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 Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

**Noon Guest and Briefing

Good afternoon. Hoping to set a new trend, we won’t be too late in starting these briefings from now on. Today, the guest at the noon briefing will be Ian McFarlane, Policy Specialist at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), who will be here to talk to you about “A Better World for All”, a report on poverty reduction which was launched by the Secretary-General in Geneva today. I’ll have more detail as I go on with the briefing.

Also, following the briefing today at 12:30 p.m., we’ll have a background briefing by a senior United Nations official on southern Lebanon. Delegations are invited to watch the briefing in reviewing room number 4 located in the first basement.

**Secretary-General’s Travels

As I reported last Friday, the Secretary-General left the Middle East and went to Europe, where he arrived in the early evening Friday in Basel, Switzerland. That city was hosting the Children’s World Festival, in which families of the region hosted 2,000 children aged 13 and 14 from over 80 countries. The Secretary-General addressed the closing session of the conference, urging the young people to take risks for peace. “You will be amazed how much you can achieve by acting with others”, he said. “All of us as individuals and groups can make a difference.” The conference closed with thousands of young people waving lighters in the darkened hall singing, “Give Peace a Chance”.

Following that, the Secretary-General went to Geneva, where his last appointment of the day was with his Special Representative for East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, who, as I announced before, is in New York this week and will be briefing the Council, and also the press. Going back to the Secretary-General’s activities, yesterday, Sunday, he attended an inter-religious service at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Geneva. In the afternoon, he addressed the opening of the Geneva 2000 forum, which is the gathering of non-governmental organizations meeting parallel with the General Assembly special session on social development, which opened earlier today in Geneva, as well. The Secretary-General told the participants of the Geneva 2000 forum, “you and I will be delivering very similar messages to the official delegations. We will be reminding them that economic growth is not mainly about numbers, but also about people, their health, their education and their security. The full text of his speech is available in our Office upstairs.

Today in Geneva, the Secretary-General formally opened the special session of the General Assembly on social development, called to review progress on the agenda adopted at the First Social Summit in Copenhagen five years ago. He called on both rich and poor countries to do their parts. He asked the rich to further open their markets, provide deeper and faster debt relief, and give more and better-focused development aid because they cannot be “indifferent to the social

Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 26 June 2000

conditions in which so many people in poor countries live”. The Secretary-General then had a series of bilateral meetings. He started with the Deputy Prime Minister of China, Wen Jiabao, with whom he discussed the Social Summit and other issues. He also met with the Speaker of the Parliament of Iraq, Saadoun Hammadi, who raised with him issues related to the sanctions regime against Iraq. He also met privately with the President of Zambia, Frederick Chiluba.

At midday, he co-hosted, with the President of the special session, Theo-Ben Gurirab of Namibia, a luncheon for the heads of State and government attending the session. In the afternoon, he continued his bilateral meetings. He met with Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of Denmark, the country that hosted the First Social Summit. They discussed issues related to the special session and how it would relate to the Millennium session in September. He then had a private meeting with the Foreign Minister of Libya, Abdurrahmam Shalghem.

After that, at about 4 p.m. Geneva time, the Secretary-General participated in a press conference to launch a new report, “A Better World for All”, which claims that world poverty can be significantly decreased by the year 2015 if both developed and developing countries make good on their commitment to attack the roots of poverty. The report was co-authored by the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It is an unprecedented collaborative effort. In his opening statement, the Secretary-General said this report, originally requested by the G-8 countries, produced a common understanding, a score card and policy road map with which to measure progress in banishing extreme poverty from our world, and in achieving the targets set by the world conferences of the past decade. We’ll have a transcript of his press conference soon upstairs.

**Security Council

Before leaving Geneva for Warsaw, which he’ll do in about an hour, the Secretary-General, for the first time ever, participated by teleconference in informal consultations of the Security Council, which are taking place here in New York. That was on the Middle East, in particular the southern Lebanon situation. He briefed Council members on his trip to the region and fielded a number of questions.

Here in New York, following the part of the consultations with the Secretary-General on the Middle East, the Security Council continued in consultations, and the topic was Angola. The Council was briefed by the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General for Special Assignments in Africa, Ibrahim Gambari, who reported on his recent visit to Angola at the end of last month.

**Sierra Leone Representative in New York

Continuing now on Africa, on Sierra Leone, Oluyemi Adeniji, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sierra Leone, is leaving today from Conakry, Guinea, for New York, where he is expected to arrive tomorrow. Mr. Adeniji will be holding meetings this week with senior United Nations officials at Headquarters. The situation in Sierra Leone remains calm, but unpredictable, with troops from the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) reinforcing key positions, including the Mile 91 area, where an estimated 35,000 internally displaced persons have gathered. Humanitarian agencies are looking into the possibility of building camps for those displaced persons after United Nations peacekeepers have strengthened the security in the area.

Yesterday, an exhumation team arrived at Rogberi Junction to examine the remains of United Nations peacekeepers who had died and been buried during fighting in that area in May. Forensic teams visited two sites and did a considerable amount of work, but will need to return. Also yesterday, UNAMSIL was able to provide rations to the 222 Indian peacekeepers and 11 military observers surrounded by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) at Kailahun and the 21 Indian peacekeepers detained at Pendembu. There has been no change in those two groups' condition since the 21 detainees were moved late last week to an abandoned International Committee of the Red Cross compound at Pendembu.

**Kosovo

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, today strongly condemned the violence which occurred on Friday night when a large crowd of Kosovo Serbs entered Strpce municipality building, which houses the offices of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and smashed and destroyed everything in sight. The Kosovo Force (KFOR) Information Centre and the Registration Centres were also ransacked. The acts of vandalism against UNMIK and KFOR property followed the demonstrations in the municipality over the disappearance of a Kosovo Serb shepherd from Susice village.

Also, on Sunday, Kouchner welcomed the decision taken by the Serb National Council to rejoin Kosovo’s Interim Administrative Council (IAC) and Transitional Council (KTC) as observers after a temporary suspension of a couple of weeks. He said this courageous action will allow the Kosovo Serb representatives to once again play their rightful role in building a democratic, peaceful and tolerant Kosovo. More details are available in the notes we have from UNMIK in our Office.

**East Timor

Moving to the other side of the world now, to East Timor, the Prosecutors in that territory handed over the criminal files concerning investigations into so- called serious crimes, and these were handed to the Judicial Affairs Department of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). The Prosecutors did this to respond to regulation 2000/15, which states that serious crimes, such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, will be prosecuted by a special panel within the Dili District Court. This panel is part of the East Timorese Judiciary and is comprised of both East Timorese and international judges. The local prosecutors and the civilian police have already carried out extensive work, and many of the cases are ready for indictment. Once the panel is established, indictments can be expected very soon.

**OECD Forum

This morning, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette participated in OECD Forum 2000 in Paris, a meeting gathering ministers, business leaders and civil society on the broad theme of partnerships in the new economy. In her remarks, the Deputy Secretary-General highlighted the Global Compact and the growing importance for the United Nations system of partnerships with non-State actors. “The United Nations cannot and does not want to usurp the role of other actors on the world stage, but to become a more effective catalyst for change and coordination among them”, she said. Copies of her speech are available in our Office.

**Disarmament Commission Opens

Here in New York this morning, in Conference Room 4, was the beginning of the meeting of the Disarmament Commission. The meeting, chaired by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, heard a statement by Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala. The text is available in our Office upstairs. In addition to nuclear disarmament, the Commission's meetings this year are also to discuss practical confidence-building measures regarding conventional arms. On that topic, the Under-Secretary-General noted one recent report citing evidence that global arms expenditures have once again started to rise, and may have increased by more than 2 per cent in real terms last year.

**UNAIDS Report

A new United Nations report estimates that over one third of today’s 15-year-olds will die of AIDS in the worst-affected countries. The latest Report on the Global HIV Epidemic, which includes a country-by-country update on the global epidemic, was prepared by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and will be released tomorrow in advance of the thirteenth International AIDS Conference being held in Durban, South Africa, from 9 to 14 July. We have embargoed press releases upstairs in our Office.

**Headquarters Activities

This afternoon at 3 o’clock, Kensaku Hogen, Under-Secretary-General for Communication and Public Information, will receive on behalf of the Secretary- General a copy of the Olympic Torch to be used to open the 2000 Olympic Games. He’ll receive the torch from Michael Knight, Minister of State of New South Wales, Australia, where, as you know, the Olympics will be held. The presentation is expected to take place outdoors near the Japanese Peace Bell. Also today, at 1 o’clock this afternoon, will be the beginning of the Peace Walk marking United Nations Charter Day. It will take place in the United Nations Garden right outside.

**Budget

My last two notes before we go on to our guest today are on the budget. We have received two more payments to the regular budget for the year 2000. Croatia and Myanmar have become the ninety-third and ninety-fourth Member States to make their full payment to this year's regular budget. Croatia gave us a check for close to $315,000 and Myanmar a check for about $84,000.

**Press Conference Tomorrow

Tomorrow, there’ll be a press conference at 11:15 a.m. here in this room. It will be by Jargalsaikhany Enkhsaikhan of Mongolia. He will hold a press conference on the effects of the drought in Mongolia. A video produced by the Department of Public Information will be screened at the same press conference.

Are there any questions before we move onto our guest?

**Questions and Answers

Question: On East Timor, what kinds of numbers are we talking about for the prosecutions?

Deputy Spokesman: I don’t think we have numbers yet. I think once the first indictments start being announced, we’ll have a clearer understanding from the Judicial Affairs people.

Question: In Kinshasa, of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Laurent Kabila closed down the office of the Neutral Facilitator, Mr. Mesire. Does the United Nations have a position on that?

Deputy Spokesman: We have expressed our concern about the closure of that office, which happened last week. We expressed it to the Government, and it was reported to the Security Council on Friday, as well. As you know, the Facilitator’s office is a mechanism organized by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), but we have expressed our reaction to it.

Question: A few hours ago, the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain announced a scientific breakthrough in the study of human genomes. Was the Secretary-General briefed on that?

Deputy Spokesman: I’ll check into that and come back to you.

**New Staff

Before we move to our guest, I’d like to make an announcement. We have a new colleague who’s joined us in the Spokesman’s Office today. His name is Stephane Dujarric from France. He’ll be replacing Hannah Yilma, who has been with us for a number of months doing a wonderful job in our Office. Stephane has worked for ABC Television for many years. You’ll be having more contact with him after his first week of briefings. Next week, he’ll start dealing directly with you. Welcome Stephane.

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