DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19970129
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Juan Carlos Brandt, Associate Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by welcoming the Director of the Centre for Disarmament Affairs, Prvoslav Davinic, who was to brief correspondents on the current session of the Conference on Disarmament under way in Geneva. He reminded correspondents that the Secretary-General was expected to address the Conference tomorrow at 10 a.m., Geneva time. It was therefore a good opportunity for Mr. Davinic to tell correspondents the expectations and goals of the session.
He called attention to two letters which were available on the racks. The first was from the Secretary-General to the Security Council proposing Ambassador Mohamed Sahnoun as joint United Nations/Organization of African Unity (OAU) Special Representative for the Great Lakes region of Africa (document S/1997/73). The second conveyed the agreement of Council members to the proposal (document S/1997/74). Ambassador Sahnoun was now officially the Joint United Nations/OAU Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, Mr. Brandt said.
In a related matter, he said the Inter-Agency Standing Committee had issued a statement yesterday in New York calling upon all parties concerned to ensure the immediate and safe access of humanitarian organizations to those in need in eastern Zaire. The statement said the Inter-Agency Committee was gravely concerned about the lack of access to populations in need in eastern Zaire, caused by constraints from all the concerned parties. It said the recent increase in fighting had further undermined the efforts already undertaken by relief organizations to provide assistance in an area with difficult terrain and challenging logistics. Limitations on access were having a potentially devastating impact on vulnerable populations trapped in the middle of the conflict. The statement had been available on the racks since yesterday afternoon, the Associate Spokesman said.
On the Organization's finances, Mr. Brandt said two more Member States had yesterday paid in full their regular budget dues for 1997, bringing the total of those who had done so to 21. They were Malaysia, $1,491,111, and Slovakia, $852,063. He reminded correspondents that, as of today, the amount owed by Member States to the United Nations totalled $3.4 billion, of which $1.4 billion was for the regular budget and $2 billion, for peace-keeping operations.
Mr. Brandt said the Security Council was today meeting in informal consultations on a number of questions to be followed, possibly, by an open meeting on Libya, at which a presidential statement would be read. Council
members also had on their agenda, Angola and the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). On the latter, he said they would discuss the recent report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Abkhazia, Georgia (document S/1997/47). He reminded correspondents that UNOMIG's mandate would expire at the end of January, and the Secretary-General had recommended its extension for a further six-month period.
Turning to the Secretary-General's trip to Geneva, Mr. Brandt said his programme had been made available there and at Headquarters. At 9:15 a.m. tomorrow (local time), he would meet with the Foreign Minister of Australia, Alexander Downer; and at 10 a.m. he would address the Conference on Disarmament. The Secretary-General planned to give a press conference to correspondents accredited to the United Nations Office in Geneva, which would be his first press conference there as Secretary- General. He would meet in the afternoon with Vice-President Flavio Cotti of Switzerland, who was also head of the country's Department of Foreign Affairs. The meeting would be followed by a brief encounter of the two with the press. The Secretary- General would be guest of honour at a dinner to be given by the President of the State Council of the Republic of the Canton de Geneve, Jean-Philippe Maitre Fondation Zoubov.
Mr. Brandt drew attention to three press releases, all available in the Spokesman's office. A press advisory from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on a session which would take place on Monday, 3 February at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. The press release explained what the session was about, listed the participants and provided background information. It also provided names of contact persons.
There was also a World Food Programme (WFP) news update announcing a $19.4 million food aid operation for Sierra Leone aimed primarily at encouraging the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by civil war over the past six years, he continued. Approximately 775,000 people would benefit from the six-month emergency operation, he added, with the majority of the food aid being given to support a resettlement, repatriation and rehabilitation programme. According to the WFP, more than one-third of the country's 4 million strong population had been displaced by the six-year civil war.
The third press release, from the World Health Organization (WHO), concerned a global polio eradication campaign, jointly undertaken by WHO and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), 'to broker days of tranquility in Afghanistan', he said. The press release indicated how urgently 'days of tranquility' were needed so that 4 million children in that war-torn country could be immunized this spring against poliomyelitis. It also explained how in relative terms there were few polio-endemic countries left in the world, and that those that remained were the most difficult to tackle. Afghanistan was one of them.
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 29 January 1997
Mr. Brandt announced that there would be a press briefing tomorrow, Thursday, 30 January, in room 226 to discuss the outcome of the sixteenth session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which had considered reports submitted by Morocco, Slovenia, Venezuela, Turkey, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Denmark, Philippines and Canada on their compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Convention, adopted by the General Assembly in 1979, came into force in 1981. The participants at the press briefing would be Committee Chairperson, Selma Khan, of Bangladesh; chairpersons of the Committee's working groups I and II, Tendai Ruth Bare, of Zimbabwe, and Charlotte Abaka, of Ghana; and Angela King, newly-appointed Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Director of the Division for the Advancement of Women.
Responding to questions, Mr. Brandt said he believed the United Nations Transitional Administrator for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium, Jacques Klein, had not been able to meet Security Council members or brief the press yesterday because of scheduling problems. Mr. Klein had, nevertheless, been able to meet some correspondents who requested a meeting; and those interested in what he said could contact the Spokesman's office.
Mr. Brandt told a correspondent that the Secretary-General had taken account of recommendations on the criteria required for the post in the appointment of Ambassador Mohamed Sahnoun as United Nations/OAU Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region. Those recommendations had been made by Ambassador Raymond Chretien of Canada, who visited the region last year on behalf of the previous Secretary-General. Mr. Brandt recalled that Ambassador Sahnoun had told correspondents yesterday what his aims and desires were for the region.
Asked whether the Secretary-General condemned the "tactics" of the Swiss Government in its handling of the issue of Second World War Nazi gold, Mr. Brandt said he had "no guidance" on the matter. There was no "United Nations angle" to it, he added.
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