HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SPOKESMAN'S NOON
BRIEFING
BY
STEPHANE DUJARRIC
ASSOCIATE
SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
UN HEADQUARTERS,
NEW YORK
Thursday, April
14, 2005
HAITI: SECURITY
COUNCIL MISSION MEETS WITH INTERIM PRIME MINISTER
There are no meetings or consultations of the Security
Council scheduled for today.
All 15 members of the Security Council are in Haiti until
Saturday on a mission led by Ambassador Ronaldo Sardenberg of Brazil.
This morning the delegation met
with Haiti’s Interim Prime Minister, Gerard Latortue.
They will also attend a series of meetings throughout the day, primarily
internal meetings with officials of the UN mission on such issues as security
and disarmament, development and humanitarian affairs and electoral issues.
This afternoon, the Security Council delegation has a meeting scheduled with
the Provisional Electoral Council.
U.N. MISSION IN GUATEMALA IS AN EXAMPLE FOR
PEACE-BUILDING
The Secretary-General has
delivered his final
report on the UN mission that verified the landmark 1996 peace accords in
Guatemala (MINUGUA) saying that “Current and future United Nations operations
can take away valuable lessons from the MINUGUA experience, which stands as a
successful example of multidimensional peace-building.”
MINUGUA closed its doors at
the end of December after ten years spent verifying human rights and
compliance with other aspects of the far-reaching peace accords. The accords,
signed in 1996, ended 36-years of conflict that killed an estimated 200,000
people.
The report chronicles the
work of MINUGUA spanning four administrations, and over a vast subject area
contained in the accords. "
The accords attempted not
only to end the conflict and disarm the combatants, but to address its root
causes through public policies on everything from human rights, to police and
justice reform, demilitarization, the fight against racial discrimination and
the fight against poverty.
One of MINUGUA’s
innovations, the Secretary-General said, was the “transition strategy”
undertaken during the Mission’s final two years under which MINUGUA helped
prepare Guatemalan actors to push forward the agenda of the peace accords
after the Mission departs.
LARGE
AMOUNTS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY POTENTIAL
DISCOVERED IN DEVELOPING WORLD
Thousands of megawatts of new renewable energy potential throughout the
developing world have been
discovered by a pioneering project to map solar and wind resources,
according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The project, called the Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA), is
proving that the potential for deploying solar panels and wind turbines in 13
selected developing countries is far greater than previously supposed.
MORE THAN 20 AFRICAN COUNTRIES WILL NEED
FOOD AID IN COMING MONTHS
Some 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa will need food aid in the coming
months, according to the Africa Report,
which the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
released yesterday. The causes range from civil strife and war to adverse
weather, economic disruption, and HIV/AIDS.
Mentioned in the report are countries in
western
Africa's
Sahel region, which are facing serious food insecurity because of high prices
and food shortages in areas hit by desert locusts and poor rainfall in 2004.
WORLD’S
FIRST HUMANITARIAN VIDEO GAME LAUNCHED
The
World Food Programme today launched
“Food Force,” the world’s first humanitarian video game about global hunger.
The object of the game, which has
been designed for children between the ages of 8 and 13, is to quickly feed
thousands of people on the fictitious island of Sheylan, while piloting
reconnaissance helicopters, negotiating with armed rebels, and rebuilding
villages.
“Food Force” is available as a free
internet download from www.food-force.com. It is currently available in
English, with translation into other languages planned.
LIVELY
& ACTIVE DEBATE ON U.N. REFORM SHOWS
THAT WE ARE “AT BEGINNING OF PROCESS”
Asked who initiated today’s
meeting between the Secretary-General and the Permanent Representatives of
Brazil, Germany, India and Japan, and whether the meeting had to do with
difficulties related to Security Council reform, the Spokesman said that the
meeting had been initiated by the four ambassadors, and that the
Secretary-General regularly meets with ambassadors who have issues to discuss.
He added that the Secretary-General had put forth
comprehensive reform proposals, and that the lively and active debate
currently underway showed that we were merely at the beginning of the
discussions.
As to the subject of the discussion, the Spokesman
advised interested parties to contact the Permanent Missions of the countries
involved, since they were the ones who called for the meeting.
OIL-FOR-FOOD
INDICTMENTS REPRESENT “PROGRESS”
Asked about wire reports saying
that U.S. federal prosecutors had indicted three people for allegedly paying
secret kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime as part of the UN’s oil-for-food
programme, the Spokesman replied that the United Nations had appointed
the Independent Inquiry Committee into the Oil-for-Food Programme (IIC),
headed by Paul Volcker, to get to the bottom of any wrongdoing in the
programme, and that the United Nations is of course continuing to cooperate
fully with Mr. Volcker and the IIC.
He added that the U.S. judicial authorities were not in
contact with the UN’s legal office, and that none of the indicted were UN
officials.
The Spokesman also said that the United Nations had
always maintained that anyone who may have been found to have committed
criminal wrongdoing in relation to oil-for-food should be prosecuted, and that
what the public was seeing today, in terms of the indictments, was progress.
OTHER
ANNOUNCEMENTS
INSECURITY REPORTED IN DARFUR: The UN
Mission in Sudan continues to report on incidents reflecting insecurity in
Darfur. The mission reported an incident involving a World Food Programme convoy
this week in which one of the vehicles and the driver went missing. Regarding
the April 7 militia attack on Khor Abeche in South Darfur, the Sudanese
government has announced that it will launch an investigation into the incident
in collaboration with the African Union.
DISARMAMENT
MEETING HELD IN COTE D'IVOIRE: The Principal Deputy Special Representative
of the Secretary-General for Cote d'Ivoire, Alan Doss and the UN Force
Commander, General Abdoulaye Fall, traveled today to the central town of Bouaké
to attend the disarmament, demobilization and reinsertion meeting between the
armed forces of Côte d’Ivoire (FANCI) and the Forces Nouvelles (FN). Military
experts from South Africa also attended the meeting, which was convened in line
with the recent meeting of main parties to the Ivorian conflict in Pretoria,
South Africa.
SPORTS GROUPS JOIN U.N.
TSUNAMI RELIEF EFFORT: Leaders of more than a dozen international sports
organizations announced plans to bolster the UN’s tsunami recovery efforts,
following a roundtable held in Geneva today. The event was organized by
L’Equipe, the French sports daily, and the Office of the Secretary-General’s
Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY PREPARING FOR SEPTEMBER SUMMIT: The
General Assembly is scheduled to hold a plenary meeting tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.,
to adopt a draft resolution on the preparations for, and organization of, its
September High-level Plenary Meeting.
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