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

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE 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

Of course, you are all here for our special guest today, Under Secretary-General Jayantha Dhanapala, Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs.  He will be briefing you on the issues before the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects.  That, as you know, will be starting here at Headquarters on Monday. 

So we've prepared a light briefing for you so you can jump, with your questions, quickly to Mr. Dhanapala.

**Security Council

The Security Council is meeting this afternoon at 3:30, in an open meeting to adopt a resolution setting the date for the election of a judge for the International Court of Justice following the resignation of Judge Mohammed Bedjaoui.

Immediately following that open meeting, Council members will go into closed consultations for the periodic review of the sanctions imposed on Sierra Leone.

**Central African Republic

Still on Africa, out on the racks today is the Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council on the situation in the Central African Republic.

In it, the Secretary-General says that the recent attempted coup d’état revealed the precarious situation in the country and jeopardized the efforts made by the international community over the last five years to stabilize the situation, both politically and economically.

He adds that while the international community has a duty to provide urgent support to the country in this time of instability, in return, the Secretary-General says, the Central Africans also have a duty to work together to establish the conditions for a political system based on consensus.

The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the Central African Republic, General Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali, is at Headquarters today, and he is meeting with the Secretary-General now as we speak.  If any of you are interested in a one-on-one interview with him or to speak with him in small groups, please contact Stéphane Dujarric in the Spokesman’s Office and he will arrange that for you.

As you know, General Touré is expected to brief the Security Council in closed consultations tomorrow morning.

**Secretary-General/Africa

This morning, when asked about his upcoming trip to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit and the creation of the African Union, the Secretary-General said "union" implies harmony and "union" implies stability, and that he hoped he would have the chance to discuss with the African leaders the need to work together to end the crisis and the conflicts on the continent.  [Transcript of the Secretary-General’s remarks is available in the Spokesman’s Office.]

Also, a short while ago, launched in Geneva, was the report of the Secretary-General on the role of the United Nations system in supporting the efforts of African countries to achieve sustainable development.

The report, launched by Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Nitin Desai, would be presented for discussion during the high-level segment of the Economic and Social Council in Geneva from 16 to 18 July.  As you know and as we mentioned last Tuesday, the Secretary-General will be in Geneva for that.

A press release from Geneva, with more details, is available upstairs.

**East Timor

Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette concluded her four-day visit to East Timor today.  Along with Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and Xanana Gusmao, she witnessed today the initialling of the Timor Sea Arrangement by Australia and East Timor.

Australia was represented by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, as well as Minister for Industry Nick Minchin.  East Timor was represented by Cabinet Member for Political Affairs Peter Galbraith and Cabinet Member for Economic Affairs Mari Alkatiri.

We have in our office a summary of the main points of the Timor Sea Arrangement.  As the Deputy Secretary-General concluded her visit, in addition to the ceremony, she also had meetings with senior United Nations officials, non-government organizations and the Cabinet Member for Foreign Affairs, as well as with a new group of East Timor diplomats.

She is coming back to Headquarters from Dili.

**ICTY

We have a couple of press releases from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

The first announces the visit today by Prime Minister Mladen Ivanic of the Republika Srpska.  During this one-day visit, Mr. Ivanic is to meet with the Tribunal’s President, Judge Claude Jorda, and the Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte.

Mr. Ivanic is to hold a press conference later today.

The second press release from the Tribunal relates to the decision by the Appeals Chamber to affirm a sentence of 40 years given to Goran Jelisic for crimes against humanity committed while he was a Serb paramilitary in the Brcko area of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The court also upheld Jelisic's acquittal on the charge of genocide.

Information on both those items is available upstairs in the Spokesman’s Office.

**Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kamel Morjane, has welcomed the meeting between Presidents Joseph Kabila of the DRC and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, saying that he hopes the meeting will permit a thaw in relations between the two countries and accelerate the implementation of the Lusaka Accord.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says it took a major step towards reuniting 159 Congolese children with their families in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday, when it repatriated a first group of the children in an airlift from Uganda to Bunia in the DRC.

The children have been under the interim care and protection of UNICEF-Uganda since February of this year, when the Government of Uganda handed them over.  Before being transferred to UNICEF-Uganda, the children had been undergoing political and military training since August 2000.

**Polio

Still on UNICEF, but this time on UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO).  They announced today that four conflict-affected countries in central Africa have joined forces to immunize every child under five against polio, in an unprecedented alliance against the crippling disease.

But health, humanitarian and political leaders have warned that, for all children to be protected, there must be respect for peace during this massive immunization campaign.  The immunization activities involve close coordination between Angola, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gabon, where health workers aim to immunize 16 million children in just five days

That's all I have for you.  Are there any questions before Under-Secretary-General Dhanapala joins us?

**Questions and Answers

Yes, Erwin?

Question:  Are we going to get, today, a detailed schedule of the Secretary-General's trip to the summit of the Organization of African Unity?

Deputy Spokesman:  More likely tomorrow.  Although he will have a series of bilateral meeting which we may not have in New York before they are confirmed on the ground.  But whatever we have by tomorrow, we'll share with you.

Thank you very much. 

May I invite Under-Secretary-General Jayantha Dhanapala to join us.  He is going to tell us about the Small Arms Conference [see separate coverage of this event].

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