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.

**Secretary-General on Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire

Sudan is indicating that it wants to comply with the Security Council’s demands on Darfur and is “moving in the direction of implementation” of the Council’s recent resolution, the Secretary-General told reporters.

Speaking to the press on entering the Building, he noted that the Joint Implementation Mechanism, co-chaired by his Special Representative Jan Pronk and the Sudanese Foreign Minister, Mustafa Ismail, had met yesterday to go over what further steps the Sudanese Government can take to protect the population.

The Secretary-General said that the Security Council wants to see “results on the ground” within a month, and added that there had been some confusion over a separate, 90-day plan for the humanitarian community to provide assistance in Darfur.  He affirmed that Sudan must show that it is serious within a month, and “this has to be seen by the people, and felt by the people, not by public declarations”.

Asked about the agreement on Côte d’Ivoire reached last week in Accra, Ghana, the Secretary-General said that pressure must be maintained on Ivorian leaders to implement it.  He added, “We all hope that, this time around, it is serious and they are going to go back and honour their commitments”.

We have the text of that press encounter upstairs.

**UNHCR-Chad

The United Nations refugee agency reports that humanitarian supplies from Denmark are now being airlifted by the French military to the eastern Chadian town of Abeche.

The French military began airlifting some 40 metric tons of humanitarian material over the weekend from the capital, N’Djamena, to Abeche.  The airlift is drastically cutting transport times to the east for the supplies, which otherwise would have to come in by truck over roads in very bad condition.  Once unloaded in Abeche, the materials are being flown to the refugee camps on helicopters.  The airlift, which began Saturday, is scheduled to run through today.

The airlifted supplies include cholera medical kits, badly needed telecommunications equipment, basic medical kits, fuel bladders and other relief items.

More information is available in the briefing notes from the United Nations refugee agency.

**Côte d’Ivoire

The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) reports today that a human rights mission it had sent to the northern area of Korhogo had confirmed the existence of three mass graves, containing at least 99 bodies.

Some of the victims appear to have been killed by gunfire, while, according to credible accounts from witnesses, others were strangled.

The United Nations human rights mission had been sent to the area following reports of grave human rights violations during clashes between rival groups of the Forces Nouvelles in Korhogo.  The team visited the area twice, between 1 and 12 July, and then from 22 to 26 July.

The human rights team also expressed concern about people who have been detained since those clashes.

The mission will submit a final report on its findings shortly, transmitting it to the national authorities and the concerned parties.

**Security Council

The Security Council began its work for the month this morning by holding consultations on the programme of work for August.

Russian Ambassador Andrey Denisov, the Council’s President for the month, will be presenting his credentials to the Secretary-General in a few minutes from now.  And then, at 1:00, he’ll come to this room to talk to you about the programme of work.

Tomorrow morning, after it considers a presidential statement on the two international Tribunals in a formal meeting, the Council will hear a briefing from the Secretary-General in closed consultations.  He will discuss his recent trip to Accra, Ghana, during which he discussed Côte d’Ivoire and Sudan with African leaders.

**United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)

The Secretary-General’s latest report on the United Nations Mission in Kosovo is out today.

In it, he says that while progress has been made in some priority areas, much still remains to be done to repair the physical and psychological damage that resulted from the violence last March.

He points out that attempts by the Kosovo Assembly to amend Kosovo’s Constitutional Framework are clearly outside of its competencies –- and reflect a worrying unwillingness to focus on Kosovo’s immediate priorities.

The Secretary-General also notes that he has received the recommendations put forward by Ambassador Kai Eide following his comprehensive review of the policies and practices of all actors in Kosovo.

The Security Council is scheduled to hold an open meeting on Kosovo this Thursday.

**UNCTAD

The head of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Rubens Ricupero, today welcomed the progress made in the resumption of Doha negotiations during the World Trade Organization’s General Council meeting last Saturday.

Ricupero says that the agreement reached last weekend reaffirms the value of multilateralism in the area of trade, while re-establishing the viability of the Doha work programme.  Also, the decision reached last weekend represents forward movement in several areas, he said, particularly in agriculture.

We have a press release from UNCTAD with more information.

**Polio Initiative

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative has welcomed the resumption of polio immunization campaigns in the Nigerian state of Kano.

The United Nations-backed Initiative says that Kano's decision to vaccinate children comes at a critical time in the polio eradication programme, as sub-Saharan Africa is on the verge of the largest polio epidemic in recent history.

Cases recorded in the region are five times that for the same period in 2003, due to an earlier outbreak originating from Kano and surrounding states.

We have more on that.

**WFP-Bangladesh

The World Food Programme (WFP) is calling for vigilance in Bangladesh in the wake of that country’s worst flooding in six years.

WFP says that while the flood waters are currently receding, Bangladesh may be in for a cataclysmic flood in mid-August, when the next monsoon rains won’t be unable to drain into the waterlogged ground.

In the meantime, WFP has been distributing existing food supplies to 1.8 million people, while at the same time calling on donors to support its steadily mounting relief campaign.

We have more on this in a WFP press release upstairs.

**WFP-PalestinianTerritories

While on the World Food Programme, the agency announced today that it will extend its emergency operation in the Palestinian territories for a further 12 months.

Under the new operation, valued at $41 million, WFP will provide relief food distribution almost half a million people facing severe hardship there.

According to WFP, more than a third of the population is estimated to be food insecure, and another quarter of the population is considered at risk.

**Commemoration of first anniversary of Baghdad Bombing

A ceremony to commemorate the first anniversary of the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad will take place in the United Nations Trusteeship Council Chamber this 19 August, starting at 8:30 a.m.

A plaque dedicated to those who died in the explosion will be unveiled in the presence of Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette.  And in Geneva, the Secretary-General will speak at a similar ceremony, which will be connected by live video-link to the one in New York.

The commemorative plaque and the flag that had flown over the Canal Hotel in Baghdad will subsequently be mounted in the Visitors Lobby.

**Press Conference

Finally, a press conference tomorrow by Francis Deng, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Internally Displaced Persons.  And he will talk to you here at 12:30 to brief you on his recent visit to Sudan.

That’s all I have for you. 

Richard, you’ll break the silence.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  I’m good at that.  We neglected to ask the Secretary-General what he thought, or what the United Nations thinks, of the place now known as the “Annan camp”, or the “Annan people”, the lost people in Sudan, the camp the Secretary-General was going to visit.  You were on that trip.  Does the United Nations have any sense of belonging to these people?  What happened to them?

Spokesman:  Well, as you know, when the Secretary-General arrived at this camp, which was not a formally established camp, the United Nations or none of the NGO aid agencies had a presence in the camp.  It had cropped up spontaneously I think just four days before the Secretary-General’s arrival.  But anyway, when he arrived at that site the camp had been vacated, apparently over night, apparently by the Sudanese Government.

We subsequently found, and I think this was sometime the next day, that the persons in that camp had been moved to a well-established camp nearby.  But, as was pointed out in the article that appeared today, it appears that they still haven’t been registered or incorporated into that camp.  That well-established camp at the time, we were told, was full to the maximum, so there was no room in that camp for these additional refugees.  I have nothing actually further on it.

Question:  Fred, it’s been a while since we heard about the electoral process in Iraq and how the United Nations team is doing.  My question is predicated by last week’s United Nations suggestion that the conference been postponed for two weeks -– the national conference.  Are the conditions that led the United Nations to make that recommendation -- might they also affect the timetable for elections?  Are Carina Perelli and her people out there right now?  Are they still sticking to their timetable? 

Spokesman:  I think it might be better if we get Carina Perelli to come in to talk to you.  I saw her walking into the Building this morning, so I know that she’s here, and not in Iraq.  I haven’t heard any mention from our electoral assistance team that any thought was being given to postponing the elections. 

The reason for the postponement of the national conference by two weeks was the judgement on our part essentially that more time was needed to make that exercise more representative than it would have been, had it happened on schedule this past weekend.  So I know we’re still working closely with the Iraqis to broaden the representation at the national conference when it does take place.

But if you’d like, we’ll ask Carina Perelli if she would come down and talk to you?  OK, we’ll do that.

Question:  Is there a reaction from the Secretary-General on the discovery of mass graves in Côte d’Ivoire?

Spokesman:  We only just got the report on that this morning -- the written report –- so I think he would want to study it before reacting.

Question:  I don’t know if this is known.  There was a story of the Pakistani Information Minister saying Pakistan would not send troops to Iraq.  Do you have a reaction?  Is that the official Pakistan word?

Spokesman:  I don’t know that we’ve had anything official from Pakistan.  I saw that report, but I would have to check whether they have communicated directly with us.

Question:  Is Ambassador Qasi going to Iraq?

Spokesman:  The Secretary-General says that he expects the Special Representative to Iraq to go to Iraq for the National Conference -- so sometime just prior to the beginning of the National Conference.

Thank you very much.

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