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

Following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Hua Jiang, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Richard Sydenham, Spokesman for the General Assembly President.

Briefing by Deputy Spokesman for Secretary-General

Good afternoon.

**New USG Appointed

A short while ago, the Secretary-General announced that Catherine Bertini of the United States will succeed Joseph Connor as Under-Secretary-General for Management effective 1 January 2003.  Ms. Bertini was the Executive Director of the World Food Programme for 10 years from 1992.  Her most recent appointment began in August this year when she was named the Secretary-General’s Personal Humanitarian Envoy.

The Secretary-General said, in her new duties, Ms. Bertini will focus on implementing his reform programme, communication and information technology, human resources and gender balance, the budget processes and the capital master plan.  We have Ms. Bertini’s bio available upstairs.

**Security Council

This morning, the Security Council was given one of its periodic briefings on the situation in the Middle East.  Under Secretary-General Kieran Prendergast spoke to Council members in an open meeting.

In his remarks, Mr. Prendergast reviewed the political, security and humanitarian situation.  “Against the backdrop of a new Palestinian cabinet taking office, and the collapse of Israel’s governing coalition, Israeli-Palestinian violence continues to claim lives on both sides nearly every day”, Mr. Prendergast said.

In closing, he urged the international community to give its full attention and support to the work of the so-called Middle East Quartet. “It is critical”, he said, “that the Quartet finalize its road map as soon as possible and then obtain the explicit agreement of both sides and the international community to follow that map to a just, lasting and comprehensive settlement in this conflict.”

The Council then moved into closed consultations to continue its discussion on the issue.  The full text of Mr. Prendergast’s remarks is available upstairs.

**Security Council - Committees

Also scheduled today is a meeting of the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee at 3:30 p.m.

On other Security Council committee-related matters, I would like to draw your attention to new guidelines posted on the UN web site for the conduct of the work of the Committee monitoring sanctions against Al Qaeda and associates.  You can get the Web site details from the Office upstairs.

**Middle East Envoy

A major UN inter-agency conference in Jerusalem today set the stage for an emergency $300 million appeal next week for the humanitarian catastrophe in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  We’ll have more on the inter-agency appeal later in the briefing.

Today’s meeting, hosted by Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, introduced a UN report that recommends strategies for immediately addressing the expanding crisis among Palestinians, who are suffering unprecedented poverty and unemployment rates.  The conference was attended by 15 UN agencies, key donor countries, and major international non-governmental organizations, as well as envoys from the Middle East Quartet diplomatic group.

Mr. Roed-Larsen warned that the current international attempts to help the Palestinian population have had little impact on the spiralling crisis.  “There have been inputs, but no impact.  In short, the patient is dying”, said Mr. Roed- Larsen.  A note with more details is available upstairs.

**Cyprus

As you know, yesterday afternoon the Secretary-General briefed the Security Council on Cyprus regarding his proposal, which was given over yesterday to Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clerides. The Secretary-General believes the proposal can form the basis for the comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem.

In a statement we issued yesterday, we said that the Secretary-General hopes that this initiative will help the parties focus on the decisions that they should take in the next few weeks in order to seize the opportunity at hand and bring about a settlement.  The Secretary-General has asked the leaders not to take a formal public position on what he has submitted to them, but instead to take some time to consider them.  He hopes that they will exercise the necessary discretion in this regard.

After the Security Council meeting, the Secretary-General was asked what his role is in this process, and he said, “It is that of a helper, expediter, to get them to accept or come to a comprehensive agreement.”

**Secretary-General Travels

The Secretary-General will begin a trip to Europe a few days earlier than we previously announced, since he will leave Thursday on a visit to Geneva, in which he is to meet with the Presidents of Cameroon and Nigeria.

You will recall that the Secretary-General, in a statement on 1 November, reiterated his readiness and that of the United Nations to assist those two countries in the follow-up to the International Court of Justice’s decision on

their border dispute and in establishing confidence between them, as agreed during their September meeting in Paris.

Following his statement on 1 November, the Secretary-General wrote to President Paul Biya of Cameroon and President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria on

6 November, and invited them to meet with him subsequent to the International Court of Justice’s judgment.  He proposed that they meet with him on 15 November at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.  This has now been agreed with all concerned.  A statement issued in Geneva is available upstairs.

The Secretary-General will, therefore, leave New York to attend those meetings on the 14th.  After that, the Secretary-General will travel on Sunday,

17 November, to Sarajevo to start his visit to the Balkans, which we have previously announced; the rest of his travel schedule, including stops in the Netherlands and France, is unchanged.

**Secretary-General Meets Former Latin American Presidents

The Secretary-General is meeting right now with a group of six former Latin American Presidents, with whom he will attend a luncheon immediately afterward that is hosted by the UN Development Programme’s Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Bureau.

The Secretary-General and the six former Presidents -– from Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico and Uruguay –- will discuss the future of democracy in the region and a UNDP study that addresses the needs and vulnerabilities of Latin American democracies.

When he speaks to them at today’s luncheon, the Secretary-General will note that all of the 17 countries in continental Latin America have elected governments, but, at the same time, many Latin American countries are home to the most unequal income distribution in the world.  He is to point to the challenge of making the practice of democracy universal, now that the principle of democracy is recognized by all.  We have embargoed copies of his remarks upstairs, as well as a press release on today’s meeting.

**Secretary-General’s Washington Trip

When his luncheon with the former Presidents has ended, the Secretary-General will be departing for Washington, where, as we announced yesterday, he will attend the UN Association of the U.S. International Visionaries Award Dinner, where he will be honoured and make remarks.  We have embargoed copies of those remarks, which focus on the role the United Nations can play in dealing with the fight against terrorism and the threat of weapons of mass destruction, upstairs.  The embargo time is 9 tonight.

Before the dinner, he will meet United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, and he will also meet United States President George W. Bush tomorrow afternoon, after he has delivered the annual Anwar El-Sadat Memorial Lecture at the University of Maryland.

**Lack of Food Aid Threatens Millions of Ethiopians

The World Food Programme today warned that it is increasingly concerned about the lack of food aid pledges needed to help feed millions of Ethiopians threatened by starvation early next year.  Severe food shortages are already expected in January, unless donor pledges quickly materialize.

With a serious drought worsening in many regions of Ethiopia, the number of people needing food aid is expected to rise sharply from the current 6 million to between 10 to 14 million people in 2003.  Meanwhile, UNICEF says that, as a result of drought, close to 2.3 million Eritreans and 7 million Ethiopians were suffering from malnutrition and related problems, and their vulnerability was increased by AIDS, malaria and diarrhoea.

**Humanitarian Appeals

The United Nations will launch appeals for humanitarian assistance in 2003 on 19 and 20 November.  The Consolidated Appeals will be launched in eight cities around the world, including New York.  The theme of the 2003 Consolidated Appeals is Hope for the Future.

With the aim to bring food to the hungry, medical assistance to the sick, shelter to displaced populations, and to provide for other basic needs, aiding some 50 million people in failed States, countries facing civil war or communities devastated by conflict, the so-called Consolidated Appeals Process is a tool created a decade ago by the General Assembly to plan a common humanitarian strategy and maximize resources.  For more information, contact Humanitarian Affairs Spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker at 3-4832.

**Oil-for-Food

Figures released by the Office of the Iraq Programme in its weekly update show that Iraqi oil exports dropped to less than half of the previous week’s high of 19.3 million barrels to 7.3 million barrels in the week ending 8 November.  This averages out to slightly over 1 million barrels per day.  The week’s exports netted an estimated $154 million in revenue.

The persisting funding shortfall faced by the programme has resulted in 1,608 humanitarian supply contracts, worth over $3.1 billion, lacking in available funds.  Almost all the sectors of the programme are affected by this shortfall in funds to some degree.  The full text of the OIP weekly update is available upstairs.

**UNDP

UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown today spoke at Makerere University, in Kampala, Uganda, on the first stop of a six-day African visit that will also take him to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  He told the students and other attendees that the Millennium Development Goals form the centre of a “new global deal” between developing and developed countries, and added that the Great Lakes countries have come to appreciate the value of those goals, particularly those concerning democratic governance.  Mr. Malloch Brown will head for Kigali tonight and then travel to Kinshasa on Thursday.

**Secretary-General Message – Turkey House

We have available upstairs copies of a message, delivered on the Secretary-General’s behalf by UN Population Fund Executive Director Thoraya Obaid, welcoming the inauguration in Ankara of the new UN House in Turkey, which the Secretary-General calls a symbol of the UN agencies’ commitment to work better together, and to create “a house of all nations, held together by common values, bonds and aspirations”.

**ICTY

We have available upstairs a press release from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which provides the details of an amended indictment against General Ratko Mladic, which include one count of genocide, seven counts of crimes against humanity, and six counts of war crimes.  The indictment consolidates two previous indictments against Mladic and reduces the total number of charges, leaving only the most serious counts.

**Other Press Releases

Some press releases that I would like to flag to you:  the Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, meeting in Santiago, Chile, has conditionally accepted proposals to allow a one-off sale of 20 metric tonnes of ivory from Botswana and 10 metric tonnes from Namibia.

The World Health Organization said today the campaign in 16 African countries to vaccinate millions of children against polio is under way this week. Part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the 16 countries are uniting to vaccinate all children under the age of five within their borders.

Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), today announced the Mexican Academy for Human Rights as the winner of the 2002 UNESCO Human Rights Education Prize.

Last mention, "English-To-Go", a New Zealand e-learning Web site is attempting today, over a 24-hour period, to break the Guinness world record for the largest simultaneous lesson.  Students and teachers from around the globe will participate in a lesson about the dangers of landmines.  The lesson highlights the key issues of mine action and the crucial role of the United Nations in helping reduce the devastating impact of landmines on communities and children.  The United Nations estimates that up to 40 per cent of all mine victims are children under 15.  We have more information on these items available upstairs.

**Press Conference Tomorrow

A press conference for tomorrow:  at 11 a.m., Frederic Richard, the Director of Economy and Research at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), will be here to brief you on the agency’s “Industrial Development Report 2002-2003:  Competing through innovation and learning”.

So, that’s all I have for you.  Yes, please?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Do you have any more information about the Secretary-General’s meetings with Powell and Bush?

Deputy Spokesman:  Apart from what we have announced, there is no more information.  You will have to wait till the meetings finish, I am afraid.

Question:  Any reaction on Iraq and that they were against the resolution?

Deputy Spokesman:  I think the Secretary-General –- maybe you missed it -– he responded to the same question about 40 minutes ago.  And we’re transcribing that press conference and once it’s available we’ll announce it, so that you can get a copy of that in the Office.

Richard.

**Briefing by Spokesman for General Assembly President

Good afternoon.

The General Assembly plenary this morning started discussion of agenda

item 26:  Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba, report of the Secretary-General, and draft resolution A/57/L.5 which was introduced by Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, President of Cuba's National Assembly.  Some 27 members are inscribed to speak and will take a decision on the draft resolution. 

This afternoon, President Kavan will chair the third meeting of the open-ended informal consultations of the General Assembly plenary on the strengthening of the United Nations system.

The Special Political and Decolonization Committee holds a general debate on item 77:  Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories.

In the Second Committee, there is an introduction of draft resolutions on UNITAR, on permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories, and integrated follow-up to United Nations conferences in the economic and social fields.  The Second Committee will then conclude its general debate on macroeconomic policy questions and start a general discussion on the report of the Economic and Social Council.

The Third Committee continues general discussion on human rights questions and this afternoon takes a decision on a draft resolution on the advancement of women.

The Fifth Committee concludes its general discussion on the programme budget for the biennium 2002-2003.

For tomorrow, the plenary will continue discussion of the follow-up to the outcome of the twenty-sixth special session:  implementation of the Declaration of Commitments on HIV/AIDS, report of the Secretary-General.  That’s in the plenary tomorrow afternoon.

Any questions?

Thank you.

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