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 Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Jan Fischer, Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly.

Briefing by the Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General

Good afternoon.  Bonjour.

It is good to be back after a few days’ leave.  We have a short briefing because we want to allow as much time as we can to the guest at the briefing today, James Lemoyne, who is the Acting Special Adviser on Colombia.

**Secretary-General's Schedule

The Secretary-General is in Vienna today, and although today is when he is supposed to rest up before beginning an official visit to Austria tomorrow, he met this morning with his Special Coordinator for the Middle East, Terje-Roed Larsen, who had travelled to Vienna from Gaza to confer with him urgently about the deteriorating situation in the region.

Yesterday, on his way to Austria, the Secretary-General stopped in Doha, Qatar, for a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Kalifa al-Thani.  They discussed the situation in Afghanistan, and the Emir said that Qatar would do all it could to support the Afghan Interim Administration.  Lakhdar Brahimi, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, who also attended the meeting, appealed to the Emir for immediate financial assistance to the Interim Administration.

They also exchanged views on the escalating violence in the Middle East and efforts to get Iraq to allow UN weapons inspectors to return to the country.

The Secretary-General had a number of press encounters while in Qatar, including with Al-Jazeera Television.  The transcripts are now available on our Web site.

Prior to his stopover in Qatar, the Secretary-General had been in Iran since Friday night. On Saturday, he met with President Mohamad Khatami, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, Parliament Speaker Val-Moslemin Mahdi Karoubi, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  In all those talks, he discussed the situations in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

In particular, Foreign Minister Kharrazi praised Brahimi’s work on Afghanistan as a “magnificent achievement”.  He asked about the 21-member Commission for the Convening of an Emergency Loya Jirga, and Brahimi, who attended the Secretary-General’s meeting with the Foreign Minister, said he had consulted widely to select members for that Commission, gathering more than 300 names and selecting 21 people who could best represent the country’s interests.

The Secretary-General noted Iran’s generosity in hosting more than

2 million Afghan refugees, and said it was currently estimated that they could be repatriated in two-and-a-half to three years.

They also discussed the situation in the Middle East, which the Secretary-General said was “extremely dangerous”.

In his meeting later that day with the Secretary-General, President Khatami said that a stable Afghanistan was important for Iran, and said it was essential to get narcotics trafficking under control there.  He categorically denied assertions that Iran was meddling in Afghan politics, saying it was in Iran’s direct interest to support the Interim Administration.

Following that meeting, the Secretary-General and the Foreign Minister gave a press conference, the transcript of which is available, along with other transcripts of the Secretary-General’s comments over the weekend, upstairs and on our Web site.

**Afghanistan

Still on Afghan issues, as you know, the Chairman of the Interim Administration of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is expected to arrive here at UN Headquarters on Wednesday morning at 9:15 a.m. to attend a Security Council meeting.  He is scheduled to be at the United Nations for about 45 minutes because of his very tight schedule in New York City that day.

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, is now back in Kabul after accompanying the Secretary-General while he was in the region.

The arrival in Kabul of World Food Programme Executive Director Catherine Bertini, who was to have arrived in Islamabad today for a five-day trip to both Pakistan and Afghanistan, has been delayed by a day.  She is now expected in the Afghan capital tomorrow.

The humanitarian briefing in Islamabad today gave an overview of the security situation in Afghanistan as it affects UN operations to reach people in need.

The Humanitarian Coordinator’s Office said today that security incidents and robberies in Kabul have reportedly decreased over the last week.  Weapons are present in large numbers among the population, but these are slowly being recovered.  Security concerns continue to restrict the movements of UN personnel outside Kabul City.

Meanwhile, a team from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is undertaking a 10-day trip to assess the needs of displaced and returning populations in the north of Afghanistan.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported on its efforts on the education front in the western city of Herat, and the World Health Organization is assisting the Afghan Ministry of Health to prepare its first planning meeting for reconstruction of the health sector starting Sunday, 3 February.

**Security Council

Here in New York, the Security Council is meeting in closed consultations this morning.  Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guéhenno introduced the Secretary-General’s latest report on the UN mission in Lebanon.  He also briefed the Council on the latest incident at Shaba’a Farms last Thursday.  As you recall, the Secretary-General's report was out last week and we already reported to you on that.

A draft resolution to extend the mission’s mandate for a further six month  -- until 31 July 2002 -- was introduced and may be adopted as a presidential text as early as this afternoon.

Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore, Chairman of the Council’s Liberia Sanctions Committee, also briefed on issues relating to his Committee.

Council members also received a short briefing from Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Ibrahima Fall on the situation in Madagascar.

Tomorrow, the Council will hold a private meeting at 9 a.m. with the Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Léonard She Okitundu. Immediately following, at 10 a.m., the Council will hold an open meeting on the situation in Africa and -– in a first for the Council -– the meeting will be broadcast live on the Internet.

**Goma

We have an update from Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) tells us that general distribution of food finishes today.  Distribution of certain non-food items such as blankets and soap will continue for sanitary reasons.

A more formal registration process has taken place to identify the most vulnerable groups for targeted food and non-food distributions, due to begin by the end of the week.

In a continuing effort to identify populations in needs, an assessment mission is under way on the island of Idjwi, on Lake Kivu, where some 1,000 people from the Goma region sought refuge following the volcano’s eruption.  A complete survey of the population is due to be completed Monday evening.

The OCHA also announced that it will provide financial support to the Goma Observatory to strengthen volcanic and seismic surveillance for a three-month period. 

The UN peacekeeping mission is continuing its support of the relief effort in the region by flying in supplies from Kinshasa to Kigali, in Rwanda, where they are then trucked in to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

**Bosnia

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jacques Klein, said today at a meeting on the financial costs of Bosnia’s armed forces that the excessive spending on the country’s three armies is bankrupting the State and preventing economic growth.

Bosnia, he said, “cannot pay police salaries and pensions with machine guns, or buy school textbooks and medicine with bullets”.  He urged Bosnia’s central governments and three entities to redirect resources that are currently allocated to the armed forces.

We have more information in a press release from the UN Mission in Sarajevo.

**Financing for Development

Yesterday, after a busy weekend of negotiations, delegates to the Preparatory Committee meetings for the International Conference on Financing for Development reached informal agreement on the text of the Monterrey Consensus Document, which is to be issued at that Conference when it takes place in Monterrey, Mexico, between 18 and 22 March.

The draft text notes with concern that there are current estimates of dramatic shortfalls in resources required to achieve internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration.  It says the 11 September attacks exacerbated the global slowdown, further reducing growth rates and making enhanced collaboration to promote sustained economic growth and address the long-term challenge of financing for development more urgent.

Copies of the agreement are available upstairs.  We expect the plenary will meet again to formally adopt the document, although there is currently no schedule for a plenary meeting.

**Ecotourism

And this morning, Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette addressed the ceremony to launch 2002 as the International Year of Ecotourism, noting the urgency of raising public awareness about the effects of tourism on natural and cultural patrimonies and about the promotion of responsible tourism.  Ecotourism, she said, was one of the fastest growing segments in the tourism industry and has great potential for economic development.  Copies of her remarks are upstairs.

The main event for the Year will be the World Ecotourism Summit, to be held from 19 to 22 May in Quebec City, Canada.  More information on that, in a press briefing on the Year of Ecotourism, including UN Environment Programme Executive Director Klaus Töpfer, is going to begin in this room as soon as we are done with the noon briefing, including our special guest.

**Sierra Leone

UN Volunteers began arriving in Sierra Leone over the weekend to help prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections slated for May.

Ten district electoral officers from Cameroon, Poland, Nigeria, Italy, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain and Togo will monitor technical aspects of all phases of the electoral process.

**Disarmament

The Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, which brings together 23 disarmament experts appointed by the Secretary-General, will begin a three-day closed meeting in New York starting this Wednesday.  The session will be chaired by Ambassador Arundhati Ghose of India, and will focus on general disarmament matters and on the programme of work during the coming year for the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.

The Board, which last met in Geneva last July, submits a personal report to the Secretary-General on the outcomes of its meetings.

**Budget

Two more countries paid their full contributions today to the UN regular budget for this year:  Austria, which paid more than $10 million, and Canada, which paid more than $28 million.  So far, 36 Member States have paid in full for 2002.

**UNICEF Collection Box

You may have noticed on the third floor a UNICEF collection box.  This is part of UNICEF's “Change for Good” programme, through which it collects foreign bills and coins.  This exercise here at Headquarters is a cooperation between the UNICEF-USA Committee and UNCA.  For at least the next three months, UNICEF will accept all of the European currencies which have been replaced by the euro.  The UNICEF estimates that every year international travellers generate some

$72 million in unused currencies.

**Announcements

Due to the heavy programme on Wednesday, we have rescheduled the briefing by a senior UN official concerning the Secretary-General’s appearance, scheduled for 4 February, at the World Economic Forum meeting in New York.  Instead of Wednesday, the briefing will take place at 11 a.m. on Thursday here in room S-226.

I have a list of press conferences for today and tomorrow, I will not read them all because it will take too much of your time.  For this afternoon, at

12:45 p.m. Klaus Töpfer from UNEP and Francesco Frangiallo, the Secretary-General for the World Tourism Organization, will be here to talk about the International Year of Ecotourism.

At 2 p.m., still in this room, Nitin Desai, Secretary-General of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, along with Dr. Emil Salim, Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the WSSD, will be here to discuss the goal of the Summit, the Preparatory Committee, and the Secretary-General's report on the implementation of Agenda 21.

This is all I have, tomorrow's press conferences are posted upstairs, there are three of them. 

Any questions?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Are we going to be able to meet Mr. Hamid Karzai?

Answer:  I hope so.  He is here for a very short time, we are hoping that he will be able to stop at the stakeout, but we don't have any confirmation yet.

Question:  You said that the Secretary-General described the situation in the Middle East as "extremely dangerous".  What is he planning to do about it?

Answer:  I would welcome you to take a look at what he said.  He considers the situation extremely dangerous and he has been in continuous contact with Arafat and other leaders, in particular the Americans, Russians, Europeans, and indeed the efforts of everyone are needed in order to get out of this current situation, in particular of the parties.

We'll move to Jan and then to our guest.

Briefing by the Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly

Good afternoon.

Since this is my first briefing this year, let me start by wishing you a very belated Happy New Year.  As I am trying to catch up on my regular job, I will not be here every day, but please give me a call if you have questions or if you want me to do a briefing.

**Resumed Session of Third Committee

The Third Committee is meeting today, and will also meet on Thursday and Friday to take up agenda item 117, elimination of racism and racial discrimination.  The Committee had decided to defer the discussion of this item pending the completion of the report on the outcome of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.  The report is now out as A/CONF.189/12.  When I last checked, there weren’t that many copies available on the third floor, but you can also find it on the Web site of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.  Simply click on the first page, on the top left hand corner.  There is, of course, also lot of interesting information on human rights.

The report, which was done in Geneva, took some time to finalize as it had to incorporate a number of clarifications and reservations regarding the Declaration and Programme of Action.  You may remember that the Durban Conference was first extended and then went into the wee hours, so there simply wasn’t time to hear those statements; but the President promised they would be reflected in the report nevertheless.  The consultations about the placement of the comments were completed in December, whereupon the report was issued.

**Ad Hoc Committee on International Terrorism

The Ad Hoc Committee established by resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996, better known as the Ad Hoc Committee on International Terrorism, began a week-long session today.  The Committee last met from 12 to 23 February 2001 and is expected

to pick up where the Working Group on International Terrorism left off in October. The report of the Working Group is contained in document A/C.6/56/L.9.  You can find this and many other documents on the issue on the excellent Web site maintained by the Office of Legal Affairs.

During a very brief preparatory meeting last Wednesday, Mr. Corell, the Legal Counsel, reminded the participants that the mandate of the Committee is to continue to elaborate a draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism and a draft international convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism, and that the Committee will keep on its agenda the question of convening a high-level conference on terrorism.  Following the opening of the session, the Committee will go into working group mode, in other words, closed meetings.  This will be followed by the preparation of the Committee’s report which we expect will be adopted some time Friday morning.  Unfortunately, I will not be here that day, but I hope that Rohan Perera, the Chairman of the Committee, will be able to meet with you.

Due to reassignments, there have been some changes to the Bureau of the Ad Hoc Committee.  The new Bureau is composed as follows:  Chairman:  Mr. Rohan Perera, Sri Lanka; Vice-Chair: Mr. Carlos Fernando Diaz Paniagua, Costa Rica; Vice-Chair: Mr. Albert Hoffmann, South Africa; Vice-Chair: Mr. Richard Rowe, Australia; Rapporteur: Mr. Volodymyr Krokhmal, Ukraine.

General Assembly President

The President of the General Assembly, Dr. Han Seung-soo, is back in New York for a series of meetings and for an upcoming General Assembly plenary.  This afternoon, he will first meet with the current President of the Security Council and then with the next President, which is Mexico.  On Thursday, he will preside over a plenary of the Assembly during which he is expected to launch the Olympic Appeal.  The text of the appeal is out on the racks already as document A/56/795. In addition, the plenary will take up a draft resolution on the digital divide. Other items may be added, so keep an eye on the Journal.  On Thursday, there will also be an organizational meeting of the Working Group on Security Council reform.  The report of the previous working group is contained in A/55/47.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  I am curious why the Third Committee needs to adopt the report of the World Conference on Racism?

Answer:  It does not need to adopt the report as such, but this agenda item was never discussed during the session that ended on 24December.  It was felt very early on that it was important to have the report from the Durban Conference before starting to discuss racial discrimination.  So they were waiting for the report and now it is being taken up in the Committee and it will go to the General Assembly at a later date. 

Thank you.

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