DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said at the beginning of today's briefing that the Secretary-General was briefing the Security Council on his "oil-for-food" report on Iraq. He would brief correspondents immediately afterwards. (For transcript of the press conference, see Press Release SG/SM/6451.)

The Security Council President for the month of February was Ambassador Denis Dangue Rewaka of Gabon, the Spokesman said. This afternoon and tomorrow, he would be holding bilateral consultations on the programme of work for the month. He was expected to finalize that by Wednesday.

The Secretary-General's "oil-for-food" report had been made available to Member States yesterday afternoon, Mr. Eckhard said. It had gone out by fax to the Security Council members and had been in the pigeon-holes of all 185 Member States by the end of the day. It was out as document S/1998/90 today.

Over the weekend, the Secretary-General had completed his activities in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum and had returned to New York yesterday afternoon, the Spokesman said. The Spokesman's Office had received a list of his activities -- "which were fairly intense" -- for Saturday. He had opened the day with a breakfast meeting hosted by the President of Switzerland, Flavio Cotti. That meeting had also been attended by the Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jose Solana; the Foreign Minister of Australia, Alexander Downer; and the Vice- Foreign Minister of Canada, Donald Campbell. They had discussed the problem of controlling the flow of small arms.

The Spokesman said the Secretary-General had also met with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata; the President of Ghana, Jerry John Rawlings; the Permanent Representative of the United States, Bill Richardson; and the Foreign Minister of Egypt, Amre Moussa. The Secretary- General had given a press conference at midday, the transcript of which was available upstairs. "I recommend it to you", the Spokesman said. "He said a number of things on Iraq."

In the afternoon, the Secretary-General had met with the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Victor S. Chernomyrdin; the Prime Minister of Belgium, Jean-Luc Dehaene; the Foreign Minister of Turkey, Ismail Cem; the Vice-President of Bolivia, Jorge Quiroga Ramirez; Shimon Perez, Nobel Peace Prize winner and member of the Israeli Knesset; the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mohammad Nawaz Sharif; and the Vice-Premier of China, Li Lanqing. Details on the subject matter of each of those meetings were available in room S-378.

On Friday, 30 January, Hungary had become the twentieth State to deposit its notification of ratification of Protocol IV -- on Blinding Laser Weapons

-- to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the Spokesman continued. This Protocol made a significant contribution to the development of international humanitarian law and represented the first time that the international community had pre-empted the use of a weapon before it had actually gone into use in the field. The names of the countries party to the Convention were available in the Spokesman's Office. The Protocol would go into effect within six months of the deposit of that twentieth ratification -- on 31 July.

The Population Division had come out with new world population projections to the year 2150, Mr. Eckhard said. That year, the world's population was expected to reach 10.8 billion people, up from the current level of approximately 6 billion. By the year 2200, the number of people on the planet could stabilize at 11 billion. But the new report also cautioned that if fertility rates stayed constant, there would be 296 billion people on Earth by the year 2150. The executive summary of the report, in English, was available in room S-378. Correspondents interested in doing interviews on that report, which was just out today in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, German or Italian, could contact Joseph-Alfred Grinblat at 963-3216. A press release would be available later this afternoon. (See Press Release POP/656.)

Today in Nairobi, the World Food Programme (WFP) had signed a $1.3 million agreement with the Kenya Railways Corporation, the Spokesman said. That agreement would enable the WFP to deliver food aid faster and more cheaply in the Great Lakes region of Africa. The railway line, called by a WFP official "a life-line for the region", would carry 9,000 tons of food a month to WFP relief projects. The increased rail capacity would allow the WFP to save $7,000 a day in storage costs. A press release was available in room S-378.

The World Bank had released a report today in Washington on poverty reduction, Mr. Eckhard went on. According to that report, overall developing country trends showed significant progress in reducing poverty, but the results by region were mixed. A total of 1.3 billion people still lived on less than $1 a day, and almost 3 billion people lived on less than $2 a day. New sources of concern were arising in many countries. Certain groups were socially excluded and benefited little from the overall growth process. The press release for that report was available upstairs and copies of the report itself had been placed in the correspondent's pigeon-holes.

The Spokesman then announced that a reference document, the United Nations Scale of Assessments, had been issued today. This was the three-year scale that had been negotiated by the General Assembly. That document had been issued as A/RES/52/215.

Correspondents might have seen on the wires that the Organization of the Islamic Conference had sent a letter to the Secretary-General concerning their position on Iraq, the Spokesman said. Copies were available in English, French and Arabic.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 2 February 1998

There would be a press conference in room S-226 tomorrow at about 11:35 a.m. by the President of Albania, Rexhep Mejdani, immediately following his meeting with the Secretary-General, Mr. Eckhard said.

A correspondent asked if -- in the light of questions posed last Friday by the ambassadors of China and the Russian Federation -- there were plans to bring back Ambassador Richard Butler, Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) monitoring the disposal of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, to explain comments he had made about Tel Aviv. "Ambassador Butler, I believe, dealt with The New York Times," the Spokesman replied. On Friday, there had been a letter to the editor by him, as well as a correction. "I think we would like to let the matter lay there, but this is entirely a matter for the Council to take up, rather than for him to take up with you. It's between him and them."

Ambassador Bill Richardson had said there would be two more countries going to Baghdad, but had said, "I can't mention the names", a correspondent said. Which countries were those? Mr. Eckhard said, "I don't have any comment on what Ambassador Richardson said, I'm just following the wires as you are."

A correspondent asked what the difference was between the laser weapons used during the Gulf War and those that the Spokesman had mentioned. "I believe these are laser weapons used against people in the field," the Spokesman said. "What you are referring to may have been laser-guided weapons which is something different. The title of these weapons is 'Laser Blinding', so they are anti- personnel weapons designed to blind the enemy. These have not gone into use anywhere in the world and now it's the first time a weapon of that sort has been banned before they have been distributed and used."

An American Pentagon spokesman had raised the possibility of the first- strike use of American tactical nuclear weapons against chemical stockpiles in Iraq, a correspondent stated. Wasn't this kind of rhetoric contrary to the notion of nuclear-weapon de-escalation? The Spokesman said, "I haven't seen that comment. I don't know if the Secretary-General has seen it either. I'm not sure he would want to address the question, but you are welcome to put the question to him."

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