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 Spokesman for Secretary-General

**Afghanistan Area

Good afternoon.  The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, left Teheran this morning for Rome, where he had a 5 p.m. scheduled meeting with the former Afghan King, Zahir Shah.  Mr. Brahimi also had meetings with senior Italian Foreign Ministry officials, including the Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero.  His deputy, Francesc Vendrell, left Teheran for Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he will pursue contacts with Afghan parties and individuals in that country.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said that today it had deployed two Ilyushin cargo aircraft to airlift more than 2,000 metric tons of food from northern Pakistan to the city of Turkmenabad in Turkmenistan, from where it will be transported into remote areas of northern Afghanistan.  These aircraft will enable WFP to get food immediately into its warehouses in Turkmenabad, so that the food can be sent by truck into the less accessible regions of Afghanistan.  Northern Afghanistan is considered the hunger belt of the country, where WFP is seeking to help about 3 million people stay alive until the harvest next year.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was encouraged by progress being made in establishing new refugee sites in Pakistan’s Baluchistan and Northwest Frontier Provinces.  Meanwhile, the refugee agency said it now believes that the total number of new arrivals from Afghanistan since 11 September is to be in the region of 135,000.  The Office of the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Afghanistan said reports from Kabul suggest that an increasing number of people are leaving the city to find shelter elsewhere.  The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that preliminary information from the field indicates that in Afghanistan, the immunization campaign has started as scheduled, with no incidents reported thus far.

And in New York, out on the racks today is an addendum to a report on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan prepared by Kamal Hossain, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights.  Among his recommendations is for United Nations international staff to be redeployed inside Afghanistan immediately, so that they may stand by the Afghan people in a time of danger and intercede on their behalf to protect their rights and to bring emergency humanitarian assistance to them.  He is scheduled to speak to you tomorrow morning here at 11:30.  Also in New York, the Security Council has scheduled a public meeting on Afghanistan next Tuesday at 10:30 a.m.

**Security Council

The Security Council is holding closed consultations this morning on the subject of Liberia.  Council members are discussing the report of the Secretary-General on progress made by Liberia towards complying with Security Council

resolution 1343, which placed sanctions on that country.  The report was introduced today by Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahima Fall.  Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore, Chairman of the Liberia Sanctions Committee, spoke about the work of the Committee.

**World Population

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) today launched the State of World Population 2001.  The report warns that the world’s population is growing by 75 million a year and could reach 10.9 billion by the year 2050.  At the launch here a short while ago, UNFPA’s Executive Director, Thoraya Obaid, said the report showed that poverty and rapid population growth are a deadly combination, as poor people rely heavily on natural resources.  She went on to say that simple interventions would contribute to better management of the environment.  “They include”, she said, “universal education and primary health care, including high-quality reproductive health services”.  These would contribute to smaller families and slower population growth, she said.  We have the full text of her statement upstairs.

**Democratic Republic of the Congo

In a statement issued today in Kinshasa, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namanga Ngongi, salutes the meeting between Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, which took place yesterday in London at the initiative of the British Government.  This meeting, which has the support of the Security Council and the Secretary-General, comes at a crucial moment of rising tensions between these two countries, which are both implicated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo conflict, according to the Special Representative.

The meeting will contribute to eliminating all misunderstandings and reducing the tensions between the two countries, to the great benefit of the peace process and the upcoming additional deployment of United Nations peacekeepers in the country.  We have the full text upstairs.

**Somalia

United Nations agencies responded today to flooding in southern Somalia, with the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Randolph Kent, conducting an aerial survey of the affected areas, accompanied by officials from UNICEF and the WFP.  Heavy seasonal rainfall in some parts of the Juba and Shabelle Rivers has led to rising water levels and limited flooding in southern Somalia, just months after more than 750,000 Somalis faced a serious humanitarian crisis following months of drought in other areas of the country.  We have more information on that for you upstairs.

**Climate Change

The United Nations Climate Change Conference currently ongoing in Marrakech, Morocco, entered into its high-level segment this morning.  In a message delivered by Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Secretary-General reminded the delegates that the fight against climate change is not just an environmental issue, it is a fundamental development issue.

“Joining forces”, he said, “against global threats to human society and the planet has never been more important”.  The Secretary-General added that he hoped a successful conference in Marrakech would lead to the ratification by industrial countries of the Kyoto Protocol, and its entry into force, in time for next year’s Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development.  The full text of the Secretary-General’s message, and the press release, are available upstairs.

**UNDP

The Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Mark Malloch Brown, yesterday announced the appointment of Julia Taft, of the United States, as Assistant Administrator and Director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery.  Ms. Taft has mostly recently served as Assistant United States Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, and has also previously worked as President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Council for Voluntary International Action.  She started work on Monday of this week.

**Dialogue among Civilizations

The report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations, which is this year, and the work of his Personal Representative for the Dialogue, Giandomenico Picco, is out on the racks today.  In it, the Secretary-General notes the importance of dialogue among civilizations to create understanding and mutual respect, and adds, “Dialogue does not mean appeasement of the arrogance of violence or the arrogance of might”.  Instead, he says, it can help lessen the fear of diversity and serve as a tool in the struggle against terrorism.  “It may be a soft tool of diplomacy”, he writes, “but, in the long term, it can prevail”.

At 1 p.m. today, Mr. Picco and the Secretary-General’s Group of Eminent Persons for the Dialogue among Civilizations will talk to you in this room to launch a new book on that subject, called “Crossing the Divide”.

**UNICEF Auction

I don’t know how many of you follow the art world, but UNICEF had quite an afternoon yesterday.  There had been, we announced to you, a private art collection that had many masterpieces by Picasso, Miró, Léger and others, given to UNICEF.  They put the works on auction yesterday and they got something like $57 million from the sale.  I understand three individual records were set for the amount of money bid for these artworks, and we’re trying to get more information from UNICEF, in case any of you are interested in that story.

Press Releases

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank today launched a study on the future of agriculture in the developing world.  The study is called “Farming Systems and Poverty: Improving Livelihoods in a Changing World”, and it identifies options open to poor farmers in more than 70 different farming systems around the world.  The study is available on the FAO Web site and we have a press release upstairs in my office.

**Press Conferences

In a few minutes, in this room at 12:30, the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships will sponsor a press conference by Tim Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation, and Ted Turner, Chairman of the Board of the United Nations Foundation, who will brief on the Foundation’s work and on the most recent grants approved just today.

Our guest tomorrow, at the noon briefing, will be Olara Otunnu, that’s at Serge’s request yesterday, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, to discuss the situation of children in Afghanistan.  And then also tomorrow, 11:30 a.m., Kamal Hossain, as we’ve mentioned, the Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, and then at 1 o’clock, Jayantha Dhanapala, the Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, who will brief you on the Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.  That will take place here in New York from 11 to 13 November.

**Security

So that’s all I have.  Security tells us that the escalator doors on this floor are closed because they’ll be installing three magnetometers and one X-ray machine directly outside these doors, so there will be no space for people to pass.  So I guess you’ll have to continue to use the staircases and the elevators.  Any questions before we go to Jan?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Will the second floor be totally blocked for us during the general debate?  Will there be a stake-out?

Spokesman:  We’re a little behind in getting our briefing from Mike McCann.  For example, you weren’t told about the closing of the escalators.  Security will be much tighter than you’ve ever experienced before, because the threat is higher.  So we’ve asked the Chief of Security, Mike McCann, to come and brief you on what you’ll be able to do and where you’ll be able to go.  I think it is his intention to close off the entire second floor, but we’re still trying to talk to him about the stake-out.  I don’t think it’s his intention to shut down the stake-out, nor to shut down this room, but how you’ll get access to them while the rest of the floor is closed, he’ll have to explain to us.  So if you can just wait patiently.  He’s been out of town for a few days.  I don’t know when he’s coming back but he should be back soon and then he’ll be here to take your heat.

Question:  I hope he does it before next Monday, no?

Spokesman:  We’ll try to do it before Saturday, when all the heads of State will be here.

Question:  Can you expand on the Secretary-General’s response to President Chirac’s call for convening a conference on Afghanistan relief efforts?  He said the Secretary-General has agreed to that.  Can we say more about how he sees that and where this might take place?

Spokesman:  The Secretary-General is still trying to get a clear sense of what it is the governments have in mind.  He’s been in touch with Washington and with London, and yesterday he met of course with President Chirac.  These governments and others, Japan and other donors and so on, have been talking about some kind of a high-level meeting on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.  So I think the Secretary-General’s just trying to find out what it is they want to do.  I believe he spoke with Prime Minister Tony Blair this morning, I think he spoke to Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday, in addition to seeing President Chirac yesterday.  And I think by the end of today, it's expected that these governments will clarify what their intention is, as for a date and an agenda.  So I don’t think the Secretary-General wants to react until the concept is firmed up.

Question:  With meetings over the next days, will we get news or will everything be off limits to us?

Spokesman:  Again, I don’t know.  These latest security arrangements haven’t been discussed in any detail with us.  Although a member of my office has been attending some planning sessions, these details did not come up in the planning sessions thus far.  So I’m as much in the dark as you are and I look forward to Chief McCann speaking.

Question:  Can somebody at least come and brief us about what’s going on in the meetings?

Spokesman:  We’ll try to get you the various meetings.  We’ll put out the Secretary-General’s appointments as usual.  I think Jan got authorization to give out the speakers list for the General Assembly today for the first time, so that will be of help to you.  I was told yesterday by the Secretary-General’s office that they will start giving us some details on his appointments, before the end of this week, for the meetings starting on Saturday.  So I hope to give you some advance warning on his programme.

Question:  It will be helpful if you can coordinate with the General Assembly to get copies of the speeches, because we’re usually in the dark.

Spokesman:  We do the best we can with the speeches.  The documents people, Robin Dellarocca and Nina Wehner, run up and down like crazy to get them to you.  They don’t always get copies from delegations, that’s the problem.  Ideally, when delegations put them right on the Internet as they’re being delivered, that’s best for everybody, but not all of them do that.

Question:  Maybe somebody can run down to the Assembly --

Spokesman:  That’s where Robin runs to for copies.  She goes down to the Assembly Hall.  We’ll do the best we can.

Question:  Have you heard from the Secretary-General about President Chirac’s idea for an additional high-level person to Brahimi on establishing a government in Afghanistan?

Spokesman:  I think that idea is floating around, but I don’t think we’re ready to say whether the Secretary-General supports it or whom he might consider for the job should it be proposed and approved.  So it’s a bit premature for us to comment on.

Question:  But Mr. Brahimi will continue on?

Spokesman:  Well, you heard President Chirac give his rationale for the job.  It’s a question of whether the Secretary-General agrees that Lakhdar Brahimi would be freed up to concentrate more exclusively on the political side if he had a humanitarian counterpart.  As the structure now stands, Mr. Brahimi, as the Special Representative, oversees two components, with Mr. Vendrell doing political support for him and Mike Sackett being the Humanitarian Coordinator in Islamabad.  So that’s the structure the Secretary-General has in place.  But I’m sure he’s looking at this idea.

Question:  As you said, Mr. Hossain recommended that United Nations international staff go back quickly to Afghanistan.  He also recommended that United Nations Radio be made available so Afghan men and women can have a voice, and that community leaders make security arrangements in case there’s a threat to law and order.  What’s the likelihood of any of those things happening?

Spokesman:  Now you’re talking about the post-conflict phase.  The United Nations is not in a position now to start broadcasting or looking after security inside Afghanistan.  We’re struggling to get food aid and other items into the country.  And an even bigger challenge is local distribution.  We’re getting food in, but are we getting it to the places that the people have fled to?  Mr. Brahimi is giving thought to how the United Nations can provide support to the Afghans.  There’s been a lot of contingency planning on United Nations Radio, and also a lot of thought given to the security mechanism.  We’ve talked about that.  The Secretary-General has mentioned it publicly, the three options, “blue helmets”, multinational force, all Afghan security force.  Then the idea is, under that security mechanism, the United Nations civil affairs officers and others can assist to reinforce security at the local level.  But that’s all down the road.  These are ideas for the future.

Question:  Did President Chirac and the Secretary-General in their talk mention any options like safe corridors or a bombing halt or getting together to ask the Taliban to do something, or did the conversation not get that far?

Spokesman:  I did not get a detailed read-out of that meeting.

Question:  So the things that Mr. Chirac mentioned --

Spokesman:  I honestly don’t know what was discussed.  I can ask for you after the briefing to see if they want to reveal more about what was actually discussed.

Question:  I’m not sure what was covered since I wasn’t here yesterday, but can you give the Secretary-General’s response to Bin Laden’s message that the United Nations is a tool of this crime of the United States attacks on Afghanistan?

Spokesman:  We gave that, a very precise response on Monday.  Manoel gave it.  You can get the tape from Monday and we can give you the written text.  I don’t have a written text in front of me.  I would do nothing more than repeat what Manoel said on Monday.  I don’t see any point.

All right, we have a guest wanting to start here in one minute --

Question:  Can we change from Afghanistan because yesterday the representative of the Secretary-General described the situation in Colombia as one of the most alarming.  There will be no report to the Assembly or Security Council.  Who is in charge of bringing alarming situations to the attention of the world?

Spokesman:  The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any concerns he has about the situation in Colombia, and I think that’s why Jan Egeland was here last time and why we brought him before you.  And it was at that time that he was extremely concerned.  I don’t have any fresh guidance on the subject of Colombia.

Jan, our time is just about up --

Question:  One question.  Is there only one meeting of the Security Council about Afghanistan, or is there any preparation for another ministerial meeting of the Security Council on terrorism?

Spokesman:  I don’t know of any ministerial meeting of the Council on terrorism.  I’d have to check to see if that idea’s still around.  [He later announced that a public meeting on counter-terrorism was on the Council’s programme for 12 November.]

Jan –-

Briefing by Spokesman for President of General Assembly

It’s been a mad morning so I don’t have much for you, and we’re running short of time already.  As Fred mentioned, there’s a fresh speaker’s list out, it’s provisional list number six.  I have copies here but there are also copies upstairs.

The General Committee decided to accommodate the request of the President of the Economic and Social Council to have the Council report discussed in plenary.  I don’t have a date but it will be discussed, the report as well as the Council itself.

I’ve been in touch with Media Accreditation about the security briefing.  I understand Mr. McCann is away until tomorrow and should be back then.  Media Accreditation is also working hard at getting this to fall into place, so you can get a briefing on access restrictions and security and things like that.  Hopefully tomorrow -- we’re saying tomorrow afternoon sometime.

On behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA), tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 in the UNCA Club, there’ll be a farewell coffee for the Dag Hammarskjöld Fellows who have been here following the work of the United Nations for quite some time.  And the General Assembly President will hand over certificates to the three participants.

That’s what I have.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Can you tell us what was said to convince the General Assembly to take up the report of the Economic and Social Council?

Spokesman:  There was just a General Committee meeting.  I don’t think there were any protests or anything.  There was a request and the General Committee met and indeed decided to accommodate the request.  I think it was a very brief meeting this morning.

Okay.  Thank you very much.

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