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.

**Iraq-IAEA

Yesterday afternoon, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, informed the Security Council that 342 tons of high explosive materials that had been subject to IAEA monitoring have been lost through theft and looting in Iraq.

In a letter to the Security Council President, ElBaradei said that he had been informed of the loss of the explosive materials by the Iraqi authorities on October 10.  They said that the missing materials included 194 tons of HMX, 141 tons of RDX, and nearly 6 tons of PETN, all of which had been stored at Iraq’s Al-Qaqaa complex.

**Security Council-Nairobi Meeting

The Security Council began its work this morning by voting unanimously to hold meetings focusing on Sudan in Nairobi, Kenya, on the 18th and 19th of November.

In the resolution, the Council also decided to discuss Sudan with representatives of the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development at the meetings.

In addition, the Council decided to take the opportunity of the presence of the Security Council in Nairobi to discuss other peace efforts in the region with both the African Union and Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD).

**Security Council—Other

The Security Council then went into closed consultations on Western Sahara and Somalia.

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Western Sahara, Alvaro de Soto, briefed on the latest report, and a draft resolution was introduced.

Then, Winston Tubman, Head of the UN Political Office for Somalia, was to brief on the latest developments concerning that country.  A presidential statement on Somalia is expected to be read out in a formal meeting following the consultations.

**Sudan

The Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan in charge of humanitarian affairs and development, Manuel Aranda Da Silva, is travelling tomorrow to Al Fashir in North Darfur to visit the areas where the Government of Sudan has claimed that some 70,000 internally displaced persons have returned voluntarily.

The mission continues to report security incidents in Darfur.

Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie is currently in West Darfur on a three-day mission to see for herself the situation of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons uprooted by the conflict.  She will hold a press conference in Khartoum tomorrow afternoon.

**Middle East

In a statement issued earlier today in Jerusalem, the UN’s Middle East Envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, said he was deeply troubled by the continuing violence in the Gaza Strip.

Roed-Larsen added that he deplored the loss of life during the renewed military operation that began Sunday and ended this morning, resulting in the death of at least 17 Palestinians, as well as the destruction of houses and the levelling of agricultural land.

He reiterated his call on Israel, as the occupying Power, to act within the framework of international law.

We have the full statement available upstairs.

**Haiti

On a visit to the Port-au-Prince port area yesterday, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdés, noted that economic security is vital to Haiti’s future and must not be threatened.

In a meeting with the head of National Customs, Valdés said he was pleased that the area had now been secured by UN peacekeepers and that economic activity had resumed in both the port and the customs authority.  This was allowing food aid, which had been blocked in the port for some time, to be distributed to those in need.  Valdés stressed the continuing efforts of the World Food Programme to distribute food to those affected by the flooding in the Gonaïves area.  More information is available in a press release.

On another note related to Haiti, the Mission reports that 110 members of a Jordanian-formed police unit arrived in Port-au-Prince yesterday to join the peacekeeping operation.

**Human Rights

Tomorrow, High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour will launch the Secretary-General’s reform initiative on strengthening UN country-level support for the promotion and protection of human rights.  The launch of the initiative, known as “Action Two” will take place in Conference Room 4 from 1:15 p.m. to 2:20 p.m., and the Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Fréchette, will attend the event.

Immediately following the launch, Arbour will give a press conference here in this room at 2:25 p.m. Also appearing at the press conference will be UN Development Programme Administrator Mark Malloch Brown; Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland; and UN Children’s Fund Executive Director Carol Bellamy.  All three will also speak at the launch.

And we have a note to correspondents which has been issued on this launch.

**Uganda-Humanitarian

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that a heavy rainstorm has devastated the largest camp for war-displaced people in northern Uganda.

Camp officials have underscored a need for tarpaulins, food, non-food items, and a mobile clinic in the camp, which is home to 62,000 displaced persons.

**UNICEF/Laos

A new study by UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and the Government of Laos says that child trafficking is an important problem for that country and it requires urgent action.

While it has been known that a large part of the world’s trafficking in women and children occurs in or from East Asia, it is only now that the extent of the problem in Laos is being grasped.

And we have more in a UNICEF press release upstairs.

**Staff Recognition

Right now, in Conference Room 4, the Secretary-General is hosting an awards ceremony honouring staff members who have served 25 years or more at the United Nations.

He is to tell them that, like them, he is an old-timer, who personally knows the meaning of at least 25 years of service in the Secretariat.  He will tell them, “Together, we have lived through a quarter-century of almost dizzying change.”  And we will have the transcript of his remarks available shortly.

**Press Conferences

Finally, press conferences tomorrow, 10 a.m., Ambassador Philippe Djangoné-Bi of Côte d’Ivoire, will brief you on the current situation in his country.

And then at 3:30 p.m., Theo van Boven, the Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, will be here to talk to you following his report to the General Assembly’s Third Committee.

That’s all I have for you. No questions?  Then I’ll ask Djibril to come up and brief you on the General Assembly.

Spokesman for General Assembly President

Thank you very much, Fred.  Good afternoon.

Among the items being reviewed by the General Assembly today there is the item entitled “International Year of Sport and Physical Education”.  You will remember that this item was included in the provisional agenda of the fifty-eighth session of the General Assembly at the request of Tunisia.  The draft resolution introduced on this item encourages the United Nations to develop strategic partnerships with the range of stakeholders involved in sport, in order to assist in the implementation of sport for development programmes.  This is also viewed as a major item in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals.  It invites the governments to accelerate the elaboration of an international anti-doping convention, and decides to proclaim 2005 the International Year of Sports and Physical Education as a means to promote education, health, development and peace.

At a date to be decided very soon, Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the former President of Switzerland, Adolf Oggi, who is the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser in this area, together with UN funds and agencies and partners, will have a press conference to launch the year.  And we will come back to you as soon as the date of that press conference is decided on.

The work of the Committees:  I’ll start with the Third Committee, the Social, humanitarian and Cultural Committee, started its discussions yesterday on human rights issues.  Speakers stressed the need to protect the human rights defenders and to improve further the reporting system.

The Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) was addressed yesterday by Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, in conjunction with the Committee’s discussion on the question of peacekeeping operations.  Mr. Guéhenno said that today’s peacekeeping demands exceeded what the UN or any other regional or sub-regional organizations by themselves could meet.  The department, DPKO that is, today has a total of 17 operations with more potentially on the horizon, and if the demand remained constant over the five coming years there would be a serious resource deficit in the field.

And more information is available in a press release, upstairs, in our office.

The Sixth Committee yesterday completed the draft text on jurisdictional immunities of States and their property.  The text is now ready for adoption by the General Assembly.  The negotiations on the text, you will recall, began in 1977 when the General Assembly recommended that the International Law Commission take up the study of the law of jurisdictional immunities of States and their property.

Among the activities of the President of the General Assembly, Jean Ping, two items that I would like to draw to your attention.  One is that he will have a working lunch with the Deputy Secretary-General, Mrs. Louise Fréchette, and senior officials of the United Nations today, and he will meet this afternoon with the Secretary-General as part of his efforts to strengthen consultation between the General Assembly, the United Nations Secretariat and various programmes and funds.  The President stressed the fact that the fifty-ninth session of the General Assembly is a particularly challenging session, which, apart from the normal work of a General Assembly session, has to review several reports.  Those reports will have a major impact on the work of the United Nations and on the work of the General Assembly as a whole.  And, in having these continued consultations, the President of the General Assembly would like to make sure that every effort is made in order to avoid bottlenecks in the issuance and implementation of the reports to be reviewed this year:  such reports as the report of the High-Level Panel, the report on the revitalization of the General Assembly, the report on the reform of the Security Council, the follow-up to the Millennium Declaration, as well as the follow-up to major conferences.

I made an announcement yesterday regarding an event with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.  I would like to say that the event will take place tomorrow from 10 a.m. to noon in Conference Room 4. And the item will be trade and development.  So, Tom Friedman will give a keynote address on that item, trade and development.

Any questions?  If not, thank you.

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