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 Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon.

**Guest at Noon

Our guest at noon today is Georg Kell, Senior Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, and he wants to talk to you about the new Global Compact and specifically about the newsletter that they are launching today.

**Secretary-General

Today is the last day of July, and so it is time to announce a holiday for the Secretary-General.  He will take a holiday -– world events permitting -- the first two weeks of August, from the 6th through the 17th.  Then on Sunday

19 August, he will go to Oslo, Norway, for an official visit.  On Monday, he will meet with the Prime Minister, have an audience with the King, meet with the Foreign Minister and then have dinner with the Prime Minister.  Tuesday, he will meet with the President and other members of the Parliament, or the Storting, and then with the Minister of International Development.  That evening, he will leave for Stockholm, Sweden, where he will have a couple more days' leave.

The following Saturday, the 25th, he will travel to Salzburg –- not Vienna  -- for an official visit to Austria.  He will get together with the Federal Chancellor, Wolfgang Schüssel, on Sunday.  On Monday he will have meetings with officials from the United Nations Office in Vienna.  He will also meet with the Austrian Foreign Minister.  And then in the evening he will open a seminar on the Dialogue among Civilizations, which will be taking place there at that time.  Then Tuesday morning, he will give the keynote address at that seminar before leaving for South Africa.  After an overnight flight, he will get to Durban on Wednesday. He will open the World Conference on Racism in Durban on Friday the 31st.

Then on Saturday, 1 September, he will leave Durban for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  In that country, he will first visit Kinshasa on Sunday the 2nd and then Kisangani on Monday, the 3rd.  And later on the 3rd, he will go to Kigali, Rwanda, for an official visit to that country.  Tuesday, he will be in Kigali and then later on Tuesday he will return to Sweden, where he will give an address in Uppsala, on Wednesday the 5th, and then on Friday the 7th, he will return to Stockholm and New York. 

Okay, so we will try to do a sanitized version of that long programme for the month of August and early September and give it to you later this afternoon.

**Security Council

The Security Council this morning held consultations to conclude its work on two draft resolutions concerning, respectively, the United Nations Interim Force

in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG).  Once it had reached agreement on the texts of both resolutions, the Council went

into formal meetings to approve them, extending both Missions by six months, until the end of January 2002.

Yesterday afternoon, the Council also unanimously approved a resolution to establish a mechanism to monitor the implementation of the United Nations sanctions, imposed against the Taliban in Afghanistan.  The mechanism is to include a monitoring group, which would be based in New York, of up to five experts, and a support team of up to 15 members who would work in the States bordering the territory of Afghanistan under Taliban control.

Today is the last day of China's Presidency of the Council.  Tomorrow, Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso of Colombia will take over as President, and he will hold bilateral consultations with Council members to determine the body's program of work for the month of August.

**Videotape Report

Today is the end of the month, and, as promised, Under-Secretary-General for Management Joseph Connor has completed his report on the United Nations handling of a videotape taken by peacekeepers in Lebanon a day after Hezbollah abducted three Israeli soldiers.  Mr. Connor will present the report to the Secretary-General late this afternoon, and we’ll announce next steps as soon as the Secretary-General has had time to consider the report, and I assume that announcement will come tomorrow.

**Middle East Correction

Also on the Middle East, yesterday, in response to a question about Middle East violence, Associate Spokesman Marie Okabe said, on the basis of guidance, that the Secretary-General deplores the death of six Palestinians "who were killed by Israeli forces."  As you may know, the Israelis dispute that, and the United Nations is not in a position to make a judgement.  So, to correct the record, I must delete the words "by Israeli forces" from what was said, and I apologize for that.

**Sierra Leone

The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) reports that the pace of disarmament has picked up in the district of Kono over the past week.  Yesterday, when the Mission's Deputy Force Commander, Major General Martin Agwai, returned to Kono to supervise the process, 910 combatants from the pro-Government Civil Defence Forces and 752 from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) had turned in their arms in Kono, and that is since 2 July.  The Mission credits the involvement of Kono chiefs and elders in the enormous improvement in the disarmament rate.  Meanwhile, the Mission reports that, after initial logistical problems, nearly 1,000 members of the Civil Defence Force have disarmed in the district of Bonthe.  We have additional information in a press release from the Mission.

**Democratic Republic of the Congo

The United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reports that a humanitarian boat convoy, consisting of three barges and two pushers (I think they mean boats) left Kinshasa for Mogalo in Equateur province, which is some 1,250 kilometres up the Lua River from Kinshasa.  The barges are carrying a cargo of 650 tons made up of medical supplies, fuel, food, school furniture, construction materials, utensils, clothing, seeds and agricultural tools.  United Nations military observers and civilian staff will escort the humanitarian boat convoy along the entire length of its journey.  The convoy is to return to Kinshasa with 1,000 tons of maize, purchased by the European Union, for humanitarian aid to the needy population of Kinshasa, who have been experiencing a significant food shortage. 

We have more information from the Mission on that.

**Iraq

On Iraq, the level of oil exports under the oil-for-food programme in the week ending 27 July was 12 million barrels, which was considerably lower than the previous week's exports.  Humanitarian supplies and oil industry spare parts and equipment worth over $14 billion have been delivered to Iraq since the start of the oil-for-food programme in December 1996 -- out of a total of $27 billion worth of approved contracts for humanitarian supplies and equipment.  In addition, over $12 billion worth of supplies and equipment are in the production and delivery pipeline.  The value of contracts placed on hold by the Security Council's

661 sanctions committee stands at $3.5 billion.

We have the full text of the Iraqi oil-for-food programme update in my office.

**Floods in Pakistan

The United Nations Resident Coordinator in Pakistan yesterday handed over $50,000 worth of relief goods to relief authorities for distribution in flood-affected areas of northwestern Pakistan.  The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs approved the disbursement of the aid with the help of grants from Norway and Denmark.  The World Health Organization is assisting the National Institute of Health to assess the fitness of drinking water in the area and has provided 50,000 water purification tablets and medicines for distribution.

Details of the United Nations system aid to the flood-stricken area are available in a press release from the United Nations Information Centre in Islamabad.

**News from Geneva

From Geneva, we have word that the United Nations Children's Fund has announced today that about €300,000 from a European Union grant totaling

€1.5 million for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, would go to a programme to vaccinate 12,000 children and provide maternity services to

20,000 women.

Then in refugee news, again from Geneva, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that the number of ethnic Albanians returning from Kosovo to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has increased over the last few days to newly opened areas near Skopje, the capital.  In other news, UNHCR has completed the first phase of an emergency airlift of supplies for more than 25,000 refugees in the northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We have the Geneva press summary for today with more details.

**Budget

We have the 101st Member State to be paid in full for its regular budget dues for 2001 with payment of more than $20,000 from Haiti.  So far, the fully paid up contributions for the year total about $525 million, or just over half of the total budget.  At this time last year, there were slightly more Member States paid in full (104), but the total collected was somewhat less than $525 million.  It was $512 million on this day last year.

**Signings

One signing to report:  this morning, the Federated States of Micronesia became the 96th signatory to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

**Press Conference

Also, one press conference to announce for tomorrow: 12:45 p.m., Jackey Maarohanye, Director of Ithtung Trust, will be here to talk about the tragedies that young people endure when war and conflict tear up their societies.

That is all I have.  A very quiet day.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  On the UNIFIL videotape report, is this the Secretary-General’s decision whether or not to make it public?  Is he expected to?

Spokesman:  We’ll see what he does tomorrow.  I said all along that we expect him to deal with this matter in a transparent way, but a judgement won’t be made until he looks at the report. 

Question:  Did I understand correctly that the Secretary-General will not go to Vienna –- just to Salzburg?

Spokesman:  That is correct.

Question:  Is there any reason for that?

Spokesman:  It’s summertime.

Question:  If this report is made public, is there someone who can speak to us on the record about it?

Spokesman:  That will be discussed with the Secretary-General this afternoon.

Okay.  Georg, welcome to the briefing.

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