HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING
BY MARIE OKABE
DEPUTY
SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON
UN HEADQUARTERS,
NEW YORK
Monday, April
14, 2008
WORLDWIDE FOOD CRISIS HAS REACHED
EMERGENCY PROPORTIONS
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
addressed the
high-level
meeting today, convened by the Economic and Social Council, that brings
together the Bretton Woods Institutions, the World Trade Organization (WTO)
and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),
and he told them that the rapidly escalating crisis of food availability
around the world has reached emergency proportions.
The Secretary-General said that we need
not only short-term emergency measures to meet urgent critical needs and avert
starvation in many regions across the world, but also a significant increase
in long-term productivity in food grain production.
He noted that World Bank President Robert
Zoellick
said last week that the crisis could mean “seven lost years” in the fight
against worldwide poverty.
The United Nations needs to examine ways
to lead a process for the immediate and longer term responses to this global
problem, the Secretary-General said.
He added that, in less than eight months from now, world
leaders and decision makers will
gather in Doha, Qatar, to take stock of the Monterrey Consensus. What the
senior officials decide at today’s meeting will help guide and inform world
leaders when they meet in November.
DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS ON
PARLIAMENTARIANS
TO TAKE URGENT ACTION ON RISING FOOD PRICES
Deputy
Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro expressed concern over the negative
impact of soaring food prices on the livelihood of millions of people in
developing countries, particularly in Africa. She called for urgent action in
that regard.
She did so in Cape Town, South Africa, where she is
attending the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly, whose theme is “Pushing Back
the Frontiers of Poverty”. In
remarks
to the Assembly, she also called on Parliaments to translate political will
into legislation and budget allocations so that the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) could be
reached.
HAITI: BAN
KI-MOON URGES REFRAIN FROM FURTHER VIOLENCE
In a statement issued after the noon briefing, the
Secretary-General learned with shock of the violent killing of one member of the
UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
on Saturday, 12 April 2008.
The Secretary-General expresses his sincere
condolences to the officer’s family, the Nigerian contingent and the Government
of Nigeria.
The Secretary-General reiterates his appeal for calm
and urges all demonstrators to refrain from any further acts of violence.
He emphasizes that peace and stability constitute
essential conditions for social and economic development, as well as to promote
investments and job creation, which, together with the immediate measures
announced by the Haitian authorities, constitute the best ways, in the
medium-term, to fight against the increase in the cost of living.
In a
press
statement, members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms
the murder of the Nigerian police officer of (MINUSTAH), and
reiterated their condemnation of the recent violence in Port au Prince and other
cities, and once again expressed their deep regret about the loss of lives and
injuries. They stressed the need to maintain public order.
The UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) had also
strongly
condemned the execution-style killing on Saturday of the plainclothes UN
Peacekeeper in the capital Port-au-Prince. The peacekeeper was driving through
the Bel-Air neighborhood with three colleagues when unidentified individuals
stopped his vehicle, dragged him out and shot him to death.
The tragic incident came hours after Prime Minister
Jacques-Edouard Alexis was deposed by the Senate in a vote of no-confidence
amid violent street protests over rising food prices. Haitian police and the
Mission have launched an investigation into the killing of the 36-year-old
peacekeeper. The Mission has also
called on Haitian authorities to quickly appoint a new Prime Minister and
cabinet in order to address the grave situation now facing the country.
The World Bank
announced a $10 million grant to help the Government of Haiti respond to
the impact of rising food prices on poor families. The grant will be used to
provide food for poor children and other vulnerable groups, partly through
expanding the Bank’s existing school feeding program. A team of bank experts
will be traveling to Haiti in the coming days to help put the emergency
assistance in place.
SECRETARY-GENERAL WELCOMES AGREEMENT IN KENYA
ON GRAND COALITION GOVERNMENT
The Secretary-General
welcomes the
announcement by President Mwai Kibaki on the agreement on the composition of
the Grand Coalition Government, bringing both parties to the Kenyan crisis
together.
The Secretary-General encourages both parties to
urgently address agenda item 4 of the Kenyan National Dialogue and
Reconciliation in order to find a solution to the root causes of the crisis.
SIGNIFICANT
PROGRESS NOTED IN LIBERIA
Ellen Margrethe Løj, the Secretary-General’s Special
Representative for Liberia, told the
Security
Council in an open meeting this morning that significant progress has been
made in that country in recent months.
On the basis of the progress achieved, she said,
benchmarks for the drawdown phase of the
UN Mission in Liberia
have been developed in close consultation with the Liberian Government and
international partners.
She went on discuss Liberia further with Council members
in closed consultations.
Starting at 3:00 this afternoon, the Security Council has
scheduled a closed meeting, followed by consultations, on the situation in
Abkhazia, Georgia.
U.N. AND
AFRICAN UNION PEACE ENVOYS TO VISIT SUDAN TOMORROW
The United Nations and African Union envoys heading
international efforts to resolve the Darfur conflict will start a four-day
visit to Sudan tomorrow to consult with the non-signatory movements in
Darfur.
The visit by the UN’s Jan Eliasson and the AU’s Salim
Ahmed Salim follows consultations last week in Khartoum and Juba with the
Government, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and one of the
movements present in Juba (URF).
The purpose of these consultations is two-fold: to brief
the parties on the issues discussed during the informal consultations held in
Geneva with regional and international partners last month, and seek their
views on the way forward.
In particular they will focus on the serious need to
improve the security situation which affects not only the peacekeeping and
humanitarian operations but also the political process.
The Special Envoys reiterate their call for the urgent
need for the parties to cease all violence and prepare for the substantive
talks. The parties cannot fight and prepare for peace talks at the same time.
A reduction of violence is absolutely necessary if we are to make progress on
the peace process, the Envoys say.
CÔTE D'IVOIRE EXPERT GROUP CONCERNED
ABOUT U.N. MISSION’S INABILITY TO CONDUCT ARMS INSPECTIONS
In the mid-term
report to
the Security Council of the Group of Experts on Côte d'Ivoire, the Group
expresses deep concern, that sites held by the Garde Républicaine have yet to
be inspected by the UN Mission (UNOCI) and
that the Ivorian authorities routinely deny access to these sites on the claim
that such inspections are outside of the Mission’s mandate.
The Group says it has gathered credible information that
members of the defense and security forces on both the government and the
rebel sides are being trained on the territories of other UN Member States, in
violation of Security Council
resolution 1572.
In the area of customs, the Group of Experts considers
that the embargo’s major weakness stems from the Ivorian authorities’ failure
to sensitize customs staff to be vigilant and not to allow the export and
import of goods prohibited by the embargo.
On the diamond embargo, the Group of Experts notes that
Mali thwarted a December 2007 attempt to export 31 rough diamonds of Ivorian
origin through the Bamako airport. Since Mali is not a member of the
Kimberley Process, the Group recommends Kimberley Process experts visit Mali
to examine the gems.
NORTHERN UGANDA: UNITED NATIONS
SUPPORTS PEACE PROCESS
CLEAN DEVELOPMENT MECHANISM REGISTERS ITS 1,000TH PROJECT
OTHER
ANNOUNCEMENTS
AFGHAN FOOD APPEAL IS NEARLY FUNDED: The World Food
Programme (WFP) today said that, as
of now, the appeal it launched in late January for food for poor Afghans has
essentially been fully resourced, with donors providing some $70 million out of
the $78 million that the agency had asked for food. WFP said that the appeal was
intended to provide some 88,000 tonnes of food that would go to 2.5 million
people in Afghanistan, and it expects
the first round of food distributions to be completed in Kabul by next Sunday.
While it welcomes the contributions to its appeal, WFP remains concerned that
the high price levels for wheat in Afghanistan are not going to drop anytime
soon.
RE-POLLING FOLLOWING NEPAL ELECTIONS TO BE COMPLETE
WITHIN A WEEK: Nepal’s Election Commission has updated its list of polling
stations where re-polling will be required to 98. The re-polling will be
completed within a week. Meanwhile, ballot counting is
underway in 132 constituencies, mostly focusing on the results for the
first-past-the-post ballots.
U.N. ENVOY TO HOLD MORE TALKS ON THE GREECE/FYROM “NAME
ISSUE”: The Secretary-General’s Personal Envoy for the talks between Greece
and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Matthew Nimetz, will be flying to
the region later this week to reactivate the process of settling the name issue.
His present plans are to be in Skopje on Thursday and Athens on Friday. A
follow-up round of discussions will then take place, probably in New York.
NO REQUEST FROM PAKISTANI GOVERNMENT RECEIVED: Asked
how the United Nations would respond to a request from the Pakistani Government
for an investigation into the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto,
the Spokeswoman said that a request has not yet been formally received.
NO LETTER RECEIVED FROM CONCERNING INVESTIGATION INTO POPE BENEDICT:
Asked whether the United Nations has received a letter from Catholic priests
concerning an investigation into Pope Benedict, the Spokeswoman said that the
letter has not been received.
CHALLENGES IN DR CONGO DETAILED IN LATEST REPORT TO SECURITY COUNCIL:
Asked about comments made by former UN envoy Stephen Lewis about the UN’s work
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Spokeswoman noted that Lewis was
entitled to express his views as a private citizen. She added that the
Secretary-General had detailed the challenges the United Nations faces in the
DRC in his recent report to the Security Council.
“PEACE PARK” COMMISSIONED TO HONOR FORMER U.N. LIBERIA
ENVOY: The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Liberia Ellen
Margrethe Løj and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf have jointly
commissioned a “Peace
Park” in a suburb of the capital, Monrovia. The park in the town of Paynesville
honors the former UN Envoy to Liberia, Alan Doss, who recently concluded his
mission there.
**The guest at noon was Ellen Margrethe Løj, Special
Representative of the Secretary-General for Liberia, following her briefing to
the Security Council on the latest developments in that country.
Office of the Spokesperson for the
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