DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICES OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL AND THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT
| Press Briefing |
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICES OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
AND THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT
Following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Michele Montas, Spokeswoman for the General Assembly President.
Spokesman for the Secretary-General
Good Afternoon.
**Security Council
In consecutive open meetings, the Security Council this morning adopted two resolutions on West Africa.
The Secretary-General was present for the votes.
Council members unanimously adopted a resolution that extended the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone by six months.
Then, in another unanimous vote, the Council established, under Chapter VII, the enforcement provision of the United Nations Charter, the United Nations Mission in Liberia for a period of 12 months and requests that the Secretary-General transfer authority from the forces led by the Economic Community of West African States on 1 October.
The comprehensive six-page resolution decides that the new Mission will consist of up to 15,000 UN military personnel, and up to 1,115 civilian police officers.
In a third open meeting, the Security Council adopted without a vote the Security Council’s Annual Report to the General Assembly.
In order to allow Council members to participate in the resumed emergency special session of the General Assembly on the Middle East, which started at 11 o’clock, the Council postponed consultations on the "oil-for-food" programme until 29 September.
**Day of Peace/Memorials
Accompanied by five Messengers of Peace and the Presidents of the General Assembly and Security Council, the Secretary-General today rang the Peace Bell at United Nations Headquarters to herald the International Day of Peace, which is formally observed this Sunday. Also in attendance were 400 children from 40 countries.
Before ringing the bell, the Secretary-General noted that a month ago, almost to the hour, the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was blown up in an act of unspeakable brutality. He said, “The tragedy that took our colleagues a month ago, and the troubling events that have taken place in the world over the past year, tell us that our work for peace has never been more important than today”. We have his remarks available upstairs.
Following the ringing of the bell, the Secretary-General and his wife Nane led the students in attendance to Conference Room 4, where they spoke with the Messengers of Peace and, via videoconference, with students and former child soldiers at a number of United Nations peacekeeping mission sites around the world.
There are several other events today that will honour those who died in Baghdad a month ago. At 4 o’clock in the General Assembly Hall, the Secretary-General will speak at a memorial service at which many family members of the United Nations personnel who died last month will be present. And then at 7 o’clock, also in the General Assembly Hall, Brazilian musician and Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil will perform a concert in honour of the fallen staff.
**Baghdad
In Baghdad earlier today, just after 4:20 p.m. local time, exactly one month after the devastating attack on the Canal Hotel, a United Nations security guard raised the United Nations flag to full-staff. It had been at half-staff since the day after the attack.
The ceremony was presided over by Kevin Kennedy, who is presently the officer-in-charge of the United Nations operations in Iraq, and was attended by both international and local staff.
**Compensation Commission
The Governing Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission for Iraq, under the Presidency of Ambassador Michael Steinerof Germany, concluded its forty-ninth session yesterday afternoon in Geneva. The Commission approved compensation awards of more than $315 million for compensation.
For more details on the awards, a press release is available upstairs.
**Liberia
The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone announced today that it is preparing an 850-strong Bangladeshi battalion to be deployed in Liberia once their one-year tour of duty ends in northern Sierra Leone.
This deployment is scheduled to start next Tuesday and to last for about 10 days.
On the humanitarian front, the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees says that it was laying the groundwork for the eventual land repatriation of thousands of Sierra Leonean refugees still in Liberia.
Most had been displaced from their camps during the recent fighting in Liberia and were in a desperate situation.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees also said that Guinea had also reported the arrival in recent days of some 2,000 new Liberian refugees in a southern Guinean town who fled after the announced takeover of their towns by the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy.
**Burundi
Out as a document today is a letter dated yesterday in which Burundi’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations requests a meeting between the Security Council and the President of Burundi to discuss the future prospects for the peace process in that country.
The Security Council has scheduled a private meeting from 11 a.m. to noon on Burundi for Monday.
**IAEA-North Korea
The General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today wrapped up its meeting in Vienna by calling on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to accept promptly comprehensive IAEA safeguards and to cooperate with the agency in their full and effective implementation.
In the resolution, the States at the Conference urged the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to dismantle completely any nuclear weapons programme in a prompt, transparent, verifiable and irreversible manner. They also welcomed the six-party talks that took place last month in Beijing as “a clear step in the right direction”.
**Lindh
This morning in Stockholm, United Nations Legal Counsel Hans Corell delivered a message on behalf of the Secretary-General at the memorial service honouring the late Swedish Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh.
In his message, the Secretary-General said Lindh would be remembered as a unique source of inspiration and a great friend of the United Nations who was instrumental in defining and Sweden’s role in Europe and in the United Nations.
He went on to say: “I wish there were more world citizens like her.”
We have the full text of the message in my office.
**FAO
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today announced that almost 2 million Angolan farmers will receive agricultural emergency assistance in the next few weeks before the start of the rainy season.
In its largest operation in Africa ever, the FAO will provide agricultural kits to farmers in 14 of the 18 provinces in Angola, and it will distribute approximately 5,000 tonnes of aid to the most remote and isolated villages.
We have a press release with more details.
**Guests at Noon on Monday
The guests at our noon briefing on Monday will be Dr. Lee Jong-Wook, Director-General of the World Health Organization and he will be joined by Dr. Peter Piot, the Executive Director of Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and Dr. Richard Feachem, the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. And they will be here to launch a special initiative aiming to rapidly expand access to HIV treatment in developing countries.
**Press Conferences on Monday
Other press conferences on Monday 10:30, again, Dr. Peter Piot will be presenting new United Nations reports highlighting global progress in implementing the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS.
At 11:15 a.m., again, Dr. Richard Feachem, the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, will be joined by others from the Global Fund to discuss the Fund’s efforts to support HIV prevention and treatment.
At 2:15 p.m., President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria will be here to brief you on the HIV/AIDS situation in his country.
And then at 6:00, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien of Canada will have a press conference here in this room.
Concerning press conferences during the General Debate we will have that very full programme on the Web by the end of business today and hard copies will also be available in my office.
**The Week Ahead at the United Nations
And we have The Week Ahead for you, which you can also pick up, in my office.
Any questions before we go to Michele, John?
Questions and Answers
Question: Fred, the new resolution about Liberia, does it authorize the peacekeeping operations to use force other than in self-defence?
Spokesman for the Secretary-General: That’s a technical question, I will have to get some guidance on that, I don’t know the answer to that question. So see me after the briefing, we’ll find out for you.
[Later the Spokesman confirmed that the Chapter VII enforcement provision applies to the implementation of the full mandate and not just to self-defence.]
Question: The headquarters in Baghdad are functioning now?
Spokesman: The Canal Hotel is partly being utilized, the end of it that was not damaged by the explosion and on the grounds of the compound there are containers and tents that are used for office and living space. The United Nations, as you may know, also has other headquarter locations in Baghdad for agencies.
Question: How would you describe the operations there now, are they ramping back up to normal or they are still largely suspended?
Spokesman: The emergency operations are continuing thanks largely to the national staff. They are the same people who ran all our operations without any international supervision during the war, when we had to pull out all our international staff. So I think we describe it as core, life-saving humanitarian activities are going ahead and we are waiting then to see what the next resolution from the Security Council might have in store for us as far as any political role in the future. Michele?
Spokesman for General Assembly President
Thank you, Fred. Good afternoon. As you know by now the tenth emergency session of the General Assembly on illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories resumed this morning for the seventh consecutive year. Sixteen speakers are expected to address the Assembly on this issue. A vote should take place, we expect around 1:00, 1:30 this afternoon, maybe a little later. The draft resolution is available on the racks.
Earlier today the Assembly adopted the agenda of 158 items recommended by the General Committee and proceeded with the allocations of these items.
The next meeting of the Assembly on Monday is a very important one. Nineteen heads of state will participate in a high-level plenary meeting on HIV/AIDS. The meeting is convened to assess the outcome of the twenty-sixth Special Session and the implementation of the Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. Twelve of these nineteen heads of state will participate in a roundtable in the afternoon with civil society. It will be parallel to the plenary. AIDS has been mentioned as one of the threats to international security by the Secretary-General in his Millennium Report. President Hunte has also underlined the economic toll taken by AIDS, particularly in Africa and the Caribbean.
One hundred thirty-six speakers are expected to address the Assembly. The high-level plenary is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Even though statements are limited to five minutes, the plenary will most likely last until 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
This morning, the President of the Assembly participated in the peace bell ceremony in the Japanese Garden. He was accompanied by students from Saint Lucia in their national costumes. They were among the 400 students participating in that ceremony this morning.
President Hunte said today: “I wish that the message we ring out on the peace bell today could be a message of hope to all the people of the world that we have brought an end to conflict and war, poverty and deprivation, and deadly disease. I wish that the message could be that there is economic justice, respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”
The full statement is available to the press.
Thank you.
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