations itself.

Earlier today he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the school.

In the afternoon, the Secretary-General met with his Special Envoy for Myanmar, Ismail Razali, who was in Geneva.  He then saw Adolf Ogi, his Special Adviser on Sports for Development and Peace.  And I’ll return to that meeting a bit later on.

He then went to the Villa Barton, which is on the edge of Lake Geneva, where he met privately with Switzerland's Foreign Minister, Joseph Deiss.

We have the full text of the Secretary-General's speeches available upstairs.

He will remain in Geneva tomorrow.  On Sunday he heads to Rome ahead of the opening on Monday of the World Food Summit.

**Security Council

Turning to the Security Council, this morning the Council is meeting in closed consultations on Afghanistan with Under-Secretary-General for Political

Affairs Kieran Prendergast, briefing in advance of the scheduled meeting of the Loya Jirga in Kabul -- and I’ll have a bit more on those developments in a moment.  We’ve asked Kieran Prendergast to brief you on Monday on the Loya Jirga process.  We'll have details as to exactly what time he'll be briefing on Monday.

On the racks is a Note by the President of the Security Council documenting procedural developments in the Council in 2001.  That note, which is dated 30 May, says the Council members agreed to issue the document in the spirit of promoting greater openness concerning developments in the work of the Council.

And I've just been told that the President of the Security Council for this month, Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe of Syria, may be speaking to journalists following the end of consultations, which should probably end shortly.

**Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, the selection process for the Emergency Loya Jirga concluded today.  We still do not have the final list of delegates, but among those delegates there are 20 women.  This is in addition to the 160 seats that had been set aside for women delegates.  According to the procedures established by the Special Independent Commission, the Loya Jirga will include approximately

1,500 representatives.  One thousand of these will be elected and the other

500 will be selected among particular groups.

Hundreds of delegates have already begun arriving in Kabul.  In the next couple of days before the Loya Jirga convenes on Monday, the delegates will have orientation sessions and there will also be presentations on the history of Loya Jirga and the roles and responsibilities of delegates.

Also on Afghanistan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says that for the third week in a row, they have seen 100,000 Afghans return home since the repatriation programme began on 1 March.  The total number of assisted returnees now stands at more than 900,000, the vast majority of them coming back from Pakistan.

**Refugees

Also on the subject of refugees, UNHCR says it is again appealing to Kenyan authorities to allow Somali refugees to be moved away from the border area to existing refugee camps deeper inside Kenya.

The UNHCR says that it and its partner agencies are struggling to help vulnerable Somali refugees in a ramshackle border zone camp in northern Kenya where 17 people, most of them children, have died of disease and malnutrition since 2 June.

The UNHCR staff reports that refugee children can be seen everywhere in the border town of Mandera scavenging for food, begging and trying to find work for their families to survive.  Women often have to walk a fair distance in search of firewood.  Refugee leaders fear that this makes them vulnerable to abuse.

The United Nations agency also reports that a stream of displaced persons and refugees from Liberia continues to grow day by day.  The UNHCR says it is concerned about the refugee camps near Monrovia, which have been closed off from any UNHCR assistance since the fighting started several weeks ago.

**World Summit for Sustainable Development Preparatory Committee

As you know, there's been for the last couple of weeks a preparatory committee meeting held in Bali in Indonesia ahead of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which will be held in Johannesburg later this summer. 

The ministerial segment of that Preparatory Committee ended today with speakers wrapping up their discussions of elements for the political declaration to be adopted by the heads of State in Johannesburg.

The Chairman of the Preparatory Committee, Emil Salim, held a press conference a short while ago.  He said that 80 per cent of the text had already been agreed upon, with the remaining 20 per cent expected to be agreed upon during the actual conference in Johannesburg.

One of the most contentious areas of that text is the passage dealing with financing and trade.

The Preparatory Committee itself was scheduled to resume its deliberation on the implementation plan at 8 p.m., but we have been informed that the meeting has been suspended until midnight. 

**Press Releases

A couple of press releases to flag for you.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) today reiterated their appeal for donor governments worldwide to extend immediate food aid to the countries of southern Africa, where nearly 13 million people face starvation.  The two Rome-based organizations said Malawi, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique and Zambia could be facing the worst humanitarian disaster in the region in over a decade.

Also from the FAO, the FAO along with four other international organizations decided to join hands in combating the tsetse fly in Africa and the sleeping sickness disease it transmits.  Sleeping sickness threatens 50 million people and 48 million cattle in 37 sub-Saharan countries.

And you can pick up those press releases later today.

**Staff Security Summit

Concerning staff security, next Tuesday, the fifth annual Summit on Staff Security will take place in the Trusteeship Council Chamber here.  This year’s summit, which is called “The forgotten staff”, will focus on field service, in particular the continuing problem of detained, abducted, missing and murdered staff, the status of locally recruited staff and the plight of staff returning from mission assignments.

The plenary session, which will be addressed by the Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Fréchette, will be followed by a panel discussion.

This meeting is being organized by the Standing Committee on the Security and Independence of International Civil Servants and the United Nations Staff Council.

**Emergency Relief Coordinator

We expect in a short while a statement to be issued by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Kenzo Oshima, on the food situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  And as soon as that's out, we will announce it.

**World Cup

And in our regular World Cup feature, I just want to mention a couple of items. 

As I mentioned to you, the Secretary-General met earlier today in Geneva with Adolf Ogi, his Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace.  During the meeting, Mr. Ogi briefed the Secretary-General on his efforts to facilitate a contribution from FIFA -- the world football governing body -- to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to help install three large-screens television monitors at public venues in Kabul, so that Afghans could follow the World Cup.  According to Mr. Ogi, these will be set up by Sunday.

And from East Timor, peacekeeping contingents from Japan and the Republic of Korea based in that country -- East Timor -- have launched a “Mini World Cup” to coincide with the real one taking place in their home countries.

The month-long competition will involve matches between 40 local clubs.  The winning team will face off in a final against a joint Japanese-Republic of Korea team on 30 June.

Lastly, a bit closer to home, the staff committee will continue to sponsor the live broadcast of World Cup Games in Conference Room 4, before working hours, from 7:15 to 9:15 a.m.  For more information on that schedule pick up the flyer upstairs.

**Peacekeeping Statistics

The regular background note on political and peace-building missions is now available upstairs in our office as well as on the United Nations Web site.  We currently have a total of 12 political and peace-building missions, with the latest additions being the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan known as UNAMA.

**Week ahead

We're reaching the end of this briefing.  Just the week ahead.  I will flag a couple of things. 

On Monday as I mentioned, the World Food Summit opens and that will end on Thursday. 

In terms of press conferences and briefings, we will have Mr. Prendergast here on Monday. 

Also Monday at the noon briefing we'll have Gillian Sorensen, the Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations.  She will be briefing you on next week's meeting of United Nations Goodwill Ambassadors.

That's it for me.  Do you have any questions for me?

**Questions and Answers

Question: Concerning the 900,000 Afghan refugees that have returned, is that the total or part of the number of refugees who are in Pakistan and

Iran?

Associate Spokesman:  These are the 900,000 that have been registered by UNHCR.  So those are the UNHCR numbers coming back through UNHCR programmes from Pakistan and Iran and maybe other places as well since 1 March.    

Question:  Do you have any idea of the total number of refugees that have returned?

Associate Spokesman:  No, but I can try to find those out for you.  Those are the United Nations numbers.  I'll see if we have any other numbers upstairs.  [Following the briefing, the Spokesman's Office informed correspondents that UNHCR believes another 200,000 Afghan refugees have returned to Afghanistan unassisted by UNHCR since the fall of the Taliban.] 

Question:  Can you confirm that the Secretary-General will meet with the President of Colombia on 17 June?

Associate Spokesman:  Yes that's correct.  The Secretary-General will meet the President-elect of Colombia, Mr. Uribe, on 17 June here at United Nations Headquarters. 

That's it?  Thank you very much.  Have a wonderful weekend.

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