DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY 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

**Information and Communication Technologies Task Force

We have as a guest with us at today’s briefing the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), former Costa Rican President José Maria Figueres.

The Secretary-General launched the United Nations Task Force on ICT today, saying that the era of such technologies has dawned, but not yet for all.  He said he would look to the task force “to help build digital bridges to the billions of people who are now trapped in extreme poverty, untouched by the digital revolution and beyond the reach of the global economy”.

We have copies of his speech upstairs, along with information packets –- which are also available at the entrance to this room -– on the Task Force and the work it will do.

There will be a briefing right after that one by Caroline McAskie, the Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, who will be talking to you about the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, and specifically on the launch of the 2001 consolidated appeal.

**Afghanistan -- Political

The Secretary-General’s Personal Representative for Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, today said that the Northern Alliance has accepted the offer by the Secretary-General to attend a meeting in Germany that the United Nations hopes to open on Monday.

About two hours later, Lakhdar Brahimi, the Special Representative here, briefed the Security Council in closed-door consultations about the proposed meeting, aimed at mapping out the transition to a broad-based, multi-ethnic government for Afghanistan.

Following the Council briefing, Brahimi told reporters that he hopes to convene the meeting of Afghan factions next Monday in or somewhere near Berlin.  He said he hoped the factions would start gathering in Germany over the weekend.

Referring to his five-point approach he outlined last week to the Council, and the fast-developing situation on the ground, Brahimi said he hoped to try to get a small transitional authority into Kabul as soon as possible.  He also said security arrangements are expected to be discussed at the meeting in Berlin.

When pressed about the representation at the conference, Brahimi referred to the four political processes, which were referred to earlier by the Secretary-General:  namely, the Northern Alliance, the Rome process involving the former King, the Peshawar convention and the Cyprus process.

The Security Council, in the form of a press statement, urged all Afghan parties to attend the conference.

In response to a question, Brahimi also elaborated on the situation in Kunduz, saying that the United Nations had been approached by the Taliban last night about mediating the surrender in that city.  He said the Secretary-General was in touch with the International Committee of the Red Cross and with the coalition forces, and had asked Mr. Vendrell to ask the Northern Alliance to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law and the laws of war.  We hope to have the transcript of his remarks shortly.

We have the following statement attributable to the Spokesman on the subject of Afghanistan:

“The Secretary-General is acutely concerned about the safety and well-being of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and of combatants who either have surrendered or wish to do so in accordance with the laws of war.  He was particularly appalled by the murder yesterday of four journalists on the road between Jalalabad and Kabul and condemns this act in the strongest possible terms.  The Secretary-General strongly appeals to all parties to respect the Geneva Conventions and comply with international humanitarian and human rights law.”

**Afghanistan -- Humanitarian

On the humanitarian front, the regional coordinator, Mike Sackett, and the heads of six United Nations agencies that are part of the Crisis Management Group met this morning with Abdullah Abdullah of the Northern Alliance for about one hour.

While efforts are under way to strengthen international humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, the United Nations and its system partners are faced with an acute shortage of office equipment.  Many of their offices have been looted and vandalized.  Now that control over many cities has switched hands, the same offices in some cases have been looted and vandalized a second time.

The security situation in western Afghanistan continues to be somewhat unstable but is normalizing.  All United Nations offices have been provided with armed guards, in addition to the regular United Nations guards in Herat.

With much of Afghanistan facing famine-like conditions, efforts are under way to strengthen the country’s agriculture sector.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said it is back in full force today on the Peshawar-Kabul route.  In Kabul, WFP said 18 female staff, who were prohibited from working by the Taliban, are now back in the office and have resumed

“normal” programme activities -- after years of having to work under extremely difficult conditions.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said its office in Iran was gearing up for a possible large-scale organized return of Afghan refugees currently in the country.  Security allowing, organized large-scale returns were likely to begin in early spring.  There are 2.3 million Afghan refugees in Iran.

**Afghanistan -- Development

In Washington this morning, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Mark Malloch Brown and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kenzo Oshima addressed a conference on the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Malloch Brown told the conference that United Nations rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan could cost at least as much as its programme in Mozambique in the mid-1990s, which cost some $6.5 billion over five years.  In the first two years, he noted of the Mozambique effort, United Nations relief costs were about a billion dollars, rising from that amount over the third through fifth years.

He added that the need remains to fund relief efforts in Afghanistan, saying; “After decades of war, poverty and ignorance, Afghan men, women and children need and deserve peace as well as social, political and economic well-being.  Let us not fail them.”

**Four Journalists Killed

I wish to share with you our grief over the deaths of the four journalists killed in Afghanistan yesterday.  In one way or another all of them had links with the United Nations, either by covering events where the United Nations was also present or through direct personal involvement.

Maria Grazia Cutuli, of the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, took leave from journalistic assignments between December 1996 and July 1997 and worked as a United Nations Volunteer in Rwanda; she was a human rights monitor.  During her journalistic career, Maria has covered just about every major conflict of the last 10 years.

Azizullah Haidari, a Reuters photographer, was born in Afghanistan.  He went to Pakistan in the 1980s as a refugee.  His Reuters colleagues said that this reporting trip to Kabul this week would have taken him back to the city of his birth for the first time since 1983.

Julio Fuentes, from the Spanish daily El Mundo, has covered all major conflicts since the early 1980s; from Central America, to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the Persian Gulf war, to the Balkans, and now to Afghanistan.

Harry Burton, an Australian cameraman, joined Reuters relatively recently. Through his camera he has shown the world the East Timorese drama.  He was in East Timor from August 1999 till February 2000.

Our prayers and thoughts are with their families as well as with the families of the three other journalists also killed in Afghanistan a few days ago:  Pierre Billaud of RTL Radio, Volker Handloik, a freelance reporter working for Stern magazine, and Johanne Sutton of Radio France International.

We are pleased to announce that the United Nations will be able to help journalists going in and out of Afghanistan as of today.  The local authorities accepted the principle that United Nations aircraft could be used to transport United Nations staff, but also non-governmental organization (NGO) partners, diplomatic representatives and journalists to and from Afghanistan.  For more details on this, please check today’s briefing note from Kabul.

      **Security Council

As I already told you, the Security Council held informal consultations this morning to hear Lakhdar Brahimi, the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan.

Now the Council is holding an open meeting on Children and Armed Conflict. After all of today’s speakers, the Council is to adopt a resolution.

The Secretary-General opened the debate.  He said that the Council’s resolution will tell each of us what we have to do to protect children in armed conflict.  The Secretary-General also said that he would work to keep the children’s needs uppermost in our minds.

The Executive Director of the United Nations Children Fund, Carol Bellamy, and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Ottunu, are expected to take the floor.  A former child soldier from Sierra Leone is also participating in the meeting.

In addition to all Council members, the representatives of 12 other countries will speak.

**Kosovo

Yesterday evening in Kosovo, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Hans Haekkerup, announced at a press conference the partial results of Saturday’s legislative assembly elections, which showed that, with  46 per cent of all votes cast, Ibrahim Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo was in the lead.

His party was followed in second place by Hashim Thaci’s Democratic Party of Kosovo, with a little over 25 per cent; the Kosovo Serb Return Coalition was third with nearly 11 per cent; and Ramush Haradinaj’s Alliance for the Future of Kosovo was fourth with a little more than 7 per cent.

With 120 seats in the Assembly and a minimum of 61 needed to form a government, a coalition may be needed, with none of the parties expected to get more than 50 seats.

Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hédi Annabi, briefed the Security Council on the election results yesterday, and the Council

President, Ambassador Patricia Durrant, afterwards issued a statement to the press welcoming the elections and reminding all concerned to respect fully the provisions of Resolution 1244.

**Oil-for-Food

The latest figures provided by the Office of the Iraq Programme show that Iraqi oil exports under the oil-for-food programme continue to be erratic.

In the week ending 16 November, the level of exports surged to         18.6 million barrels, a value of $290 million, up from the previous week’s total of only 10.9 million barrels.

The full text of the update is available in my Office.

**Middle East

In a statement that we released to you yesterday afternoon, the Secretary-General welcomed United States Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech on the Middle East yesterday as an important elaboration of President Bush's constructive remarks to the United Nations General Assembly, outlining a vision of a State of Israel and a State of Palestine living side by side within secure borders.

In the statement -– the full text of which is available upstairs -- the Secretary-General also reiterated his readiness to work closely with Israel and the Palestinians, with the United States and other members of the so-called "Quartet", which includes the European Union and the Russian Federation, as well as with Egypt and Jordan and other interested Member States, to ensure that peace and stability are attained in the region.

**Cyprus

Yesterday afternoon, we issued the following statement concerning Cyprus. 

I just want to read it into the record:

“The Secretary-General is pleased that the Greek Cypriot leader, H.E. Glafcos Clerides, and the Turkish Cypriot leader, H.E. Rauf Denktash, have now agreed to meet in Cyprus on 4 December.  Alvaro de Soto, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Cyprus, will be present at the meeting.  The Secretary-General hopes this meeting will move the peace process forward.”

**Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

We have a statement also upstairs on the 20 November meeting under the auspices of the Secretary-General of representatives of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and of Greece.  In this latest meeting, the parties continued to exchange views in the context of the 1995 Interim Accord and agreed to meet again on a date to be decided.

**Democratic Republic of the Congo/Central African Republic

The UNHCR has completed its operation to separate the former Central African Republic (CAR) soldiers from the general refugee population in the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) town of Zongo.  The soldiers, many accompanied by families, had crossed over the river which separates the CAR from the DRC, following an aborted coup in Bangui last year.

The UNHCR successfully moved over a thousand soldiers to a specially prepared site, where they will undergo individual screening to obtain refugee status.  As many as 1,300 of their family members may also be moved to this site.

We have briefing notes from UNHCR on that.

**Civil Aviation

Yesterday in Montreal, Assad Koitate was elected by acclamation to a tenth consecutive term as President of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization.  Dr. Koitate, who first took his position in 1975, will continue at his post through 2004.

In his speech accepting his new term, he drew attention to the security challenge posed by the September 11 terrorist attacks, and emphasized, “We must protect air transport, a driver of economic development, in order to restore public confidence and ensure an early return to normalcy”.  He added, “Air transport fundamentally remains the safest mode of mass transport ever”.

**Global Compact

Yesterday in Moscow, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette addressed a round table organized jointly by the Foreign Ministry of Russia and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, telling them that the United Nations of the 21st century would need to work with outside actors, in efforts like the Global Compact, to improve the lives of ordinary people.

She told the business leaders that support for the Global Compact –- which enshrines nine principles of labour, environmental and human rights –- is a necessary first step for them to take, to be followed by concrete actions in support of those principles.

In a statement issued afterward, of which we have copies upstairs, the participants at the round table expressed support for the Global Compact and welcomed Russia’s establishment of a Learning Forum Web site to disseminate information about the Compact.

**Press Releases

There are four press releases out today.  I’m just going to mention one of them.  The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) will this afternoon launch a global alliance for children in association with the world governing body of soccer, called FIFA.  Joining Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF, will be film star Roger Moore, a Goodwill Ambassador, and Brazilian soccer star, Pelé.

This event starts at 3 p.m. on the North Lawn and there is a press release with more information.

**Signings

One signing.  This morning, St. Kitts and Nevis became the 138th country to sign the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime.

**Press Conferences

And one press conference to mention.  Tomorrow, here at the noon briefing, we’ll have Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.

I think I’ll take this opportunity to ask the Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Information and Communications Technology, José Maria Figueres, to join us here.  We will get to you, sir, in just two minutes after the General Assembly briefing.

Jan.  Oh, you don’t want questions from me, do you?

**Questions and Answers

Question: Can you explain the position of the Secretary-General on the quest for a conditional surrender at Kunduz?  Mr. Brahimi explained something about the Northern Alliance.

Spokesman: According to what Lakhdar Brahimi said at the stake-out just now, until last night there hadn’t been an official approach to the United Nations by the Taliban.  Surrender of combatants or prisoners-of-war is the primary responsibility of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

We had had unofficial approaches going back to Thursday or Friday of last week.  The Secretary-General was in touch with the coalition forces, which have a presence in Afghanistan.

The United Nations is just beginning to send its international humanitarian workers back in.  We don’t have a presence there that could arrange for such a surrender, so he contacted the coalition forces.  He talked to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, for one, and asked that Francesc Vendrell, who was in Kabul at the time, contact the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Over the weekend the Secretary-General again spoke to the Red Cross and he was expecting a call back from them this morning.  What we’re doing is trying to facilitate the people whose job it is to deal with this, and some people in the coalition who could provide some practical support, to see what they can do to respond to this request.

Question: Is timing a big factor in this decision?

Spokesman: I said last Friday we were concerned that there was a risk of reprisal killings.  There have already been some unconfirmed reports of those kinds of killings, and we are appealing to everyone in the country to respect humanitarian law and the laws of war, and to keep the killings to zero if possible.

Question: Did Mr. Vendrell have time to talk to the Northern Alliance?

Spokesman: He did speak to the Northern Alliance.  I think Mr. Brahimi said that today, that Vendrell asked the Northern Alliance in particular to exercise restraint.

Question: Did they respond?

Spokesman: I don’t know that.  I’d have to find out from him.

Question: You said that journalists would have transportation now in your planes to Kabul and other parts of Afghanistan.  But that’s not enough.  Can we ask you to convey to the Secretary-General and Mr. Brahimi that they take special steps to ensure any mechanism possible to protect journalists there in Afghanistan?

Spokesman: We’re providing you transport, which also involves security at the airport at both ends.  I don’t think we can give you escorts, security officers, to follow you around.

We’ll do everything we can but we’re not responsible for security in Afghanistan.  The Afghans are, and they’re still trying to organize themselves politically.  When they get themselves organized politically, we hope they’ll also organize a nationwide security regime.

In the meantime, of course, we’re assessing the security situations in individual cities before we send our international workers back.  There’s a limit to what we can do for you, but we’ll do everything that we can.

Question: So in the meantime, can we ask the Secretary-General to send a strong message, a clearly worded message to the Northern Alliance and others regarding the situation of journalists?

Spokesman: Yes, in the message I read just this morning, he makes a general appeal but he also refers to the journalists.

Correspondent: A special message.

Spokesman: Well, we’ll see what we can do.

Question: Brahimi appears to have switched, he’s flipped some of the processes he pointed out last week.  Given that the transitional administration was supposed to grow out of the provisional council, and now he’s trying for a transitional administration first, what then becomes of the role of this provisional council?  And do you need this to endorse the transitional administration in Kabul?

Spokesman: I think what he’d like to do in Berlin is to organize the smaller body, the body that’s needed to take over a transitional administration of Afghanistan immediately.  Then I think he hopes that that body setting itself up in Kabul could then organize the larger, more representative body.

It’s harder to select 20 people than 200 people, but he felt that it might be more practical to try in Berlin to organize the smaller body first, and let them then select the larger body of representatives.

Question: Has Mr. Brahimi managed to advocate for the inclusion of Afghan women’s groups, at least as observers, at the meeting in Berlin?  Will he have someone from Angela King’s office with him in Berlin to report back to women what is happening?

Spokesman: He did ask the four groups that have been invited to Berlin to participate in the conference to include women in their delegations.  But the groups are going to select their own delegates, so that’s as far as he can go.

Question: The services the United Nations is providing for journalists.  Are they only for Afghanistan, or for other places?

Spokesman: What I announced today was for Afghanistan.  Wherever we can, we provide transport to journalists.  You have to sign a waiver before you get on a plane or a truck, but we try to help you get in and out safely in areas where we are working.  But today’s announcement was just for Afghanistan.

Anything else before we go to Jan? Thank you, Jan.

Briefing by Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly

Good afternoon.

**Sixth Committee

Yesterday, the Sixth Committee adopted all the draft resolutions before it except for one on the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which will be taken up tomorrow morning.

The Chairman of the Working Group on international terrorism introduced its report, and the Coordinator outlined the many consultations he had held with Member States, and stated that these consultations would continue.

The Chairman of the Sixth Committee said that considerable progress had been made on the draft Comprehensive Convention on Terrorism, and said the Committee would take action on the draft resolution on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism at the Committee’s next meeting, scheduled for tomorrow morning.

The draft resolution should come out today as document A/C.6/56/L.22.  The Chairman of the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee also briefed the Sixth Committee and expressed his wish that the two bodies would cooperate closely.

**Millennium Summit

Also yesterday, the General Assembly plenary concluded its discussion on the outcome of the Millennium Summit, hearing 41 speakers.  The next plenary meeting will be held tomorrow morning.

This morning, General Assembly President Han Seung-soo participated in the launch of the United Nations ICT  Task Force.

In his speech, he said that information and communication technology has an enormous potential to promote sustainable development, build capacities and reduce poverty but warned that, “it would indeed be a cruel irony if the world’s newest technological revolution were to widen, rather than narrow, the existing gap between developed and developing countries”.

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