HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING
BY STEPHANE DUJARRIC
SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
U.N. HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
SECURITY COUNCIL MEMBERS DISCUSS NORTH KOREA DRAFT RESOLUTION
There are no meetings or consultations
of the Security Council scheduled for
today, but Council members are continuing to discuss
at the experts level a draft resolution in response to the nuclear test
announcement by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Asked whether Secretary-General
Kofi Annan had spoken to any DPRK officials since the
nuclear test, the Spokesman said he had not. In response to a further
question, the Spokesman added that the Secretary-General had not spoken in the
past day with Republic of Korea Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.
ANNAN
DISPATCHES TOP POLITICAL OFFICIAL TO DR CONGO
TO ENCOURAGE SMOOTH ELECTIONS
The UN
Under-Secretary-General for
Political Affairs, Ibrahim
Gambari, will leave New York today to start a trip to the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where he will visit from 12-15
October.
The purpose of his trip is to
encourage smooth and peaceful presidential and provincial assembly elections
later this month, while underscoring support for the major UN electoral
assistance operation being carried out through the
UN Organization Mission in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and the UN Country Team.
Gambari will meet with the key
Congolese political actors and the Independent Electoral Commission, as well
as with Special Representative William Swing and his team. He will be
accompanied by Craig Jenness, Director of the
Electoral Assistance
Division of the Department of Political Affairs.
Gambari will be continuing on from the
DRC to South Africa, where he will launch in Cape Town on 16 October the first
of a series of consultations about mediation in peace processes, involving
experts from different regions of the world.
Asked about disagreements
between presidential candidates Joseph Kabila and
Jean-Pierre Bemba, the Spokesman said that Swing and his team have been
working with the two candidates to work out their differences before the
elections.
The Spokesman declined to comment on a
decision by the UK Government to pull out some of its nationals during the
runoff elections, saying that the United Nations would not second-guess
security measures taken by countries. He noted that the United Nations
undertakes regular security assessments and makes arrangements accordingly.
ARMED FORCES REMAIN MAIN HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS IN D.R. CONGO
In the latest human rights
report on the
DRC ,the mission that the Congolese Armed Forces remain the
main human rights violator in the restive
Kivus, Ituri District and Katanga provinces. The National Police also
flouted human rights norms by arbitrarily rounding up some 800 people,
including street children, during the recent post-election unrest.
Sexual violence against women and
girls, as well as the unlawful activities of Congolese and foreign armed
groups such as the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army, also continue to pose
enormous challenges to the Congolese authorities.
Meanwhile, the
Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
says that the
first of its convoys repatriating Congolese refugees from Burundi is scheduled
to leave northern Burundi today with a group of some 300 refugees. The
six-hour journey should end at Uvira, a border town in Congo's South Kivu
province.
HEAVY FIGHTING
ON DARFUR-CHAD BORDER THREATENS REFUGEE CAMPS
UNHCR
says it is deeply
concerned about the heavy fighting that took place in
Darfur on Saturday between the Sudanese Army and Sudanese rebels within a
few kilometres of the Ouré Cassoni refugee camp on the Chadian side of the
border.
Although no one in or around the camp
was harmed, UNHCR says the incident is further evidence of the destabilization
that is happening in the region and which the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees, António
Guterres, has repeatedly warned about.
UNHCR adds that the ongoing
deterioration of the security situation in Darfur and increasing insecurity
throughout eastern Chad highlights the urgent need to move Sudanese refugees
in Ouré-Cassoni camp further away from the border.
The
World Food Programme (WFP)
says that in
September, food rations reached more than 158,000 people in Darfur who had
been cut off in recent months. The number of people
not reached has been dropping steadily from 470,000 in July to 355,000 in
August and now 224,000. But WFP says while it is heartened by this
improvement, among the 224,000 not reached last month are 139,000 who have
gone without food aid for four months.
PREPARATORY
GROUP FOR IRAQ COMPACT MEETS IN BAGHDAD
The Preparatory Group for the
International Compact with Iraq held
its second meeting at the
Baghdad office of the
UN Assistance Mission in Iraq.
The meeting, co-chaired by
Ashraf Qazi,
the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, discussed progress
made thus far, and the upcoming steps to ensure success of the Compact. These
steps will include, among others, expanding and reviewing the Compact draft to
reflect comments by Iraqi officials and donors.
The next Preparatory Group meeting
will be held on 19 October in Baghdad.
GUATEMALA
STILL NEEDS AID FOLLOWING HURRICANE DESTRUCTION
The
UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that, one year after Hurricane Stan
struck Guatemala, the country still needs more aid and the physical damage
from the storm is still visible.
The
World Food Programme is continuing to provide food aid to hurricane
survivors. But the agency needs $4 million to finance those efforts until
February 2007.
PLAN
FOR REFORM OF HAITIAN POLICE IS SHARED WITH SECURITY
COUNCIL
The
Secretary-General has shared
with the Security Council a
letter
from the
Haitian government on the adoption of a plan for reforming the Haitian
National Police.
The plan was worked out in
coordination with the UN Stabilization
Mission in Haiti, and it provides a detailed plan on how to improve the
police force – currently, that police force has just 7,000 badly equipped and
poorly trained officers and most of their 200 police stations need to be
repaired or rebuilt.
ANNAN URGES MORE ATTENTION ON WOMEN’S ROLE IN PEACE AND
SECURITY
The
Secretary-General,
in his
report on
women, peace and security, says that, while gender
equality is increasingly recognized as a core issue in the maintenance of
international peace and security, the role of women in peace processes
generally continues to be viewed as a side issue rather than as fundamental to
the development of viable democratic institutions and the establishment of
sustainable peace.
In that regard, the Secretary-General
calls upon the Security Council and
the UN Peacebuilding
Commission to give priority attention to the situation of women in
conflict and post-conflict countries.
OTHER
ANNOUNCEMENTS
MORE ATTENTION NEEDED ON ISSUE OF
DEATH FROM SUICIDE: Today is
World Mental Health Day and this year’s theme is: “Building Awareness -
Reducing Risk: Mental Illness and Suicide.” In a
message to mark the
occasion, the Secretary-General
says that deaths from wars, homicide, terrorism and other forms of violence are
rightly of concern, yet deaths from suicide do not receive nearly enough
attention. The best way to reduce the disastrous impact of suicide is to tackle
the mental disorders that are linked closely to it, he says in the message.
THREE PEACEKEEPING
MISSIONS IN AFRICA EXCHANGE VIEWS:
The Special Representatives of the Secretary-General and
senior officials from the UN Political
Office for Somalia, the UN Mission in Sudan
and the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea
held a two-day inter-mission meeting in Nairobi. The meeting, which began
yesterday, is the first of its kind. It allowed the three missions to exchange
views on the political and military situations in Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea
in particular. Participants also surveyed inter-state relations and the role of
regional organizations, including the Intergovernmental Agency on Development,
the African Union and the League of Arab States, in furthering UN mandates and
priorities in mission areas.
CHILDREN DISCUSS OUTER
SPACE ISSUES AT MODEL U.N. CONFERENCE: On the
occasion of World Space Week, some 50 children, aged 6 to 10, today held a Model
UN Conference on Outer Space at the headquarters of the
UN Office for Outer Space
Affairs in Vienna. The children, who each represented a different country,
discussed among other subjects how to acquire more satellites to monitor
deforestation and help solve environmental problems on Earth.
The children were also briefed by scientists from the
Austrian Aeronautics and Space Agency, which co-organized the event, before
receiving certificates of participation and souvenirs from various scientific
research bodies, including the European Space Agency and the U.S.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
QUEEN SOFIA OF SPAIN AWARDED CERES
MEDAL: Queen Sofia of Spain was today
awarded
the Ceres Medal by the Food and Agriculture
Organization in recognition of her efforts to raise the living standards of
rural women in developing countries. The Ceres Medal – named after the Roman
goddess of agriculture – is awarded to distinguished women who have made an
outstanding contribution to agricultural development and food security.
HUMANITARIAN VIDEO GAME NOW IN SEVEN
LANGUAGES: This week, the world's first
humanitarian video game "Food Force" will be
available in
seven languages following the launch of French, Hungarian and Chinese versions.
The games are being released in the lead up to World Food Day, 16 October. Food
Force is an educational computer game created by the
World Food Programme.
***The guests at the noon briefing
were Jan Egeland, the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Katherine Sierra, World
Bank Vice-President for Sustainable Development, Michel Jarraud,
Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, and Haid Husani,
Chief Executive Officer of Focus Humanitarian Assistance. They briefed on the
importance of anticipating and mitigating the effects of natural disasters.
Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General
United Nations, S-378
New York, NY 10017
Tel. 212-963-7162
Fax. 212-963-7055
