United Nations Daily Highlights, 02-10-09

United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

From: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.org

OF THE NOON BRIEFING

BY FRED ECKHARD

SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS

UN

HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK

Wednesday, October 9, 2002

IRAQ: ANNAN TRANSMITS TO SECURITY COUNCIL LETTER ON INSPECTIONS

On Tuesday afternoon, Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote to the President of the Security Council, informing the Council of a letter from Hans Blix, Executive Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), and Mohammed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to Iraqi Presidential Advisor Amir Al-Saadi, who met with those two men in Vienna last week.

UNMOVIC said that the letter from Blix and ElBaradei lists all the conclusions reached at Vienna, including agreement on immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access to sites in Iraq, including what had been termed sensitive sites in the past.

Asked about the reason for the letter, the Spokesman noted that UNMOVIC said Blix intended to put in writing the understandings that had been reached in Vienna. In addition, some members of the Security Council had asked for such a list.

HUMANITARIAN ASSESSMENT MISSION ARRIVES IN JERUSALEM

Today, a UN inter-agency technical assessment mission, led by Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator Ross Mountain, arrived in Jerusalem to look into the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The mission is scheduled to spend the next 10 days in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza and will produce a humanitarian plan of action for the occupied territories. It will also follow up on the other recommendations made by the Secretary-Generals Personal Humanitarian Envoy, Catherine Bertini, after her mission to the region in mid-August.

The technical assessment mission includes senior staff from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East (UNSCO) and other key operational agencies.

AFGHANISTAN: UN PARTICIPATES IN TALKS TO HALT FIGHTING IN NORTH

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said that the fighting centered on Keshende in northern Afghanistan stopped at 4:00 a.m. today.

The Security Commission, comprised of the key factions in Northern Afghanistan and a UNAMA representative, went to the area after learning that fighting broke out again Monday between Jumbesh, led by Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, and Jamiat, led by Gen. Ustad Atta Mohammad.

The Security Commission has now removed six commanders, three from each side, from their posts. Five military personnel were reportedly killed and two civilians injured.

The Security Commission has now returned to Mazar-e-Sharif and is in regular contact with the region.

UN HUMAN RIGHTS ENVOY TO VISIT AFGHANISTAN

The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Asma Jahangir, is expected to go on mission to Afghanistan from October 13 to 23.

The visit, which comes at the request of the Special Rapporteur, will include stops in Kabul and a number of other cities and towns, where she will meet with Government officials, international agencies and UN representatives.

She will prepare a report on the visit for the upcoming session of the Commission on Human Rights, which starts in March 2003.

UN MISSION IN KOSOVO WELCOMES SURRENDER OF SUSPECT

Milan Ivanovic, a Kosovo Serb doctor who has been sought by UN police in connection with an April riot in Mitrovica in which UN police officers were injured, has turned himself in to the UN Mission in Kosovos court in that city.

The Secretary-Generals Special Representative for Kosovo, Michael Steiner, welcomed Ivanovics surrender to the court, saying, I have always said this was the only proper way open to him. The investigating judge will now decide on further steps to be taken in this case.

ANNAN APPOINTS NEW FORCE COMMANDER FOR ETHIOPIA-ERITREA

The Secretary-General has appointed Maj. Gen. Robert Gordon of the United Kingdom as the new Force Commander for the UN mission in Ethiopia-Eritrea.

Maj. Gen. Gordon replaces Maj. Gen. Patrick Cammaert, whose two-year tour of duty will end on October 31.

UNITED STATES CONTRIBUTES $46 MILLION TO UN BUDGET

Today the United Nations received payment of more than $46 million of regular budget dues from the United States, after the U.S. Congress agreed to the reprogramming of payments for the UN regular budget.

The U.S. Mission informed the United Nations that U.S. President George W. Bush, on September 30, signed into law an appropriations bill implementing the third and final stage of the "(Jesse) Helms-(Joe) Biden" legislation providing for the repayment of U.S. arrears to the United Nations. Congress has agreed that the funds can be paid 15 days after the day that Bush signed the legislation, instead of the usual 30 days.

The Secretary-General has sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell thanking the administration for supporting the legislation, and he will also be writing to the chairs of the relevant Congressional Committees.

Asked whether the amount paid accounted for all the money the United States owes, the Spokesman said it was his understanding that the Helms-Biden legislation identified some half a billion dollars as contested arrears. That money is still on the books, with the other General Assembly members still deeming it should be paid, he said.

The Spokesman noted that the U.S. legislation also encouraged and authorized the re-synchronization of U.S. payments to the UN budget. Since the 1980s, he said, the United States has been appropriating money each October for dues incurred the previous January; now, he said, it would be encouraged to appropriate money in October for the following years dues.

He said that U.S. arrears had been a problem since the 1980s, and had become crippling until the recent efforts to resolve the funding situation.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

Asked about any travel plans by the Secretary-General to Asia, the Spokesman said he had nothing to announce.

Asked about the UN position concerning a water dispute between Lebanon and Israel, the Spokesman reiterated that the United Nations was aware that the United States had sent water experts to Lebanon to mediate the dispute.

There are no consultations or meetings of the Security Council as a whole today. The working group on peacekeeping operations is scheduled to meet at 3 p.m. On the Security Council's agenda Thursday are consultations on the Secretary-Generals latest report on the UN Mission of Observers in Prevlaka.

The theme for this years International Day for Disaster Reduction, being marked today, is Disaster reduction for sustainable mountain development and is linked the International Year of Mountains being observed this year. In his message, the Secretary-General says that mountain communities are particularly vulnerable to the threat of natural disasters as they are exposed to high rain and snowfalls and the landslides and avalanches that result from them.

The Secretary-General, in a message to the eighth international meeting of the Rainbow International Association against Drugs, which began in Rimini, Italy, today, says that, to find lasting solutions to dealing with drug abuse, we need to build partnerships that extend beyond professionals and experts to the people who are directly or indirectly affected by the drug problem, including and especially youth.

The Secretary-General will attend a dinner this evening with the trustees and friends of his old alma mater, Minnesotas Macalaster College, where, he will say, he found an open door to the culture of this country.

This evening, Yoko Ono will host a reception at the United Nations where she will offer grants to two artists, a Palestinian and an Israeli, in her own Middle East Humanitarian Arts Initiative. The Secretary-General will stop by to congratulate her.