Noon briefing of 28 September 2009

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING

BY MICHELE MONTAS
SPOKESPERSON FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK

Monday, September 28, 2009

NEGOTIATIONS ON CLIMATE CHANGE DEAL RESUMES IN BANGKOK

• UN negotiations on a comprehensive, effective and fair international climate change deal resumed today in Bangkok. This is the penultimate round of negotiations ahead of the Copenhagen Conference.
  

• Addressing delegates, Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, warned that there was "no plan B" for failure at Copenhagen. "If we do not realize plan A, the future will hold us to account for it," he added. He said that time was pressing and had almost run out.
  

• But de Boer also said that he believed the pace of the negotiations could and would now match the increasing pace of action seen at the highest level, during the Summit convened last week in New York by the Secretary-General.
  

• The two-week Bangkok Climate Change talks are being attended by more than four thousand participants, including government delegates from 177 countries.

HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL TO TAKE UP GAZA REPORTS TOMORROW

• Tomorrow morning in Geneva, the Human Rights Council will hear a presentation by Justice Richard Goldstone on the report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. Goldstone briefed correspondents on that report two weeks ago here in New York.
  

• Goldstone will be joined by all four members of the Mission: Ms. Hina Jilani, Professor Christine Chinkin and Colonel Desmond Travers. Later in the day, also in Geneva, they will give a press conference.
  

• Also tomorrow, the Human Rights Council will hear a briefing by High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, on her own report on Gaza, as well as statements from Israel and Palestine. The Human Rights Council will also hold an interactive discussion.
  

• In terms of next steps, there is a draft resolution on Gaza currently before the Human Rights Council. Action on that text is expected this Thursday or Friday.

SECURITY COUNCIL TO MEET ON AFGHANISTAN, COTE D’IVOIRE

• The Security Council has scheduled a briefing tomorrow morning on the work of the UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA). Kai Eide, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, will brief Council members on the work of that mission. And Mr Eide intends to speak to you at the Council stakeout following that meeting.
  

• The Council also intends to hold a ministerial-level meeting on Côte d’Ivoire tomorrow morning. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for that country, Yoon-jin Choi, will be attending the meeting.

DELIVERY OF ELECTORAL MATERIALS BEGINS IN COTE D’IVOIRE

• The Mission in Cote d’Ivoire (ONUCI) has begun preparations for the delivery of electoral materials across the country.
  

• This morning, it supervised and led the removal of voting equipment from the Abidjan seaport to the warehouses of the Independent Electoral Commission. This first batch of materials will be distributed in the east and south of the country, with further deliveries for the central region and the capital Yamoussoukro expected on October 1st. Elections are planned for 29 November.

MISSION IN DARFUR RENEWS APPEAL FOR RELEASE OF ABDUCTED PEACEKEEPERS

• The UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has renewed its appeal for the release of two of its staff members abducted at gunpoint 35 days ago from their homes in West Darfur. The Mission notes that the Sudanese government is also continuing its efforts to secure their release.
  

• Meanwhile, the Mission’s police advisors this weekend led a workshop on community policing in the Duma camp for the internally displaced. That camp is located in Nyala, in South Darfur. Close to 100 camp residents took part in the workshop which sought to prepare volunteers, including religious leaders and some 30 women, to help enforce basic law, human rights and safety rules in the camp.

HAITI: ATTACK ON LEADING JUDGE IS CONDEMNED

• The UN Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH, has condemned the attack against a judge late last week.
  

• Maitre Jean Carves, who worked on many sensitive cases, had recently taken up additional ones involving kidnapping. He was shot and wounded in Port-au-Prince last Thursday.
  

• The Mission says it will lend its full support to the Haitian national police to bring to justice the perpetrators of this crime.
  

• Asked about reports alleging the excessive use of force by UN peacekeepers in Haiti against one individual, the Spokeswoman noted that an investigation was conducted by a UN military officer, a UNPOL officer, a special investigator and a senior human rights officer on that specific case. The investigation team examined carefully all the allegations made by that person who had been detained by UN Peacekeepers during a routine patrol on 9 September 2009 in a street near his residence in Cité Soleil; that individual was found to be in possession of 310 grams marijuana.
  

• Montas said that, based on all their interviews and the medical reports of two doctors, including X-ray and blood tests, the team concluded that the individual had neither been beaten nor tortured. He was handed over to the Police Nationale d'Haiti. MINUSTAH later learned that he had been released.

U.N. AGENCIES RUSH RELIEF AID INTO STORM-BATTERED PHILIPPINES

• The Office of the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs says that tropical Storm ‘Ondoy,’ which made landfall near Quezon province in the Philippines, has resulted in 73 deaths and a rising number of missing and injured people. A state of calamity has been declared in eight regions.
  

• At the request of the Philippines authorities, OCHA has dispatched a disaster response advisor to the country. Other humanitarian staff in the UN country office will operate from the disaster operations centre in the coming days in order to ensure proper coordination with the Government.
  

• UNICEF has released 2,000 non-food items kits and is assessing the need for further kits and water and sanitation support. The World Food Programme is preparing to assist with food packages.
  

• WFP is working closely with the authorities in the Philippines, assisting thousands of Filipinos whose lives were devastated after Saturday’s deadly tropical storm. As an initial step, WFP will provide vital food rations to approximately 180,000 Filipinos in the worst-affected areas, according to a statement by its Executive Director, Josette Sheeran.

DROUGHT AFFECTS 2.5 MILLION PEOPLE IN GUATEMALA

• The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that the effects of the El Niño weather pattern have prolonged the drought, which has caused a reduction in agricultural production, affecting approximately 2.5 million people in 21 municipalities.
  

• The World Food Programme (WFP) will provide food assistance, estimated at some 10,600 metric tons, to some 45,000 families through their “food for work” programme. WFP has allocated another 200 metric tons of food aid to meet emergency food needs for vulnerable populations in the departments of Baja Verapaz, Zacapa and El Progreso.
  

• Meanwhile, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) intends to strengthen its early warning system for monitoring nutrition in the country.

MORE COMPLEX WARS PRESENT GREATER CHALLENGES FOR HUMANITARIAN RELIEF WORK

• Humanitarian efforts are increasingly put at risk as global conflicts become more complex – involving state armies, militias and insurgents. That’s the warning given by Antonio Guterres, the head of the UN refugee agency, (UNHCR), when he addressed the annual session of the UNHCR’s governing Executive Committee in Geneva today.
  

• He said it has become difficult and dangerous to provide humanitarian relief in an environment where the line separating the civilian from the military has become blurred.
  

• Guterres cited the situation in Pakistan earlier this year, when three UNHCR staff members were shot and killed, and one was kidnapped and later released. He added that such incidents undermined relief operations and humanitarian action in general.
  

• Guterres also criticized some countries that deny access to asylum procedures for refugees.

BAN KI-MOON URGES PROGRESS IN BUENOS AIRES TALKS ON COMBATTING DESERTIFICATION

• The high level segment of the Ninth Session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification began in Buenos Aires today, and the Secretary-General has a message today encouraging progress in those deliberations.
  

• Expanding deserts suffocate livelihoods and ways of life, he warns. The more than 2 billion people who live on the world’s drylands are also among the poorest and most vulnerable, and often the least able to cope. There is only one way forward, he argues: We must strengthen our ability to adapt to a changing climate.

OUTLOOK FOR AFRICAN AGRICULTURE IMPROVING

• The outlook for agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is improving, says the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It also adds that the recent positive performance is indicating a break with the past. FAO reminds that a “concerted and purposeful policy action” is required to maintain this momentum.
  

• FAO’s Assistant Director-General welcomes this news and underlines that “agriculture is the backbone of overall growth for the majority of countries in the region and essential for poverty reduction and food security”.

RWANDA: EXTRADITED GENOCIDE SUSPECT PLEADS NOT GUILTY

• A former Rwandan mayor has pleaded not guilty to genocide charges brought against him by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal for Rwanda (ICTR). A fugitive since his June 2001 indictment, Grégoire Ndahimana was arrested in August in North Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the course of a joint UN/DRC operation. He was transferred to the Tribunal last week.
  

• The Tribunal says he helped lure ethnic Tutsis into a church building in the town of Kivumu in April 1994 and then unleashed killing mobs on them.
  

• The Tribunal also heard oral arguments this morning in the appeal case of Protais Zigiranyirazo, who was found guilty of genocide in December 2008. The accused, a former high-ranking member of parliament, is the brother-in-law of the late Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana.

**Our guest at the noon briefing today was B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, who briefed on peace and security issues during the general debate.

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