MICHELE MONTAS is the Spokesperson for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General and the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly.
TV: UN WEBCAST TV VIDEO - 18 minutes

UN: UNITED NATIONS BRIEFING AND TV: WEDNESDAY, 23/04/2008 (MaximsNews Network)

UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - 23 April 2008 -- Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General and UN Webcast TV Video.

BY MICHELE MONTAS
SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

BAN KI-MOON, VISITING CÔTE D’IVOIRE,
REITERATES COMMITMENT TO COUNTRY’S PEACE PROCESS

• Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has arrived in Côte d’Ivoire, where he met with President Laurent Gbagbo; he will soon also meet with Prime Minister Guillaume Soro.
   

• Upon arriving in Abidjan, he told reporters that the United Nations will continue to support Côte d’Ivoire’s peace process, including elections later this year.
   

• In Burkina Faso yesterday, he discussed the peace process in Côte d’Ivoire with the facilitator of that process, Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré, whom he thanked for his work in the inter-Ivorian dialogue.
   

• The Secretary-General told the press, following his meeting with President Compaoré, that he was encouraged that the Ivorian government has set a date for elections on November 30th, and that he would encourage President Gbagbo to keep this commitment.
   

• The Secretary-General also met yesterday with Burkina Faso’s Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament, and discussed with them the Millennium Development Goals, good governance and poverty reduction.
   

• Today, before he left Burkina Faso, the Secretary-General visited the Manegda School, a UNICEF-supported primary school on the outskirts of the capital, Ouagadougou. He planted a tree there and offered 10 computers to the schoolchildren.
   

• Asked about the Secretary-General’s comments on sexual exploitation while he was in Liberia, the Spokeswoman noted that the Secretary-General, in his press conference in Monrovia, spoke about the general situation of violence against women in Liberia, where rape continues to be the most commonly committed crime, and not just about sexual abuse by peacekeepers, an issue which he also addressed, reiterating the UN Zero Tolerance policy.

 FOLLOWING AFRICA TRIP,
BAN KI-MOON TO VISIT VIENNA, BERN, GENEVA AND LONDON

• After his Africa trip ends, the Secretary General is scheduled to travel to Vienna where he will meet on Friday with the Federal Chancellor of Austria, Alfred Gusenbauer.
   

• He will attend the inauguration of additional conference facilities at the Vienna International Centre, where the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations Office in Vienna, the UN Industrial Development Organization and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty Organization have their headquarters.
   

• The Secretary General will, on Monday and Tuesday, chair the meeting in Bern, Switzerland, of the United Nations’ Chief Executives Board, a meeting that will bring together 27 heads of Agencies, Funds and Programmes and will largely focus on increasing food prices and the possible responses from the UN System.
   

• On the 29th, in Geneva, the Secretary General will deliver the first of a series of lectures organized by the United Nations office in Geneva and UNITAR, the UN Institute for Training and Research – “Are the Development goals doomed to fail?” The lecture will have an interactive part, with questions that have been coming in from the audience through three Swiss media in the last few days. More than 1,500 people are expected to attend the lecture at the Palais des Nations.
   

• Next Friday, 2 May, the Quartet Principals are planning to meet in London to review all aspects of the process launched at Annapolis and the situation on the ground.  The Secretary-General will chair this meeting, which will take place in the margins of a meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee the same day.  The AHLC is convening to assess progress in Palestinian institutional and economic development since the last meeting here in New York last September.

SECURITY COUNCIL BRIEFED ON MOST INTENSIVE ROUND OF ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATIONS IN EIGHT YEARS

• The Security Council held a meeting on the Middle East this morning. Briefing Council members, Assistant-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Angela Kane said Israelis and Palestinians are in the most intensive set of negotiations on final status issues since the breakdown of the political process nearly eight years ago.
   

• The significance of this should not be underestimated, but neither should the grave risks to the process be overlooked, she said.
   

• In that context, Kane noted major episodes of violence, especially in and around Gaza, and expressed deep alarm at the prospects of a further intensification of violence.
   

• Kane noted that Israel is now re-examining security mechanisms to ensure the secure delivery of commercial fuel into Gaza. In the meantime, however, the lack of fuel has had adverse impacts for Gazans. For example, 15-20% of the population now receives water for only three to five hours every four days. And 60,000 cubic meters of raw and partially treated sewage continue to be dumped daily into the Mediterranean Sea.
   

• Most fishing vessels are grounded, and no materials are entering for UN humanitarian infrastructure projects, she added.
   

• Kane welcomed Israel’s removal of obstacles in the West Bank. At the same time, however, she said that, of the 44 removed, only five were significant. In that regard, she strongly urged further and more substantive progress to ease restrictions. She also noted that restrictions on UN operations continue to increase in the West Bank.
   

• Turning to Lebanon, Kane said the country remains in the grip of an intense political crisis.
   

• In addition, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has recorded a steep increase in the number of Israeli air violations, which occur on a daily basis. The overflights constitute violations of Lebanese sovereignty and the Blue Line and continue to undermine the credibility of UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces, she added.
   

• The Security Council then held consultations on the Middle East, Timor-Leste and other matters.
   

• On Timor-Leste, the Council was briefed by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations’ (DPKO) Police Advisor, Andrew Hughes.
   

• Then, at four this afternoon, the Security Council will hold a closed meeting on Georgia.
   

• Following that meeting, consultations of the whole in connection with the Middle East, are scheduled to be held.

SECURITY COUNCIL IS EXPECTED TO MEET AGAIN SOON
 ON ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA

• Yesterday afternoon, the Security Council held consultations on the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE).
   

• After the nearly three-hour closed session, Security Council President, South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, told reporters that the members of the Council unanimously agreed that the way the peacekeepers of UNMEE have been treated in Eritrea is totally unacceptable.
   

• Describing the decision on the future of the mission as difficult and complicated, the Council President said he expected to have another Council meeting as early as next week.
   

• In a special report on UNMEE released earlier this month, the Secretary-General outlined four options for the future of the operation.

 NEPAL: VIOLATIONS OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS HAVE DECREASED

• In his report to the Security Council on children and armed conflict in Nepal, the Secretary-General says that, although grave violations of children’s rights have decreased significantly since the signing of the comprehensive ceasefire agreement, violations have not yet ceased. 
   

• The report notes that substantial numbers of children were recruited by the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist and moved into cantonments prior to the signing of the ceasefire, and no progress has been achieved in securing their formal discharge.
   

• In the report, the Secretary-General recommends that the Government of Nepal make clear its commitment to lead in the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and armed groups.
   

• Also, all armed groups in the Terai region should publicly commit to ending all violations of children’s rights, including recruitment of all people under the age of 18.

 U.N. ENVOY HAILS PROGRESS MADE BY AFGHANISTAN’S SCHOOLS

• Kai Eide, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, praised the progress made by Afghanistan’s schools, noting that today, over 6 million children attend schools, including more than 330,000 girls who started schooling for the first time this year.
   

• Before 2001, he noted, there were fewer than a million children in schools – and nearly no girls.
   

• Eide spoke during a week of international action calling for the inclusive education of all school age children.

 BAN KI-MOON URGES IMPROVED COORDINATION OF SMALL ARMS ISSUE

• In his latest report to the Security Council on Small Arms, the Secretary-General notes that within the United Nations, coordination on the issue of small arms could benefit from further improvement. He adds that reviving the Coordinating Action on Small Arms is one of the priorities in the field of disarmament for 2008.
   

• In the report, the Secretary-General recommends that States should enhance their efforts to collect, maintain and share data on small arms and that those in a position to do so should boost their support for research on the distribution and impact of small arms.
   

• He also recommends that the Security Council encourage a strengthened practical cooperation among relevant sanctions monitoring groups of the Security Council, peacekeeping missions, Member States and their investigative authorities, as well as relevant regional and international organizations.
   

• It is also recommended that the Peacebuilding Commission, the Office for Disarmament Affairs, and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict should increase cooperation on the nexus of children and small arms.

 WESTERN SAHARA: NO CONTRADICTION BETWEEN SECRETARY-GENERAL’S AND PERSONAL ENVOY’S VIEWS

• The Spokeswoman, in response to questions, clarified comments she had made on Tuesday about the Secretary-General’s views on the assessment submitted to the Council by his Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Peter van Walsum.
   

• There is no contradiction, Montas said, between the Secretary-General’s views and van Walsum’s; however, she added, the Secretary-General did not want to insert himself in the talks underway on Western Sahara.
   

• The Personal Envoy, she noted, has the latitude to speak in his capacity as a facilitator for those talks, and he gave his own views.
   

• The Secretary-General’s evaluation of the situation is expressed in his recent report.

 CLIMATE NEUTRAL NETWORK GAINS 10 NEW PARTICIPANTS
WHO PLEDGE TO REDUCE THEIR EMISSIONS TO ZERO

• Ten new enterprises have signed on to the UN Environment Programme’s Climate Neutral Network (CN Net).  They include a Latin American beauty corporation, a French advertising agency, a UK-based sustainability think-tank, and a Brazilian online carbon trading venture.  All have pledged to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, eventually to zero.
   

• Meanwhile, the UN Environment Programme is warning of potentially enormous losses to medical science from the decline and extinction of the world’s plant and animal species. 
   

• That is the topic of a new book called “Sustaining Life”, the most comprehensive treatment of this subject to date.  Published with support from UNEP and the UN Development Programme, the book looks at how threatened biodiversity might hold the key to such things as treating bone disease, kidney failure, and cancer, or re-growing lost tissues and organs.

 OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

IAEA SAYS AGREEMENT REACHED IN IRAN ON CLARIFICATION PROCESS: Asked about Iran’s cooperation on its nuclear programme, the Spokeswoman later referred to comments by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Spokesperson Melissa Fleming concerning the meetings this week between Deputy Director-General Olli Heinonen and Iranian officials. Fleming said that an agreement was reached during the meetings in Tehran on a process that aims to clarify the so-called alleged studies during the month of May.

SECRETARY-GENERAL TO DISCUSS FOOD CRISIS IN MEETING WITH U.N. CHIEF EXECUTIVES: Asked whether the Secretary-General would seek a Security Council meeting on the current food crisis, the Spokeswoman said that, before that is considered, the Secretary-General would discuss the food crisis next week in his meeting with the heads of UN agencies, funds and programmes in Bern, Switzerland.

SECRETARY-GENERAL MET WITH OUTGOING ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER LAST WEEK: In response to a question, the Spokeswoman confirmed that the Secretary-General had met in New York last week with outgoing Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, adding that she was not aware whether they had discussed employment at the United Nations.

Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General
United Nations, S-378
New York, NY 10017
Tel. 212-963-7162
Fax. 212-963-7055

Labels: United Nations,  U.N., Secretary-General

 

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