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
Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Good Afternoon.

**Guest at Noon

Our guest today will be Stephen Lewis, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, and he will be talking about a recent visit he made to Africa.

**Iraq

The UN team in Baghdad, led by the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, continues to work from the Canal Hotel in that city in an effort to increase UN activities in the capital.

Mr. da Silva and country team leaders from United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and World Food Programme (WFP) have been meeting today with their national staff and with NGO representatives in Baghdad.

Tomorrow da Silva and with UN country team will hold a press briefing at the Canal Hotel.

One day after UNICEF international staff returned to work in Baghdad, the agency outlined, in a statement released today, a series of dangers that are still stalking Iraqi children despite the end of the war, most notably the recurrent insecurity which is preventing the consistent delivery of humanitarian goods; the significant degradation of the water system resulting in ongoing and widespread health hazards that hit children hardest; and the insufficient emphasis on opening schools, leaving children on the streets where they are exposed to hazards.

“The war may be over but the work is far from done”, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said.  “Children are still dying, and they’re still at grave risk.  Let’s make protecting children as comprehensive and urgent an objective as ending the war was.”

**Security Council

The Security Council is holding consultations today on the programme of work for the month of May.

Following consultations, an open meeting is expected to take place to adopt a presidential statement on Burundi.

Council President Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram will be here to brief you on the month ahead.  The presidency is aiming for a 12:30 p.m. briefing.

The Council’s monthly luncheon with the Secretary-General is also taking place today and the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara James Baker is also attending that luncheon.

**SARS

The World Health Organization will hold a videoconference on Monday with members of their SARS clinical group to discuss the reported cases of relapse of the virus in two patients.  It is not clear at present whether these cases are truly relapses or if the patients were discharged too soon and so the virus is continuing its natural course, or even if they had SARS originally.  WHO is waiting for more information from the hospital where the two patients are being treated.

Yesterday, WHO updated the case definition for SARS to take into account the appropriate use of laboratory results.  It is recommending that a negative lab result alone should not be used to exclude infection in a suspect or probable case and the incubation period of ten days should pass without symptoms before a confirmation of the negative status.

We have a press release with more details.

**Press Freedom Day

Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette opened a panel discussion for World Press Freedom Day this morning, drawing attention to the 14 journalists killed, and two still missing, in the war in Iraq, as well as to the 136 journalists who were imprisoned around the world at the end of 2002.  She spoke after a moment of silence was observed in honour of the journalists killed in Iraq.

This year, the Deputy Secretary-General said, World Press Freedom Day should be used to call for action against hate media, noting the way such media helped to trigger genocide and crimes against humanity in Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina.  “More recently,” she said, “in Côte d’Ivoire, many media outlets began to use what were widely regarded as xenophobic messages, political manipulation, unsubstantiated claims and incitement to violence against individuals and groups, especially of specific foreign origin.”

We have copies of her message upstairs.

We also have messages upstairs on World Press Freedom Day from Koichiro Matsuura, the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and, in French, from High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello.

**Somalia Panel of Experts

On the racks there is a letter from the Secretary-General to the Security Council appointing four experts to the independent panel mandated to investigate violations of the arms embargo against Somalia.  The panel is to be based in Nairobi.

On 8 April, the Security Council had re-established for six months the Panel of Experts it set up last September to investigate violations of the 1992 arms embargo against Somalia.  In that resolution, the Secretary-General was requested to appoint a panel of up to four experts with sufficient expertise in the areas of armament and financing, civil aviation, maritime transport, and regional affairs, including specialized knowledge of Somalia.

**Budget

In budget news today, we have one large contribution to the peacekeeping budget.  Italy had made a payment of more than $45 million.

**Signings

And this afternoon on signings, Bulgaria will become the twenty-eighth country to sign the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court.

**Press Conferences on Monday

At about 10:50 a.m. the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard will be having a press conference in this room and we’ll make an announcement on Monday morning once we know for sure the exact time that press conference will take place.

And then, after Security Council consultations on Monday, at approximately 1:00 p.m., the members of the Panel of Experts investigating compliance with sanctions against Liberia will brief you on the Panel’s latest report.  [It was later announced that this briefing had been cancelled.]

**The Week Ahead at United Nations

And we have the Week Ahead for you, to help you plan your coverage of the United Nations next week.

Any questions before we go to Stephen Lewis?  If not... Serge?

Questions and Answers

Question:  Those journalists killed in Iraq; do you know if there are any enquiries under the Geneva Convention?

Spokesman:  Any?

Question:  Enquiries.

Spokesman:  Enquiries.

Question:  Because we hear a lot of things but no enquiries are done.

Spokesman:  I’ll have to look.  I don’t frankly know.  [He later said the United Nations was conducting an enquiry at the time, adding that Article 79 of

the Geneva Convention says that “journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians”.]

Stephen, welcome to the Briefing.

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