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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

  • Asked about the UN response following the failure to sign a peace
    agreement between the Ugandan Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, the
    Spokeswoman said that the United Nations has been doing its best to support
    the peace process in Northern Uganda and the work of the chief Mediator from
    the government of Southern Sudan, and it will continue to do so.
     
  • Okabe said that the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy, Joachim Chissano,
    will be making contact with the key parties to assess the situation and see
    what can be done.
     
  • "We were obviously expecting a different outcome," the Spokeswoman added,
    adding that the United Nations does not yet have a full assessment of the
    situation. "In the best of cases, this will be only a temporary setback to the
    process, but we cannot say at this point."

CLEAN DEVELOPMENT MECHANISM REGISTERS ITS 1,000TH PROJECT

  • Only two and a half years into its existence, the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean
    Development Mechanism (CDM) has just

    registered
    its one thousandth project. 
     
  • It’s an energy efficiency project in Andhra Pradesh, India, that is
    expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 34,000 tons annually.
     
  • So far CDM projects have generated certified emission reductions
    equivalent to 135 million tons of carbon dioxide.

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.

 

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