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 Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General and Djibril Diallo, Spokesman for the General Assembly President.

Good afternoon,

**SG at General Assembly

The rule of law is at risk around the world, with fundamental laws being shamelessly disregarded again and again, the Secretary-General said this morning as he opened the General Debate of the fifty-ninth General Assembly.

He noted violations from the massacre of civilians and taking of hostages in Iraq to the displacement of whole populations and use of rape as a deliberate strategy in Darfur.  The prevalence of such acts, he said, reflects our collective failure to uphold the law and to instill respect of it.

The Secretary-General pointed to weaknesses in the framework of international law.  He said many feel that the Security Council’s enforcement capacity is not always used fairly or effectively, while those invoking the rule of law on the Commission of Human Rights do not always practice what they preach.

He asserted, “Those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves embody it; and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to it.”

Turning to the situation in Darfur, Sudan, the Secretary-General said he will appoint with all speed an international commission to determine whether genocide has taken place there.  But he added, “Let no one treat this as a respite”, since, “regardless of their legal definition, things are happening there which must shake the conscience of every human being.”  We have copies of the speech upstairs.

**Peace Bell

The Secretary-General marked the opening of the fifty-ninth session with the traditional ringing of the Peace Bell.  This year marks the bell’s fiftieth anniversary.  The bell, cast from coins collected by children from 60 different countries, was presented to the United Nations by the UN Association of Japan in 1954.

In his remarks the Secretary-General called for promotion of tolerance and understanding among the peoples of the world.  In order to build peace and development, he said, we must work to promote unity based on our shared humanity -- in each nation and amongst nations.  The text of his remarks is available upstairs.  Also attending the ceremonies, were the UN Messengers of Peace, Mohammed Ali, Jane Goodall and Anna Cataldi.

**Hunger and Poverty Summit

The Summit against Hunger and Poverty wrapped up its work yesterday with a final declaration, in which the leaders gathered for the meeting agreed that the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals must not lag behind.  They agreed on the need to raise and improve assistance levels and acknowledged that it is also appropriate and timely to give further attention to innovative mechanisms of financing, in order to help meet those Goals.  We have the text of their final declaration upstairs.

**Sudan

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, and the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the prevention of genocide, Juan Mendez, continued their mission in Darfur, Sudan.  They were struck by the conditions of the displaced persons, the general sense of fear that these displaced persons had, and their total lack of confidence that the local authorities could ensure their security, according to Arbour’s spokesman, whom we just talked with.

Spokesman Jose Diaz said that the mission observed that the nature of violence in Darfur appears to have shifted.  While reports of major attacks on villages have decreased, there are now increasing reports of violence against individuals, such as women who leave camps in search of firewood or water, and these are more difficult to document, he said.  The mission is in Nyala today in south Darfur.

Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, is scheduled to begin a five-day mission on Thursday to Chad and Sudan, during which he will get a first-hand look at efforts to protect and assist hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people (IDP) affected by the ongoing crisis.

**Tropical Storm Jeanne

Efforts continue to assist the people of northern Haiti and neighbouring Dominican Republic in the aftermath of tropical storm Jeanne.

According to reports received this morning from the spokesman for the UN Mission in Haiti, more than 600 people have died in the northern city of Gonaives and its surroundings, while over 1,000 are unaccounted for.  The hospital in Gonaives has been flooded and only small amounts of medical supplies have reached the city so far.  Much of the care to the injured is being provided by the medical team attached to the contingent of Argentine peacekeepers.  Shelters have been organized to house many thousands of survivors, with the largest group of 600 people sheltering in Gonaives cathedral.  It is reported that the most urgent need is for drinking water, as the region is flooded with mud.

North of Gonaives, a UN assessment mission to Port-de-Paix reports that 30 per cent of the city remains flooded, while assessments are awaited from Isle de la Tortue.

The UN has also deployed a Disaster and Coordination Team to the Dominican Republic, where 11 people are reported dead, 6 missing and more than 37,000 displaced as a result of the flooding.

We have press releases from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) about storm damage in the Caribbean.

**Quartet

Tomorrow afternoon, the Secretary-General will host an informal meeting of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet.  The meeting will bring together, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, EU High Representative Javier Solana, European Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten and Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, representing the Presidency of the European Union.

**Security Council

There are no meetings or consultations of the Security Council scheduled for today.

Starting on Wednesday, the Council has scheduled a meeting each morning for the rest of the week.

Tomorrow, the Council will hold a public meeting at the Ministerial level on “Civilian Aspects of Crisis Management and Peace-Building”. The meeting will be chaired by Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Spain.  The Secretary-General will speak at that meeting.  And a background paper in the form of a letter to the Security Council is out as a document.

Then on Thursday, the Council has scheduled a private meeting on Burundi with President Domitien Ndayizeye.  And on Friday, the Council President has scheduled an open briefing on Sudan by President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, the current Chairman of the African Union, on efforts to bring peace to Darfur, Sudan.

**DR Congo

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has reported an attack yesterday against a village some 10 kilometres from Bunia in the Ituri region, that left 14 people dead, 2 wounded and 91 houses burned to the ground.  Among the dead were 2 women and 7 children.

One hundred fifty peacekeepers from the UN’s Ituri battalion were dispatched immediately to the village of Lengabo, where they remain.  While a UN team is still investigating the attack together with members of the Congolese police and judiciary, local accounts describe the violence as caused by a dispute between two communities.  Further information is available in a press release.

**UNHCR - Bosnia

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, reports that one million former refugees and displaced persons from Bosnia and Herzegovina have now returned home.  Of these, around 440,000 were refugees who had fled Bosnia and Herzegovina, and 560,000 were forcibly displaced inside the country.

UNHCR says the scale of the return clearly shows the wider benefits for the international community of devoting considerable effort and resources to resolving problems in refugees' regions of origin.  We have more on that upstairs as well.

**WHO - AIDS Africa

International health experts say expanding access to tuberculosis treatment, combined with introducing HIV testing and anti-retroviral delivery into TB programmes, could save the lives of as many as half a million Africans living with HIV every year.

The experts, meeting in Addis Ababa this week, included officials from the World Health Organization and UNAIDS; and they called on African governments to tackle the two diseases simultaneously.  Of the estimated 25 million Africans now living with HIV, about eight million also harbour the germs that cause TB.

Each year, between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of these eight million co-infected people develop active TB, and up to four million will develop the disease at some point in their lives -- but without TB treatment, HIV-infected people with TB typically die within months.

**WHO – Drinking Water

The World Health Organization has released new guidelines to help prevent water-related outbreaks of disease.  The updated “Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality” will help regulators and water service providers around the world to maintain and improve the quality of their drinking water.

The guidelines are applicable to a range of situations -- from urban drinking water systems in North America to protected wells in the developing world; and they also include new guidance for specific settings such as emergencies and disasters.  And there is more on that in a WHO press release.

**Internet Governance

Over 250 participants from all over the world attended the consultations on the establishment of a United Nations Working Group on Internet Governance held in Geneva today and yesterday.  The establishment of the Working Group was requested last December by the World Summit on the Information Society, and it is aimed at developing a framework so that the benefits of the Internet are shared equally.  Discussion at the meeting included issues such as the scope of the Working Group’s mandate, and the “mapping” of the issues under consideration.  We have more on that upstairs.

**Press Conferences This Afternoon

Finally, press conferences; we have a lot of them at this time of the year.  Starting with this afternoon, 1:30 in this room, Akira Chiba, Spokesman for the Prime Minister of Japan.

3:00 o’clock, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka.

5:50, again, Akira Chiba, Spokesman for the Prime Minister of Japan.

6:45, the Foreign Minister of Venezuela, Jesus Arnaldo Perez and;

7:30, the Prime Minister of Sweden, Göran Persson, 7:30 in this room.

**Press Conferences Tomorrow

Then tomorrow, all in the afternoon, starting at 12:45, the Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin.

2:00 o’clock, Jeffrey Sachs, the Director of the UN Millennium Project and Georg Kell, Executive Director of the Global Compact, will be here to launch the UN Conference on Trade and Development’s World Investment Report 2004.

4:30, President Elias Antonio Saca of El Salvador and;

7:00, Mr. Hatsuhisa Takashima, the Spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Japan.

That’s all I have for you today.  Yes?

**Questions and Answers

Question:   Fred, you mentioned two press conferences by Japan in the afternoon?

Spokesman:  Yes.

Question:   Is one of them particularly for a particular group of people or...?

Spokesman:  You have to ask them their reason for scheduling two press briefings in one afternoon.  I don’t know what it is, I’m sorry.  Yes?

Question:   The Quartet that the Secretary-General is going to host, is it possible to have any coverage, a press conference or something?

Spokesman:  The Quartet meeting?

Question:   Are we going to...(interrupted)

Spokesman:  No, they have planned this as an informal meeting and there may be a press release or a press communiqué, but no press conference this time.  Yes, all the way in the back? 

Question:   Twice today, the Secretary-General mentioned the work of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.  Has he been hearing regular updates of their work?  Is he having sort of preliminary guidelines of proposals that they may be offering in the future?

Spokesman:  He has met with them periodically throughout the year.  So, I think he probably has gotten some sense of the direction of their thinking.  His purpose in meeting with them was to make it clear to them what he expected from them in their report and to encourage them to think boldly and outside the box.  But I think he’s very much looking forward to seeing their report on 1 December.  Yes, sir?

Question:   The Security Council open meeting today; what time is that?

Spokesman:  There’s no meeting today.  I think these three meetings that I mentioned start tomorrow and go through Friday.

Question:   (Inaudible)

Spokesman:  That was one of them, yes.  So, if you’ll let me go over it again then.

Question:   Yes, I’m sorry.

Spokesman:  Starting tomorrow, there will be a public meeting, ministerial level, on civilian aspects of crisis management and peace-building.  That will be chaired by the Foreign Minister of Spain.

Question:   And the time for that?

Spokesman:  I don’t have a specific time.  But you can probably figure out 10:00 or 10:30, and you’ll get the specific time by the end of today.  Yes, sir?

Question:   The Prime Minister of Iraq, Allawi, is there a possibility to have a meeting or something scheduled...(interrupted)?

Spokesman:  I think you should direct that question to the mission of Iraq.  We would not relay any request from you for a MemberState.  You should deal directly with the mission.

Okay, Djibril come on up and tell us about the General Assembly.

Spokesman for General Assembly President:Thank you, Fred.  Good afternoon.

The General Debate of the General Assembly started this morning at 10 o’clock.  Before proceeding with the general debate, which is agenda item 9, President Jean Ping of the General Assembly dealt with two items.  Item No. 1 was the President extending his deepest sympathy to the Government and peoples of the Dominican Republic, and to Haiti for the tragic loss of life and extensive material damage that have resulted from the recent hurricane in those countries.

President Jean Ping also expressed his deepest sympathy to the governments and peoples of all countries affected by the recent hurricanes.  He urged the international community to show solidarity and respond promptly and generously to any requests for help from those countries.

President Jean Ping then invited the interim president of Haiti, His Excellency Mr. Boniface Alexandre to take the floor.  And after the interim President of Haiti, he invited the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic, His Excellency Mr. Carlos Morales Troncoso to also take the floor.

The General Assembly then heard a presentation by the Secretary-General of the United Nations of his annual report on the work of the Organization.

It was then that the second item was (inaudible), which is mostly an item of procedures.  As I mentioned to some of your queries yesterday, the
General Assembly does not regulate the length of time that heads of State should speak.  Suggestions are made and the speakers’ list is established on the basis of a suggested time of up to 15 minutes.  So, the President reminded the General Assembly of that point.  The second point had to do with the delivery of statements.  The President again asked members of State and government and other speakers to deliver their statements at a normal speed that will help our colleagues of interpretation to provide interpretation properly.

Third item, had to do again, by way of procedures, about the non-necessity or that it’s not necessary to address congratulations in the General Assembly hall.  And even a route was worked out in such a way that delegations can go back to their seats in the most efficient manner; following which the President moved on to the presentations which are part of the general debate.

As far as appointments are concerned, he met today, that is the President of the General Assembly, with His Excellency Ion Iliescu, the President of Romania.  He also attended the ceremony commemorating the International Day of Peace, along with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who rang the Peace Bell in the JapaneseGarden, and also delivered a message of peace.  The President of the Security Council and Mrs. Annan were present.  So were the United Nations messengers of peace that were mentioned previously by Fred.

Among the meetings, again, President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, the President of Brazil, and also President George Bush of the United States of America.  President Jean Ping will attend the luncheon organized by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in honour of heads of State and government attending this session.

And yesterday, among the leaders that he met were the Prime Minister of Japan, His Excellency Juichiro Koizumi, with whom he discussed the revitalization of the General Assembly, the reform of the Security Council.

And in the afternoon, he attended the Summit of World Leaders for Action Against Hunger and Poverty.  That Summit was attended by close to 40 heads of State and government.  An appeal was launched for additional resources and a new approach to increasing official development assistance while dealing comprehensively with the fight against poverty.

Update on the list of speakers, very quickly:  As of yesterday, 20 September, 62 heads of State, 21 heads of government, two vice-presidents, one crown prince, 12 deputy prime ministers -- again for clarity’s sake, it’s mentioned in the official documents, deputy prime ministers and foreign ministers I just used the term -- so I said 12 deputy prime ministers, 90 foreign ministers, two deputy foreign ministers, two chairmen of the delegations and one chairman of the observer delegation, namely, Palestine.

Questions please?  Yes, go ahead please.

**Questions and Answers

Question:   Even though the President of the General Assembly limited the time for speakers to 15 minutes, we saw the President of the United States took 27 and one half minutes.  Is that an exception?  Because there was no objection from the President, is that the exception, or also that might happen with other Presidents?

Spokesman for General Assembly President:As I mentioned in my introductory statement, there is no such a thing as regulating the length of time.  The list of speakers is established on the basis of a suggestion of up to 15 minutes intervention.  But it’s up to heads of State to follow those suggestions.  There is no limit, there is no regulation per se.  Yes, go ahead please.

Question:   The contents of the meeting with the Secretary-General and the Prime Minister of Japan, Juichiro Koizumi, are they available for perusal?

Spokesman for General Assembly President:I will give you in these briefings the content which are available, which are mostly, in this case, the issue to do with the revitalization of the General Assembly, the reform of the Security Council and so on.  Otherwise, other items are of a bilateral nature.

Question:   The discussions on the reform of the Security Council are not available at this time?

Spokesman for General Assembly President:Not more than I have told you, because, as I mentioned earlier in my statements, the President has been sensitized to these issues in his consultations before and after he was elected as President of the General Assembly.

Okay, thank you.

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