DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICES OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

AND SPOKESWOMAN FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT

Following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Marie Okabe, Associate Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, and Michéle Montas, Spokeswoman for the General Assembly President.

Good afternoon.

**Secretary-Generalin Vienna

The Secretary-General met for two hours with his High-Level Panel on Threats Challenges and Change in Baden, Austria, in the late afternoon, and will also have dinner with the members of the Panel.  That Panel is going about its task of analysing future threats and ways to respond collectively to them, and is to report later this year on its findings.

Austria is the last stop on the Secretary-General’s three-week trip to Africa, Asia and Europe, and he will be back at work in New York next week.

**Security Council

Here at UN Headquarters, the Security Council is holding a public meeting on its mission last month to West Africa.  It began with a briefing from the leader of that mission, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry.  The report on the mission  -– which travelled to Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea -– came out on the racks earlier this week.

Yesterday afternoon, the Security Council issued a presidential statement on Afghanistan, in which it welcomed and supported the holding of the presidential election in that country on 9 October.  It also took note of the decision to hold parliamentary elections next April.

**Sudan - Political

Turning to Sudan, the first meeting of the Joint Implementation Mechanism between the Government of Sudan and the United Nations in Khartoum ended today.

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan, Jan Pronk, who represented the United Nations, will be in New York next week.  The next meeting is on 2 August.

Meanwhile, the Darfur political negotiations mediated by the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, opened yesterday and is now under way.  The Special Adviser to the Secretary-General, Mohamed Sahnoun, is participating from the UN side.

**Darfur Update

On the humanitarian front, access in West Darfur continues to be a major challenge because of insecurity and flooded roads.  The World Food Programme is, therefore, planning a first airdrop of 1,400 tons of food there next week.

Meanwhile, in Chad, torrential rains, sandstorms and strong winds are worsening the situation for Sudanese refugees there and hampering the relief effort.  Heavy rains in there have driven refugees out of their makeshift shelters in seasonal riverbeds, and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is now racing to transfer them to a new camp.

And in South Darfur, the number of internally displaced persons at one camp has more than doubled in three weeks.  At the end of last month, there were about 30,000 IDPs in that camp.  Today, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported the number has risen to 70,000, with more coming in each day.

**IAMB

Yesterday afternoon in Washington, D.C., the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) for Iraq released the audit of the Development Fund for Iraq.

The audit, conducted by the firm of KPMG, found that all known oil proceeds, reported frozen assets, and transfers from the “oil-for-food” programme have been properly and transparently accounted for in the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI).

At the same time, based on a review of the KPMG reports, the Board believes that controls were insufficient to provide reasonable assurance for the completeness of export sales of petroleum and petroleum products, and whether all disbursements from the Fund were made for the purposes intended.

This audit covers the period from 22 May 2003 to 31 December 2003.  Another audit, to be released later this year will cover the first six months of the year.  A press release is available upstairs and the audit can be downloaded from the Board’s Web site.

**AIDS

Peter Piot, the Executive Director of UNAIDS, told the closing ceremony of the Fifteenth International AIDS Conference in Bangkok today that it is now our collective responsibility to make the money spent on fighting AIDS work for people.

He warned that one of the main lessons of the past 20 years is that, with AIDS, “we never gain time when we wait for action, when we are indecisive, when we are divided, when we neglect rights, when we replace science by ‘feel good’ projects”.  We have copies of his speech upstairs.

Among other events related to the Bangkok conference, I’d like to highlight the pledge of $50 million announced yesterday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.  We have a press release from the Global Fund with more details.

**Côte d’Ivoire

The International Commission of Inquiry on human rights violations in Côte d’Ivoire arrived in that country today.

The Commission, led by Gerard Balanda of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is set to listen to testimony to look into the serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that have taken place in Côte d’Ivoire since 19 September 2002.  Once its work is done, it will report to the High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, who will, in turn, transmit that report to the Secretary-General.  There is a press release with more details about that team.

**Sierra Leone

And turning to Sierra Leone, a delegation from the Special Court for Sierra Leone has returned from a trip to Monrovia, Liberia, where it tried to inform as many people as possible about the Special Court’s work and how it relates to Liberia.

The head of the delegation met with the Chairman of the National Transitional Government, Gyude Bryant, who offered his full support in bringing former Liberian President Charles Taylor to Freetown to answer the charges against him.  There is a press release with more details on that.

**Haiti

The UN Mission in Haiti issued a statement condemning yesterday’s violent incidents in Port-au Prince during which a number of Haitian police officers were killed.  The Mission recalls that it is everyone’s duty to work towards the creation of a climate of stability.  The statement is available upstairs.

**Secretary-General - Myanmar

And yesterday afternoon, for those who may have missed it, we did have a statement attributable to the Spokesman of the Secretary-General on Myanmar, which reflected talks that the Secretary-General had while he was in Bangkok with the Thai leaders there.

**Humanitarian Wrap

Just a couple of other items to flag to you:  The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says it is very concerned about the effects on internally displaced people from Chechnya residing in Ingushetia following the horrific attack which took place there in mid-June, when 90 people were reported killed.

**WHO/FAO - Bird Flu

Also we have an update on the avian influenza, known as “bird flu.”  The World Health Organization warns of the possible emergence of a strain which could spark a potentially deadly global human pandemic.  And meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization is urging countries in Asia not to cull wild birds in response to recent outbreaks in China, Thailand and Viet Nam.

**UNFPA

And we have a press release from the UN Population Fund today regretting the US Administration’s decision not to release $34 million appropriated by Congress for UNFPA.

**WFP/Peru, Cuba, Nicaragua

And finally, the World Food Programme is gearing up to help people affected by the effects of freak weather In Nicaragua, Peru and Cuba.  The weather has led to severe flooding, snowstorms and drought, and the WFP will be providing food rations.

**The Week Ahead at the United Nations

And finally, we have upstairs The Week Ahead at the United Nations for your planning purposes for next week.

That’s all I have.  Michéle Montas, the General Assembly Spokesperson, is here to give you an update today on the meeting going on in the General Assembly right now.

Do you have a question for me before I turn to Michéle?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Yes.  I just wanted to know, what is the opinion of the Secretary-General on the IAMB observations of the independent audit?

Associate Spokesperson:  He does not have a reaction.  As you know, the meeting just concluded.  The report is out, and I understand the Security Council will be getting a briefing.  Let me double check the date.  Maybe that’s the time that you could have a briefing, as well.  [The Associate Spokesperson later announced that the IAMB briefing to the Security Council has been scheduled for Monday, 26 July, and that the meeting will be a private one.]

Question:  Okay. And he will make a statement then, next week?

Associate Spokesperson:  No, I am saying that the Council will be briefed on that and that will be something that you can also hopefully get a readout on once that briefing takes place.  As for the Secretary-General’s comments on this report, I have none.  Yes?

Question:  I understand that Jan Pronk will give a briefing next week.  Do you have any particulars on what are we covering?  When exactly that will be?

Associate Spokesperson:  Well, as I just mentioned at the beginning of the briefing, Jan Pronk is in Khartoum for the just-completed talks on the implementation of the joint communiqué between the Government of Sudan and the United Nations.  I think there has been a request for him to brief the Security Council.  And I think there are arrangements that are being made now.  I don’t think a date has been set.

The Security Council does have a pretty heavy schedule on Monday and Tuesday.  They have two public meetings already scheduled.  So, I’ll let you know as soon as they have scheduled a briefing by Mr. Pronk.  And we have also asked him to speak to you, to the reporters, upon his return.

If there are no other questions, Michéle?

Spokeswoman for General Assembly President

Thank you, Marie.

Good afternoon all.

After a tribute this morning to the memory of the late President of the Republic of Austria, Mr. Thomas Klestil, the General Assembly resumed this morning, as you know, its tenth emergency session to examine the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of Israel's construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank.

As you know, that opinion from the Court had been requested by the General Assembly at the last meeting of the tenth emergency session on 8 December 2003.

Twenty-six speakers are listed today.  We do expect an afternoon session.  The first speaker this afternoon will be the United States, and we expect that most of the debate will take place this afternoon.  The afternoon session will hear 18 speakers.

A number of you have already called me during yesterday and today and I can confirm that there is a revised draft resolution that will be circulated this afternoon.  And it is expected, also, that the debate will close this afternoon without a vote on that resolution.  And a vote on the resolution will probably take place on Monday.

Now, I’ll just leave this open to you if you have any questions.  I will have a revised list of speakers in a few minutes upstairs, if you want to see it; or if you want to see it here now.

Associate Spokesperson:  Any questions for Michéle?

Questions and Answers

Question:  Do you have any idea about the timing of the vote on Monday?

Spokeswoman for General Assembly President:  I have no idea.  But probably it will be 10 a.m.

Associate Spokesperson:  If there are no other questions for Michéle, have a good afternoon and a great weekend.

Thanks.

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