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 - 46 minutes

UN: UNITED NATIONS BRIEFING AND TV: FRIDAY, 25/04/2008 (MaximsNews Network)

UNITED NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - 25 April 2008 -- Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General and UN Webcast TV Video.

BY MARIE OKABE
DEPUTY SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON

Friday, April 25, 2008

BAN KI-MOON LAUNCHES NEW DRIVE TO STAMP OUT MALARIA DEATHS

• Today is the first-ever World Malaria Day. In a video message to mark the occasion, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that the toll that malaria is taking is unacceptable -- all the more so because the disease is preventable and treatable.
   

• Today, the Secretary-General, together with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, and his Special Envoy on Malaria, Ray Chambers, is putting forward a bold but achievable vision. The aim is to put a stop to malaria deaths by ensuring universal coverage by the end of 2010.
   

• This initiative will offer indoor residual spraying, and bed nets treated with long-lasting insecticide, to all people at risk, especially women and children in Africa. It will ensure that all public health facilities have access to effective malaria treatment and diagnosis.
   

• The initiative will also provide ways to train, and retain, community health workers dealing with malaria. And it will encourage research and development for longer term efforts to control, eliminate and eradicate malaria.
   

• In a separate statement, UNICEF, the world’s largest global procurer and deliverer of insecticide-treated nets, also calls for a sustained effort to control malaria.

 BAN KI-MOON BEGINS OFFICIAL VISIT TO AUSTRIA

• In Vienna today, the Secretary-General attended the inauguration of the “M Building,” an environmentally friendly complex which Austria has donated to the international community and that has the capacity to service up to fifteen hundred people.
   

• He told the Austrian Government, “The United Nations and other Vienna-based organizations are very grateful for this meaningful contribution, which will facilitate our work here immeasurably.”
   

• During a press conference on the site of the new conference building, the Secretary-General addressed rising food prices. “We must take immediate action in a concerted way,” he said. In the short term, we must address all humanitarian crises, while in the long term, the leaders of the international community should sit down together on an urgent basis to explore how we can improve distribution systems and promote improved production of agricultural products.
   

• He also met with Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, first tête-à-tête and then during a working luncheon, during which he also met with the Czech, Slovenian and Slovakian foreign ministers and senior officials from Poland and Hungary. They discussed UN-EU cooperation, Kosovo, Chad, Darfur, the Middle East, Cyprus and UN reforms.
   

• He met with Austrian President Heinz Fischer later in the afternoon, and they discussed the contribution of Austria in peacekeeping operations in Chad and Kosovo, the Olympic Games, the Annapolis process in the Middle East, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the Summit meeting planned in September on the Millennium Development Goals.
   

• Yesterday, before leaving Cote d’Ivoire, the Secretary-General spoke to the press and expressed the United Nations’ appreciation for what has been achieved so far in the implementation of the Ouagadougou Agreement, which he said had reached “a point of no return”.
   

• At the same time, he said that considerable challenges remain to be addressed. “The road to the elections, to sustainable peace and reconciliation, may be treacherous and we should be vigilant,” he warned.

 U.N. ENVOY EXPRESSES CONCERN OVER GAZA FUEL SHORTAGE

• The UN’s Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, has released a statement on the diesel and benzene situation in Gaza.
   

• In it, he describes the existing fuel situation and expresses concern about the effects that the continued fuel shortage is having on the civilian population, public services, and UN operations in Gaza.
   

• Serry calls on Hamas to ensure conditions within Gaza that will enable the distribution of supplies at the Nahal Oz fuel crossing, so that more supplies can come in. Hamas must also immediately bring an end to attacks by itself or any other group against crossings in Gaza. He repeats his condemnation of such attacks.
   

• At the same time, Serry says Israel must restore adequate supplies of diesel and benzene for the civilian population of Gaza, in accordance with international law.

 MORE NEEDS TO BE DONE TO HELP IRAQ OVERCOME DIVISIONS

• The Secretary-General’s latest report to the Security Council on the UN Mission in Iraq is out as a document, and in it, he says that while some initial steps towards national reconciliation in Iraq have begun, more needs to be done to help Iraqi communities resolve the fundamental issues that divide them.
   

• He says he believes that the holding of credible governorate elections later this year, as mandated by recent legislation, could in the long run serve to underpin the legitimacy of democratic governance.
   

• The Secretary-General writes that the end of fighting in Basra and other places at the end of March was made possible by compromise and agreement, and he urges all concerned to do everything possible to maintain the current decrease in violent conflict and to avoid any provocative acts that could serve to undermine it.
   

• The Security Council is scheduled to discuss the report next Monday, in an open debate where Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe will present the report.

 IRAQI CHILDREN ARE SILENT VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE

• The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, today concluded a five-day visit to Iraq, saying that children of Iraq are the silent victims of the ongoing violence.  She called on religious, political, military and community leaders to send one clear message to Iraqi children: “Stay out of the violence and go back to school”.
   

• Coomaraswamy noted that only 50% of primary school children are attending school, down from 80% in 2005. Only 40% have access to clean drinking water and there is a continuing possibility of outbreaks of cholera. Since 2004, an increasing number of children have been recruited into various militias and insurgent groups, including as suicide bombers, and approximately 1,500 are known to be held in detention facilities.
   

• Coomaraswamy strongly urged all parties to the conflict in Iraq to strictly adhere to international humanitarian standards for the protection of children and to immediately release any children under the age of 18 years who are associated with their forces in any way.

 MAOISTS WIN MAJORITY SEATS IN NEPAL’S HISTORIC ELECTIONS

• In Nepal, following the tabulation of the proportional representation vote, the Election Commission today announced that the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) won 100 seats under the proportion representation system, while the Nepali Congress and the United Marxist-Leninist party received 73 and 70 seats, respectively.
   

• The 4th and 5th largest share of seats went to two Terai-based parties.
   

• The United Nations Mission in Nepal says the Election Commission has asked the parties to submit the final names of the candidates representing different quotas under the closed list by 2 May.
   

• The UN Mission says that this does not yet constitute the “final results” as stipulated in the Interim Constitution, which will only be announced by the Commission once parties have finalized their Proportional Representatives and the Commission has signed off on these.

 SECURITY COUNCIL AGREES TO EXTEND MANDATE
 OF NON-PROLIFERATION COMMITTEE

• The Security Council this morning adopted a resolution on non-proliferation, extending for three years the mandate of the Committee set up by Resolution 1540, which imposes binding obligations on all States to establish domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery.
   

• Yesterday afternoon, following its consultations, the Security Council adopted a Presidential Statement on Burundi, which expressed the Council’s serious concern at the recent confrontations between the Palipehutu-FNL and the National Defence Forces of Burundi and the resulting loss of lives. The Council condemned the use of violence and called again on the two parties to scrupulously respect the ceasefire concluded on 7 September 2006.

 IAEA TO INVESTIGATE VERACITY OF REPORT ON SYRIAN NUCLEAR REACTOR

• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was provided with information by the United States yesterday that claimed that the installation destroyed by Israel in Syria last September was a nuclear reactor. According to this information, the reactor was not yet operational and no nuclear material had been introduced into it.
   

• The IAEA will treat this information with the seriousness it deserves and will investigate the veracity of the information.
   

• Syria has an obligation under its safeguards agreement with the IAEA to report the planning and construction of any nuclear facility to the Agency.

NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY REVIEW CONFERENCE OPENS MONDAY

• The Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons will hold its second session from Monday, at the United Nations Office in Geneva. 
   

• This is the second of three sessions of the Preparatory Committee that will be held prior to the 2010 Review Conference.
   

• This session, which is open to all parties to the Treaty, observer States, specialized agencies, international and regional intergovernmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations, will address substantive and procedural issues related to the Treaty and the upcoming Review Conference in 2010.
   

• The purpose of the session is to consider principles, objectives and ways to promote the full implementation of the Treaty, as well as its universality, and to factually summarize its results and submit it to the third session of the Preparatory Committee.

THOUSANDS FLEE VIOLENCE IN SOMALIA AND D.R. CONGO

• The UN refugee agency says the latest flare-up in fighting this week in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, has sparked a fresh exodus of an estimated 7,000 people rushing to escape violence that has killed a substantial number of civilians, including women and children.
   

• And the Refugee agency’s office in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) North Kivu province yesterday halted a distribution of aid to displaced people amid a fresh eruption of violence. Hundreds of people have fled fighting in the Rutshuru area since the clashes began last weekend. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 16,000 people have fled their homes in the area in anticipation of further fighting.

 U.N. MARKS 22^ND YEAR SINCE CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR DISASTER

• In a statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General on the 22nd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the UN honours the emergency workers who labored heroically at the damaged reactor; the hundreds of thousands who were evacuated from surrounding areas with little hope of return; and the millions living in contaminated areas who have long feared for their health. The accident had a huge impact on the region, and its consequences linger even today.
   

• Meanwhile, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has presented a draft action plan covering UN work on Chernobyl until 2016. In addition, Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova, who is a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador, plans to visit UNDP community development projects in the region.

FALLEN U.N. STAFF ARE MOURNED

• Today is also UN Staff Day. Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro began the day at a brief ceremony to remember our colleagues who died in the service of the UN since the last Staff Day. A total of 294 names were read out. A minute of silence followed the reading, after which the UN Flag was raised to full mast.
   

• Then, the Deputy Secretary-General addressed the staff in the General Assembly Hall. Saying she was bringing greetings from the Secretary-General to staff at Headquarters as well as our colleagues in the field, she said that this day was marked with joy, but that we must also commemorate our colleagues who have given their lives in the service of the peoples of the world. This is, therefore, an occasion to pay tribute to those colleagues who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

*On the occasion of World Malaria day, the guests at the noon briefing today were the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Malaria, Ray Chambers, and the World Health Organization's Director-General, Margaret Chan, who briefed on the Secretary-General's new vision for fighting malaria.

THE WEEK AHEAD AT THE UNITED NATIONS

Saturday, April 26

Today and tomorrow, the Secretary-General is in Vienna, Austria, where he is scheduled to meet with Government leaders, as well as the heads of the Vienna-based UN organizations.

Monday, April 28

The Secretary-General is in Bern, Switzerland, where he chairs the UN Chief Executives Board meeting, which will largely focus on increasing food prices and possible responses from the UN System.

This morning, the Security Council is scheduled to hold a debate on Iraq (UN Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Multi-National Force).

From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Conference Room 4, there will be an informal, open meeting of the Burundi configuration of the Peacebuilding Commission.

From 3 to 6 p.m. in Conference Room 4, there will be an interactive panel discussion on “From manifest failure to collective action: Realizing the responsibility to protect”.  Edward Luck, Special Advisor to the Secretary General, will be among the participants.

From today through 9 May, the Thirtieth session of the Committee on Information meets in Conference Room 1.

From today through 9 May in Geneva, the second session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons takes place.

Today is World Day for Safety and Health at Work.

Tuesday, April 29

This afternoon in Geneva, the Secretary General delivers the first of a series of lectures organized by the UN office in Geneva and the UN Institute for Training and Research on “Are the Development goals doomed to fail?”

This morning, the Security Council is scheduled to adopt resolutions on the UN Mission in Sudan, the Somalia Monitoring Group, and the Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, then hold consultations on the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire and Côte d'Ivoire sanctions review.

From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Conference Room 6, there will be an informal, open meeting of the Sierra Leone configuration of the Peacebuilding Commission.

From 1.15 p.m. to 2.45 p.m. in Conference Room 2, UNESCO hosts an event on “Indigenous Languages and the Media: Real examples and their various approaches, mechanisms, impacts, and challenges.”

Today and tomorrow, the Economic and Social Council holds its resumed organizational session.

Wednesday, April 30

This morning, the Security Council is scheduled to hold an open debate on small arms. Today is the last day of South Africa’s Security Council presidency.

From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Conference Room 4, there will be an informal, open meeting of the Guinea-Bissau configuration of the Peacebuilding Commission.

At 11 a.m. in Room S-226, Joel Simon, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), holds a press conference to launch CPJ’s Impunity Index, which ranks countries that fail to prosecute killers of journalists.

The guest at the noon briefing is Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, who will brief on her recent visit to Iraq.

Thursday, May 1

Today is the first day of the United Kingdom’s Security Council presidency.

At 11 a.m. in Room S-226, Chuck Strahl, Canada’s Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, holds a press conference.

At 1:15 p.m in Room S-226, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chairperson of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and other indigenous representatives hold a press conference on the outcomes of the Forum's seventh session.

Friday, May 2

In London, the Secretary-General chairs a meeting of Quartet Principals to review all aspects of the process launched at Annapolis and the situation on the ground.

Beginning at 10 a.m. the Economic and Social Council holds a special event on "Achieving the MDGs and Coping with the Challenges of Climate Change”.

At 11.15 a.m. in Room S-226, Olivier De Schutter, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, holds his first press conference since beginning his mandate on 1 May.

At 12.30 p.m. in Room S-226, Ambassador John Sawers of the United Kingdom briefs the press, in his capacity as the President of the Security Council for May, on the Council’s programme of work for the month.

From today through 10 May, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak, visits Denmark, at the invitation of the Danish Government.

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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