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.

**Secretary-General Address to World Economic Forum

Good afternoon.  The Secretary-General, late yesterday afternoon, addressed the final day of the World Economic Forum, and reminded the delegates there that they are “sharing this small planet with well over a billion people who are denied the very minimum requirements of human dignity, and with 4 or 5 billion whose choices in life are narrow indeed compared to yours”.

He warned of the reality that power and wealth are unequally shared, and the perception that this is the fault of globalization, and that globalization “is driven by a global elite, composed of -– or at least, represented by –- the people who attend this gathering”.  Although he cautioned that he believed such a perception was wrong, he said it was up to those gathered at the Forum to prove it wrong, with actions that translate into concrete results for the downtrodden, exploited and excluded.

He urged the business leaders to join in the Global Health Initiative, to work with the new Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and to work with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and other agencies in helping to further education in the developing world.

The Secretary-General added that a first, vital test of whether globalization will work for the poor will come next month with the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, and said that Conference offers the best chance to unlock the financial resources that are needed for development.

We have copies of his speech upstairs.

**World Summit on Sustainable Development

The Secretary-General this morning met with his panel of eminent persons dealing with the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September, and he told them that, to bring any initiatives to life, “we will need partnerships”.

Referring both to the World Economic Forum that wrapped up yesterday, and the World Social Forum that ended in Porto Alegre, Brazil, he said, “The United Nations needs not only the influence of Davos, but also the energy of Porto Alegre.”

He told the 13-member panel, who are to make recommendations on sustainable development and raise awareness of the Johannesburg Summit, that one clear message has already emerged about the upcoming conference.  He said:  “Everyone involved, whether governments or farmers, scientists or other stakeholders, wants the Johannesburg outcome to be more than a long statement of good intentions.” 

Instead, he said, they want strong commitments and practical steps to achieve truly sustainable development.

We have his remarks to the closed meeting, as well as a list of the panel members, upstairs.

**Security Council

The Security Council this morning held a public meeting to hear from President Pierre Buyoya of Burundi.

The President told the Council that, although his country had made great strides, there remains a number of challenges on its path to peace.  The first being the continuation of armed violence in some parts of Burundi.  The second challenge is the reconstruction of the country following eight years of civil war.  To highlight this last point, President Buyoya noted that the number of people living below the poverty line had nearly doubled in eight years.

The President thanked the Council for its past support and called on its members to encourage the international community to bring substantial aid to Burundi’s peace efforts.

He also noted the positive impact of the Council’s mission to Burundi and the Great Lakes region last year and invited them to return this year.

The full text of his speech is available at the documents counter.

This was immediately followed by a private meeting on the same subject during which Council members also heard from President Buyoya.  The President  will be available to take a few questions from you at the stake out approximately 12:30 p.m., after his meeting with the Secretary-General, which is taking place now.

And, as I mentioned to you yesterday, Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser of Mexico will hold a press conference right here at 1 p.m. to brief you on his country’s presidency of the Security Council for this month.

**Afghanistan

We mentioned to you that the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, will be briefing the Security Council on Afghanistan tomorrow.  The Secretary-General will also brief on his recently concluded visit to the region.

On the humanitarian front, Catherine Bertini, the Executive Director of World Food Programme (WFP), who has just returned from reviewing her agency’s operations in Afghanistan, says that the WFP will need $285 million to function from April to December.  Ms. Bertini gave a press conference in Washington, D.C., today, and the WFP has issued a press release on its new operational needs.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), meanwhile, said that the new curriculum for school students in Afghanistan is being printed outside the country, but should be in place for the official start of the school year on

21 March.  Teachers were also being trained about the new curriculum.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that with a wave of Afghans starting to return home spontaneously from Iran and Pakistan -- more than 105,000 in January alone – the UNHCR was now ready to start assisting people as they travelled back to their home areas.  Over the next two to three months, the UNHCR expected to provide returnee packages to some 250,000 Afghans, returnees from Pakistan and Iran, and also internally displaced persons opting to return home.

**Western Sahara

Now this is a legal item, so concentrate.

The United Nations Legal Counsel, Hans Corell, has written a letter to the Security Council, in response to its request for his opinion on the legality of certain contracts signed by Morocco with foreign companies for the exploration of mineral resources in Western Sahara.

He concludes that the specific contracts dealt with in the Security Council’s request are not in themselves illegal.  However, if further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the international legal principles dealing with Non-Self-Governing Territories.

Is that clear?  I hope so.

The Council will hold consultations on Western Sahara later this month.

**Office of Iraq Programme

We have the weekly report on Iraqi oil exports.  In the week ending

1 February, they totalled 13.5 million barrels, that's just down slightly from the previous week’s total of 14 million barrels.  The estimated revenue from this week’s figure is $230 million.

So far in current phase eleven of the “oil-for-food” programme, which ends on 29 May, Iraq has exported 92 million barrels of oil for estimated revenue of $1.43 billion.

The Executive Director of the Iraq Programme, Benon Sevan, is scheduled to conclude his working visit in Iraq at the end of this week, where he has been since 14 January.  And he will be briefing the Security Council on 26 February.

**Kosovo

The United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is reporting that the Mission and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are closer on the transfer of all Kosovo Albanian detainees in Serbia to Kosovo.

In a press release, the United Nations Mission says it hoped that all Kosovo Albanian detainees being held in prisons in Serbia would be transferred to Kosovo, possibly as early as the end of March.

**Colombia

Over 14 million Colombians in nine cities will get where they are going without their automobiles on Thursday, 7 February, as Colombia holds its first national Car Free Day, with logistical support from the United Nations.

The effort is part of "ground level" preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.  The Department for Economic and Social Affairs is working with the Colombian Ministry of Environment to support the cities holding car free days.

Can you imagine having one of those in New York?

**Refugee News

The Mexican State of Quintana Roo this week is issuing more than 300 land titles to former Guatemalan refugees who recently became Mexican citizens.  It marks the first time a state government in Mexico has donated land for former refugees.

Also, a group of 60 Eritrean refugee leaders arrived in their homeland on Monday at the beginning of a five-day "go-and-see" visit organized by the UNHCR for Eritrean exiles.  This is the first visit of its kind organized by the refugee agency to give the refugees a first-hand look at conditions and reintegration programmes in their home areas of western Eritrea.

The UNHCR staff hope that showing refugees the reintegration process first-hand will raise interest in returning home.

**Budget

We got some money today.  The Netherlands today became the forty-third Member State to pay its regular budget dues in full, and that's with payment of more than $19 million.

**Press Conferences

And finally, two press conferences. 

At 3:30 p.m. today, at the stakeout area, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Defence Minister of Israel, will take your questions.

At 4 p.m. tomorrow, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairsis sponsoring a press conference on the launch of the United Nations report on Chernobyl, "The Human Consequences of the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident:  A Strategy for Recovery".

That's it for me.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  The Israeli Defence Minister.  Is that today or tomorrow?

Spokesman:  That's today, at 3:30 p.m. at the stakeout.

Question:  Just formally to get it here out in the open.  What is the United Nations response to Amre Moussa's message from Baghdad regarding Baghdad's interest in talking again?

Spokesman:  Well, as I think as we said yesterday, the Secretary-General is, of course, willing to talk to the Iraqi delegation, and he'll be looking to set up an appointment at everyone's earliest convenience.

Question:  Is it an urgent matter considering what was in the statement about the calendar?

Spokesman:  Well, it's as urgent as Iraq wants to make it.  I mean, he's prepared to meet with them, so it's just a matter of fixing a date.

Question:  What fact has persuaded him that now is the right to pursue this again?

Spokesman:  They came to him through Amre Moussa to say that they were prepared to resume the dialogue with him, without any preconditions.  This is a dialogue that began just a year ago, you'll recall.  And he's always open to discuss with a Member State their desire to comply with Security Council resolutions.

Question:  Would the Secretary-General need to consult with the members of the Council prior to giving an answer to Iraq?

Spokesman:  No.  This was Iraq's request to him to meet.  I think you can assume that he stays in regular touch with the Council, particularly on matters of which they are seized.  But I don't think he requires their permission to meet with them. 

Question:  Any sense of what the agenda would be?  News reports are talking about bringing the weapons inspectors back in.  Are there any specific points that the Iraqis said they want to discuss?

Spokesman:  No, I think, as I understand it, I wasn't in the meeting with Mr. Moussa, but as I understand it, the Iraqis conveyed their desire to resume negotiations, or dialogue actually, to resume dialogue without preconditions.  We assume, as I said yesterday, that the general subject is Iraqi-United Nations cooperation.  And the bottom-line issue for everyone, of course, is getting the United Nations inspectors back into Iraq to see if we can finish this monitoring exercise that would or could eventually lead to the lifting of sanctions. 

Question:  The British and Americans have, for some time, been alleging that Syria is in violation of sanctions by pumping oil out of Iraq through the pipeline.  Does the Secretary-General have a view on whether Syria is in compliance with Security Council resolutions relating to the Iraq embargo and would he like to see them stopping or putting the money under United Nations control?

Spokesman:  The experts in that area are the members of the Security Council Sanctions Committee.  I don't think the Secretary-General would pretend to have better information than the Council's own Committee.  I think he would defer to the Committee's views.

Question:  Secretary Powell said today on Capitol Hill that the talks should be short.  Is the United Nations prepared if, at the outset, it appears that it would be just a non-focused dialogue to say that we don't want to continue anymore after round one?

Spokesman:  I don't think we could predict how long they would take.  The Secretary-General's preference is, of course, that these talks be somewhat more focused than the first round of a year ago when Iraq went into considerable detail to lay out their case.  And substantial documentation was presented and was passed on to the Security Council after that.  Now that that is behind us, I think the Secretary-General hopes we can go to the next step, which is talk about more specific issues, such as the return of the inspectors to Iraq.

Question:  In the dispute involving Morocco and Western Sahara, I understand that you said that Mr. Corell is giving legal advice to the Security Council?

Spokesman:  Yes.  He is the Legal Adviser of the Secretary-General, but if the Member States formally ask him for advice, the Secretary-General can ask him to respond to the question.

Question:  Is it the duty of the Legal Department here to give legal advice to the Security Council?

Spokesman:  Their duty is to give legal advice to the Secretary-General, but we all service Member States, and if the Member States ask for legal advice and the Secretary-General agrees that that legal advice should be given, as he did in this case --

Question:  It's not an open conflict that the International Court of Justice is mandated by the Charter to do that?

Spokesman:  Giving legal advice and taking a case before the Courts, I think, are two different things.  I don't see them as being in conflict.

Question:  Is the Security Council bound by this advice?

Spokesman:  No.  They asked for advice, they got advice, and how they react to it is up to them.

Question:  On South Korea, do you have any follow-up to President Kim's firing of the Foreign Minister who's the General Assembly President?  Is he going to be continuing as President?

Spokesman:  I don't have a reaction on that.  I assume that that would be a matter for the members of the General Assembly to decide or for the President himself, should he wish to change his status, to resign or whatever.  But as far as I know, at this moment, there's no change pending.  But that's not yet an official view because I haven't checked with the President's Office.  If you'd like, I will do and get back to you after the briefing.

[The Spokesman's Office later announced that the General Assembly President would serve out the rest of his term, which expires in September.]

Question:  Is there precedence for this?  What did past General Assembly presidents do when they moved out of office?

Spokesman:  I don't know how many precedents there might be.  I can't think of any off hand, but the Organization has been around almost longer than I have.  We would have to look into it.  The precedent questions are always difficult to research.

Question:  Did anything special come out of the meeting between Peres and the Secretary-General yesterday?

Spokesman:  I don't have a readout with me on that, but if you would check with Stephan after the briefing.

Question:  Back to the President of the General Assembly.  Is he here?

Spokesman:  I don't know.  We'll have to get Jan Fischer out of the closet.  We'll have to follow up for you.

Question:  Will Mr. Brahimi be available at the stakeout tomorrow to answer questions?

Spokesman:  We've asked him that he would be, and we're hoping that he will respond positively.

Question:  I don't know if you're aware Iran has sent a letter to the Secretary-General saying an "investigation" is needed about the United States change in rhetoric, lumping Iran into this "axis of evil".  Are you aware and does the Secretary-General have any comment on it?

Spokesman:  We are aware that that letter came in yesterday and I think it was circulated yesterday.  I have no comments at this time.  I did ask about it, but I did not get a response before the briefing.  I'm still waiting for guidance on that.

Question:  On Iraq, how does the United Nations see the role of Russia in Iraq inspections?

Spokesman:  Different members of the Council may be taking bilateral initiatives, but I'm not going to comment on such bilateral initiatives.  The United Nations as such does not have a view on what you're asking about.

Question:  Going back to the Mexico story.  You said that land is being parcelled to former refugees.  Do you have information on who the land originally belonged to?

Spokesman:  I don't have that here.  But if you’re interested, we can look into it.  It came from the briefing note from the UNHCR -- today's briefing note  -- so you can start by looking there and if the answer isn't in the briefing note, then just give the UNHCR Office in New York a call.

Thank you very much.