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

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

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

**Afghanistan

Good afternoon.

More than 3,500 Afghans have fled to Pakistan’s Baluschistan province as of midday today, bringing the estimated total arrivals in the province over the past week to more than 13,500.  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was awaiting government authorization Friday afternoon to provide water and food to the new arrivals.

Monitors at the border described the situation as chaotic, and said people were arriving with no food or belongings.  The new arrivals reported fleeing heavy bombardments in Kandahar overnight and this morning.

Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, will be here at 12:30 p.m. to brief you more on this situation.

The Humanitarian Coordinator’s Office for Afghanistan reports that up to

70 or 80 per cent of Kandahar city’s population have already left, mainly for rural areas of the region.  As a result, rural areas are getting more crowded.

According to the United Nations Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan, a large number of new explosive devices have been used in different parts of the country, particularly in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat and Kunduz, and people moving around in the areas that have been heavily bombarded could face additional risks from unexploded ordnance.

In Geneva, the Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ross Mountain, said although significant pledges had been announced by donor countries, agencies had so far received confirmed contributions amounting to $67 million.  The emergency appeal was for $584 million.

Also on terrorism, we have a press release from the United Nations Office in Nairobi saying that a suspicious letter sent to that Office has tested negative for anthrax after initial testing.

**Security Council

The Security Council this morning began an open debate on Somalia by hearing from the Prime Minister of that country’s Transitional National Government, Ali Khalif Galaydh.

He welcomed the Secretary-General’s recent report on Somalia, but urged the Council to send a high-level United Nations mission to the country to re-evaluate

the security situation there, so that a United Nations peace-building mission could be set up in Somalia.  You’ll recall that the Secretary-General, in his report, declined to recommend such a peace-building mission at this time.

Following the Prime Minister, the Secretary-General’s Representative for Somalia, David Stephen, talked to the Council to discuss the Secretary-General’s report.  He emphasized that there should not be a proliferation of initiatives dealing with Somalia.

The Council’s open debate is going on now, with 10 members inscribed to speak, in addition to the 15 Council members.

Yesterday afternoon, the Council held a private meeting with representatives of nations contributing troops to the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

On Monday, the Council expects to hold consultations on Guinea-Bissau and the DRC, and also intends to hold a public meeting on the question of targeted sanctions.  If there is time following that meeting, a press conference on targeted sanctions might take place -– tentatively scheduled for 12:30 p.m. -– with Hans Dahlgren, the Swedish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; Swiss Ambassador Jenö Staehelin; and German Ambassador Dieter Kastrup.

**Terrorism Committee

The Security Council’s 1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee has set up a Web site.

As its work progresses, information on the Committee’s activities and relevant documents will be posted.

The URL is www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/1373/.

**East Timor

More than 500 refugees crossed the border into East Timor this morning, on the second day of mass refugee returns from camps located in Indonesian West Timor.  On Thursday, more than 370 refugees had crossed from West Timor into East Timor.

The refugees, who come from the Covalima District, had been living since 1999 in the Betun refugee camps.  Today’s return was arranged by the United Nations Mission in East Timor, working with independence leader Xanana Gusmão and pro-autonomy leader Hélio Moniz Caetano, who also returned today from West Timor.

In addition, some 140 East Timorese who currently serve in the Indonesian Police Force crossed the border today into East Timor to meet with Gusmão; those officers have expressed their desire to return to East Timor.  Gusmão told them, “The door is always open to all of those wanting to return.”

We have additional details in today’s report from Dili.

**Democratic Republic of the Congo

Yesterday afternoon, we put out a press release announcing the resignation of Roberto Garreton, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Mr. Garreton explained that his current mandate was incompatible with the position he had just accepted:  Adviser to the High Commissioner for Human Rights for the Latin American Economic Community, based in Santiago, Chile.

He was appointed Special Rapporteur in 1994, and since then has carried out nine missions to the DRC.

**Globalization Report

The Secretary-General, in a report on the racks today about the role of the United Nations in promoting development, notes recent assessments that suggest a substantial decline in global growth, with industrial production and business and consumer confidence falling in many developed countries.

He says the precise impact of the September 11^th attacks could depend on how trade, business and consumer confidence, investment and capital flows will be affected, but adds that certain industries are experiencing a direct impact already, notably in travel and tourism.

He suggests that the key challenge to be faced at the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting –- scheduled for next month in Doha, Qatar, –- and next year’s Conference on Financing for Development in Mexico is to place development at the centre of how globalization is managed.  Development goals, he says, should shape the framework of globalization, rather than allowing the blind forces of globalization to define the outcome of development.

**World Summit on Sustainable Development

In Nairobi, Kenya, last night African countries concluded a three-day meeting to prepare for next year’s World Summit on Sustainable Development, which will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa.  The meeting adopted a ministerial declaration calling for African countries to mobilize efforts to promote sustainable development and for the international community to help support those efforts.

Next week, regional preparatory committee meetings for Johannesburg are taking place in Cairo and in Rio de Janeiro.

**International Convention on Mercenaries

The International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries will enter into force tomorrow, 20 October.  The Convention will enter into force 30 days after the twenty-second ratification, and Costa Rica became the twenty-second party on 20 September.

We have copies of the Convention in all six official languages and the status of ratification available in my Office.

**Signings

This morning, Cuba became the sixty-fourth country to sign the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.

**Other Press Releases

A number of press releases to highlight today.

One says that the World Food Programme (WFP) is launching an emergency operation to feed 300,000 people in Sri Lanka as a severe and prolonged drought on the island pushes large segments of the population into desperate hardship.

The other is the appointment by WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini of former U.S. Senator George McGovern as the agency’s first Global Ambassador on Hunger.

The UNHCR reports that in Angola clashes between Government and UNITA forces have prompted thousands of people to seek refuge in Zambia over the past few days. There have been at least 3,500 new arrivals in the past five days -- well above the average of 1,000 per month.

**United Nations Day

United Nations Day, celebrated each year on 24 October, will be marked this year by a rock concert and a performance by the world-famous mime, Marcel Marceau.  This year’s concert, hosted by the Secretary-General, will also feature performances by the Indian “Hindrock” band, which is called Euphoria ...

(Aside) Do you know what Hindrock is?  I don’t either.

... and the Pakistani folk-rock band, Junoon.  The leader of the band Junoon, Salman Ahmad, is the UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador for Pakistan.

The concert will take place in the General Assembly Hall on Wednesday at

7 p.m., and both the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly are expected to make statements.

The concert is organized by the Department of Public Information and is sponsored by the Governments of France, Kuwait, and Norway and has the support of Kuwait Airways.

Accredited correspondents who wish to attend the concert should call extension 6934, and we’ll have a note to correspondents with more details on the racks soon, if it’s not there already.

**Other Matters

A press conference for Monday in this room:  Michael Zammit-Cutajar, the Executive Secretary of the Climate Change Convention, will be here to brief on the prospects for the upcoming climate talks, which will take place in Marrakesh from 29October to 9November.

A little note here.  I think we told you that Mr. Brahimi was going to be in Washington today.  He has now agreed to do a press conference at the National Press Club tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., and we think C-Span will be covering it in case any of you want to watch it from New York.  We also have the week ahead for you, which you can pick up in my Office.

Any questions before we go to Jan Fischer?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Three if I could.  Can I give you three questions?

Spokesman:  Can you give them to me one at a time.  I don’t have a good memory.

Question:  At this part of the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC) meeting today.  I understand this was a previously scheduled meeting and that there are other issues, such as AIDS and Millenium goals, to be discussed. How is Afghanistan coming up and what reaction, communiqué, or appeals do you expect to come out of that meeting?

Spokesman:  I can’t predict what the outcome of the ACC will be.  They normally issue some kind of communiqué, but I assume that the discussions related to Afghanistan were a recent addition to the agenda.  Frankly, I would have to go back to Mr. [Patrizio] Civili, who handles the ACC for the Secretary-General, and maybe put you in direct contact with him to ask him about the programme and the final communiqué.

Question:  You mentioned the letter to Nairobi.  If for no other reason than to save your Office some late calls tonight, is there any kind of update you can give as to suspicious packages that have been received in the United Nations Building, upstairs or across the street?

Spokesman:  Well, you know, everyone is seeing suspicious packages these days.  Even my Office sent one down to Security rather than open it, but we have nothing to report that has tested positive and, in fact, not all these packages are even tested.  They’re just reviewed by Security.  Security makes the judgement call as to whether testing is necessary.  So I have nothing on packages for you today.

Question:  Nothing pending on packages?

Spokesman:  We hope we’re not expecting any suspicious packages either.

You have a third?

Question:  On Somalia.  The Council is meeting on Somalia today and I understand the Secretary-General has issued a report in the past on Somalia.  To what degree is Somalia being viewed in the Secretary-General’s thinking and the Secretariat’s thinking as a case that might perhaps develop into a new Afghanistan?  For instance, a sort of lawless society with no real authority, a lot of warring factions -- that this could turn into a new Afghanistan?

Spokesman:  I think the way Somalia is being looked at today is more in the context of lessons learned for Afghanistan.  I certainly hope that we’re not projecting a sudden deterioration of the situation there that could be in any way be compared to Afghanistan.

I don’t think, however, based on the Secretary-General’s latest report, that we’re yet home as far as what we’re trying to achieve in Somalia.  I’ve already mentioned that the Secretary-General isn’t ready to recommend a peace-building support office there.  So the situation is still not secure enough or promising enough for us to take the next step.  But we continue to work with it and I don’t think anyone is projecting a catastrophic deterioration of the situation there, despite the fact that it’s still quite unstable.

Yes, Ronnie.

Question:  I know this is somewhat hypothetical, but is there any kind of a plan if something should test positive in this Building -- for us, for the Building as a whole –- if something tests positive for anthrax?  Is there a plan on what would happen next?

Spokesman:  Security is in full control of the situation as far as contingency planning goes, and has contacts with the New York City and Federal authorities to be able to respond in any way to some kind of emergency situation. Are we all safe?  We hope so.

Question:  Another publication we had said that the suspicious letter in Nairobi tested positive.  And you said it’s negative.

Spokesman:  It’s negative.  The United Nations Office announced in Nairobi today that it tested negative.  Some kind of crystals had been found.  The crystals did not test positive for anthrax.

Question:  Who’s involved in the ACC meeting, and what is it?

Spokesman:  We announced it yesterday -– it’s 25, if I remember correctly, United Nations agencies.  It includes all the funds and programmes, and the heads of all these agencies, funds and programmes get together twice a year, usually once in New York.  It used to be once in Geneva, but the overseas meetings have begun to rotate among the agencies, with different agencies hosting the second meeting of the year.  So this is the annual New York-based ACC meeting.

Question:  All day today?

Spokesman:  Today and tomorrow.

Jan?

Briefing by the Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly

Good afternoon.

**General Assembly on Monday

I don’t really have anything today, but just want to remind you that the plenary of the General Assembly will be meeting on Monday to elect or appoint members of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme, of the Committee for Programme and Coordination, and of the Committee on Conferences. It will also take up the items on University for Peace and the Culture of Peace, plus the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA.

**Status Report on Work of Assembly and Committees

I am trying to put together a kind of a status report on the work of the General Assembly and its Committees, outlining what has been done so far and what remains to be scheduled.  I am not sure it will be possible to put something like that together, but I’ll give it a try and, if I can, share it with you.  I myself am a little bit confused as to where we are at the moment and what still remains to be scheduled.  I think some of you probably are too.

That’s all I have.  Do you have any questions before I wish you a very nice weekend?

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