United Nations Daily Highlights, 05-11-17

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

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SPOKESMAN'S NOON BRIEFING

BY MARIE OKABE

DEPUTY SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK

Thursday, November 17, 2005

KOFI ANNAN TO VISIT AREAS HARDEST HIT BY SOUTH ASIAN QUAKE

Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived today in Pakistan, where he will attend the donors conference for earthquake reconstruction that is to be held on Saturday.

He met at the airport with Pakistans Foreign Minister, Khurshid Mahmoud Kasuri, and they

spoke to the press after that meeting, saying that much more is needed in terms of resources to deal with the response to the earthquake.

He added that what will take place in Pakistan is recovery plus, in which houses are not just rebuilt, but built in a manner that can withstand another disaster.

The Secretary-General also met with the UN country team working to deal with the disaster, and received a briefing from them on the situation.

Tomorrow, he is expected to visit some of the areas that have been hardest hit by the earthquake, including the city of Muzaffarabad.

SECRETARY-GENERAL UNVEILS $100 LAPTOP

The Secretary-General, together with a professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on Wednesday night unveiled a prototype of a cheap and rugged laptop for children, at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis.

The low-energy green laptops, which are powered with a wind-up crank, will let students interact with each other while learning.

Speaking at the One Laptop per Child event last night, the Secretary-General

noted that the $100 laptops are to be financed through domestic resources, donors and possibly other arrangements, at no cost to the recipients themselves. They are to be distributed through education ministries using established textbook channels.

Calling the laptops an impressive technical achievement, the Secretary-General said that they were able to do almost everything that larger, more expensive computers could do.

SECURITY COUNCIL FOCUSES ON AFGHANISTAN, ERITREA AND ETHIOPIA

The

Security Council today held consultations on Afghanistan, on which it heard a briefing by Under-Secretary-General

Jean Marie Guéhenno on events following the September Lower House and Provincial elections.

In the weeks since those elections, the independent

Electoral Complaints Commission has rendered its decision on some 900 complaints. The Commission ruled that, while irregularities did occur, systematic fraud did not take place across the country and the certified electoral results are legitimate.

Guéhenno also discussed recent security developments in Afghanistan, including the car bomb attacks on Monday.

He also briefed the Council during closed consultations on the situation between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

ANNAN IN TELEPHONE CONTACT WITH SYRIAN PRESIDENT

Asked about where UN investigator Detlev Mehlis might conduct interviews with Syrian individuals, the Spokeswoman said she had no new information on the matter. She said that Mehlis was in the lead on that matter.

She added that the Secretary-General had been in phone contact with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, most recently on Wednesday night.

UNITED NATIONS IS CONCERNED WITH USE OF WHITE PHOSPHORUS IN IRAQ

Asked whether the United Nations was concerned about the reported use of white phosphorus in Falluja last year, the Spokeswoman said that the United Nations was aware of the reports and was concerned about its possible effects on the local civilian population.

The United Nations welcomes the decision of the Government of Iraq to launch an immediate investigation into this matter, she added.

BILL CLINTON TO MAKE SECOND TSUNAMI AREA VISIT

The Special Envoy for

Tsunami Recovery, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, will be making his second

trip to the tsunami-hit region, in his UN capacity, later this month.

He will be in Sri Lanka on 29 November and Aceh on 30 November. He will then head to Brussels on 1 December to brief the European Commission on ongoing needs.

UNITED NATIONS AND TOUR FIRM TO PROMOTE WORLD HERITAGE SITES

The UN

Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today

announced the launching of a new travel initiative to promote sustainable tourism and awareness of World Heritage Sites.

The new body, called the World Heritage Alliance, was created by the travel company Expedia, and the United Nations Foundation, with the cooperation of UNESCO.

It is designed to encourage travelers to help in nature conservation, historic preservation and poverty reduction through sustainable tourism.

Expedia is already running trips to 11 of the 812

World Heritage Sites, with the profits gong to heritage site funds. These include visits to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Machu Piccuhu in Peru, and Central City in the Czech Republic.

DEVELOPED COUNTRIES GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS DOWN

In a new publication linked to the

UN Climate Change Convention, the UN Climate Change

secretariat

confirms that developed countries, taken as a group, have achieved sizable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Compared to the 1990 levels, overall greenhouse gas emissions of these countries were down 5.9% in 2003 but the secretariat warns that further efforts are required to sustain these reductions.

ACCESS TO OIL-FOR-FOOD PROBE PAPERS BEING FINALIZED

The United Nations is finalizing arrangements for access by Member States and others to the documentation that has been amassed during the course of the

Independent Inquiry Committees work. The aim is to provide the widest possible access to documents for duly authorized law enforcement and regulatory agencies consistent with confidentiality agreements and other arrangements agreed by the IIC in collecting the information.

Separately, the IIC is being extended until at the least the end of December 2005 in order to facilitate cooperation with any criminal investigations by national authorities seeking to follow-up on the findings of the IICs final report.

When the IIC is formally closed, the United Nations will ensure that arrangements are put in place to manage future access to the IICs files and ensure full cooperation with new or ongoing investigations by appropriate national authorities. The IIC will not be conducting any further investigations.

On funding, this is under discussion but likely to be financed in the same way as earlier phases of the IIC. The expected costs would be much smaller than during the investigative phase, as it requires a smaller team to facilitate access to the information.

Asked for further details about who will control the documents currently possessed by the IIC, the Spokeswoman said that is a matter which is currently being discussed by the

Office for Legal Affairs, the Iraqi authorities and the Volcker Committee. A final decision has not yet been reached.

Asked whether it was fair to say that funding for the IIC would come out of oil-for-food accounts, the Spokeswoman noted that it was expected that its funding would be along the lines of previous arrangements

U.N. COUNTER TERRORISM CHIEF FULLY VETTED

Asked whether the United Nations has investigated if

Javier Ruperez, the Executive Director of the

Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate, was the same person as a Javier Roberts referred to in the October report of the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC), the Spokeswoman noted that Ruperez had been nominated by the Secretary-General and approved by the Security Council in a candidacy which was thoroughly vetted.

She said that Ruperez had filled out his financial disclosure forms, on which nothing irregular was found. He said that he was willing to disclose any further financial information that is deemed necessary.

Ruperez also said that he had taken legal action against papers in Spain that had linked him to Javier Roberts and claimed to have won retractions from them.

Ruperezs name, Okabe said, did not come up in the IIC report. There is no reason, she said, for the United Nations to believe that Ruperez is the same person as the one mentioned in the report.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

LATEST REPORT ON PLANS FOR REFURBISHING UN IS PUBLISHED: The latest report by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly on the

Capital Master Plan to refurbish UN headquarters in New York is out as a document today.

AFRICAN ECONOMIC ENVOY WAS DEVELOPMENT EXPERT: Asked about the appointment of the head of the Economic Commission for Africa,

Abdoulieye Janneh, the Spokeswoman said that the decision to approve his promotion was taken last July by the Under-Secretaries-General for Legal Affairs, Political Affairs and Peacekeeping Operations. She said that he was appointed to his position on the basis of his exemplary record at the UN Development Programme (UNDP). The Spokeswoman declined to comment on repeated questions asked about Janneh and a Mercedes sale referred to in the September report of the Independent Inquiry Committee.

SPOKESWOMAN SPEAKS FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: Asked who provides her with guidance, the Spokeswoman noted that she is the Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and her guidance ultimately comes from the Secretary-General.

Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General

United Nations, S-378

New York, NY 10017

Tel. 212-963-7162 - press/media only

Fax. 212-963-7055

All other inquiries to be addressed to (212) 963-4475 or by e-mail to: inquiries@un.org

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