DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20000105The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General:
Hello. The Security Council is going to meet in closed consultations this afternoon to review its programme of work for the month of January.
**Sierra Leone: UNAMSIL Commander Returns to Freetown
From Sierra Leone we have news that Major-General Vijay Jetley, Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), has returned to Freetown from Makeni, where he had travelled to ensure that the United Nations Kenya battalion is deployed without restriction. Problems concerning the deployment of that battalion have been resolved. It was blocked yesterday by combatants loyal to former rebel leader Foday Sankoh at a bridge approximately 18 kilometres from Makeni.
**Secretary-General's Report on Prevlaka
The report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka is scheduled to be issued today. In it, the Secretary-General covers developments in the bilateral negotiations between Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to resolve the disputed issue of Prevlaka since his report of last October.
He says that although progress has been made in stabilizing and demilitarizing the territory, it is disappointing that there has not been concurrent progress at the political level and expresses his hope that the next round of bilateral negotiations be held as soon as the elections in Croatia are over.
He welcomes the withdrawal of the Yugoslav military forces from the demilitarized zone, which was completed on 11 December, and recommends that the mandate of the Mission be extended for a further six months until 15 July.
**Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme
There will be an update shortly from the Office of the Iraq Programme showing that as at 31 December there had been 82 contracts for the sale of oil submitted by the Government of Iraq, of which 55 have been approved thus far. The total volume of oil approved is 184.7 million barrels.
During last week, Iraq exported 18.6 million barrels of oil with an estimated value of $419 million -- bringing the revenue for Phase VII thus far to $742 million.
Today, the Secretariat also received the full text of the Distribution Plan for Phase VII, including all of the annexes. The Distribution Plan is being studied carefully. It must be approved by the Secretary-General before Iraq can begin purchasing humanitarian supplies with Phase VII funds. **Special Representative Appointed for Great Lakes
Appearing on the racks yesterday was a letter to the Security Council President from the Secretary-General which announces the appointment of Berhanu Dinka as Special Representative for the Great Lakes region. That's at the level of Assistant Secretary-General.
"With respect to Burundi", the letter says, "the designation of former President Nelson Mandela as the new facilitator is expected to reinvigorate the peace process. In view of this, it is desirable to raise the profile of the United Nations within the overall efforts of the international community to address the current deteriorating political and humanitarian situation in Burundi."
Mr. Dinka has been serving as Representative of the Secretary-General -- that was at one grade lower, the D-2 level -- as well as Regional Humanitarian Adviser for the Great Lakes region.
**Kosovo Council Meets
The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) reported today that the recently created Interim Administrative Council met for the fourth time yesterday and began discussing the allocations of the proposed 19 departments, which range from Budget and Finance to Justice and Trade and Industry.
After the meeting, Bernard Kouchner, the Special Representative, again urged the Serb community to take up its seat on the Council and to ensure Serb representation in the departments to be co-chaired by a representative of the United Nations Mission and Kosovo. Mr. Kouchner was to press the issue further in a planned meeting tonight with Bishop Artemije, the Serb Orthodox religious leader.
As you recall, the Council was established following an agreement by three Kosovo Albanian political leaders on 15 December to share the provisional management of Kosovo with the United Nations until elections are held next year.
You can see the briefing notes from Pristina if you want more details.
**Refugee Food Aid Efforts Stepped Up
In East Timor, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is stepping up its efforts to improve food delivery to refugees in West Timor, after a first nutritional survey of the camps there showed that almost a quarter of the children under the age of five are malnourished.
The survey of 850 children in the Belu district was carried out in late December by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), with the support of staff from the United States-based Center for Disease Control hired by the UNHCR.
The UNHCR is now working with the authorities in West Timor to increase rations and improve refugees' access to water and health care. The UNHCR also wants to regularly monitor all camps in West Timor. In the past months, regular access to many sites was denied by militia.
**CARE Aid Worker Freed
This statement is attributable to the Spokesman: The Secretary-General was pleased to learn of the release from prison on 31 December of Branko Jelen, the remaining CARE worker under custody by the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on charges of passing secret information. His release is a welcome start to the new year and a sign of encouragement to the humanitarian community, whose aim is to assist all in need around the world.
**New Tribunal Judge Named
The Secretary-General has appointed Professor Fausto Pocar, an Italian national, as a Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, to succeed Professor Antonio Cassese, also from Italy, who has resigned from the Tribunal as of the end of this month. Professor Pocar, who is currently a member of the Human Rights Committee, will serve the remainder of Judge Cassese's term of office, which ends on 16 November 2001. We have a bio in my Office.
**WHO, UNICEF Appeal for Eradicate of Polio
We have available upstairs a press release, embargoed until 2 a.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow morning, from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF on the launch tomorrow of an effort to complete the worldwide campaign against polio.
As part of that effort, WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland and UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy have issued a New Year's letter to 30 heads of State in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, urging them to support heightened immunization efforts and end polio once and for all.
In the letter, they say, "We are on the verge of an historic public health victory -- the eradication of poliomyelitis -- a disease that has caused untold suffering to millions of children in all parts of the world."
Ms. Brundtland will launch the "Final Push for Polio" campaign in New Delhi, India, tomorrow at an event to be attended by some 300 delegates, including health officials and ambassadors from polio-endemic countries.
**Norway Pays Up
More money came in today. Norway became the tenth Member State to be paid up in full for the year 2000 for the regular budget with a cheque for $6,421,000-plus.
**Correction on Western Sahara
We made a terrible blunder yesterday on Western Sahara. We said that the Identification Commission of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) had identified nearly 200,000 people as eligible to vote.
Actually, they did identify 200,000 people. However, "identification" simply means that they've been interviewed and their identity and status have been determined. It does not mean they've been deemed eligible to vote. As of last July, approximately 84,000 people had been found eligible to vote. The total number of eligible voters will be released when a new provisional list of voters is issued, and, as we said yesterday, that will happen on 15 January.
We apologize for that error. Any questions?
**Questions and Answers
Question: We have the polio story out of Geneva embargoed until 0700 GMT on Thursday. Is the embargo now lifted?
Spokesman: No, I'm hoping that we just gave you a teaser. I did say that the press release upstairs is embargoed until 2 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. I hope that the elements that we've selected here are releasable to you and that we haven't broken our own embargo.
Question: There's a report on the racks from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) dated October 1998. Is CEDAW one of those that put things out two years late?
Spokesman: I didn't see that, I'll have to look into it and try to come up with an explanation of how it got there.
Okay, thanks very much.
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