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

This is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon.  Our guests today at the noon briefing will be Ms. Eimi Watanabe, the Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Development Policy of UNDP and Kate Raworth, one author of the Human Development Report which is out officially today.  So, Kate, if you’d come up here and take this seat.  We’ll get to them later after my briefing.

**SG in Lusaka

The Secretary-General had back-to-back meetings today with African leaders attending the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit in Lusaka, Zambia.

He welcomed the appointment today by the OAU of Amara Essy of Côte d'Ivoire as the organization's new Secretary-General.  In a statement released in Lusaka, he said Mr. Essy is particularly well qualified to lead the OAU during this challenging period.

The text was released by my office also earlier this morning.

His bilateral meetings included the Presidents of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, Libya, Burundi and Burkina Faso and also the Foreign Minister of Tunisia.

This afternoon, he met with the President of Chad.  He also had a one-on-one meeting with the Zambian President, Frederick Chiluba.  And he’s still scheduled to meet later this afternoon with the Presidents of Togo and South Africa.

At a press conference this afternoon, which ended just a short while ago, he took questions on a number of African issues and one on the Middle East.

We hope to make the audio of that press conference available to you on the UN’s radio bulletin board this afternoon.  We will squawk it once we have it online.  And you can listen to it then by dialing 963-3777 anytime and follow the instructions of the recording.  You can also get an audio tape from the DPI Audio library; just call 963-9272.

**Security Council

The Security Council is holding closed consultations this morning.  First, Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean Marie Guéhenno, introduced the Secretary-General’s report on the UN Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP).  The report, as you will recall, came out Friday afternoon. Council members are expected to adopt a presidential statement on that mission tomorrow. 

The second item on the agenda is Guinea-Bissau, and Youssef Mahmoud, the Director of the Africa II Division in the Department of Political Affairs, introduced the report of the Secretary-General on developments in Guinea-Bissau

and the activities of the UN Peace-building Support office in that country.  That report came out as a document at the end of June.

Under “Other Matters”, Council members are expected to be briefed by Under Secretary-General Guéhenno on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

Also under other matters, Colombia is expected to introduce a draft resolution on the monitoring mechanism of the sanctions on Afghanistan, and Bangladesh is expected to introduce a resolution on the prevention of armed conflict.

**Iraq Oil Programme

Iraq has resumed pumping oil this morning under the United Nations oil-for-food programme.  Iraq had suspended exporting oil on 4 June 2001.

On 9 July, through an exchange of letters -– that was yesterday -- between the Secretariat and the Government of Iraq, the Memorandum of Understanding of

20 May 1996 on the implementation of Security Council resolution 986 (1995) was extended for the duration of phase X.  (Phase X of the programme came into effect on 4 July and runs through 30 November 2001 -- and that under Security Council resolution 1360 (2001).)

As at 6 July, there were $13.4 billion worth of humanitarian supplies purchased as well as $778 million worth of oil industry spare parts and equipment -- and that is since the start of the programme.  Another $11 billion worth of supplies, including $1 billion worth of oil spare parts and equipment, were in the production and delivery pipeline.

We have the weekly update in the Office of the Iraq Programme with more details.

**Small Arms

On the Small Arms Conference, second day, 30 speakers are scheduled to take the podium today in the Ministerial Segment -- that is for the morning.  In the afternoon, there is consideration of the draft programme of action.  That will begin with a general exchange of views in Conference Room 4.  This afternoon’s meeting is open, but starting tomorrow afternoon, the plenary meetings to discuss the draft programme of action will be closed.  This means negotiations on the main conference document will begin tomorrow afternoon.

Meanwhile, the Ministerial Segment will continue in the mornings through Friday.  As of this morning a total of 146 speakers are inscribed on the speakers list, including those who spoke yesterday.  Because of an increased number of speakers, the Conference President may decide to open the morning meetings at

9:00 a.m. starting tomorrow.

There were some news reports that only 120 countries are participating in this conference.  That was the number of speakers initially inscribed on the speakers' list.  This is a United Nations conference, therefore all Member States are participating.

**East Timor

With the registration today of Apodeti, all 16 East Timorese political parties which applied for registration certificates from the Independent Electoral Commission have now been registered.  The political campaign for the 30 August Constituent Assembly elections is scheduled to start on 15 July.

More details are in the Briefing Note from Dili which will also tell you about today’s development in the first East Timor trial of crimes against humanity, which, as you will recall, began last week.

**Sierra Leone

During a meeting chaired by the Force Commander of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, General Daniel Opande, leaders of the Revolutionary United Front and the Civil Defence Force re-committed themselves to the disarmament process in Sierra Leone.  The meeting was held yesterday in the eastern town of Koidu.

More details are in a press release issued this morning in Freetown.

**Refugee News

The High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, has asked African leaders at the OAU Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, to continue seeking solutions to the many refugee crises in Africa.  He urged leaders to allow refugees who cannot return home to be integrated in host countries.  In a donors’ meeting, Lubbers praised the government of Zambia for its willingness to provide land for refugees who want to settle there.

UNHCR has expressed concern at the lack of hospitality being shown to Afghan refugees, both in the region and beyond.  As conditions in Afghanistan deteriorate, Afghans have been seeking asylum across the world in some

68 countries from Australia to Cuba and Iceland.

We have more refugee news in the UNHCR briefing notes upstairs.

**Budget

Budget news.  Today, Senegal became the 95th Member State to pay its

2001 regular budget contribution in full, and that was with a payment of over $51,000.

**Press conference

One press conference to announce for tomorrow:  at 11:15 a.m., the Canadian delegation to the UN Conference on Small Arms will hold a press conference to discuss the topic of the Conference.  Speakers will include Dr. Rey Pagtakhan, Secretary of State for Asia and the Pacific, Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, the Special Adviser and former Force Commander of the UN Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), and Paul Eavis of Saferworld.

**Apologies

We have apologies to extend to those of you who might have tried to access the Spokesman's Web site this morning.  There are technical difficulties today.  We have not been able to post our updates on that site.  So, bear with us.  We will get up-to-date as soon as we can get online.

That’s it.  Any questions?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  What were the Secretary-General’s comments on the Middle East?

Spokesman:  I don’t have the exact statement, but it concerned the phone call he received last night from the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.  He said they discussed the efforts to get the violence in the Middle East under control.  The Prime Minister also –- although this did not come up at the press conference -– I can add that in that same telephone conversation, the Prime Minister asked the Secretary-General for an unedited version of the videotape that we have been discussing since last week.

The Secretary-General repeated the offer that we had announced here last Friday, to allow the Israelis to view the tape -- not to give them the tape -- to allow them to view the tape that would be edited to black out the faces of individuals.  So that offer remains on the table.

Question:  Has that question been resolved with Lebanon?

Spokesman:  We continue to talk to Lebanon through Staffan de Mistura, the Special Envoy there, and Lebanon’s views on the matter of the tape have been made clear to us.

Question:  Is the Secretary-General concerned that Hezbollah is effectively blackmailing the United Nations into doing nothing that could lead to identification of the possible suspects, accusing it of spying for the enemy and giving the tape to Israel?

Spokesman:  I think Jean Marie Guéhenno (Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations) made our position very clear last Friday.  We are offering the edited version of this tape to [be viewed by] Israel on humanitarian grounds.  We don’t want to do anything that could be construed as sharing of intelligence.  That’s not our role in the area.  So that offer now continues to be on the table, as I said.

Question:  Any time scale as to when it might be offered or where?

Spokesman:  When the offer was made, the Israelis said ‘we want the unedited version’, and the latest thing is that the Secretary-General has reaffirmed the original offer for a viewing of the edited version.  And that’s where it stands.

Okay. We now go to our guests.  Ms. Watanabe, can we start with you?

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