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.

**Iraq

UN humanitarian operations in Iraq are continuing to intensify day by day as international staff returns to the country.

In Baghdad today, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, held a symbolic ribbon-cutting ceremony at the local offices of the World Health Organization to express the UN’s appreciation to the national staff for the job they did rehabilitating the offices, which had been severely looted.

Unfortunately, the damage to other UN system offices was severe.  As the UN team moved into the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) compound, which also hosts the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), International Telecommunications Union, United Nations Human Settlements Programme
(UN-Habitat) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) offices, it saw the results of looting:  furniture, equipment, doors, windows are all gone.  Out of the five buildings, only one has not been burnt.  All others are seriously damaged.

During a press briefing in Baghdad on Saturday, Lopes da Silva said he will meet in the coming days with the Iraqi bureaucrats in various technical ministries so they can guide the UN in trying to establish urgent needs and how they can best be addressed.  Lopes da Silva said that in that process his office intends to establish a collaborative relation with the United States-run Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.  “Our aim here”, he said, “is not to replace the administration...  Our duty is to fill gaps, not to duplicate efforts.”

Over the weekend, the UN established a permanent presence of humanitarian staff in Basra.  Twenty-five staff from the Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, the UN Children’s Fund and the World Food Programme arrived in Basra from Kuwait to set up offices and living accommodation in the city.  The UN will help coordinate emergency relief efforts, working with
non-governmental organizations and liaising with local authorities in Basra to evaluate critical needs and provide targeted assistance to those most in need.

**IAEA/Iraq

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said over the weekend that it found reports that there had been looting at Iraq’s nuclear facilities disturbing, and it has requested that the United States confirm the situation and allow for an IAEA team to investigate.

IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, in a letter, requested that the United States allow an IAEA investigative mission to find out what the state of

Iraq’s nuclear facilities is.  The Agency has not yet received a response to that letter.

Last month on 10 April, ElBaradei had written to the US Government, asking that it ensure the security and safety of all the nuclear material in Iraq, which has been under IAEA seal since 1991.  ElBaradei indicated that, until the Agency’s inspectors return to Iraq, the US has responsibility for maintaining security at Iraq’s nuclear storage facilities.

**Middle East/Road Map

The Middle East Diplomatic Quartet is meeting at the envoy level today in Tel Aviv.  This includes the UN envoy, Terje Roed Larsen, Russian Envoy
Andrei Vdovin, European Union Envoy Miguel Moratinos and US Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burns.  They are to discuss how to move ahead with the implementation of the Road Map.

**Wall/Israel

International donors to the Palestinians yesterday released a report detailing the socio-economic impact of Israel’s construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank.  The donor community commissioned the report because of concern that the wall could harm Palestinian livelihoods and the viability of local economies, and that it might have a negative impact on the delivery of humanitarian aid and could also damage assistance projects.

The 67-page report says that, in some places, the Wall is located as much as six kilometres inside the West Bank.  When completed, as many as approximately 12,000 Palestinians could be left on the western side of the Wall, facing Israel, cut off from their land, workplaces and essential social services.

The separation barrier is a complex series of walls, barriers, trenches and fences commonly referred to as “the Wall.”  Israel began construction of it in summer 2002 in the context of continuing violence and terror attacks against its civilians.  The report was written by humanitarian experts from the European Union, Norway, the United States, the United Nations and the World Bank.

A press release, as well as a limited number of copies of the report, are available upstairs.  The report is also available on the UN’s humanitarian Web site, ReliefWeb.

**Security Council - Liberia

At 3:00 p.m. today, the Security Council is scheduled to hold consultations to review sanctions on Liberia.  Members of the independent panel of experts whose report is out today will be present.

The report says that Liberia's conflict is spilling over into neighboring countries and poses new risks of a vicious cycle of violence in the subregion.  It notes that “Armed youths from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and now
Côte d’Ivoire, who have become accustomed to a life of conflict, banditry and lawlessness have joined armed groups in Liberia and in western Côte d’Ivoire.”

The panel makes a number of observations and recommendations regarding violations of the arms embargo, control of diamonds, government accounting and civil aviation in Liberia and in the subregion.  On the humanitarian front, the panel notes that, in recent months, many humanitarian agencies have withdrawn most of their staff because of the widening conflict and because the Government is unable and unwilling to provide for the basic needs of Liberians.

The World Food Programme today demanded the Liberian Government provide security guarantees before the resumption of food distributions to refugees and internally displaced people in camps near the capital, Monrovia.

**Sierra Leone Special Court

Yesterday afternoon in Freetown, Sierra Leone, David Crane, the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, offered specific details regarding the whereabouts of the two remaining indictees who are not in the Court’s custody, Johnny Paul Koroma and Sam Bockarie. 

Crane said he had credible information that, as of Sunday morning, Koroma was in the Foya Kamala area in Liberia’s Lofa County, and Bockarie was in Kahnple, a small village in Nimba County, also in Liberia.  He called on Liberian President Charles Taylor to arrest and turn over the two indicted war criminals.  The Court’s Chief of Investigations, Alan White, said that both men were reportedly accompanied by armed rebels belonging to Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front.  We have a press release from the Court with more information.

**MONUC

In Bunia, in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, five persons were killed and many others wounded during armed clashes on Saturday.

Firefights broke out in a number of neighbourhoods during the morning hours.  There was also specific targeting of facilities belonging to the UN mission in the DRC.  The Uruguayan peacekeeping contingent, which was in the local UN mission headquarters, returned fire when fired upon.  The UN mission says that at least 50 civilians, mostly women and children, are being housed in a UN compound after seeking the protection of peacekeepers.

In a separate incident, a UN facility used by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was subsequently looted.  No UN staff were injured during the weekend’s fighting.  According to the UN mission, the fighting took place between armed Lendu and Hema groups, which are vying for the control of the town in anticipation of the complete withdrawal of Ugandan forces.

The UN mission in the DRC, in a statement issued yesterday, strongly denounced these clashes, which constitute an unacceptable violation of the ceasefire agreement signed on 18 March.  The mission chief Military Force Commander, General Mountaga Diallo, will travel to Bunia tomorrow as part of the mission’s efforts to address this problem at the highest level.  There is more information in a press release upstairs.

**Kenya - Humanitarian

The UN refugee agency began airlifting much-needed supplies for thousands of refugees rendered homeless by massive flooding in Kenya's Dadaab camp close to the border with Somalia after heavy rains wrecked their homes four days ago.

Garissa district, where the three-camp Dadaab complex for 130,000 refugees is located, is considered one of the worst flood-affected areas in north-eastern Kenya.  Last week's flooding was caused by the Tana River bursting its banks into the valley where the camps are located.

**Afghanistan

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, is in New York to brief Security Council members tomorrow.

In weekend news from Kabul, the UN mission in Afghanistan reports that a vehicle belonging to the Afghan Development Association (ADA), a demining
non-governmental organization, was shot at by unknown assailants on the main Kabul to Kandahar road.  The driver, an Afghan national was killed instantly in the Saturday evening incident and one of the two passengers (both national staff) was seriously injured.

The mission also reports that Afghanistan is to take a major leap toward entering the age of digital communication with the release of an important report tomorrow by a team of Afghan, Iranian and Irish computer experts and linguists that provides, for the first time, the comprehensive information needed by software programmers and vendors to bring this country’s languages to life on computer keyboards and screens.  Until now, there has been virtually no way for the people of Afghanistan to communicate digitally in their own tongue.  With no existing software to support the official languages, Pashto and Dari, the use of computers for communication has been effectively blocked, forcing most government and business offices to rely on typewriters.

**SARS

A World Health Organization team has arrived in Taipei, Taiwan, to support health authorities in combating the SARS outbreak.  The two-person team, with expertise in epidemiology and virology, will visit hospitals and consult with local health authorities.

WHO also announced that there will be two virtual press-briefings on SARS this week on Tuesday and Thursday at 7.00 a.m. New York time.  Journalists will be able to listen via teleconferencing, and queue to ask questions.  The latest statistics indicate a total of 6,234 cases, with 435 deaths, reported from
27 countries.

**WHO Supports Production of Anti-malarial Medicine

The World Health Organization will provide technical support for the development and commercial production of a plant-based anti-malarial medicine with the highest cure rate for the disease.  The medicine is extracted from a Chinese medical plant, which also flourishes in Tanzania.  WHO plans to provide the Government of Tanzania with the process technology for the local production of the medicine.

**UN-HABITAT

The nineteenth session of the Governing Council of the UN Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, opened today in Nairobi.  And in a message delivered on his behalf by Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka, the
Secretary-General said the world expected the Programme to create a strategic vision to “guide our collective efforts to build peaceful, prosperous cities”.  He added that good governance was a crucial factor in attracting the financing necessary to improve conditions in slums and provide safe water and sanitation services.  He urged the Council to take a holistic approach that took into account the economic and environmental concerns of a city’s neighbouring rural communities.

The first order of business for the Council was the election of
Bo Goransson of Sweden as the President of the Council for a two-year term, along with three vice-presidents.  The meeting continues until Friday.  We have the Secretary-General’s message and a press release with more details.

**UNICEF

Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund, Carol Bellamy, told a meeting in Bali today that consistent investment in the social sector and in children has strengthened the Asia and Pacific region.  Speaking at the three-day Ministerial Consultation on Children, she stressed the importance of partnerships and participation by civil society in the rapid and sustainable levels of progress towards the goals set at the Special Session of the General Assembly on Children, held in New York a year ago. 

Bellamy urged the region to make a concerted effort to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the commercial sexual exploitation of children.  “All the hard earned gains for children”, she said, “in such areas as poverty reduction, education and nutrition will be swept away if we do not confront the HIV/AIDS threat with all our resources, courage and commitment.”

**Budget

We have two large contributions to the peacekeeping budget to report to you today.  Canada made a payment of more than $5 million and the United States paid more than $80 million.

**Cafeteria

Finally, in response to a flood of questions about rioting, looting and malfeasance in the cafeteria on Friday, I would like to set the record straight.  On Friday afternoon, there was indeed a transfer of responsibilities for the UN cafeteria services from the previous contractor, Restaurant Associates, to a new one, Aramark Restaurant Associates.  And in that connection, it was announced that the cafeteria would close at 3:00 p.m., but the company announced at 1:00 p.m. that staff could come to the cafeteria and not pay for meals.

The company had made it clear that they wouldn’t charge staff for meals in the main cafeteria, and that they had already shut down their registers and removed all cash from them.  UN Security was present and observed the situation.

The situation was complicated by an apparent dispute about labour conditions involving the transfer from Restaurant Associates to Aramark, and we would ask you to contact those companies and the staff union representatives directly for details on that matter.  The United Nations plays no role in the contract negotiations between the contractors and cafeteria staff.  In any case, staff have been working under normal conditions since Saturday, as Aramark employees.

We looked into reports that silverware and other valuables had been taken Friday afternoon.  UN Security informed us today that the vendors did not report any complaints about missing silverware or missing anything else. 

And as for the report that the Security Council luncheon held in the Delegates’ Dining Room that day was interrupted and that the Secretary-General never got his coffee, that also seems to be totally untrue.  There was an interruption in service, but it shifted from the staff to management and the Council members enjoyed a full meal and a fruitful discussion.

That’s all I have for you.  If there are no questions, thank you very much, we’ll see you tomorrow.

Questions and Answers

Question:  How’s the UN staff going in Iraq?  Under which guideline are they going in, because there was a guideline issued to contact the occupying power?  Is this guideline still in effect?

Spokesman:  These agencies, funds and programmes have universal mandates, and so the various agencies are operating under those mandates.  They have requested the coalition members to secure the environment; to tell them when the environment is secure.  I don’t believe they received any official notice from the coalition that that was the case.  But they did notify the coalition that they had made the decision on their own to go in.  So, they’re going in under universal mandates.

Question:  What is the status of Iraq now?

Spokesman:  Iraq is a founding member of the United Nations; it is occupied by the coalition forces and we’re waiting to see what mandate the Security Council might give for the formation of an internationally recognized government.  Yes, Akran?

Question:  You mentioned that the offices of the UN were totally damaged.  Were they burned by the people, or by the missiles or how were they damaged?  And my second question concerns the Quartet.  When they met in Tel Aviv, they

met without obstacles or opposition from the people, or how and what is the outcome?

Spokesman:  As far as I know, looters damaged the UN offices in Iraq and there was no opposition to the Quartet meeting; it’s quite routine for those four members to meet in the region.  Yes, Mr. Baresh?

Question:  I do (inaudible) that the UN has a problem with the US in, you know, in the food programme in Baghdad.  I believe that they have some misunderstanding within themselves.  They have always...  (Inaudible.)

Spokesman:  I am not aware of that.  I’d have to look into that.  I don’t know what it is, therefore, I can’t comment on it.

Thank you very much.

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