DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

(Incorporates briefing by spokesman for General Assembly President.)

Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by announcing that the Security Council was meeting again this morning in Conference Room 5 to resume the briefing by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on the situation in Iraq. The Executive Chairman of UNSCOM, Richard Butler, and his team of experts briefed the Council yesterday on missile-related issues, and on chemical and biological weapons. This morning, they were briefing the Council on the issues of concealment and documents. Mr. Butler was expected to make a concluding statement on the so-called road map to the disarmament of Iraq's proscribed weapons, leading eventually to the lifting of the sanctions. The Council was then expected to take up Haiti, where it had a three-month progress report from the Secretary- General, and other matters.

Tomorrow, the Council was expected to take up Angola, Papua New Guinea and the situation in Kosovo, the Spokesman added. Alioune Blondin Beye, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Angola, would brief the Council on Angola. Secretariat officials were expected to brief on the other two items.

This afternoon, the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council were meeting at the Palais des Nations in Geneva to discuss the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the situation in South Asia. The foreign ministers arrived between 4:55 p.m. and 5:20 p.m. Geneva time and were met by Vladimir Petrovsky, Director-General of the United Nations Office there. The meeting started at 5:45 p,m, and was broadcast at Headquarters on the audio feed from Geneva. Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jianxuan made opening remarks with the press present, and then the meeting continued in closed session. The meeting was expected to last two to three hours.

He added that, between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m New York time, there would be a joint press conference by those five foreign ministers which would last about 10 minutes. Mr. Tang, who was also the coordinator of the permanent five members for the month of June, would speak about 15 minutes after the first briefing. United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would then brief the press, followed by Russian Federation Foreign Minister Evegueni Primakov. All of the briefings would be available through the audio feed at Headquarters. Mr. Tang's opening statement earlier today was broadcast in Chinese, and there were attempts to provide the English translation later in the day.

On the situation in Albania, Mr. Eckhard said that more than 6,500 arrivals from Kosovo had been registered as of today. The total number estimated to be in the country was at least 8,000 and could be as high as 10,000. The planning figures of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were being revised to 20,000, up from 10,000. The influx had stretched to the limit the food, accommodation and transportation resources in the Tropoje area, the point of entry into Albania.

He added that UNHCR field staff said they witnessed large numbers of refugees continuing to stream down the mountain and collapse once they reached the plateau, which was a four- to six-hour walk from Tropoje. Several refugees, including a number of women and children, had suffered shrapnel wounds. Reported deaths included two elderly persons who died of exhaustion and a two-year-old boy who died when his mother fell down while attempting the mountain crossing. Local authorities were providing as much transportation as possible to bring the refugees down the mountain. Additional resources and staff were being rushed to the area.

Humanitarian workers were grappling with another emergency today, the Spokesman said. In Afghanistan, clearer skies enabled the delivery of urgently needed emergency assistance to some of the survivors of the earthquake on Saturday, 30 May. Between six and seven tons of aid was delivered to 12 most severely affected villages. But field staff said the amount reaching the victims was a drop in the bucket when compared with the huge needs on the ground. The priority was to get food to those who had not eaten since Saturday. They were awaiting the delivery of two 20-ton cargo helicopters from the United States, and they were appealing for several more helicopters and aircraft that could manoeuvre through the difficult mountainous terrain. A donors meeting was scheduled for tomorrow, 5 June, in Islamabad. An update on that situation was available in the Spokesman's Office.

The Secretary-General held an internal meeting on Tuesday, 2 June, to review the progress of his good offices on the question of East Timor and to consider further steps to advance the negotiations under his auspices, Mr. Eckhard said. The meeting was attended by, Jamsheed Marker, the Secretary- General's Personal Representative for East Timor; Kieran Prendergast, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs; and other senior officials from the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and the Department of Political Affairs. The Secretary-General recently addressed a letter to Indonesian President B.J. Habibie assuring him of his commitment to work with the Indonesian Government and with the Government of Portugal in the effort to find, as early as possible, a just, comprehensive and internationally acceptable solution to the question of East Timor. The letter also called on the new Government to release East Timorese political prisoners.

Mr. Eckhard said copies of today's press briefing in Baghdad by the spokesman of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq were available in room

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 4 June 1998

S-378. The spokesman in Baghdad announced the results of a survey conducted in May on the availability of medicines and medical supplies. Those results showed there was a 114 per cent increase in attendance at health centres in the three northern governorates, but only an 11 per cent increase in the south, in the past six months. Fifty per cent of those interviewed received the full prescribed treatment, compared with 39 per cent in 1997.

In addition, fewer patients were leaving health centres without any medication, down to 15 per cent, compared to 28 per cent in November 1997, Mr. Eckhard said. However, doctors in health centres said they only had one third of the drugs they needed to treat the 10 most common diseases. The briefing notes included several fact sheets. Those cover the contents of the food basket, details of the new and enhanced Phase IV distribution plan and a comparison of it with the Phase III plan.

This morning, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette left Geneva for Bern, the capital of Switzerland, where she represented the Secretary-General, along with heads of State of neighbouring countries, in the ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of the Federal State of Switzerland, the Spokesman said. A press release on that, as well as a copy of her remarks delivered there, were available in the Spokesman's Office.

In connection with World Environment Day, Friday, 5 June, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Mission of Portugal would organize a symposium on the International Year of the Ocean, Mr. Eckhard said. It would be held from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium, and would feature a presentation on El Niño by Michael Glantz, senior scientist at the National Atmospheric Research Center in Boulder, Colorado.

From the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, there was a press release on the upcoming trial of Croatian suspect Anto Furundzjia, Mr. Eckhard said. Mr. Furundzjia stood accused of torture and rape, among other crimes. When his trial began on Monday, 8 June, it would mark the Tribunal's first prosecution of the crime of sexual violence inflicted during interrogation. A press release was available in room S-378.

He announced that the Republic of Korea became the seventy-fourth country to pay its regular budget dues with a cheque for over $10 million. Last year at this time, 63 countries had paid in full.

On press conferences tomorrow, in room S-226, Mr. Eckhard said that Mohammed Said Al-Sahaf, Iraq's Minister for Foreign Affairs, would speak at 10:30 a.m. Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme, would brief correspondents at 11:15 a.m. to launch the report on "Bank Secrecy and Offshore Haven", also called money laundering.

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 4 June 1998

Mr. Eckhard added that there were no appointments for the Secretary- General available. That was because the Secretary-General was working at home and resting today, and would probably do the same tomorrow.

Alex Taukatch, spokesman for General Assembly President Hennadiy Udovenko (Ukraine), said the Assembly would meet today at 3 p.m. in a plenary session to take up a number of items. The Assembly was expected to decide that its fifty-second session would close on Tuesday, 8 September, and the fifty-third session would open on Wednesday, 9 September. It would decide that the International Day of Peace shall continue to be observed on the opening day of the regular session. The Assembly would also include in the provisional agenda of the fifty-third session the item entitled "Strengthening of the United Nations system", which dealt, in part, with the time of Assembly sessions. The decision on the closing and opening of the session was the result of consultations that the Assembly President had held to find a mutually acceptable solution. The draft resolution on that issue was in document A/52/L.77, the underlying Assembly resolution was resolution 51/241, and the related report of the Secretary-General was contained in document A/52/856.

Mr. Taukatch added that the Assembly would also have before it a decision on a report of the Secretary-General that contained the views of its three previous Assembly Presidents on the revitalization of the work of the Assembly. That draft was in document A/52/L.76. Among other items, the Assembly would act today on a draft resolution regarding the implementation of the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995).

On the activities of the Assembly President, he said Mr. Udovenko had met with the Secretary-General late yesterday afternoon, 3 June, to discuss a number of current international issues and the work of the Assembly. The main focus of their discussion was the situation created by the series of nuclear tests in South Asia and a possible United Nations response to those developments. The President conveyed to the Secretary-General the concerns of some Member States that the issue should receive further consideration and that they should have an opportunity to pronounce themselves on that matter.

In reviewing preparations for the Assembly's special session on the world drug problem, Mr. Taukatch said the Assembly President and the Secretary-General expressed satisfaction with the process and voiced their confidence that the session would mark a milestone in the international community's fight against drugs. On the Assembly's regular session, they discussed the current stage of the Assembly's consideration of the latest reports of the Secretary-General.

Turning to the upcoming special session, Mr. taukatch said that a total of 155 Member States were expected to speak. The number of participating heads of State and heads of government had not changed since it had been last announced: 22 heads of State, 10 heads of government, and one vice-president.

Daily Press Briefing - 5 - 4 June 1998

The level of participation, as well as the sequence of speakers, continued to change, but updated information on that would be posted later today on the Internet.

Also in relation to the special session, there was a report available of an expert group convened by the Secretary-General to review the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) and to strengthen the United Nations machinery for international drug control. That group held its first meeting in Vienna from 22 to 24 April. In its report, the group unanimously agreed that the UNDCP needed to be strengthened and its effectiveness should be enhanced by a combination of institutional changes and improvements in its funding arrangements. Those changes were needed to enable the Programme to fully address its mandates and responsibilities. That report was contained in document A/S-20/2.

On another matter, Mr. Taukatch drew the correspondents' attention to a draft resolution on the global implications of the year 2000 date conversion problem of computers, document A/52/L.75, which was issued today. The General Assembly would revisit that issue next week following the special session.

What was the essence of the year 2000 date problem of computers? a correspondent asked. Mr. Taukatch said that he was not an expert on the matter; however, he understood that computers' internal clocks, which stored years in two-digit forms, would make the mistake of interpreting year 2000 as 1900. The problem would affect computer data in a variety of spheres, from taxes to flight schedules. The fact that the United Nations was highlighting this problem was a good example of how the Organization's activities related to the daily concerns of the "real" world.

Responding to a question on whether the General Assembly had ever begun a session on a Wednesday and not a Tuesday, Mr. Taukatch said that, to his knowledge, it had never begun on a Wednesday. Traditionally, the Assembly began its session on the third Tuesday of September.

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