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

I’d like to welcome Joseph Chamie to the noon briefing today.  He, of course, is the director of the UN’s Population Division and he’s here to talk to you about world population in the year 2300, a date that none of us has to worry about in our lifetime, although Joe probably will disagree with that.

**Moscow Bombing

The following statement is attributable to the spokesman regarding the bombing in Moscow today.

“The Secretary-General was shocked to learn that the Russian Federation had been the victim of yet another act of terror, this time in Moscow, that resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians.  Terrorism can never be justified under any circumstances whatsoever.  He sends his deepest condolences to the Government of the Russian Federation and to the families and friends of those who were so heartlessly killed.”

**Sudan

I have another statement here on the situation in Darfur, Sudan.

“The Secretary-General is alarmed at the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Darfur region of Sudan and by reports of widespread abuses against civilians, including killings, rape and the burning and looting of entire villages.  Insecurity is also severely hampering humanitarian assistance efforts as many of the one million civilians affected by the conflict remain beyond the reach of relief workers.

The Secretary-General calls on all parties to the conflict to take all possible measures to reduce the impact of hostilities on civilians to the absolute minimum, including by granting humanitarian organizations safe and unimpeded access.  He strongly encourages all parties to join the peace talks in Darfur that are scheduled to resume tomorrow in Abeche, Chad and urges them to finalize an all-inclusive ceasefire without further delay and respect it.”

**SG in Geneva

In Geneva today, the Secretary-General told the opening ceremony of the World Electronic Forum that “the digital divide is not just digital; it reflects wide disparities in freedom, in wealth, in power, and ultimately in hope for a better future”.  He stressed the need for “an information society that is open and inclusive, in which knowledge empowers all people and serves the cause of improving the human condition”.  He added, “All over the developing world, as antennas and satellite dishes sprout across the landscape -- some of them placed there in defiance of the authorities –- we can see the immense thirst for connection.  Let us show that we are listening, and that we are going to help them fulfil their dreams.”

The Secretary-General began the day by participating in a high-level dialogue co-chaired by Swiss President Pascal Couchepin and Klaus Schwab, the president of the World Economic Forum, on “Taking Responsibility in the Information Age.”  He then visited the new Inter-Parliamentary Union headquarters in Geneva before going to the Palais des Nations, where he gave end-of-the-year remarks to hundreds of UN staff members gathered in the Assembly Hall.  He discussed issues ranging from staff security and UN reform to the importance of addressing the so-called “soft targets” such as poverty and hunger, unsafe drinking water, environmental degradation and infectious disease.

The Secretary-General then addressed the launch of the independent Global Commission on International Migration, saying, “Our approach to migration will be an important test of our commitment to universal values, and of our capacity, as an international community, to cooperate for mutual advantage”.

The Secretary-General then had a brief tête-à-tête meeting with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey.  Later in the day, he held a series of bilateral meetings, beginning with the President of Azerbaijan.  He is also scheduled to meet with the Presidents of Gabon and Rwanda.  This evening, he is to attend the Official Welcoming Ceremony of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), hosted by the Swiss President.

**Security Council

Jan Egeland, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, today told the Security Council that we seem to be moving into a time where the challenges of protecting civilians in armed conflict are more complex.  The threats are constantly evolving, he said, and they include new weapons, new ways of conducting war and of inflicting violence, and new ways of deterring those who would keep the peace and provide assistance.

In the Council’s open debate this morning on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, Egeland outlined eight challenges the world faces in protecting civilians.  These include access to affected populations; the security of humanitarian workers; the special needs of children; demobilization and disarmament; the challenge of sexual violence in armed conflict; justice and reconciliation; the needs of the displaced; and the problem of charges of sexual exploitation by UN-affiliated personnel.  He presented a ten-point plan for further action to help civilians, and proposed that the Security Council lead a process of consultation to identify gaps in protection.  We have copies of his remarks upstairs.

The open debate is going on in the Council right now, and a Presidential Statement is expected at the end of today’s meeting.

**Advisory Board on Iraq

The International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq met for the first time here at UN Headquarters, as you know, on Friday afternoon.  And we have a formal statement upstairs on the outcome of that meeting, at which the members chose the Secretary-General’s representative on the Board, UN Controller J.P. Halbwachs, as Chair for the first year.  The statement elaborates on six areas of discussion during Friday’s organizational meeting.

**Larsen

Terje Roed Larsen, the UN’s Middle East Envoy, is in Rome today where, starting tomorrow, he’ll attend a meeting of international donors to the Palestinian Authority.  High-level delegations from Israel and the Palestinian Authority are also attending that meeting.  Roed Larsen is expected to deliver a statement during the open public session of the meeting tomorrow morning, and we’ll have copies of that statement for you.

**Liberia

The disarmament effort being conducted by the UN Mission in Liberia has had to deal with an influx of combatants at Camp Schieffelin that exceeds the camp’s capacity of 1,000 people.  At the same time, the Mission says, combatants have obstructed the disarmament process by firing their weapons and threatening the security of people inside and outside the camp.  Because of this, the Mission held an emergency meeting today with the commanders of the Liberian Government’s forces, and agreed that the number of combatants being taken in will be a maximum of 400 per day, from 9:00 in the morning till 4:30 in the afternoon.  All disarmed and demobilized combatants will receive an initial payment of $75, as a “safety net” allowance, starting today.  We have a press release with details.

**Timor-Leste

Earlier today, in Timor-Leste, a special panel of judges convicted a former militia member of crimes against humanity for the murder of two Timorese UN workers in September of 1999.  The judges sentenced Salvador Soares to ten years and six months imprisonment for the killings.  At the time of the attack, the two workers, Ruben Barros and Dominggos Pereira, were being specifically targeted in an attack conducted jointly by the Indonesian Army and the Dadurus militia.  This is the second conviction by the special panels for the murder of East Timorese UNAMET staff since trials began.  The panel is made up of two international judges and one Timorese judge.

**Human Rights Day

Human Rights Day will be observed around the world tomorrow and a number of special events will be held here at Headquarters.  The United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights will be awarded at the meeting of the General Assembly from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. in the General Assembly Hall.

Two panels will also be held tomorrow.  The Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, will participate in an United Nations University panel discussion on the launch of the UN University book entitled The Globalisation of Human Rights, and that will take place in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium, from 10:00 to 12:30.  And then, from 3:00 to 6:00 in the afternoon, in Conference Room 2, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights will convene a high-level panel discussion entitled “Human Rights Ten Years After Vienna: Progress, Challenges and the Role of Key Institutions”.  And the HelloWorld Project will project human rights messages on the north face of the Secretariat Building, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. tomorrow evening.

**Chowdhury to chair Mauritius Meeting in 2004

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has designated Anwarul Chowdhury, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, and Landlocked Developing Countries and the Small Island Developing States, as Secretary-General of the International Meeting for the ten-year review of the Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of the Small Island Developing States.  The ten-year review of the Programme of Action will be conducted in Mauritius from 30 August to 4 September next year, 2004.  The last review was held in Barbados in 1994.

**Corruption

The High-Level Conference to sign the UN Convention against Corruption began today in Merida, Mexico, and the Secretary-General hails the Convention for providing the tools to address corruption on a global scale.

In a message delivered by UN Legal Counsel Hans Corell, the Secretary-General says, “We have come a long way.  Until the early 1990s, corruption was hardly ever mentioned in official circles, although everybody knew it was there”.  Now, he says, nations attending the signing conference are sending a clear message that the betrayal of public trust will no longer be tolerated.  We have copies of the message upstairs.

**Noon Guest

And, finally, at tomorrow’s noon briefing, our guest will be Kieran Prendergast, the Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs, and he’ll be here to brief you on the Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council on Iraq.  And we expect to have copies of that report available in my office in the course of tomorrow morning.

That’s all I have for you.  Mark?

Questions and Answers

Question:  Is it not possible for (inaudible) to brief us before noon so that Europeans can actually have the briefing before their deadlines, given the importance of the report on Iraq?

Spokesman for the Secretary-General:  Let me raise that with him.  As far as I know, his programme for the day is set.  We’ll have to see if there’s any flexibility in his programme and if he can do that.  We don’t always have to think about the embargoing of the report.  Anyway, we’ll ask him.

Question:  On another point, it’s becoming increasingly clear now (inaudible) by many members of the Iraqi Governing Council that under the Coalition Occupation they’re about to establish a special tribunal to try war crimes in Iraq.  Does the Secretary-General welcome this development?

Spokesman for the Secretary-General:  The Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights has been in touch with the Coalition, the Coalition Authority, concerning the terms of reference of that tribunal and I would direct you to the High Commissioner’s office for the views that he conveyed to the CPA.  The Secretary-General is watching this closely and is also looking to see what the CPA’s reaction to the Acting High Commissioner’s comments is.

Joseph, welcome to the briefing.

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