DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19961015
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, told correspondents at today's noon briefing that the Secretary-General had just arrived in Paris. Afterwards, he would visit Lubeck as well as Hamburg, Germany, and would then go back to Paris.
Today, the Secretary-General would be meeting France's Foreign Minister, Herve de Charette in Paris. Tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. (Paris time) he would meet with French President Jacques Chirac to discuss, among other issues, resolution 986 (1995) -- on the oil-for-food formula concerning Iraq -- and the situation in Burundi. On Thursday, 17 October, the Secretary-General would deliver the keynote speech at the Malente Symposium in Lubeck, where he would be received by Germany's Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister, Klaus Kinkel. The theme of his speech would be "Integration of economies in transition into the world economy". Mr. Kinkel would host a working dinner for the Secretary-General on Thursday night.
On Friday, 18 October, in Hamburg -- "and this is the big event of the trip", she said -- the Secretary-General would be attending the swearing-in of the 21 judges of the Law of the Sea Tribunal. "He will lay the foundation stone of the Tribunal's future headquarters", she added. At that event, the Secretary-General would be accompanied by Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel, Hans Corell and by Under-Secretary- General for Internal Oversight Services, Karl Theodor Paschke.
On his way back to New York on Saturday, 19 October, the Secretary- General would stop in Paris again to deliver a speech at a conference being held by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to honour Leopold Sedar Senghor on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, Ms. Foa announced. "So we don't have the Secretary-General in-house for the next few days", she said.
"I am told that as we speak, Algeria is signing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)", Ms. Foa said. That would bring the number of signatories to 125. Algeria was one of the 44 "core countries" which needed to sign the Treaty so it could enter into force. With Algeria's signature, the number of "core countries" which had not signed yet was four -- Bangladesh, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, India and Pakistan.
This morning, the Security Council had taken up the Secretary-General's report on the situation in Abkhazia, Georgia, Ms. Foa said. The Council would be briefed on Afghanistan and then, under "other matters", it would discuss the exchange of letters between the Republic of Korea and the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, with the United Nations, the President of the Security Council and the Secretary-General.
A report had come out yesterday on the implementation of the Secretary- General's strategy for the management of the Organization's human resources (document A/C.5/51/1), Ms. Foa said. The report had lots of interesting figures, including the geographic distribution of staff. "I recommend it, certainly for your files -- grab it while there are still some left", she said.
Thursday, 17 October was the "International Day for the Eradication of Poverty", Ms. Foa announced. The Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), James Gustave Speth, would be present at the noon briefing.
Asked whether the United Nations had a view in regards to Louis Farrakhan's visit to the United Nations tomorrow, Ms. Foa replied that Mr. Farrakhan would not visit the United Nations but would hold a press conference at the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) Club at 4 p.m. "We have been told by the New York City police that tomorrow there will be a demonstration outside, called the World Day of Atonement", she said. The demonstration would probably create some traffic problems on First Avenue and "evidently quite a number of streets would be closed", she added.
Why had Bangladesh not signed the CTBT? a correspondent asked. Ms. Foa answered she did not know.
Were the new clashes in northern Iraq making the implementation of the "oil-for-food" plan more difficult? a correspondent asked. Ms. Foa answered that every time there were new hostilities, it became more difficult for the United Nations to assess the situation. There were other problems that were still being discussed at the United Nations in regards to that, she added.
Samsiah Abdul-Majid, spokeswoman for General Assembly President Razali Ismail (Malaysia), said the Assembly this morning had heard the President of the International Court of Justice. Ten delegations were listed to speak on the item. Also today, the Assembly continued consideration of the progress at mid-decade on the implementation of recommendations of the World Summit for Children.
Tomorrow, the Assembly would take up the implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning continued discussing the scale of assessments for the apportionment of the expenses of the United Nations, Ms. Abdul-Majid said. The United Nations Controller, Yukio Takasu, had spoken on the 1996-1997 programme budget. In his statement, he had said that there was "no indication that the budget
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 15 October 1996
expense of $2.608 billion will be exceeded". Furthermore, he had said that the basic dilemma and major challenge continued to be how to achieve reduction while not affecting the mandated programmes. He had also underlined the need for Member States to support the efforts of the Secretary-General.
The Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management, Denis Halliday, also speaking on the 1996-1997 programme budget, had updated the Fifth Committee on the status of staff redeployment, the spokeswoman said. Currently, there were 17 staff members who were in need of placement compared to 37 a month ago.
For those interested, one of the latest documents of the Fifth Committee was the report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) on the 1996-1997 programme budget (document A/51/7/Add.1), Ms. Abdul-Majid said. The report of the Secretary-General on the subject appeared in document A/C.5/50/57/Add.1. Apart from the document on the composition of the Secretariat (document A/51/421), other documents for the item on human resources management included those on the implementation of the Secretary-General's strategy for the management of the Organization's human resources (document A/C.5/51/1), improvement of the status of women in the Secretariat (document A/51/304) and on employment of retirees (documents A/C.5/51/2 and A/51/475).
Tomorrow, the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) would meet on the item on effects of atomic radiation, the spokeswoman announced. A draft resolution related to that issue was available (document A/C.4/51/L.3).
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NOTE:The first sentence in the sixth complete paragraph on page 4 of yesterday's noon briefing notes should read: "On 16 and 17 October, the Third Committee would not meet because the Assembly was expected to discuss the outcome of the 1995 World Summit for Social Development."