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 Briefing

Our guest today will be Carolyn McAskie, the Secretary-General’s Humanitarian Envoy for the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire, and she’ll be talking about her recent visit to that country.

**Security Council –- Roed-Larsen

Once again we have a narrow window of opportunity to put the peace process back on track, the UN’s Middle East Envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, told the Security Council during an open briefing this morning.  This opportunity, he said, comes about, in part, because both the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Ahmad Qurei, and his Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon, have expressed a willingness to meet and restart the peace process based on the Quartet’s “Road Map”.

However, Larsen added, the current situation remains fragile.  The only viable route, he told Council members, is a step-by-step approach, based on the Road Map, assisted by bold confidence-building measures.  For this to work, Roed-Larsen said, both parties need a determined and engaged international community to keep them on track.  In conclusion, he said, the cost of squandering the existing opportunity would be devastating.  “The current hopes for peace among the peoples”, he declared, “would be replaced by creeping paralysis and a deepening of the spiral of violence”.  There’s an urgency, the envoy told Council members, as time is not an ally for peace, as merely waiting prolongs the suffering.

The Council members are now in closed consultations on the Middle East and Roed-Larsen’s text is available upstairs.  We expect him to come to the stakeout at the end of the consultations.

**UNRWA

Three years of curfews, closures and conflict in the West Bank and Gaza have plunged two-thirds of the Palestinian population there into dire poverty, increased hunger and restricted access to health and education, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

Today, the agency launched an emergency appeal for $193 million to meet the needs of those Palestinians.  Its chief, Peter Hansen, said today in Jerusalem that “in such dark and desperate times it falls upon the international community to keep some hope alive”.

We have more in a press release upstairs.

**West Africa

The Secretary-General says that appreciable progress has been achieved in implementing Security Council recommendations concerning Sierra Leone and Liberia, but that obstacles remain in the way of efforts to stabilize West Africa.

In a report on West Africa that’s out on the racks today, he writes that significant progress made in Côte d’Ivoire’s peace process has been interrupted by the recent standoff between the Government and the Forces Nouvelles.  If allowed to continue, that situation could dangerously consolidate the de facto partition of the country.  He also urged the international community to remain fully engaged with Guinea-Bissau, to maintain the momentum generated by its commitment to restore legality and hold legislative elections by the end of March.

The Secretary-General also intends to submit to the Security Council within the coming few weeks a report on cross-border issues in West Africa.

**Secretary-General in Germany

The Secretary-General today emphasized the importance of universal values, including non-violence, respect for life, tolerance and equal rights, in a lecture at Tubingen University, in south-west Germany.

He began his lecture on global ethics, titled “Do We Still Have Universal Values?” by saying, “Let me spare you any suspense, and tell you right now that my answer is Yes!”  He said that the values enshrined in the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are no less valid today than when they were drafted half a century ago.  But he warned that we have allowed globalization to drive us further apart, increasing the disparities in wealth and power, both between societies and within them.  It’s not surprising that there’s been a backlash, he noted, in which those values have come under attack at the moment we most need them.

“So”, he asserted, “this is a time to reassert our universal values”.  We must not allow those who attacked the United States on the 11^th of September 2001, to provoke a clash of civilizations between “Islam” and “the West”, as if Islamic and Western values were incompatible.

He said that Muslims should not be persecuted for identifying with Palestinians or Iraqis or Chechens, whatever one thinks of their national claims or the methods used in their name.  The Secretary-General added that, “no matter how strongly some of us may feel about the actions of the State of Israel, we should always show respect for the right of Israeli Jews to live in safety within the borders of their own State, and for the right of Jews everywhere to cherish that State as an expression of their national identity and survival”.

After the speech, the Secretary-General and Mrs. Annan walked along the Neckar River through the old town to the more than 600-year-old town hall, where Mayor Brigitte Russ-Scherer welcomed him.  The Secretary-General is scheduled to leave Germany tomorrow.

**Cambodia

As you know, a UN team headed by Karsten Harrel has been in Phnom Penh this week for talks with Cambodian officials to look at technical assistance and practical needs to bring into force the agreement on the creation of Extraordinary Chambers to try Khmer Rouge leaders.

The team has communicated to our Legal Office that its mission is going well, and it has received considerable cooperation from the Government of Cambodia.  The team has wrapped up its work and should be returning to New York this weekend, and we await their report once they’re back.

**Climate Change Conference

In Milan, the annual ministerial conference of the 188 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change concluded today.  It adopted some two dozen legal decisions to strengthen both the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Despite some disappointment over the uncertain timing of ratifications to bring the Kyoto Protocol into force, participants emphasized that the Protocol is already changing the way we think about climate, energy and investment.

There was broad agreement that climate change remains the most important global challenge to humanity and that its adverse effects are already a reality in all parts of the world.  Many of the decisions made touched upon cooperation between developed and developing nations through technology transfer and capacity-building.

We have a press release upstairs.

**Information Summit

The World Summit on the Information Society is a pioneer summit, which has started to build an international consensus on issues such as digital governance and intellectual property rights protection, and that according to the head of the UN Development Programme, Mark Malloch Brown.  In comments to the media at the Summit, he said the Summit should be remembered not so much for what it achieved, but rather for having put these issues on the international agenda for the first time.

Yesterday, Bertrand Ramcharan, the acting UN human rights chief, voiced his concerns at the Summit about rapid advances in surveillance and security technologies that can have a chilling impact on freedoms of expression and association.  He underlined the serious responsibility of authorities to ensure that technologies are applied for the promotion of human rights and human dignity.

We have copies of his statement upstairs as well.

**UNHCR

The Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees will begin a six-day visit to Chad and the Central African Republic tomorrow, to review the Refugee Agency’s work in both countries.

We have details of Kamel Morjane’s trip to both countries in today’s briefing notes from UNHCR, which also mention the signing of a letter of understanding between the agency and Microsoft this morning, allowing Microsoft to pay for training and computer education for refugees.  That agreement is expected to open Microsoft-funded centres in Kenya, for mainly Somali refugees, and in Russia, for mainly Afghan and Iraqi refugees.

Hi Carolyn, welcome.  You’re in plenty of time, not to worry.

**International Criminal Tribunal

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia today disclosed decisions concerning the communications rights of its detainees, saying that they can communicate with their families, legal counsel and diplomatic or consular representatives.  They cannot, however, use telephone communication or personal visits to contact the media.

Those guidelines were set up in response to the political campaigns of two detained suspects, Slobodan Milosevic and Vojislav Seselj, both of whom are candidates for Serbia’s December 28 Parliamentary elections.  The Tribunal’s deputy registrar deemed that the use of its communications facilities by people seeking to participate in those elections could frustrate the Tribunal’s mandate.  We have a press release with more details upstairs.

**Anti-Corruption Convention

At the end of a three-day anti-corruption conference in Mexico, a total of 95 countries signed a new UN treaty to combat global corruption.

The “UN Convention against Corruption” –- which binds ratifying countries to a range of anti-corruption measures –- will enter into force with ratification by 30 countries.  The large number of signings has boosted confidence that enough ratifications for entry into force will soon follow.

Further information on the treaty can be found on the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Web site.  And we have a press release upstairs as well.

**TV Spots on World Hunger

In an effort to raise awareness on global hunger, the World Food Programme has added Sean Connery to a chorus of international celebrities who will be starring in TV spots to be aired in the lead-up to the holiday season.  Connery’s 30-second spot will illustrate how WFP uses every means of transport to cross some of the most hostile terrain in the world and deliver food aid to people in need.  By running the spot at a time of giving, WFP hopes to encourage viewers to rally behind its operations.

**The Week Ahead

Finally we have The Week Ahead for you, to help you cover the UN next week just before you all disappear for the holidays.

Any questions?

Questions and Answers

Question:  Ninety-five countries?  Do you have the list on the treaty to combat global corruption?

Spokesman for the Secretary-General:  I’m sure if we don’t have it in my office we can get it for you.  So just check in my office afterwards.

Very well, okay.  Caroline, welcome back.

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