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, and Jan Fischer, Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly.

Briefing by the Spokesman for the Secretary-General

I understand that Security Council consultations have just adjourned, so any of you who want to abandon me to go to the stakeout, I won't be offended.

Good afternoon.

**Statement by the Spokesman on the Middle East

We will start with a statement attributable to the Spokesman on the subject of the Middle East.

“The Secretary-General is deeply disturbed that, despite the recent ceasefire agreement, there has been yet another round of violence and retaliation in the Middle East in which over 20 Palestinians and two Israelis have been killed.  He strongly deplores this, and the heavy loss of life.  He urges all sides to exercise maximum restraint and to make every effort to observe the ceasefire and implement the agreement reached by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and President Yasser Arafat on 26 September.  The casualties on both sides underline the urgent need to return to the negotiating table, so as to address the basic political issues.”

**Afghanistan

With winter and the threat of a refugee exodus looming, humanitarian agencies involved in the Afghan relief effort stepped up the scope of their operations by deploying staff to the neighbouring countries of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Iran.  For example, the World Food Programme said it moved 2,000 tons of food from Tajikistan to the Panjshir Valley -– an area almost completely cut-off in the winter.

Among the developments flagged at the daily briefing in Islamabad:

A consortium of aid agencies dealing with health is worried about the potential for malaria epidemics in the coming days in eastern and northeastern Afghanistan.

No progress was reported regarding communications between national staff inside Afghanistan and the outside world.  One radio continues to operate in Herat under Taliban monitoring.

And in Kandahar, in the southeast, despite assurances by local authorities that staff and property would be protected, three United Nations vehicles have been taken by the Taliban.

I have asked Carolyn McAskie, who is here on my right, the Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, to brief you more fully on the latest development concerning the United Nations humanitarian effort in Afghanistan.

**Terror-UNHCR

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today urged governments considering new asylum safeguards in the aftermath of September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States to strike a careful balance between additional security needs and existing international refugee protection principles.

In a statement to UNHCR’s governing Executive Committee, which is meeting in Geneva, the agency’s director of international protection, Erika Feller, noted that the 1951 Refugee Convention already excludes persons who are a danger to national security, or who are convicted of a particularly serious crime.

If you are interested in that subject, please see their press release which has more details.

**Security Council

The Security Council met in closed consultations this morning on three topics on its agenda. 

First, Assistant Secretary-General for Peace-keeping Operations, Hedi Annabi, briefed Council members on political and security developments in Sierra Leone.

Following that, Council members reviewed the Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission.

And the last item in today’s programme is the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea.  Mr. Annabi also was the briefer in that case.

The President of the Council, Ambassador Richard Ryan, is expected to talk to the press in the stakeout.

**World Food Summit

The Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, announced today in Rome that the World Food Summit plus five, originally scheduled for Rome in November, will be moved to Rimini, on Italy’s Adriatic coast.  The meeting, which forms part of the FAO's annual Conference, will be held from 5 to 9 November.  The Conference itself will still be held in Rome. 

Additional information on arrangements will be made available as soon as possible.  We have a press release from the FAO with details.

**UNRWA

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) will receive a $5 million contribution to its Third Emergency Appeal from the Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa funds, which were established by the Arab League and administered by the Islamic Development Bank.

The $5 million contribution is to be used mainly in creating temporary job opportunities for unemployed Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, where more than half the population currently live below the poverty line.

This contribution brings the total amount of pledges towards UNRWA's Third Emergency Appeal to some $43 million, out of the total $77 million requested at its launch in 22 June 2001.

We have a press release on that, as well.

**KFOR Change of Command

Lieutenant General Marcel Valentin, of France, today became the sixth commander of the NATO-led forces in Kosovo, known as KFOR.  Valentin is taking command of some of the 50,000 soldiers from Norwegian General Thorstein Skiaker.

At the ceremony, Valentin pledged to work closely with the United Nations mission in Kosovo and added that KFOR would strive to provide a safe environment for the upcoming November elections.

**Press Releases

I have a number of press releases to flag for you today as well as some reports.  Out on the racks today is the report of the Secretary-General on cooperation between the United Nations and all relevant partners, including the private sector.  The report details different types of cooperation with the private sector and includes guidelines for cooperation with the business community and a background note on the use of the United Nations name and emblem.

Also on the racks is the report of the Committee on Conferences, which contains the calendar of conferences and meetings for the years 2002 and 2003, for any of you who want to do some long-term planning.

And then among the press releases is one from the Food and Agriculture Organization, which today issued “The State of the World's Forests 2001" report saying that tropical countries continue to lose forests at a very high rate.  Losses of natural forest in the 1990's amounted to 16.1 million hectares per year with 15.2 million hectares of that being in the tropics.

The report is available on the FAO Web site.

Then there is the World Health Report 2001 that will be launched tomorrow.  We have an embargoed press release and press kits as well as a limited number of copies of the report itself, which is also embargoed.  You can get those in my office.

And finally we also have a press release from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with remarks from the Registrar, Adama Dieng, on the International Criminal Court.

**Signings

This morning, the Central African Republic became the 41st country to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.  We are slowly getting closer to the magic number of 60 ratifications that would bring the Statute into force.

And this afternoon, Saudi Arabia will deposit the Instrument of Adhesion to the Convention on Biological Diversity, becoming the 40th party to the Convention.

**International Day of Older Persons

The annual observance of the International Day of Older Persons, which was on Monday, will be held tomorrow beginning at 10 a.m.  And because of recent events, the venue has been changed.  We have a programme available in my office with the details.

**Press Conference Tomorrow

No press conferences today, but at 4 p.m. tomorrow in this room there will be Jody Williams, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, who is Ambassador of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.  She will be accompanied by Stephen Goose, Chief Editor of the Landmine Monitor Report, 2001.  They will be here to discuss that report.  The Canadian Mission, by the way, is the sponsor of that briefing.

**Documents

Some of you have been complaining about not getting documents from the General Assembly, specifically speeches not coming up fast enough.  It is partly my fault because I am in the middle of renovating my offices and moving the documents section from the airless, windowless box they have been in for many years, back to the place they were in 1950, when this building was built.  And so you will eventually be getting your documents from that nice, gleaming stainless steel roll-up window, that's located in the elevator bank.  But the documents people have no phones, only one computer and are in the midst of moving a lot of stuff, so they are not quite as quick as they normally are, but they have pledged to fix that as soon as they can.  

[Later in the briefing, the Spokesman said he had one last note on GA speeches, the texts.  “DPI tells me that they are posting all statements on the GA terrorism debate on the Web site which is www.un.org/terrorism.  And they say the debate is also being Webcast.  I hope that will help you follow a bit more closely.”]

Any questions before we go to Jan and then to Carolyn McAskie? Richard?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  This might be a correction, I am not sure.  The Jody Williams press conference -- I thought I heard you say 4 p.m., but I thought it was at 11 a.m., but I could be wrong. 

Spokesman:  4 p.m. is what I have but I will double check for you, just to see if there has been any change. 

Question:  Are there any plans for the Secretary-General to travel at all, to get involved in the Afghanistan situation?

Spokesman:  No, at this point no.

Ok, Jan what do you have for us today?

Briefing by the Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly

Well, yesterday the General Assembly heard 32 speakers on agenda item 166, measures to eliminate international terrorism.  As of this morning, we have heard a total of 61 speakers.  So, with 105 left, we will end up with at least 166.  The reason that I am doing this math is that some colleagues with long memories say that it is the highest number of speakers ever on a single agenda item

The General Assembly President, Han Seung-soo, will today inform the Assembly that a document containing a partial programme of work and a schedule of plenary meetings will come out.  I thought it actually had come out, but I did not see it on the racks.  When it comes out it will be A/inf/56/3.  You will notice that agenda item 11 -- the report of the Security Council -- which was originally scheduled for 4 October has been moved to 15 October.

Over the last couple of weeks I have received numerous telephone calls from you and your colleagues about dates for the general debate.  So I am really happy that the General Assembly President will also announce that the debate will be held from 10 to 16 November.  So I suppose you will now start asking me about the dates for the special session on children instead. 

The general debate will be held for a seven-day period, going from Saturday to Friday, so there will be meetings on Saturday and Sunday.  Each morning meeting will start at 9 a.m. and go to 1 p.m., and the afternoon meeting will start at 3 p.m. and go to 7 p.m.  The speakers will be urged to limit their statements to 15 minutes.

This afternoon at 5:10 the President will meet with the Permanent Representative of Luxembourg, and at 5:30 with the Permanent Observer of Switzerland.

That's all I have.

**Question and Answers

Question:  What kind of general debate will this be, compared to the one that was scheduled?

Spokesman for the President:  I think it is safe to say that there will be fewer heads of State or government.  The original speakers' list contained quite a high number of heads of State or government but that was probably also due to the fact that the special session on children was to be held around the same time, or rather just before.

Question:  Do you have confirmations of any heads of State?

Spokesman for the President:  No, it is much too early.  The President will inform the Assembly today.  It is either happening at the moment in the General Assembly or it will happen later today.

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