DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20000106The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General:
**New Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Appointed
Good afternoon. We have a surprise announcement for you. The Secretary- General announced today the appointment of Mr. Danilo Türk as Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs. Mr. Türk will be replacing Mr. Alvaro de Soto, who has been appointed by the Secretary-General as his Special Adviser on Cyprus, and who will be taking up an appointment as Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Cyprus in the spring of this year. Mr. Türk is expected to come on board at the beginning of February, and we have his curriculum vitae in my Office for you.
**Security Council
The Security Council met late yesterday and adopted its programme of work for January, and as previewed, there will be a strong focus on Africa. They will hold an open meeting on Monday at 10:30 a.m. entitled "The Situation in Africa: The Impact of AIDS on Peace and Security".
The Secretary-General will deliver a speech at that meeting, which, as you now know, will be chaired by the Vice-President of the United States, Al Gore. The Secretary-General will welcome the emphasis given to African problems by the Security Council at the start of the new millennium, and particularly the fact that its first meeting is devoted to the problem of AIDS in Africa, which was already the subject of a high-level meeting in December between African governments, United Nations agencies, donor governments, private corporations and non-governmental organizations.
At that meeting, the Secretary-General called for "a response commensurate with the scale of the crisis", and called for it to be formulated by May, and spelled out the specific responsibility of each partner in the struggle. On Monday, he will welcome the Security Council as an additional partner, and suggest that its role must be to prevent conflict from contributing to the spread of AIDS, and from impeding the efforts that other partners are making to control it.
UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Mark Malloch Brown are also expected to speak at Monday's session.
Embargoed copies of the Secretary-General's speech are available in my Office. We also expect to have Peter Piot's embargoed speech by the end of today.
As reference materials, we have copies of the Secretary-General's statement on AIDS in Africa that he delivered on 6 December and a press release on UNAIDS' most recent report issued in advance of last year's World AIDS Day. In addition to the Monday meeting, the Council's programme for the month includes Mrs. Ogata, as we just mentioned, on 13 January. On 18 January, an open briefing on Angola with the Chairman of the Angola Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Robert Fowler of Canada, who will have just returned from a visit to Angola.
Then the next day, on 19 January, former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa will brief on Burundi in his new capacity as facilitator of the Arusha Process. And then from 24 January onwards, there will be meetings on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As well as Council members, this will include a number of heads of State and government involved in the Lusaka Agreement. So, I've got that piece of paper.
**Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Trial
Hans Corell, the United Nations Legal Counsel, met yesterday with the Permanent Representative of Cambodia, Ambassador Ouch Borith, to hand over the United Nations' comments on the second draft of a Cambodian law concerning the trial of members of the Khmer Rouge.
The meeting, which had been scheduled the day before, was timed to permit these comments to be forwarded to the Cambodian Cabinet, which was to meet approximately eight hours later. The thrust of those comments was that the United Nations still had concerns about the draft law.
At that same meeting, Mr. Corell transmitted a letter to the Permanent Representative inviting the Government of Cambodia to send as early as possible its representatives to New York to resume discussion of the outstanding issues. The intention is to agree on a text that would meet international standards of justice, fairness and the due process of law.
**Secretary-General's Conversation with Georgian President
The Secretary-General asked me to tell you that during a telephone conversation yesterday, he and President Eduard Schevardnadze of Georgia discussed the events in the region, including the Abkhaz situation and the tragic conflict in the Northern Caucasus. In particular, they discussed the refugee situation and the humanitarian consequences for the civilian population as a whole.
**Notes from Sierra Leone
In Freetown, the United Nations mission issued a press release today on the current status of troop deployment in Sierra Leone, saying that peacekeepers are now "stationed at strategic locations across Sierra Leone", from Lungi in the West -- we have a pointer on the map here -- to Daru in the East. The Kenyan battalion arrived safely in the northern city of Makeni and are now patrolling in that area. They will move next to Magburaka, while additional troops will follow the first deployment to Makeni.
The text of that press release is available.
We have also received from Freetown the first issuance of a new monthly Human Rights Newsletter, which was published for the first time last month. Although it's a little out of date, we think you might find it useful for reference purposes, and there are copies in my Office.
**Report on Ageing Populations
We also have available upstairs a two-page information sheet provided by the United Nations Population Division about a forthcoming study on declining and ageing populations.
The study examines ageing and population decline in eight countries -- France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russian Federation, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom and the United States -- and a preliminary report on the study's findings is expected at the end of March of this year.
In the information sheet provided today, the Population Division notes that the countries of Europe, as well as Japan, are expected to decline in population size over the next 50 years. Italy, with a current population of 57 million, is projected to reach 41 million by the year 2050, while Russia is projected to decrease from 147 million people to 121 million over the next 50 years. Similarly, Japan, which now has 127 million people, is expected to have a population of 105 million by 2050.
If you're interested in further details, please contact Joseph Chamie, the Director of the Population Division, at 963-3179.
**Highlights of the Week Ahead
And we whizzed through a short week. Tomorrow is a holiday, as you know, and so we've prepared "The Week Ahead" for you. I'll give you some of the highlights.
At 9:30 a.m. on Monday in The Hague, the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will begin with the resumption of the case of "The Prosecutor v. Dario Kadic and Mario Cerkez." That trial began last 12 April, and has lasted so far for 103 hearing days. The Tribunal has issued a press release that provides details of all the week's cases.
In Geneva, the same day, Monday, the sixth session of the Open-ended Working Group on a draft optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which deals with children in armed conflict, opens. The Working Group's session will last until 21 January, and I believe Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict, will want to brief you here in room S-226, and we're trying to set that up.
On Tuesday, the Security Council will hold informal consultations on the United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP), the current mandate of which is scheduled to expire on Saturday. It has also scheduled consultations on Kosovo. On Thursday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, will brief the Security Council in an open meeting on refugees in Africa. After that open briefing, the Council is also expected to hold a formal meeting on the renewal of UNMOP.
Friday, then, the Secretary-General is expected to announce his appointment of the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission or UNMOVIC by that date, if not before. The deadline, of course, is Sunday, 16 January. Also on Friday, the Security Council has scheduled consultations on the subject of the Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC.
The Secretary-General is expected to speak on the same day to the Women's International Forum on the challenges the United Nations faces in the twenty- first century.
OK, I think that's it. Any questions?
**Questions and Answers
Question: On Cambodia, you know that the Government there has approved its own plan for the trial, without any input from the United Nations. I wondered if that plan is going to pass or is the United Nations going to seek a compromise before United Nations, or final approval, by the national assembly.
Spokesman: Well, you saw that we've invited them to send their representatives here to continue to discuss the outstanding issues. We only know from press accounts that the cabinet forwarded the draft law to the Parliament, and that apparently they said they did not have time to consider the comments that Hans Corell gave the Cambodian Ambassador yesterday at midday. But, we only know that from press accounts.
From the same press accounts, I think we've seen comments from members of the Government saying that the issue is not yet closed. So, as long as they consider the issue open, we hope that discussions can continue, and eventually we can agree on a draft that meets international standards.
Question: So, that means that the invitation is still open?
Spokesman: Yes.
Thank you very much.
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