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 Hua Jiang, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon.

**Secretary-General in Sudan

The Secretary-General began his second day in Sudan today with a visit to a camp housing some 100,000 people displaced by war and natural disasters, located about a 40-minute drive on a dusty and bumpy dirt road outside Khartoum, the capital.

Upon arrival, a group of camp residents unfurled a banner that read “Stop War, We Need Development.  No for War, Yes for Peace.”  The displaced people also chanted, “Salam, Wahda, Sawa Sawa,” -- or “No North without the South.  No South without the North.  We are all equals.”

The Secretary-General told the group that he had come to Sudan in the name of peace.  “When it comes to peace,” he said, “no one needs to convince you who have suffered from the war of the need for peace and for what peace will bring.” He then returned their chant of “Salam, Wahda, Sawa Sawa,” drawing huge applause and cheers.

In scorching heat, the Secretary-General walked about the camp, visiting a clinic where four mothers were having their infants vaccinated, talking as well to girls who were attending school and visiting a local church.

He then met with Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on the peace efforts under way and on humanitarian access, first in a meeting of delegations and then in a one-on-one session between the two.

As he walked to a lunch hosted by the Foreign Minister, the Secretary-General stopped to chat with a group of schoolgirls clad in blue tunic uniforms who were waving at him.  One of the girls, in response to the Secretary-General’s remarks about their future leadership roles as women, quipped, to his delight, “We are going to be better than men.”

Following his meeting with the Foreign Minister, the Secretary-General spoke briefly to the press, saying he had been following closely the discussions going on in Nairobi, Kenya, and added, “Like all concerned, I am hopeful that the parties will come to an agreement before they conclude their meeting on the 20th of July, and then build on it.”  We have a transcript of his comments upstairs.

Among his scheduled appointments this afternoon are meetings with Brig. Gen. Ian Wilhelmsen, head of the Joint Monitoring Committee of the Nuba Mountain Cease-fire Monitoring Commission, and former Prime Minister Sadiq Al Mahdi.

He is also to have a boat trip on the Blue Nile, one of the two Niles that converge in Khartoum, before he meets this evening with President Omar al-Bashir at the Presidential Palace.  He will have a press conference after that meeting.

The Secretary-General is scheduled to leave for Abuja, Nigeria, tomorrow morning.

**Security Council

This morning the Security Council is holding two back-to-back private meetings.

During the first, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, introduced the Secretary-General’s recent report on the UN Mission in Sierra Leone.

Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser of Mexico, who chairs the Council’s Sierra Leone sanctions committee, briefed the rest of the members on his recent trip to Sierra Leone and other countries in the region.

Immediately afterwards, the Council will hold another closed meeting to hear from General Lamine Cissé, the head of the UN Office in the Central African Republic.  He presented the Secretary-General’s latest report on that country.

At 3:30 p.m. Council members will resume discussions in closed consultations on the UN mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the International Criminal Court, which they had begun late yesterday afternoon following the conclusion of the open debate.

During yesterday’s consultations, the United States introduced a draft resolution on the ICC.

**Sanctions (Terrorism/1267)

We have a press release, available on the racks today, noting that the Security Council sanctions committee dealing with resolution 1267, which placed sanctions on individuals and entities associated with Al Qaeda, has removed a Canadian citizen, Liban Hussein, from that list.  The Committee took the decision to delete him from the list on Monday.

The Committee will continue to update its list as it receives information from Member States.

**Liberia

Meanwhile, another sanctions committee –- the one dealing with the Security Council’s resolutions on Liberia -– decided on Tuesday to drop three individuals, including senior Revolutionary United Front official Omrie Golley, as well as Romeo Horton and Robert Neal, from the list of persons affected by the travel sanctions in resolution 1343.  That press release is also on the racks.

**Afghanistan

The Chief of Mission for Afghanistan of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has returned from a mission to northern Afghanistan. He had discussions with the local leaders regarding the issue of the protection of returnees and Internally Displaced Persons.

During the meeting, Filippo Grandi received assurances that all efforts are being made to control factional fighting and that additional measures will be taken to guarantee safe returns.  These measures are under discussion.

Also on Afghanistan, the United Nations Children’s Fund announced that nearly 1.25 million children are now attending school in the 20 provinces where data was collected; 30 per cent of pupils attending school are girls.

UNICEF says that while these figures provide a positive message about education in Afghanistan, several problems remain.  For example, only 22 per cent of schools assessed so far have adequate sanitation for pupils, and many children are still being taught in temporary tented classrooms.

UNICEF is appealing for an additional $10 million on top of its original appeal for $47 million for education, to ensure that all children and teachers returning to school in the coming months are properly equipped.

**Drugs/Afghanistan

The UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention today briefed the Afghan Support Group, which is meeting in Geneva, on its efforts to break Afghanistan’s dependence on opium poppy cultivation.

Antonio Mario Costa, who heads that Office, said that “ultimately, Afghan society needs to build its own institutions in order to beat the evils of drugs, crime and terror.”  He told the meeting, attended by the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, that Afghanistan had produced some 450 tonnes of heroin in 1999, and might produce between 200 and

250 tonnes this year.

He stressed the importance of providing farmers with a sustainable agricultural alternative to drug cultivation.

**WFP/Southern Africa

James Morris, the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), said today in Johannesburg that the humanitarian crisis facing millions of people across southern Africa is desperate, and may soon lead to a catastrophe. “Throughout the region,” he warned, “people are walking a thin tightrope between life and death.”

WFP is urging a rapid response to its appeal for $507 million to feed

10.2 million people in six of the region’s countries.  These are Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland.  Today, Morris announced a donation by the United States of $98 million, which he said was “a great start” as he called for more donations.

We have a WFP press release available upstairs.

**World Population Day

Today is World Population Day and this year the theme is “Reducing Poverty

-— Improving Reproductive Health."

In her message on the occasion, the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Thoraya Obaid, said that one in four of all women in developing countries are adversely affected by lack of proper maternal health

care.  “This amounts to deadly neglect,” she said, adding, “By increasing interventions for safe motherhood, especially emergency obstetric care, we can save the lives of half a million women and seven million infants, and prevent millions of women from suffering from infections, injury and disability each year.”

She said the need for reproductive services was especially important in the fight against HIV/AIDS, as they empower women and young people with life-saving messages and skills to help stop the disease from spreading.

The full text of the message is on the UNFPA Web site.

**ILO

Tomorrow in Geneva, the Director-General of the International Labour Office, Juan Somavia, will meet with a delegation of Palestinian National Authority representatives, including the Minister of Labour, Ghassan El-Khateeb, and Palestinian trade union officials.

They are expected to discuss the expansion of the ILO’s current technical assistance programmes for Palestinian workers.

For more information, please pick up the press release upstairs.

**ICJ/DRC

Yesterday in The Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), by a vote of 14 judges in favour to two against, concluded that the Court does not have the jurisdiction to grant the provisional measures requested by the Democratic Republic of the Congo against Rwanda.

The DRC Government had brought the case to the Court, accusing Rwanda of violations of human rights and international law and of aggression by Rwanda against the DRC’s territory.  But the Court noted that one of the fundamental principles of its Statute is that it cannot decide a dispute between States without the consent of those States to its jurisdiction.

At the same time, the Court asked all parties to the DRC conflict to put an end to violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

We put out yesterday a press release explaining the ICJ ruling.

That’s all I have for you today.  Any questions?  All right, thank you.  Good afternoon.

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