HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING
BY MICHELE
MONTAS
SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON
UN
HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
Thursday, October 16, 2008
WORLD FOOD DAY:
GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISES EXACERBATE CONCERNS OF RISING FOOD/FUEL COSTS
Today is World Food Day. In a message to mark the
occasion, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
says that global financial crises are exacerbating concerns about the
rising food and fuel costs that have already driven 75 million people deeper
into the abyss of hunger and poverty.
He also adds that widespread lack of food triggers
other threats, from social unrest to environmental degradation, while
undermining the wellbeing of an entire generation on whom the world will
depend in the future.
Meanwhile, the
Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), Josette Sheeran,
says that rising food shortages, increases in fuel costs, and profound
changes in climate conditions conspired this year to bring new dimensions of
suffering to the poor, depriving almost one billion people of the food they
need to live a healthy life
World Food Day is observed annually on 16 October, the
day on which the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was founded in
1945. At a ceremony today at FAO headquarters in Rome, Director-General
Jacques Diouf
noted that the share of agriculture in public development aid has
declined significantly from 1980 to 2006. He also mentioned that financial
institutions drastically reduced their funds for agriculture. Now the funds
need to come back to the previous level of investment.
INCOME GAP INCREASES DRAMATICALLY AROUND
WORLD
The gap between
high and low wage earners has increased dramatically in most of the world
since the early 1990s despite strong economic growth that created millions
of new jobs, according to a report
published today by the United Nations labour
agency.
The new study also
said that the major share of the cost of the current financial and economic
crisis will rest on the shoulders of hundreds of millions of people who have
not shared in the benefits of the previous global economic expansion.
“This report shows conclusively that the
gap between richer and poorer households widened since the 1990s,” said
Raymond Torres, Director of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO)
International Institute for Labour Studies.
BAN KI-MOON
WILL GATHER TOP U.N. OFFICIALS ON FINANCIAL CRISIS
Asked about the global financial crisis, the
Spokeswoman said that the Secretary-General remains in constant contact with
world leaders on the issue, which is his primary concern. He has been
focusing, she said, on the ways in which the crisis might hamper the
development agenda, and on the need to ensure that commitments made on the
Millennium Development Goals, such as the $16 billion pledged late last
month, are implemented.
Montas noted that next week, the Secretary-General will
chair a Chief Executives Board meeting comprising the heads of UN agencies,
funds and programmes, including the Bretton Woods institutions, and the
financial crisis will be at the centre of that meeting.
UNITED NATIONS IS DEEPLY CONCERNED ABOUT CIVILIAN PROTECTION IN NORTH KIVU
The Secretary-General’s Special
Representative for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Alan Doss, and the UN
Mission there are deeply
concerned about the protection of vulnerable populations in North Kivu.
Doss said the fighting in that
region has driven civilians out of their homes to seek protection and
shelter at a UN peacekeepers’ base. He said the peacekeepers have since then
been sharing their food rations with some 400 mothers and their children.
He also said that the Mission is
reassessing its approach to the protection of civilians in the area with the
aim of reducing operational constraints. That is necessary because
protection work has become more difficult because of the hostility UN
peacekeepers face in North Kivu and elsewhere.
UN personnel, he
noted, daily face situations in which they must first protect themselves
from hostile crowds before they can come to the aid of vulnerable
populations.
SOMALIA: THIRD ROUND OF TALKS ARE
ANNOUNCED
A third round of direct talks between the Somali transitional
federal government and the opposition will take place on 25-26 October in
Djibouti.
That’s according to a statement by the Secretary-General’s Special
Representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, under whose chairmanship
the negotiations have been taking place.
Ould-Abdallah said he was hopeful that significant progress will be
achieved at the talks. He also said that the UN and the World Bank are
planning to hold an international donors’ conference early next year to seek
funding for a one-year recovery programme for Somalia. A preparatory meeting
for that conference is due to take place on Monday in Stockholm.
HUMANITARIAN
CONVOY IN SRI LANKA IS FORCED TO TURN BACK
In
Sri Lanka today, a major United Nations food convoy en route to the
Vanni, in efforts to reach civilians displaced behind the lines of
confrontation, was forced to turn back due to fighting.
The U.N. Resident Coordinator in Colombo says they will
immediately seek renewed security assurances from the two sides before
attempting the journey again tomorrow morning.
The 50-truck World Food Programme operation carrying
750 metric tonnes of food left the northern town of Vavuniya this morning
and was expected to reach by this evening, the estimated 230,000 civilians
forced from their homes by fighting.
The convoy is the second in as many weeks, and is part
of an ongoing operation to supply humanitarian aid to the displaced
civilians moving to avoid fighting between the Government of Sri Lanka
forces and the Tamil Tigers.
According to the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, in addition to the urgent food requirements, the onset
of monsoon rains in northern Sri Lanka has made providing shelter for the
recently displaced people an urgent priority.
As of the end of September, just 2,100 shelters had
been built by the displaced people and many of the IDPs have gathered in
low-lying areas previously identified by humanitarian agencies as at risk of
flooding and unsuitable for settlements.
The annual northeastern monsoon is likely to remain
active until at least the end of November.
DARFUR: AFRICAN UNION AND UNITED NATIONS
STRESS COOPERATION TO ACHIEVE PEACE
A meeting of the "Initiative of the People of Sudan for
Solving the Darfur issue" kicked off its first session today at the
Friendship Hall in Khartoum.
The meeting was attended by the Secretary-General of
the League of Arab States, Mr. Amru Musa; the African Union (AU)
Chairperson, Mr. Jean Ping; the Joint Chief Mediator, Mr. Djibril Bassole;
and UNAMID Joint Special Representative Mr. Rodolphe Adada.
Mr. Adada had a meeting with the AU Chairperson, Mr.
Jean Ping during which he briefed him on the status of UNAMID deployment, as
well as on the positive outcome of the visit of the Under-Secretary-General
for Peacekeeping Operation, Alain Le Roy and on the visit of
Under-Secretary-General for Field Missions, Ms. Susana Malcorra.
For his part, Mr. Ping stressed the importance of the
existing cooperation between the AU and the UN to achieve peace in Darfur
through their Hybrid Operation and through the peace process led by the
Joint Chief Mediator, Mr. Djibril Bassole.
WORLD FOOD AGENCY PROVIDES REGULAR FOOD AID
TO HALF MILLION HAITIANS
Turning now to
Haiti, the World Food Programme (WFP)
reports that it is now providing regular food aid to almost half a
million cyclone and tropical storm survivors. Across the country, a total of
842,000 rations have been distributed to 485,000 people.
In the city of
Gonaives, where thousands of people are still living on the roofs of their
destroyed homes or in makeshift shelters, WFP has distributed some 640,000
two-week family rations of rice, beans, cooking oil and corn soya blend for
around 266,000 people. In order to make sure everyone in need in Gonaives is
receiving food, WFP monitors have been carrying out a door to door census to
find out how many families are living in each house.
Meanwhile,
more than 30 non-governmental organizations and UN and government agencies
have used WFP’s humanitarian passenger service to enable them to assess
their own relief work. But despite the generosity of many donors, WFP has
still only raised a little more than 30% of its funding requirements.
SECURITY
COUNCIL EXTENDS MANDATE OF EXPERTS ON SUDAN
The Security Council yesterday afternoon voted
unanimously to
extend the
mandate of the Group of Experts dealing with Sudan sanctions by one
year, until 15 October 2009.
The Council also adopted a
Presidential
Statement welcoming Guinea-Bissau’s commitment to hold legislative elections
on 16 November and calling on the Government and all actors to ensure an
environment conducive to transparent, free and fair elections, and to
respect the results of the polls.
The Council added that it remains seriously concerned
by the continued growth in drug trafficking and organized crime that
threatened peace and security in Guinea-Bissau and the sub-region.
There are no Council meetings or consultations
scheduled for today.
UNICEF CALLS FOR URGENT ACTION TO ADDRESS ZIMBABWE’S
EDUCATION SYSTEM
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has
called for urgent action to address Zimbabwe’s education system – which
UNICEF describes as once the best in Africa.
The current education system is suffering due to a
combination of low salaries, poor attendance by both teachers and students,
and transport and food problems.
Routine monitoring visits in recent weeks found that
with national exams looming, some 40 per cent of the country’s teachers were
attending lessons, a third of pupils were reporting for classes and district
education officers were ill equipped to run national exams.
“The current education crisis has crippled schools
across the country leaving most school operating way below capacity and the
sector in an apparent state of emergency,” the agency said in a news
release.
NEW FINDINGS ON
OCEANS SHOW MILLIONS OF LIVELIHOODS THREATEN
The acidification of the world’s oceans, caused by the
absorption of huge volumes of carbon dioxide, is
accelerating at an unprecedented rate, threatening marine ecosystems and
the livelihoods of tens of millions of people.
That’s the finding of a recently concluded conference
in Monaco, which had been organized by a number of partners, including the
UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Participants agreed that reducing carbon emissions is
the only effective way of stabilizing or reversing acidification. They added
that, despite the reticence of many Governments, such reduction is both
achievable and affordable.
SECRETARY-GENERAL ENCOURAGES DIALOGUE
AMONG PARTIES ON GEORGIA
Asked about the Secretary-General’s involvement in the
talks on Georgia that took place on Wednesday in Geneva, the Spokeswoman
noted that he had not participated in the talks themselves but in a number
of prior bilateral consultations and a working dinner on Tuesday night ,
organized by the French Presidency of the European Union.
The Secretary-General was represented at the Wednesday
meeting by his Special Representative for Georgia, Johan Verbeke.
Asked about arrangements for who could participate at
the meeting, Montas said that the Secretary-General favors dialogue among
the parties on Georgia, but the format of that dialogue should be agreed
among the parties. She noted that the European Union had organized the
meeting.
She added, in response to questions, that a date has
been scheduled for another meeting, so the talks are not over.
Asked about reports that there had been a news blackout
on Wednesday, the Spokeswoman reiterated that there had been a brief
blackout that had been agreed to by the parties. She added that, later that
day, many key participants, including Verbeke, had participated in a press
conference.
BAN KI-MOON IS
SET TO EMBARK ON FOUR-NATION ASIA TRIP
The Secretary-General, later this month, is set to
embark on a four-nation Asia trip for official visits to the Philippines,
India, Nepal and Bangladesh as well as to attend the Second Global Forum on
Migration and Development to take place in Manila.
In Manila, the Secretary-General will hold a bilateral
meeting with President Gloria Arroyo. The Secretary-General will also
receive from President Arroyo a national honour – the Order of Sikatuna – in
recognition of his diplomatic merit. An Honorary Doctorate Degree will also
be conferred on the Secretary-General by the University of the Philippines.
On 29 October, the Secretary-General will attend the
formal inauguration of the Second Global Forum on Migration and Development
where he will deliver opening remarks as well as hold a joint press
conference with Hon. Esteban Conejos, Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs of
the Philippines and Executive Director of the Forum.
The Secretary-General will then move on to India, where
full details of his programme are being worked out. He is expected to meet
with the President, the Prime Minister, the Minister for External Affairs
and the National Security Adviser, as well as other senior leaders and
officials.
During the two-day visit, the Secretary-General will
hold a public lecture hosted by a prestigious foundation, meet with the UN
Country Team and staff, as well as meet with Indian business leaders active
in the climate change area.
In Nepal, the Secretary-General will meet with
President Ram Baran Yadav, Prime Minister Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal),
Foreign Minister Upendra Yadav as well as members of the Constituent
Assembly of Nepal. The Secretary-General will also visit Lumbini, birthplace
of Lord Buddha.
While in Bangladesh, the Secretary-General is expected
to meet with President Iajuddin Ahmed, and other senior government officials
including the Chief Caretaker Adviser and Caretaker Adviser for Foreign
Affairs, as well as visit the United Nations Country Team and staff there.
He is also expected to visit sites for micro-financing and disaster
reduction/climate adaptation activities.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS
UNITED NATIONS STANDS UP AGAINST POVERTY: Tomorrow
is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. To mark the occasion,
UN staff, students and representatives from delegations and non-governmental
organizations will “Stand Up Against Poverty and for the Millennium Development
Goals.” The ceremony will take place tomorrow from 11:00 a.m. to noon near the
Peace Bell. Participants will symbolically stand up to pledge their support to
the fight against poverty and to call on world leaders to deliver on their
commitments to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Cast members from the
Broadway musical “A Tale of Two Cities” will perform. Brief remarks will be made
by the President of the General Assembly, the Deputy Secretary-General, the UN
Development Programme’s Associate Administrator and the Under-Secretary-General
for Communications and Public Information.
NEW PERSONAL
ENVOY ON WESTERN SAHARA TO BE APPOINTED SOON: The Spokeswoman declined to
respond to comments made by a former Special Representative for Western Sahara,
but she noted that the Secretary-General has made clear that he wants the
Western Sahara talks to continue and intends to appoint a new Personal Envoy for
those talks shortly.
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