HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING
BY MARIE OKABE
ASSOCIATE SPOKESWOMAN FOR THE
SECRETARY-GENERAL
OF THE UNITED NATIONS
UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
Wednesday, July
28, 2004
ANNAN,
IN ACCRA,
PREPARES FOR
COTE D'IVOIRE SUMMIT
Secretary-General Kofi Annan
arrived in Accra,
Ghana, last night and
immediately conferred with his special representative for Cote d’Ivoire,
Albert Tevoedjre, and other advisers regarding the
summit on Cote d’Ivoire that
begins on Thursday.
This morning,
he met the Executive Secretary of the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS), Mohamed ibn Chambas. They discussed the strategy for
tomorrow’s summit, which the Secretary-General called an attempt to salvage
the peace agreement between the government, the opposition and rebel groups.
This
afternoon, he will meet the Ivorian Prime Minister, Seydou Diarra.
He will then
call on the President of Ghana, John Kufuor, who is co-hosting the summit with
him.
He is
scheduled to meet one-on-one this evening with the President of Cote d’Ivoire,
Laurent Gbagbo.
Later this
evening, he is to meet with South African President Thabo Mbeki.
Asked
whether the situation in
Darfur, Sudan, would be on the agenda during the Secretary-General’s trip,
the Spokeswoman said she would not be surprised if Darfur came up in
discussions, but added that the Secretary-General went to Ghana with the
intention to push ahead on Cote d’Ivoire.
She added
that one of the participants in the Cote d’Ivoire summit will be the head of
the African Union, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who had been reported
in the press as seeking further discussion on Sudan.
SECURITY COUNCIL TO
HOLD CONSULTATIONS
ON SUDAN
The
Security Council has scheduled consultations at 3:30 p.m. this afternoon,
to discuss a draft resolution on
Sudan.
Discussions
on the draft at expert level had been scheduled for the morning.
Tuesday afternoon,
the Security Council adopted a
resolution on the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, which extends the arms embargo in that
country for another year. It also extends the expert panel dealing with those
sanctions by another six months, and seeks a new report from that panel by 15
December.
Asked
whether the Secretary-General was urging donors to aid humanitarian work in
Sudan, the Spokeswoman noted that urgent donor response was needed for the
$350 million humanitarian appeal the United Nations had put out, both for
people in Darfur and for refugees in Chad.
So far,
only $158 million has been received, and the Secretary-General has been
appealing to governments worldwide to pay the remainder. He has sent letters
to the heads of a group of donor governments as part of that effort, she said.
SUDAN
JOINT VERIFICATION MISSION
COMPLETES
MISSION TO DARFUR;
AID AGENCIES EXPERIENCING SECURITY PROBLEMS
The joint
verification mission organized under the auspices of the Joint Implementation
Mechanism – comprised of United Nations and
Sudanese Government officials and their partners – visited the
main city in West Darfur and a
camp housing internally displaced persons (IDPs) there today before returning
to Khartoum.
The findings
of the mission are expected to be discussed at the next meeting of the body
set up to implement the Joint Communiqué signed between the UN and the
Government of Sudan.
Meanwhile,
humanitarian agencies say they are still experiencing insecurity in north
Darfur, with attacks on commercial trucking
occurring
on a daily basis in some areas.
Also in North
Darfur, humanitarian agencies report that the Sudanese Government is
intimidating and harassing internally
displaced persons (IDPs),
as it tries to get them to return to their villages. IDPs in Abu Shouk and Zam
Zam camps have reiterated that they are too afraid to return to their
villages.
In West
Darfur’s Mornei camp, one of the sites the joint verification mission visited
today, the
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA)
has been closely observing the
situation, to ensure that the Sudanese Government is not acting on plans to
forcibly return IDPs to their villages. Currently, the threatened forced
returns have not been carried out.
Also in West
Darfur, the Janjaweed presence is reported to be increasing. At Sisi camp,
OCHA and the
UN
Development
Programme staff
interviewed women who were raped,
some of whom had left the camp to collect firewood, and others who had
temporarily returned to their villages to retrieve belongings.
According to those
interviews, over the past week, at least 38 women and girls were raped, mainly
by the Janjaweed. Many were raped by multiple men.
UN ENVOY OUTRAGED AT KILLINGS AT
AFGHAN VOTER REGISTRATION SITE
The
UN Mission in
Afghanistan expressed its outrage at the killing this morning of two
Afghans, and the wounding of at least seven others, at a voter registration
site in Ghazni.
The two dead
include one Afghan staff member of the Secretariat of the Joint Electoral
Management Body, as well as another person who was believed to have been
registering to vote.
The
Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan,
Jean Arnault, condemned the attack in the strongest terms. He conveyed his
condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the deceased, and
wishes a swift recovery to the wounded.
Asked about
the impact of today’s attack, the Spokeswoman said it pointed to the need for
increased security in Afghanistan.
U.N. AGENCIES HELPING
IMPROVE HEALTH CARE IN BURUNDI
UN agencies are
helping improve health care in Burundi, in a bid to encourage refugees and
other war victims to repatriate voluntarily and reintegrate into society
there.
An estimated 1.5
million people in Burundi currently do not have access to health care.
The agencies –
UNICEF, the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR),
and the
World Health Organization – will provide equipment and essential medicine.
They will also help
with the rehabilitation of
10 hospitals
and 200 health centres, which have been ruined by a decade of political crisis
and war.
SHORTFALL IN FUNDS FOR U.N. APPEAL
FOR NORTH KOREA
There is
a shortfall in funds for the UN
Consolidated Appeal for the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),
which particularly affects the food sector.
Only
23% of what was requested in the Appeal has been received so far.
The
consequences of the shortfall in the food sector are serious, with the
World Food Programme (WFP) needing approximately 40,000 tons of food per
month between now and December.
Over the past
two months, over two million WFP beneficiaries in the west, including young
children and pregnant and nursing women, did not receive any cereal rations.
WFP adds that the average caloric intake among pregnant and nursing women is
only 70% of the recommended amount.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS
UNITED
NATIONS PROVIDES FOOD AID IN PERU:
The
World Food Programme has begun giving emergency assistance to more than
17,000 people affected by severe food shortages in the Andean mountains of
Peru. The
aid comes after the people’s livestock were killed and crops wiped out by
the worst recorded frost and snow storms for 30 years.
EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT NEEDED TO REQUEST U.N. ELECTORAL OBSERVERS:
Asked about a request from
the Rev. Jesse Jackson for
UN electoral observers in the United States, the Spokeswoman said that the
United Nations responds to requests for elections monitoring when they come from
the executive branch of a government. She added that, for a full-scale observer
mission,
General Assembly approval would be necessary.
NETHERLANDS
PLEDGES 20 MILLION EURO DONATION:
The
Netherlands has
pledged 20 million euros to support the work of the
Food and Agriculture Organization-Netherlands Partnership Programme over the
next four years. The funds will help support FAO’s work in promoting development
planning and
policy building in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General
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