HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING
BY MARIE OKABE
ASSOCIATE SPOKESWOMAN FOR THE
SECRETARY-GENERAL
OF THE UNITED NATIONS
UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
Tuesday,
September 7, 2004
ANNAN
TO ATTEND DEMOCRACY SEMINAR IN
Secretary General
Kofi Annan is leaving for Mexico City today to attend a seminar on "Democracy,
Politics and the State," organized jointly by the Government of
Mexico and the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP).
The seminar is intended to contribute to the public debate by Latin
American countries on strengthening their democracies. It will be based on a
report issued by UNDP in April of this year on the state of democracy and
public opinion in the region.
While in
This stay in
Asked
when the Secretary-General would return, the Spokeswoman said he would be
back by the end of this weekend.
Asked if the Secretary-General would be meeting with the Mayor of Mexico
City, the Spokeswoman noted that detailed programmes of his schedule were
not provided in advance because of security concerns, although meetings
could be confirmed once they had taken place.
ACT ON
The Secretary-General
told reporters today that he expects the Security
Council to take action on his report on Sudan
within the next week, and argued that “we believe that more can and should
be done” on the security front in that country.
The
Secretary-General said that his Special Representative, Jan
Pronk, had made it very clear that, while humanitarian access has
improved, “a lot needs to be done on the security front.”
He urged
the Sudanese Government to adopt a strategic approach to bring peace to the
whole of
In response to questions about the meetings he had on Sudan Tuesday morning,
the Spokeswoman said that the Secretary-General and John Garang, leader of the Sudan People's
Liberation Movement, today discussed the Naivasha peace process and the
prospects for completing it. They
also discussed
intensify efforts to complete the Naivasha process and seek a solution to
the
The Secretary-General also met El Sadiq El Mahdi, former Prime Minister
of
PEACE TALKS DISCUSS PROTOCOL ON SECURITY ISSUES
The
parties to the political talks on the Darfur
crisis taking place in
Abuja
Nigeria
discuss a draft protocol on security issues prepared by the African Union
mediation together with the United Nations and other partners. The issues on
contention include disarmament and monitoring.
The mediation with the support of the partners is trying to assist the
parties -- the
Government of the Sudan and the two rebel groups,
Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A)
and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)
-- to reach
what could be a viable compromise.
On the
humanitarian front, the World Food Programme
(WFP) said that in
August, it had been able to reach almost one million persons in
especially difficult and dangerous working conditions.
The good
news was that WFP had reached the almost one million persons, but the bad
news was that it had not reached its goal of 1.2 million. The obstacles in August were particularly bad, including the rainy
season, insecurity and the shortage of funds.
GOVERNMENTS SHOULD REFRAIN
FROM TAMPERING WITH CONSTITUTIONS
The Secretary-General
was asked, on entering the building, about the situation in
The
Constitution is for the long-term interest of the nation and should not be
changed to suit the needs of one individual, he said.
Asked about
the
Concerning
comments made at last week’s Republican National Convention, he said that,
regardless of statements made during elections, every country, including the
Asked about
a theme for this year’s General
Assembly, he said, “It would not be bad if we all concentrated on the
rule of law.”
PRIORITIES TO IRAQI GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Over the last three days, the Secretary-General’s
Deputy Special Representative in Iraq,
Ross Mountain, held a series of meetings with Iraq’s President Ghazi Al
Yawer, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salah and
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari – among others.
Mountain reiterated the UN's current priorities – elections and the
political process, and the humanitarian/reconstruction work of the UN
System. He also discussed the
preparatory work for the forthcoming elections and the support the United Nations is extending to the relevant Iraqi institutions.
Foreign Minister Zebari said the UN’s return was long overdue, as the
international organization is and will be necessary to energize the
political and reconstruction process in
Also on
Asked
how many UN staff members have re-entered
SITUATION IN
The Secretary-General said
it is encouraging that the overall situation in Haiti
has become calmer and more stable – but it is clear that international
efforts to help the country must be accompanied by sustainable economic
development and income-generating activities.
That is one of the conclusions of the Secretary-General’s latest
report on the UN
Mission in Haiti, which is out on the racks today.
In it, the Secretary-General also appeals for donors to deliver on
commitments made at the Donors Conference in July in a timely manner.
In addition, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Haiti, Juan
Gabriel Valdes, addressed political leaders, civil society and
representatives of international organizations during the opening of a
workshop over the weekend, organized by the Provisional Electoral Council in
order to initiate discussions concerning Haiti’s democratic elections next
year.
MILLENNIUM GOALS,
BUT POOREST NATIONS LAGGING
Developing countries are reducing extreme poverty, extending
access to primary education and alleviating disease and hunger in many parts of
the world, in pursuit of targets set in the year-2000 UN Millennium
Declaration.
Those are some of the findings of the Secretary-General's
annual progress report
on the implementation of the Declaration, which is out today.
But the UN warns that progress has been hardest to come by in the
poorest nations: those that are landlocked or least developed, and those
that are in sub-Saharan
reversals.
There are eight Millennium
Development Goals, derived from the Declaration, which set targets for
progress in areas ranging from poverty to disease – most of the targets
call for substantial improvements by 2015, compared with 1990.
UNITED NATIONS TO PROTEST
SHOOTING OF CHILD
IN
IN
The UN
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
reports that a
child sitting in the classroom of a UN-flagged school in
The Israeli fire towards Khan Yunis was in retaliation for a Palestinian
Kassam rocket which had been fired towards the settlement of Neve Dekalim.
Following the incident, UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Peter
Hansen said the agency would protest this incident to Israeli
authorities in the strongest possible terms.
He added that this kind of live firing into refugee camps is so
indiscriminate that it makes classrooms dangerous for 10-year old children,
and is totally unacceptable.
RELEASE OF
The
Secretary-General is relieved
to learn of the release yesterday of Private Rashid Zahidi, a member of the
Moroccan contingent serving with the United
Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC).
The
Moroccan soldier had been detained by elements belonging to the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) since 2 September.
The
Secretary-General concurs with the Transitional Government’s communiqué
of September 6 that such an act also constituted a flagrant violation of the
May 14, 2004
"Acte d’engagement" signed by the leaders of
armed groups in Ituri, and calls on all concerned to recommit themselves to
bring the Ituri peace process back on track.
The Secretary-General wishes to express his appreciation to the
Transitional Government for its cooperation and is grateful to his Special
Representative for the DR Congo and other MONUC officials for their efforts
to obtain the earliest possible release of the Moroccan soldier.
SECURITY COUNCIL TO HOLD
At
this afternoon, the Security
Council will hold closed consultations on the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
Security
Council
members are expected to discuss a draft resolution concerning the proposals,
included in the Secretary-General’s
recent report,
on the strengthening of the mandate of the UN Mission in that country.
DESERT LOCUST CAUSING
SIGNIFICANT CROP DAMAGE IN
The latest estimate of the UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that some 4.3
million hectares of crops in
Africa
to be treated with pesticide to protect them from desert
locust swarms. So far less than 3% of that total has actually been
treated.
Many of the major donors are concerned with the consequences of using up
to 4 million liters of pesticide in the affected areas. They have requested
that funds be set aside to monitor and evaluate the short- and long-term
effects of the pesticides on humans, the environment, livestock, and
wildlife. As of 26 August, some $37 million have been made available. $100
million dollars is still needed to avoid the full-scale disaster that
affected 28 countries between 1986 and 1990.
CAMPAIGN
FOR
WHO
LAUNCHES PRINCIPLES ON AGEING FOR HEALTH CARE CENTRES:
More
than one billion people will be over 60 years old by 2025 and, as populations age,
the burden of chronic diseases will increase. So in order to help tackle the
public health implications of ageing, the World
Health Organization yesterday launched
new general principles that will serve as guidelines for community-based
Primary Health Care centres. Currently, there are 600 million people around the
world aged 60 and over – this figure is expected to reach two billion by 2050,
with the vast majority in the developing world.
2004
STURGEON STOCKS RELEASED:
The Secretariat of the Convention on International
Trade in Wild Species of Fauna and Flora
– administered by the UN
Environment Programme (UNEP) – published today the
2004 export quotas for three
countries that jointly manage the sturgeon stocks that spawn every year in the
UNEP said that
although Black Sea caviar and sturgeon represent a small percentage of the
global trade in these valuable wildlife products – it is encouraging that
Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia and Montenegro have worked together successfully to
comply with the conservation requirements that governments must now meet before
they can obtain their annual quotas.
FORMER
LIBERIAN PRESIDENT GIVES UP WEAPONS:
Liberia’s
immediate former President, Moses Z. Blah, who took over from exiled President
Charles Taylor in August last year, surrendered
his weapons to Force Commander Lt.-Gen.Daniel Opande, of the UN
Mission in Liberia, at his residence in Monrovia today, five days after the
Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Jacques
Paul Klein, announced the intended conclusion of the disarmament programme
in the country within two months.
ERITREAN
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