DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20000113The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General:
**Security Council Extends Mission in Prevlaka
Good afternoon. The Security Council is meeting in open session today. Its first business was the adoption of a resolution extending the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission on the Prevlaka peninsula in Croatia (UNMOP) for a further six months until 15 July. The resolution was presented by the Netherlands and adopted unanimously as resolution 1265. We have 27 military observers on the Prevlaka peninsula.
**High Commissioner for Refugees Briefs Security Council
The second Security Council meeting today is titled Promoting Peace and Security: Humanitarian Assistance to Refugees in Africa.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, in an open briefing to the Council, appealed to the international community to devise concrete measures aimed at easing the critical plight of millions of African refugees and displaced persons.
The High Commissioner expressed particular concern about the increasing numbers of internally displaced people who, unlike refugees, have not crossed international borders. The bulk of the uprooted people in Africa are internally displaced people.
She lamented the fact that there are no effective conflict-resolution mechanisms in place in Africa, and that armed groups in one country are often supported by governments in neighbouring States. She cited the Central African region as an example. Moreover, she said, efforts to consolidate the peace -- once it is attained -- are timid and piecemeal. She cited the examples of Rwanda and Liberia.
Mrs. Ogata also noted the grave imbalance in the provision of aid for Africa as compared with the rest of the world.
She said that she'll be available at the stakeout outside the Security Council following the morning session.
We also have here in the room with us two experts on internally displaced persons. Roberta Cohen, right here in the front row, who is co-Director of the Internally Displaced Persons Programme at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., who works in support of the mandate of the Secretary-General's Representative on Internally Displaced Persons. And we also have Thomas Linde -- is he here? All right, maybe he will be here -- who is the Senior Adviser to the Emergency Relief Coordinator on internally displaced.
[A summary of Ms. Cohens and Mr. Lindes briefing will be issued separately.] Still on the Security Council, as you know the Secretary-General will speak at next Wednesday's open meeting on Burundi. And former South African President Nelson Mandela will also speak in his capacity as facilitator of the Arusha process.
Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., the Permanent Representative of Burundi, Ambassador Marc Nteturuye, will hold a press conference here in room S-226 on the peace process and the Government's regroupment policy.
And at 1 p.m. tomorrow, we'll have a senior Secretariat official to brief you on United Nations concerns regarding Burundi.
**Iraq Programme: Secretary-General Approves Distribution Plan
Two pieces of news from the Office of the Iraq Programme today. The first is that the Secretary-General has written to the President of the Security Council conveying his approval of the Distribution Plan for Phase VII of the oil-for-food programme.
The Secretary-General's letter and the letter of the Executive Director of the Iraq Programme, Benon Sevan, to the Permanent Representative of Iraq setting out the understandings of the approval is available in my Office.
The Executive Summary of the Distribution Plan is also available on request.
The second item on the Iraq Programme is that the United Nations is sending a group of oil experts to Iraq.
The Secretary-General established such a group to report on alternatives for increasing Iraq's petroleum production and export capacity and on the options for involving foreign oil companies in Iraq's oil sector.
The experts will also assess the impact of holds placed by the sanctions committee on Iraq on contracts for spare parts and equipment for the oil industry. To date, the Committee has approved contracts worth $581 million, but has put on hold contracts worth $207 million.
The group comprises six experts -- two from the United Kingdom and one each from Jordan, Netherlands, Norway and the Russian Federation. They will arrive in Iraq on 16 January and remain for at least two weeks. The Secretary- General's report is due on 26 March.
The terms of reference for this group are available in my Office.
**Secretary-General to Meet with Permanent Five
The Secretary-General is meeting this afternoon with the five permanent members of the Security Council to resume consultations on the selection of an Executive Director for the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission for Iraq (UNMOVIC). You will recall that the Council asked the Secretary-General to nominate a candidate by 16 January, who would then have to be approved by the Council. The Secretary-General still hopes to announce a nominee, acceptable to all Council members, by tomorrow.
**Secretary-General's Remarks at Group of 77 Handover
We already distributed copies of the remarks made by the Secretary-General this morning at the ceremonial meeting to mark the formal turnover of the Chairmanship of the Group of 77 developing countries and China.
In his remarks, the Secretary-General thanked Foreign Minister Clement Rohee and Ambassador Samuel Insanally of Guyana for their able leadership of the Group of 77 over the past year. And then he also congratulated Nigerian Foreign Minister Alhaji Sule Lamido and Ambassador Chief Arthur Mbanefo for Nigeria's assumption of the Group of 77 Chairmanship for this year.
He said, "Africa is one of the main priorities of the United Nations, and Nigeria has recently given all Africans a fine example by its return to sound civilian leadership".
The Secretary-General also highlighted several key events for developing countries in the months ahead, including the tenth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD X) to be held over four weeks from now in Bangkok, Thailand and, of course, we announced yesterday that the Secretary-General would be attending the opening of that meeting -- and this year's high-level segment of the Economic and Social Council on information technology.
He said "the road ahead is crowded with events and opportunities to advance the development agenda of our United Nations". And he said he's urging developing countries to provide "a generous, inclusive vision of the future".
**Notes from East Timor
Today in East Timor, United Nations Police and International Force (INTERFET) investigators completed the exhumation of a mass gravesite in Maubara, which is near the town of Liquica, by examining 10 bodies. Over the past two days, 16 bodies have been exhumed at that gravesite, and 13 of them have been positively identified by family members.
Investigators said after examining the bodies that all had either been shot or stabbed to death. All 16 bodies have now been reburied at the graveyard by relatives.
Also today, a two-day meeting of the National Consultative Council opened with talks on creating a central fiscal authority for East Timor.
The United Nations Transitional Administrator, Sergio Vieira de Mello, urged the members of the Council, who represent a broad span of East Timorese political parties, to move quickly to provide an institutional base for the reconstruction projects that East Timor needs.
**Tribunal to Render Judgement and Sentencing in Kupreskic Case
Tomorrow in The Hague, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will render its judgement and sentencing on the Kupreskic case. Six former soldiers of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) are charged for their alleged involvement in the persecution of Bosnian Muslims in the village of Ahmici-Santici and its environs. That was from October 1992 until April 1993, as well as in the participation in an attack on this village in April 1993.
We do have an information sheet on that case in my Office, if you're interested.
**WHO Fact Sheet Available
We have available in the Spokesman's Office also a fact sheet issued today by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on bronchial asthma. According to the WHO, between 100 million and 150 million people around the globe -- roughly the equivalent of the population of the Russian Federation -- suffer from asthma, and the number of asthma sufferers is rising. Deaths stemming from asthma worldwide have reached over 180,000 annually.
**Italy to Sign Terrorism Convention
Today afternoon at 3:30 p.m., there will be a signing ceremony in the United Nations Treaty Room. Italy will sign the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. Italy becomes the eighth signatory to that Convention, which opened for signature on Monday. The Convention needs to be ratified by 22 countries to come into force.
**Payments
Two more Member States became paid in full for the year 2000. Libya and Sri Lanka became the seventeenth and eighteenth Member States to become paid-in- full. Libya, with a payment of just over $1.3 million -- Sri Lanka, approximately $125,000.
**World Chronicle Television
And finally, a third in a row World Chronicle television programme will be aired today on in-house television channel 3 or 31, at 4 p.m., and it will feature Mark Malloch Brown, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Any questions? Do you have any questions on IDPs? Should we ask our guests to come up to the table? Yes. Would you each mind joining me here please. Roberta Cohen and Thomas Linde.
Nicole had a question?
**Questions and Answers
Question: Fred, is it possible to get some figures from UNHCR today, just some basic stats that we can use in our stories about the number of IDPs versus refugees in Africa and worldwide?
Spokesman: OK. I'm pretty sure they have that available. We'll ask them.
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