DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL AND THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT

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 Hua Jiang, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Richard Sydenham, Spokesman for the General Assembly President.

Spokesman for Secretary-General

Good Afternoon.

**Iraq

On Monday, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette will formally launch the Humanitarian Appeal for Iraq, and will call for an additional $259 million to support UN humanitarian operations in Iraq up to the end of this year.

The Humanitarian Appeal is a revision of the flash appeal issued in March, which had asked for $2.2 billion to cover needs for six months.  The revised appeal is based on a range of humanitarian needs assessments on the ground and extensive consultations, and covers revised requirements for the period from April 1 to December 31.

The Deputy Secretary-General will launch the appeal in the Economic and Social Council Chamber, and the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kenzo Oshima and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Ramiro Lopes da Silva will also speak.  Then, at 12:30 p.m. Monday, Oshima and Lopes da Silva will brief you in this room on UN humanitarian work in Iraq.

Then, on Monday afternoon, there will be a closed session during which senior officials from UN agencies working in Iraq will brief on the current humanitarian situation in the country.  We expect some 50 delegations to attend.

Then, on Tuesday, there will be an informal information-sharing and planning meeting on Iraq, taking place in the Trusteeship Council Chamber, which will be opened by UN Development Programme Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, which will include many of the same delegations attending the Monday meeting.  We have upstairs several background documents and advisories for next week’s events.

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, is travelling to Amman, Jordan, tomorrow to attend the World Economic Forum and to meet the Secretary-General to brief him on his thinking about the role of the UN in Iraq.

**Secretary-General’s Trip

We have in the Spokesman’s office copies of the Secretary-General’s address to the closing plenary of the World Economic Forum, in Jordan.  It is strictly embargoed till the delivery time, which is next Monday, 23 June, 4:30 p.m. local time and 9:30 a.m. New York time.

The Secretary-General is today in Paris, en route to Jordan for the Quartet meeting.  You can find other details about his trip on our Web site.  

**Security Council

The Security Council is holding an open meeting and heard a briefing by the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Kenzo Oshima, on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.

With much of the world’s attention focused on Iraq and the hardships faced by the Iraqi population, Oshima drew attention to the plight of civilians in armed conflict in many other parts of the world.  For example, he said, immediate international intervention is required in Liberia to stabilize the security situation, allow humanitarian agencies to assist the vulnerable, and thus prevent a further deterioration in this most desperate humanitarian situation.

Equally, the humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territory has further deteriorated over the past six months, with closures and curfews continuing to harshly affect almost the entire civilian population.

He concluded by saying:  “It is the millions of voiceless that require our attention and commitment; it is the father who is too powerless to protect his family from brutal attacks; the mother who has no access to medical care and is helpless to save her sick child; the young child who wakes up each morning faced with the trauma of war and violence and a life without a future; the teenage girl who has been brutally raped and may never fully recover from the internal injuries she has suffered. 

“These are the people who are depending on us.  They will judge our success; success that will be determined by the number of people we will be able to protect as a result of swift and decisive action.  This is the ultimate purpose of our work; the humanitarian imperative.”

**DRC

We are expecting a statement regarding the kidnapping of two UN military observers in Beni in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  But, on the ground, the UN Mission will continue to maintain a presence in Beni, in order to affect the release of the two military observers.  The UN remains concerned with the safety and security of all its personnel and those humanitarian agencies working in the area.

Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Amos Namanga Ngongi, mediated the signing of a ceasefire agreement yesterday in Bujumbura.  The Act of Engagement for the Cessation of Hostilities in the eastern and north-eastern DRC was signed by the DRC Government, the RCD-Goma and RCD-K/ML.  While this commitment by the warring parties is welcome, it is clear that the fighting has continued.  The UN Mission reports that the RCD-Goma, following its capture of Lubero, continues its move northward toward Beni and Butembo.

The continuing fighting is worsening an already grave humanitarian situation.  Humanitarian agencies report that as many as 200,000 people are reported to have fled from Lubero and other towns in North Kivu in advance of the RCD-Goma offensive.  UN agencies and NGOs have been evacuating staff from Beni and Butembo.  The area around Beni is already home to almost 100,000 internally displaced people from the Ituri district, and humanitarian organizations are barely able to meet their needs.  If the current RCD-Goma offensive continues, the likely result will be massive population movements that will exceed capacities of the humanitarian organizations active in the area.

And we have now the statement attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General:

“The Secretary-General is deeply disturbed by the news of the abduction of two United Nations military observers serving with the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) in the town of Beni in the eastern part of the country.

“The Secretary-General urges all warring parties in the area and beyond to cooperate unconditionally in the release of the missing military observers.  He also stresses the importance of complying with, and welcomes the Act of Engagement for the Cessation of Hostilities in the eastern and north-eastern DRC signed in Bujumbura yesterday, under the mediation of his Special Representative.”

**World Refugee Day

Today is World Refugee Day and it is dedicated to the millions of young people whose futures have been jeopardized by war, hatred and exile.  The Secretary-General, in a message marking the day, appealed to the international community to make “serious and sustained efforts” to solve the problems that cause displacement in the first place.

We also have a message from the High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers, who honors the courage and perseverance of young refugees and pledges to help them make the most of their enormous potential. “There is hope out there”, he says.

UNHCR also drew attention today to an op-ed by Lubbers published over the past couple of days in a number of newspapers around Europe, which lays down UNHCR's current suggestions for ways to improve protection of refugees in their regions of origin, and also for possible actions in the context of the European Union and in individual domestic asylum systems.

**Angola

UNHCR reported on two refugee repatriation operations.

It announced the launch of a major repatriation of an estimated 150,000 Angolan refugees living mainly in camps in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  The return will take place in several phases over the next two years, eventually bringing home one-third of Angolans driven from their country by nearly three decades of civil war.

UNHCR also reported that the number of Afghan refugees returning to their homeland from neighbouring countries is poised to pass the quarter million mark this weekend, bringing the number of Afghans who have gone back since the fall of the Taliban regime to well over 2 million.  UNHCR estimates that 4 million Afghans still remain in Pakistan and Iran.

**New ASG for Central Support Services

The Secretary-General has decided to appoint Andrew Toh of Singapore as Assistant Secretary-General for Central Support Services.  He will replace Toshiyuki Niwa, who was assigned earlier this year to direct the Capital Master Plan.  Mr. Toh, who has extensive experience in planning and logistics, has worked with the UN system since 1980.  We have his bio in the Spokesman’s office.

**FAO

In Rome today, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Jacques Diouf, opened the two-day International Conference on the Right to Food and the Costs of Hunger.  The conference will formulate recommendations on the right to adequate food in the context of national food security.  We have a press release on that with more details.

UNICEF

And also, UNICEF says in a press release that in Mozambique unsafe water and poor sanitation is killing almost 55 children every day.  We have a press release available in the office.

**Public Service Day

UN Public Service Day will be marked for the first time next Monday.  The Day is an effort to recognize that democracy and good governance are based on a competent civil service, and it will be inaugurated at 3 p.m. Monday in Conference Room 1, when public service awards will be announced for 14 government agencies or departments from around the world.  There is a press release on the racks with more information.

**Drugs

On drugs, five new major drug control projects worth more than $17 million were launched this week, when the UN Office on Drugs and Crime signed project agreements dealing with Central Asia with the Governments of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. We have a press release with more details.

**The Week Ahead at the United Nations

And of course, we have the Week Ahead for you to pick up in the office.

Any questions?  Yes, Edie?

Questions and Answers

Question:  Hua, could you give us any better explanation of why the humanitarian appeal is being cut so dramatically?

Deputy Spokesman:  I can’t reveal to you the details now, before the appeal is formally launched on Monday.  However, I am sure that with the press kit available upstairs, you will have more information there.  But, any questions regarding the appeal, I think, would be better addressed to the Deputy Secretary-General and to Oshima, who will be here to brief you on Monday at 12:30 p.m.

Richard?

Spokesman for General Assembly President

Okay, thank you.  Good afternoon.

In his message on World Refugee Day today, President Kavan notes that “there are more than 40 million displaced people worldwide --about half of them children”.  And since this year’s celebration is dedicated to refugee youth, he salutes “young refugees for the vital role they play in preserving the nuclear family, in contributing to refugee camp life, and in building their local communities, whether they return home or begin a new life in a new country.  After decades of civil war, 2 million refugees returned to Afghanistan and a quarter million to their homes in Sri Lanka.  In Angola, too, the trickle of returnees has begun.  But in other parts of the world, the situation for refugees worsened and is particularly dire in West Africa”. 

A further hardship specific to young refugees is the loss of the educational opportunities and the President commends the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for its efforts to mitigate this hardship.  “An impressive 1 million refugee children are currently enrolled in UNHCR-supported educational programs.  Numerous non-governmental organizations and bilateral donor countries also make significant contributions to refugee education.  Still, many eligible children are without access to this basic human right, particularly at the level of secondary education.” 

President Kavan takes the occasion of World Refugee Day to urge all United Nations Member States to live up to their obligation, as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees, to protect the rights of refugees seeking asylum.

This message is available at the documents counter and on the President’s Web site.

This morning, President Kavan is chairing informal consultations on the draft resolution on the prevention of armed conflict.

And on Monday, 23 June, the plenary will consider the report of the ad hoc working group on integrated follow up to major UN conferences in the economic and social fields, and is expected to take a decision on the draft resolution contained in that report.

Any questions?

Thank you, have a nice weekend.