DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE 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 Richard Sydenham, Spokesman for the General Assembly President.

Good afternoon.

**Secretary-General Will Travel for Three Weeks

The Secretary-General will leave tomorrow evening for Amman Jordan, via Paris.

In Amman, he will attend a meeting of the Quartet on the Middle East on Sunday, involving the United States, the European Union and Russia, as well as the United Nations, at the ministerial level.

The World Economic Forum will be taking place in Amman from Saturday through Monday, and the Secretary-General will address the Forum on Monday afternoon.

In addition, he will have a full programme of bilateral meetings while in Amman.

On Tuesday, 24 June, he will leave for London, where he will have official meetings on Wednesday, including with Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Then he leaves for Geneva on Thursday, where he will have meetings with UN officials on Friday.

Then on Monday, 30 June he will address the High-Level Segment of the Economic and Social Council in Geneva and have other meetings there before travelling to Bern.  On Tuesday, he will pay an official visit to Switzerland, including with a meeting with the President of the Confederation in Bern.

He will take a break then for the balance of that week and then on Monday, 7 July he will leave Switzerland, arriving in Maputo, Mozambique on Tuesday to attend the African Union Summit.  He will address the Summit on Thursday, 10 July, and again will have a full schedule of bilateral meetings through his stay in Maputo.

He will leave Maputo on Saturday, arriving back in New York on Sunday, 13 July.

It will be an absence of about three weeks, with a break in the middle.

And we should have a more detailed programme available for you sometime tomorrow.  We’re still finalizing it.

**Drugs/Guest

The latest survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime on opium cultivation in Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar shows that poppy cultivation is declining in both countries, dropping by 15 per cent this year in Laos and by 24 per cent in Myanmar, compared to the levels of 2002.

We will have as our guest today the Executive Director of the Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, who will provide more details of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar surveys.  And he will be here in just a minute.

**Statement Attributable to the Spokesman - Liberia

We issued a statement late yesterday on Liberia and I would like to read it into the record.

“The Secretary-General welcomes the signing on 17 June of a ceasefire agreement by the Government of Liberia, the “Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy” (LURD) and the “Movement for Democracy in Liberia” (MODEL).  He views this development as an important step forward in efforts to bring the conflict in Liberia to a negotiated end.

“The Secretary-General commends the Liberian parties for their sense of compromise in the national interest of peace in their country and urges them to scrupulously adhere to the terms of the agreement.  He salutes the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in particular, and other international partners whose untiring support made this important achievement possible.  He pledges the renewed commitment of the United Nations to continue to work with the Government and people of Liberia, with ECOWAS and with the international community as a whole in the quest for sustainable peace and progress to Liberia.

“The Secretary-General calls on the parties to the agreement to build on the momentum created by the cessation of hostilities to create propitious security conditions on the ground to permit the immediate delivery of humanitarian assistance to civilians in need throughout the country.  In this connection, he appeals to the international community to respond generously to the request for emergency relief assistance for Liberia.”

**Security Council

The Security Council held an open meeting this morning on the Council’s Mission to Central Africa, with a briefing by the head of that delegation, French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sablière.

Ambassador de La Sablière said that the main message delivered during the Mission, which had focused on supporting the peace processes of Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was that it was up to the countries in the region to play the most important role, in order to restore peace and security.  Nothing can be achieved without the involvement of the countries themselves and all the parties in the peace process, he said.

The written report of the Mission is expected to be issued as a document on Friday.

Copies of his Council briefing in French are also available.

The Security Council today also has its monthly luncheon with the Secretary-General.

**Democratic Republic of Congo

Meanwhile, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) said that the number of cases of human rights violation is increasing in Bunia:  the systematic perpetration of arbitrary killings, rape, and kidnapping by the Union of Congolese Patriots increases the tensions in town, and induces the most targeted communities to seek shelter again in the camp for internally displaced persons at the UN Mission headquarters.

The UN Mission said that during the period from 8 to 15 June, there were kidnappings and killings every night in Bunia.  More than 50 people disappeared in that week and, so far, only five have returned alive.

Also on the DRC, the World Food Programme today launched an emergency appeal for $38 million to feed nearly half a million war-affected people in the eastern part of the country.  It is estimated that at least 64 per cent of the population there suffer from food shortages.

We have a World Food Programme (WFP) press release with more details on that.

**Martti Ahtisaari

The Secretary-General, responding to the severe drought that has devastated large parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea, today announced his appointment of former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari as his Special Envoy for the Humanitarian Crisis in the Horn of Africa.

The Secretary-General said that at least 14 million people are threatened with starvation in the Horn, with some 12.5 million people in Ethiopia needing food aid, along with some 2.3 million people in Eritrea, according to the World Food Programme.

Ahtisaari was also appointed earlier this week as one of the Secretary-General’s experts dealing with follow-up to the Declaration and Programme of Action of the 2001 World Conference against Racism.  We’ll soon put out his biographical data.

**Afghanistan

Following a daylong open meeting yesterday, the Security Council reaffirmed its strong commitment to Afghanistan, with a particular emphasis on curbing the illicit drug trade emanating from that country.

In a statement read out by the Council’s president, Ambassador Sergey Lavrov of the Russian Federation, the Council expressed its concern over the increased number of attacks against international and local humanitarian personnel, Coalition forces, peacekeepers and Afghan administration targets by the Taliban and other rebel elements.

Focusing specifically on the drug trade, the statement said the Council “recognized the links between illicit drug trafficking and terrorism, as well as other forms of crimes”, and stressed that security would be enhanced by continued coordinated efforts to combat the production of illicit drugs in Afghanistan.

The statement expressed support for the commitment by the Afghan Transitional Administration to eliminate drug production by the year 2013 and urged the international community to provide assistance to that end.    

**Iraq

Tomorrow, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, will travel to Erbil where he will meet Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, as well as a group of Iraqi Kurdish personalities.  Vieira de Mello will visit a number of UN projects in the area, before he returns to Baghdad.

For a full report of Vieira de Mello’s activities today in Baghdad please pick-up our daily report from his office.

**Secretary-General Statements

In a message to a conference hosted today by the Business Council for the UN on bridging the global “digital divide”, the Secretary-General says that too many of the world’s people remain untouched by the information revolution, and he urges the United States information technology community to bring more of its innovation to the developing world.

We have copies of that message upstairs, as well as one that was delivered in Russia today to the seventh Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.

**United Nations Development Programme

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) warns that up to a million garment workers in Bangladesh, most of them women, could lose their jobs if the European Union and the United States end their duty-free and tariff-free market access for apparel in 2005.  The UNDP’s resident representative for Bangladesh, Jorgen Lissner, says that Bangladesh will need such access if it is to protect recent gains in human development and poverty reduction.

**International Labour Organization

Noting that four out of five people in the world lack basic social security coverage, the International Labour Organization (ILO) announced today that it would spearhead a campaign to encourage countries to extend social security to more of their citizens.

The "Global Campaign on Social Security and Coverage for All" was launched today during the ninety-first International Labour Conference currently taking place in Geneva.

We have a press release with more details.

**United Nations Population Fund

Just a few minutes ago in this room, Thoraya Obaid, the Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), launched a report by the Fund and EngenderHealth on obstetric fistula, a pregnancy-related condition caused by prolonged obstructed labour.

The report says that current estimates that some two million women live with fistula are too low, with findings indicating that, in Nigeria alone, as many as one million women could be living with fistula.  The UNFPA today launched a global campaign to prevent and treat fistula and has issued a press release, along with the report, with more details.

**Nane Annan

Nane Annan will present this year's United Nations Population Awards today at 4:30 p.m. in the Trusteeship Council Chamber. 

The annual intergovernmental award recognizes outstanding contributions from individuals and organizations in the field of population and development.

Mrs. Annan will pay tribute to this year's winners -- Werner Fornos, President of the Population Institute, and the Family Planning Association of Kenya.

**Budget

In budget news today, the United Republic of Tanzania today made a payment of more than $117,000 to the UN regular budget, becoming the eighty-eighth Member State so far this year to pay its regular budget dues in full.

**Guest at Noon Tomorrow

And tomorrow at our briefing here at noon, we’ll be joined by Carolyn McAskie, the Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, who will talk about the humanitarian situation in Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Any questions before we go to Richard and then to Mr. Costa?

Okay, Richard?

Spokesman for General Assembly President

Good afternoon.

This morning President Kavan is chairing informal consultations on revitalization of the work of the General Assembly.

This afternoon the plenary will meet in open session to consider the report of the Secretary-General on review of the medium-term plan and the programme budget.  The plenary will then consider reports of the Fifth Committee including financing of peacekeeping missions.

Late last Friday President Kavan achieved one of his objectives for the work of this fifty-seventh session, with agreement on a draft resolution on integrated follow-up to UN conferences and summits in the economic and social fields.

At the concluding meeting of the ad hoc open-ended working group yesterday, President Kavan said that the working group has been “attempting to make practical recommendations to the concept of an integrated and coordinated implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the major UN conferences and summits.  We have looked at UN activities in economic and social fields”, he said, “from a new angle and identified possible ways of improving our work in order to better support implementation of the outcomes of major UN conferences and summits”.

“Even though the final text may not meet all expectations”, he said, “I am convinced that we produced an extremely good outcome which will contribute to more efficient work, better visibility and greater political importance of the United Nations in economic and social fields.”

President Kavan said that he got particular satisfaction that there was “general agreement to look at the work programme of the Second Committee” with regard to these issues and “for a possible comprehensive review of progress in 2005”.  He also pointed out that, “Improved planning in the work of ECOSOC will help the subsidiary architecture of ECOSOC to engage more fully in its work and will also provide an opportunity for the functional commissions of ECOSOC to evaluate and monitor their working methods appropriately, in light of the changes that have been made in the Commission on Sustainable Development.”

“These may appear to be small changes”, he said, “but reform of the General Assembly and ECOSOC has always taken place through small steps and I see the resolution as an important landmark on the path to a politically energized General Assembly and ECOSOC.”

He expressed his appreciation to the two Vice Chairs of the Group -– Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng of Ghana and Ambassador Jean de Ruyt of Belgium -- who presided over informal consultations and to the Facilitator, Counselor Henri Raubenheimer of South Africa.

The plenary is expected to consider the report of the ad hoc working group before the end of this session.

The text of President Kavan’s remarks will be available at the documents counter on the 3rd floor.

And coming up next Wednesday, 25 June, the plenary will hold the election for the ad litem judges of the Rwanda tribunal.

Any questions?

Thank you.

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