DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Shirley Brownell, spokeswoman for the President of the General Assembly and Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Briefing by Spokeswoman

**General Debate Continues

On the second day of general debate, presided over by President Theo-Ben Gurirab, the General Assembly this morning heard addresses by Presidents Alberto Fujimori of Peru, William Jefferson Clinton of the United States, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen of Guatemala.

In his address, Mr. Fujimori spoke about the need to combat drug trafficking and terrorism, which he considered the greatest threats to good government. Mr. Clinton stressed the need to address global poverty, global warming and AIDS and other deadly diseases, to stop mass killings and displacement, to protect children from nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. He also said the United States had the responsibility to meet its commitment to the United Nations, and he promised to do his best to succeed this year with regard to Washington’s arrears. Mr. Mugabe called for, among other things, action on Africa’s debt problem and for Security Council reform. President Arzu reported on the changes that have taken place in his country since the 1996 peace accord.

Also taking part in the general debate are the Foreign Ministers of the Russian Federation, Ghana and Finland.

This afternoon, the Assembly will hear addresses by Presidents Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela and Carlos Saul Menen of Argentina. The Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic and the Foreign Ministers of the following nine States will speak: Mali, Japan, Austria, Ukraine, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Sweden, United Arab Emirates and Spain.

**Schedule of Appointments for General Assembly President

Copies of the Assembly President’s appointments for today are available in room 378 and on the Internet. He met this morning with President Clinton of the United States, who was accompanied by, among others, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and United States Permanent Representative Richard Holbrooke. They discussed the successful outcome of the Security Council mission to East Timor, the intention of the United States to pay attention to upcoming United Nations peacekeeping operations in Africa, and Washington’s total commitment to the Organization and to resolving its arrears problem.

Also this morning, the President met separately with the Foreign Ministers of the Slovak Republic, Ukraine and Spain. Those discussions centred on Security Council reform. There was general agreement that such reform was needed, and that political will was required. The President said that, while he was against any quick fix, he was also opposed to unnecessary foot-dragging on Security Council reform.

Committees Begin Meeting Today

This afternoon, the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee (Third Committee) and the Administrative and Budgetary Committee (Fifth Committee) are holding organizational meetings at 3 p.m. On the racks are the relevant documents relating to their proposed programmes of work and the status of documentation. Tomorrow, 22 September, the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) will meet at 10 a.m. to organize its work. The Disarmament and International Security Committee (First Committee) will do the same at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, 23 September.

The Preparatory Committee for the special session on implementing the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development and Further Initiatives is scheduled to meet this afternoon, following the adjournment of the Third Committee meeting.

Briefing by Deputy Spokesman

**Statement by Secretary-General on Taiwan Earthquake

The following statement is attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary- General.

“The Secretary-General learned of the earthquake that struck near Taipei yesterday with shock and sadness. He expresses to the people of the Taiwan province of China his heartfelt sympathy at this time of trial.”

**Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has dispatched a United Nations disaster assessment and coordination team to Taipei. Two staff members from the Office in Geneva and four emergency management experts from Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway are on their way. They are expected to arrive in the disaster area tomorrow afternoon local time.

The United Nations team will coordinate the efforts of the various international search and rescue teams arriving in Taipei, together with local authorities involved.

**Kosovo

In a ceremony last night at the Kosovo Force (KFOR) headquarters in Pristina, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, signed a regulation establishing the Kosovo Protection Corps as a civilian emergency service agency.

Kouchner appointed General Agim Ceku, former Chief of Staff of the Kosovo Liberation Army, as Commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps, in order to assist the transitional arrangements. A transition period of at least 60 days will be required to establish the Corps. These preparations include the processing of applications, the procurement of basic equipment and the development of training programmes.

Participating in the 9:30 p.m. signing ceremony was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Supreme Allied Commander, General Wesley Clark, KFOR Commander General Mike Jackson, Mr. Kouchner, UCK Commander-in-Chief Hashim Thaci and General Ceku.

Mr. Thaci signed an agreement to transform the UCK according to stipulations of the United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) regulation and the Undertaking for Demilitarization and Transformation.

The Kosovo Protection Corps should consist of a maximum of 3,000 active members and 2,000 reserve members. Members are to be recruited individually on the basis of professional criteria for the functions to be performed. At least 10 per cent of active and reserve members should come from minority groups. The UNMIK should have final authority over the selection and appointment of Corps members and should have authority to dismiss members. The KFOR would provide day-to-day supervision of the Corps under policies and priorities established by UNMIK.

Available in the Spokesman’s Office are copies of a press release and fact sheet on the Kosovo Protection Corps, as well as the regulation itself and a transcript of a press briefing by Mr. Kouchner and General Jackson.

Meanwhile, Carl Bildt, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans, is in New York, where he is due to participate later today in the first meeting of an independent task force on the economic reconstruction of the Balkans.

Sponsored by the Council of Foreign Relations, the task force will focus specifically on how to create an environment conducive to investment and how to improve the prospects for private-sector development as part of the overall reconstruction effort in the Balkans. The group will meet four times, twice in New York and twice in Washington, over the next four months.

Tomorrow and Thursday, Mr. Bildt will be at the United Nations Headquarters, where he will be meeting with United Nations senior officials.

**East Timor

The United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) has reported that the situation in the East Timorese capital is calm. Today the international force in East Timor confiscated the arms of some 12 to 15 people.

The UNAMET will do a clean-up of their headquarters tomorrow. They hope to be able to start moving back to their compound in three to four days.

The High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, today met with the Defence Minister and Armed Forces Chief of Indonesia, General Wiranto, on the third and final day of her visit in Jakarta.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) tomorrow will take part in a three to four-day humanitarian mission to West Timor comprising non- governmental organizations and Indonesian Welfare Ministry officials to draw up an operational plan for West Timor. The UNHCR has been building up relief supplies in Darwin, Australia, for 100,000 beneficiaries in East Timor. Relief aid for 100,000 beneficiaries in West Timor is being procured locally in Indonesia.

The World Food Programme (WFP), which has conducted five air drops so far of some 50 tons of food and blankets to three areas in East Timor, is planning four flights on Wednesday. Today’s planned air drops were again blocked by heavy air traffic.

The WFP also said it was planning to launch a food shuttle between Darwin and Dili in the form of a cargo vessel which is capable of ferrying 2,600 tons of food. The vessel is expected to arrive in Darwin from Brunei this weekend.

**Commission on Human Rights to Hold Special Session on Situation in East Timor

In Geneva yesterday, the Commission on Human Rights confirmed its decision to hold a special session to urgently examine the situation in East Timor. The special session will start on Thursday, 23 September.

It will be run along the same lines as a normal session, and we expect that draft proposals will be tabled with recommendations for action. In two of its three previous special sessions, the Commission had established a Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the former Yugoslavia in 1992 and in Rwanda in 1994.

Meanwhile, here in New York, there will be another round of senior official talks this week. They will be at the ambassadorial level and will be chaired by Jamsheed Marker, Personal Representative of the Secretary-General for East Timor. The meetings will be on 23 and 24 September. On the agenda are a review of the latest developments and discussions on what comes next.

Following the deliberations by the Ambassadors, on 28 September, Foreign Ministers Ali Alatas of Indonesia and Jaime Gama of Portugal, in a meeting to be chaired by the Secretary-General, would be confirming the action that needs to be taken.

**Secretary-General Appoints Three New Representatives

The Secretary-General has decided to appoint Ivo Petrov of Bulgaria as his Special Representative for Tajikistan to replace Jan Kubis, who is now heading the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Also, Alfredo Lopes Cabral of Guinea-Bissau will succeed Julian Harston as the Representative and Head of the United Nations Civilian Police Mission in Haiti (MIPONUH). Mr. Harston will shortly join the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) as the Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative.

Finally, the Secretary-General is appointing Terje Roed Larsen of Norway as the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and his Personal Representative to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority. He will hold the rank of Under-Secretary-General and succeed Mr. Chinmaya R. Gharekhan, who will complete his duties at the end of this month. A background note on this position is available in the Spokesman's Office and in the Secretary-General's letter to the Council President, which is out on the racks as document S/1999/983.

**Security Council Consultations

This afternoon, at 3:30, the Security Council will be briefed by President Frederick Chiluba of the Republic of Zambia on the situation in Africa. In this open briefing format, no delegation is expected to take the floor, but Council members can ask questions of President Chiluba.

**New United Nations Stamps Issued

Today is the first day of issue of the stamps which the Secretary-General mentioned in his Staff Day speech -- stamps which are dedicated to those who have lost their lives while serving the United Nations in the cause of peace. As the Secretary-General said, some of the proceeds from sales of the stamps will be used for the purpose of staff security training.

These special first day hand-cancellations are available in denominations of 33 cents, and souvenir sheets at a dollar each, which can be sent from the United Nations Headquarters post office. Also available are Swiss Franc and Austrian Schilling stamps and souvenir sheets, which are on sale from today in Geneva and Vienna.

The stamps and souvenir sheets were designed by Robert Stein, a United Nations Postal Administrator staff member.

**UNCTAD 1999 Report

Yesterday, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) issued its trade and development report for 1999 in which it warns that stabilization of conditions in emerging markets does not mean that the underlying problems have disappeared. The continued dependence of many developing countries on highly volatile capital inflows is still a major source of concern, according to the report.

It also says that although the worst fears of global recession have subsided, the prospect that the world economy in 1999 would simply repeat last year’s poor performance is discouraging.

**Treaties

The International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings has just been signed by Belarus and ratified by Norway. It now has 48 signatories and seven parties.

Also, Guatemala signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which has 153 signatories and 45 parties.

**Payment

Zambia made a payment today of over $20,000, making it the 102nd Member State to pay in full for 1999.

**United Nations Population Fund

With the world population approaching the 6 billion mark, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) examines the implications of this milestone event in its major annual report on the State of World Population, which will be launched tomorrow.

There will be a press conference tomorrow morning at 9:30 here in room 226 featuring the report's chief author, Stan Bernstein, and contributor William Ryan.

Copies of the report will be available at the press conference, and you can also contact Mr. Ryan at UNFPA at (212) 297-5279 if you want one in advance.

**Press Conferences

At 12:30 p.m. today, Mr. Mikulas Dzurinda, Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, will host a press conference in room 226. At 1:30 and 5:00 p.m. Mr. Masahiko Koumura, spokesman for the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, will discuss Japan’s bilateral meetings with India and the Foreign Minister’s speech to the General Assembly.

Tomorrow, at 10 a.m. Lamberto Dini, Foreign Minister of Italy; at 10:30 a.m. Miguel Rodriguez Echeverria, President of Costa Rica; at 11 a.m. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria; at 1:30 and 4:15 p.m., the Spokesman for the Foreign Minister of Japan; and at 3:30 p.m., Lloyd Axworthy, Foreign Minister of Canada, will hold press conferences in Room 226.

**Question and Answer Session

Question: Can you clarify an incident of the presence of Eurico Guterres during Mrs. Ogata’s visit to West Timor?

Deputy Spokesman: You should check with the office of the UNHCR. The visit was organized by the Indonesian authorities. I understand that she did not know who would be greeting her on her arrival there.

Question: In what capacity did Hashim Thaci sign the regulation establishing the Kosovo Protection Corps?

Deputy Spokesman: He signed it as KLA Commander-in-Chief.

Question: Not as Prime Minister?

Deputy Spokesman: No. The United Nations does not recognize that title for him.

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