DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

The following is a near-verbatim transcription of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General:

Good afternoon.

**Depleted Uranium

In Kosovo, the United Nations Mission has begun marking known sites where depleted uranium ammunition was used.  This is being done in close cooperation with KFOR.  In order to better serve the civilian population, the United Nations Mission, in conjunction with the World Health Organization, will establish a voluntary testing programme for Kosovars at Pristina Hospital for heavy metal and radiation levels.

Meanwhile at a press conference in Geneva, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Klaus Toepfer, unveiled the full details of the map he received from NATO which shows the 112 sites where depleted uranium weapons where used.  Toepfer also gave the exact location of

11 sites that were visited by the UNEP Balkans task force.

Toepfer and Pekka Haavisto, the chair of the Balkans task force, stressed the importance of taking precautionary measures at these sites.  "At places where contamination has been confirmed”, Toepfer said, “measures should be taken to prevent access”.  “The local authorities and people concerned should be informed of the possible risks and precautionary measures", he added.  The full results of the report are expected to be issued by March of this year.

**ICTY

Today at The Hague, Biljana Plavsic, former President of the Republika Srpska, appeared before a trial chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), where she was formally charged with nine counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and violations of the Geneva Conventions.  Plavsic, who voluntarily surrendered to the Tribunal and is currently detained at its facility near The Hague, pleaded "not guilty" to all nine counts.

Plavsic's defence lawyer has filed a motion for her client to receive modified conditions of detention, (we had a question on that yesterday), and we have been told by the Tribunal that her motion is being heard in a closed session right now.  No decision on the motion is expected to be handed down tonight, although one is expected to come down within the next few days.

Tribunal Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte now intends to try Plavsic jointly with another Bosnian Serb leader, Momcilo Krajisnik.  Copies of Plavsic's indictment, which was issued under seal on April 7, 2000, and has now been unsealed, are available in my office.

**Security Council

The Security Council is currently in the middle of a private meeting -- that is, a formal meeting which only Council members and their invited guests can attend -- to hear from the Prime Minister of the Transitional National Government of Somalia, Ali Khalif Galaydh.  The Prime Minister just spoke to the Council about recent developments in Somalia since the peace conference in Arta, Djibouti, last year led to the formation of the Transitional National Government.  Members of the Council are now speaking; all 15 Council members are to speak at this private session.

Once the private meeting concludes, the Council will go into closed consultations to hear from the Secretary-General's Representative for Somalia, David Stephen, who will provide updates on the situation there and present the Secretary-General's recent report on Somalia.  That report, issued last month, noted that the United Nations may consider assisting Somalia with a peace-building presence once security conditions permit.  The Council is also expected to discuss the text of a draft Presidential Statement on Somalia in those consultations, with a view to holding another formal meeting -- this time an open one -- to adopt that Statement.

This afternoon, at 2 p.m., David Stephen will come to this room to talk to you about Somalia, and Prime Minister Galaydh expects to hold a press briefing in this room tomorrow at 11 a.m.

**Budget

Three more payments today from countries paid in advance, in full for the year 2001 for the regular budget dues.  That brings the total so far this year to 14.  Belarus made a payment of just over $196,000.  Liechtenstein’s payment was just over $62,000 and Sweden’s was more than $10,600,000.

**Documents and Press Releases

There is a Security Council document on the racks today which consists of two background papers on strengthening cooperation among troop-contributing countries, the Security Council and the United Nations Secretariat.  This month’s President of the Security Council, Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore, in his cover letter, said that his country is organizing an open debate on this subject.  The scheduled date for the debate is next Tuesday.

Available in the Spokesman’s Office is a press release from the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, which reports that more than three quarters of the authorized troop strength of 4,200 has been deployed.

And finally, the World Food Programme (WFP) has announced that it will feed 60,000 newly arrived Afghan refugees in Pakistan this year, more than double the number of refugees it had been helping only six months ago.  [The press release is available.]

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Is there any reaction from the Secretary-General to the developments in Côte d'Ivoire, where a coup has apparently been foiled by the

Government?  And has Mr. [Colin] Granderson, who had been appointed to investigate the massacres, finished his report yet?

Spokesman:  I do not have the status of Mr. Granderson's report.  Let me look into that for you.  The Secretary-General's views on coups are well known. The hope is that the situation in Côte d'Ivoire can stabilize.  The whole of West Africa is at a fragile point, and I think any nation in the region that slips into a situation of instability threatens the stability of the whole region.  So we are certainly hoping that the situation in Côte d'Ivoire can normalize.  And, as I said, I will try to get back to you on the Granderson report.  [He later announced that Mr. Granderson had visited Côte d’Ivoire once as part of the planning stage of his mission and was now in the process of nominating commissioners.]

Question:  Any dates for the Secretary-General's visit to Washington, in any manner or form?

Spokesman:  February is the target.  Of course, it all depends on his travel plans and the availability of the people that he hopes to see in Washington so we are still working on that.  He had said in his press conference here early in the new administration's term, and that kind of suggests February in any case.

Question:  Just an in-house matter.  The newsstand personnel change over. Was there some problem?  Do you know anything about that?

Spokesman:  I don't know.  I know the contract of the people who were running it before was not renewed.  I don't know the circumstances.  I can ask if you like but as of the first of January, a new group of people has the contract.  Did you like the old ones?

Question:  Yes.

Spokesman:  [laughter]  Okay, we'll look into why their contract wasn't renewed.  Anything else?  Thank you very much.

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