HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SPOKESMAN'S NOON BRIEFING
BY STEPHANE DUJARRIC
SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
Tuesday, November
22, 2005
SECRETARY-GENERAL APPEALS FOR RESPECT FOR BLUE LINE
Secretary-General Kofi Annan
deplores in the strongest terms the exchange of fire across the Blue Line
yesterday, which resulted in the reported deaths of several Hizbollah fighters
and an unconfirmed number of wounded on both sides.
The hostilities, which were initiated
from the Lebanese side, quickly spread along the entire Blue Line with Israeli
civilian areas reportedly being targeted.
UNIFIL has brokered a ceasefire to prevent further escalation.
The Secretary-General appeals to all
parties to respect the Blue Line in its entirety. He also calls on the
Government of Lebanon to extend its authority over all of its territory in
accordance with Security Council resolutions.
The Secretary-General appeals for a
return to calm and calls on all parties to exercise utmost restraint.
ANNAN STUDYING LETTER FROM SYRIAN
FOREIGN MINISTER
Asked if the Secretary-General had received a letter from
the Syrian Foreign Minister, asking for his help in negotiating with Detlev
Mehlis, the head of the investigation into the assassination of former
Lebanese Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri, the Spokesman said a letter had been received, was being
studied, and would be responded to.
But the Secretary-General had made his
position clear yesterday in comments to the press, by saying that his efforts
were focused on encouraging Syria to cooperate fully with the relevant
Security Council
resolution.
As for how interviews would take place
between Mehlis and Syrian officials, that had to be worked out by Mehlis
himself. The Secretary-General would not be negotiating for Mehlis, the
Spokesman added.
SECRETARY-GENERAL
AND GENERAL ASSEMBLY SEEK U.N. REFORM
Speaking to the press yesterday evening,
following his meeting with the Group of 77, the Secretary-General said that
everyone in that meeting had wanted an effective, efficient United Nations
that would implement the mandates given to it by the Member States. Saying
that there were no sides and that we were all one team with one mission, he
added that the encouraged reforms should be in the interests of all Member
States.
Responding to a
question about alleged power struggles between the General Assembly and the
Secretariat, the Secretary-General emphasized that the General Assembly was
“in the driver’s seat,” and that, at the end of the day, it made the
final decisions.
In related news,
the Secretary-General and his senior management team are today holding a
one-day retreat, here at UN headquarters, dedicated to budget and human
resource regulations, oversight, and mandate review requests which came out
of the summit. issues.
Asked whether any new proposals would
come out of that management retreat, the Spokesman said the Secretary-General
met every week with his Senior Management Group and that once or twice a year,
they held a theme-focused retreat, where they could discuss issues in depth
and in a relaxed atmosphere. The outcome of this retreat would be reform
proposals that would be sent to the General Assembly over the next few weeks.
Asked about the latest developments
regarding UN management reform – especially in relation to an ethics office,
whistleblower policy, and financial disclosure forms – the Spokesman later
announced that those new policies would be finalized by the end of the first
week of December. At that time, Under-Secretary-General for Management
Christopher Burnham would brief the press.
Asked to elaborate on comments by U.S.
Ambassador John Bolton, allegedly expressing frustration with the pace of UN
reform, the Spokesman referred to the Secretary-General’s comments from
yesterday, in which he said it was not up to him to interpret what Ambassador
Bolton had said. The Spokesman added that the United Nations
was working closely with the United States, as it
was with all the other Member States, on the issue of reform.
U.N.
SUDAN ENVOY WORKING FOR ‘MEANINGFUL’ TALKS IN ABUJA
The
UN Mission in Sudan reports that the Secretary-General’s Special
Representative there,
Jan Pronk, will be heading to Darfur tomorrow for consultations with some
of the leaders of the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army prior to talks that
have been scheduled for Abuja next week.
Pronk has said that he was looking
forward to a signed and meaningful agreement in Abuja.
The Secretary-General, in his monthly
report on Darfur, said that a further deterioration of the situation there
can be averted by consolidating the progress made at previous talks in
Abuja. He called upon the international community to help implement any
agreement reached by the parties.
‘WINDOW
OF OPPORTUNITY’ STILL OPEN FOR MIDEAST PEACE
The “window of opportunity” to
revitalize the Middle East peace process that opened during the past year is
still open, the Secretary-General says in his latest
report to the General Assembly and Security Council on the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process. However, he says, setbacks include Israel's
building of the separation barrier and the Palestinian Authority's failure to
help restore law and order.
Noting the Israeli withdrawal from the
Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank in September, the
Secretary-General commends Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's political courage and
steady commitment to disengagement. He also commends the Palestinian Authority
for its responsible behavior during this period, in facilitating a smooth and
peaceful operation.
DISASTER TOLLS CAN BE
REDUCED
Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and
Emergency Relief Coordinator briefed journalists in Geneva today on a meeting
of the International Task Force for Disaster Prevention, which is taking place
over the next two days.
Noting
that, in the last two years, hundreds of thousands of people had died and
hundreds of millions of livelihoods had been lost due to natural disasters,
Egeland said that, with a more effective humanitarian system and better
prevention and preparedness systems, those losses could have been reduced
significantly.
This particular meeting of the Task
Force will be focusing on the risk of earthquakes striking “mega-cities” in
Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
HUNGER
KILLS SIX MILLION A YEAR, U.N. FOOD AGENCY SAYS
In a new report published in Rome
today,
the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that hunger
and malnutrition are killing nearly six million children each year.
The State of Food Insecurity in the
World, says many of the
children die from a handful of treatable infectious disease, and would survive
if their bodies and immune systems had not been weakened by malnutrition.
The agency says that if developing
regions continue to reduce hunger at the current pace, only South America and
the Caribbean will meet Millennium Development Goals on hunger.
GENERAL
ASSEMBLY WORKS ON REFORM
General Assembly
President Jan Eliasson is in Geneva, holding consultations on the Human Rights
Council and other Summit follow-up issues.
In
New York, this morning the first
meeting is being held of the informal consultations of the plenary on
follow-up to the World Summit outcome on development and
ECOSOC reform, co-chaired by the Ambassadors of Belgium and Mali. Member
States are considering a letter that was circulated by the co-Chairs on
Friday, proposing that the consultations ahead focus on two central tasks:
spearheading follow-up across the UN system on the Summit’s Outcome on
development and deciding how this would be monitored; and moving forward on
the agreed reform of ECOSOC. That letter is available from our office or on
the Summit follow-up website.
Also this morning, the Third Committee
is taking up a number of draft resolutions, including one on the situation of
human rights in Uzbekistan.
Tomorrow morning,
the General
Assembly will meet in plenary to
consider a number of agenda items, including appointments for various bodies,
financing of the UN operations in Cote d’Ivoire and Haiti, and a draft
resolution on the International Criminal Court (A/60/L.25). They will also
consider several recommendations forwarded by the Sixth Committee, including
for a new Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International
Contracting. This had been under negotiation since 2002 by the Working Group
on Electronic Commerce of the UN
Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL); a press release will be
available from them.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS
TROOP WITHDRAWAL UP TO
IRAQIS: Asked about a timeline for the withdrawal
of coalition troops from Iraq, the Spokesman said that the Multinational Force
in Iraq was sanctioned by Security Council
resolution 1637, which had just been renewed recently. That resolution made
it clear that the coalition forces were in Iraq at the request of the Iraqi
Government. Therefore, it would be up to the Iraqi authorities to change that
arrangement.
IRAQ MONITORING BOARD
REPORTS ‘COMPLETE AND SUBSTANTIAL’: Asked if the United
Nations was being derelict in its duties via-a-vis the
International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) for Iraq, since it was
not reporting regularly on what it was doing, the Spokesman took objection to
the phrase “dereliction of duty.” The IAMB had maybe been at fault for not
providing enough press briefings. However, the body’s reports had been “complete
and substantial.”
NO SECURITY COUNCIL MEETINGS HELD TODAY:
Out as a document is the
report of the recent Security Council mission to
Central Africa. The Security Council makes very
specific recommendations on four countries in the region.
YEMEN TO REGISTER SOMALI
REFUGEES: The Office of the High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), together with the Government of Yemen, is about to
begin a large-scale operation to register thousands of refugees in that
country, most of them from Somalia. The Yemeni authorities agreed on Sunday to
start registering at six newly-created centres around the country, the first
such exercise since the last registration in June 2003.
U.N. REFUGEE AGENCY ENDS POST-TSUNAMI ROLE IN SRI LANKA:
UNHCR has
completed its post-tsunami role as the coordinator of a nation-wide
transitional shelter effort, after the target of more than 58,000 shelters built
by over 100 non-governmental organizations was reached. UNHCR will now be
returning its focus to its pre-tsunami work of providing assistance to people
internally displaced by the conflict, and refugees repatriating from India.
MURDER OF PHILIPPINE JOURNALISTS CONDEMNED:
The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, today
condemned the murder, in separate attacks, of two Philippine journalists.
Matsuura said the murders of Ricardo Uy and Robert Ramos showed the alarming
level of violence faced by media professionals in the Philippines. He called on
the government to take strong measures to protect reporters.
U.N. CHILDREN’S FUND REPORTS INCREASE IN BREASTFEEDING:
Breastfeeding has increased by 15 percent worldwide and
has saved millions of lives, according to a new
report by the UN
Children’s Fund. The report says that breastfeeding has increased as much as
four fold some developing countries, saving as many as six million lives a year.
U.N. WORKING AGAINST GENDER-BASED
VIOLENCE: The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
today announced grants totalling $1.8 million to 24 groups in developing
countries who are working to end gender-based violence in their countries. Among
the recipients are organizations advocating new protective laws in Tanzania,
Cambodia and Nigeria; a Central American programme which will analyze domestic
violence legislation in that region; and an Afro-Brazilian women’s group working
against racism.
SPECIAL RAPPORTEURS ARE INDEPENDENT
EXPERTS: Asked about a report by a UN special
rapporteur, which allegedly said that poverty in the United States constituted a
human rights abuse, the Spokesman said he had not seen that document.
Nonetheless, it was important to note that special rapporteurs were independent
experts named by the Commission on Human Rights.
NO FURTHER NEWS ON THE MERCEDES:
Asked about a Mercedes, referred to in the
September
report of the
Independent Inquiry Committee, the Spokesman said that the deputy spokesman had
already read out a statement on this matter yesterday and that he had nothing
further to add to that.
**
The Guest at the Noon Briefing was Dermot Carty, Landmines Coordinator of
UNICEF’s Landmines and Small Arms Team. He reported on “Portfolio of Mine Action
Projects 2006.”
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