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

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.

Good afternoon.

**Secretary-General Comments/Middle East

Upon entering the Building this morning, the Secretary-General was asked by reporters to respond to accounts in the media that Israel was not going to allow the fact-finding team for Jenin to enter, and he responded that, although he had heard the press reports, he was waiting to hear formally from the Israeli authorities.  He said, “My understanding was that Foreign Minister [Shimon] Peres was going to write to me after the Cabinet decision.”

Asked about Israel’s concerns regarding the fact-finding team, he added, “We've really done everything to meet them, to deal with their concerns.  And I think we've been very forthcoming.  Obviously, the decision is theirs, and I'm waiting, as I said, to get a formal notification.”

The Security Council is expected to hold further consultations on the Middle East today to hear the latest developments in the efforts to bring the team to the area, and we expect that Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast will brief them, as he did yesterday afternoon.  He is then expected to talk to you at the stakeout microphone afterwards.

**Middle East -- Humanitarian

United Nations aid agencies, at a press conference in Geneva today, drew attention to the continuing problems in providing assistance to tens of thousands of Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, because of blockages by Israel.

The agencies say that a worrying pattern is emerging of impediments to UN humanitarian assistance by Israeli officials and the Israeli Defence Forces.  The United Nations’ humanitarian staff are on a regular basis running into obstruction and delays while trying to bring humanitarian assistance into the occupied Palestinian territories.

Rene Aquarone, the Chief of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Liaison Office in Geneva, who had just returned from a mission to the occupied territories, said in Geneva today that the entire Gaza Strip was currently under a situation of "economic strangulation".  All movement inside the Gaza Strip was severely restricted.  Meanwhile, in the West Bank, there are still restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, requiring international staff to perform all tasks, from driving trucks to unloading aid.

Ross Mountain, Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator, said the major humanitarian priorities at the present time were unexploded ordnance, particularly in Jenin and Nablus; shelter, particularly in Jenin where 800 houses had been

destroyed and others had suffered extensive damage; psychological and social work; and infrastructure.

Please see the Geneva briefing notes for more information.

**Western Sahara Statement

We have the following statement attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General on the subject of Western Sahara.

"There have been recent press reports that James A. Baker, Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for Western Sahara, has stated that he will resign if the Security Council does not give him a mandate to work on revising the draft framework agreement, which is option two of the four options presented by the Secretary-General in his February 2002 report to the Security Council.  This is incorrect.

"Mr. Baker has consistently declined to recommend any one option to the Security Council.  As he stated during his briefing of the Council on 27 February 2002, he favours any option that will give him a clear mandate and which will have the support of the Security Council.  He is of the view that any option that the Security Council chooses should give the Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy sufficient authority to try and resolve the long-standing conflict over Western Sahara."

**Security Council

The Security Council is holding consultations on Western Sahara, and it will today go into a formal meeting to decide on an extension for the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, known as MINURSO.

**Security Council Mission

The Security Council mission to the Great Lakes region held a two-hour meeting this morning in Kinshasa with President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The 15-member mission, led by Ambassador Jean-David Levitte of France, also met yesterday with President Robert Mugabe in Harare, Zimbabwe, and President Thabo Mbeki in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“Our message to all our partners is the same”, Mr. Levitte said.  “Think about peace in the region, think about ways and means to push the peace process because people in the region long for peace.”

The Council mission had a number of meetings in Kinshasa today, starting with the UN mission and civil society, political parties and religious leaders in the afternoon.  They were also briefed by UN agencies.

At 5 p.m., the Security Council mission was to attend a ceremony of the destruction of weapons and, at 6 p.m., give a press conference in Kinshasa.

Tomorrow, the Council mission is scheduled to leave for Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Also on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Food and Agriculture Organization reports that a convoy of barges has sailed from the port of Kinshasa, carrying more than 1,000 tonnes of medicines, food, salt, sugar, spare parts, construction materials, fuel, clothing, agricultural inputs and fishing materials.  The destination of the so-called “Convoy of Hope”, which set sail yesterday, is Kisangani, where between 6 and 7 million people are in critical need of food and other necessities.  Please see a press release for more details.

**Kosovo

In Kosovo today, Andy Bearpark, who heads the reconstruction and economic development pillar of the UN Mission, reported that he had found evidence of a possible case of corruption in Kosovo’s electricity company, which is known as KEK, of approximately 4.5 million euros’ worth of international aid money involved in the import of electricity.

The Mission has contacted the European Anti-Fraud Office in Brussels, and an investigation is now under way.  Mr. Bearpark told the press, in a statement we have upstairs, that if Kosovo is to have a functioning economy, “corruption cannot be tolerated”.

We also have a press release on the visit of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Kosovo, Michael Steiner, to Gnjilane, which was hit by an earthquake last week.

**Iraq

According to the weekly update from the Office of the Iraq Programme, there were no Iraqi oil exports under the under the United Nations “oil-for-food” programme during the past week.  Iraq suspended its oil exports on 8 April.

Revenue generated from the export of oil in the current phase eleven of the programme is estimated at $3.93 billion.

There are no funds available at the moment to cover the purchase of various humanitarian supplies and equipment worth $2.9 billion.  Revenue loss, as a result of Iraq’s suspension of oil exports, is now estimated at $1.2 billion.

The total value of contracts placed on hold by the Security Council’s 661 sanctions committee dropped from the previous week’s total, which was more than $5.2 billion, to about $5.1 billion.

We have the full text of the weekly “oil-for-food” update upstairs.

**Afghanistan

Today’s briefing notes from Kabul contain an update on the Loya Jirga selection process under way in Afghanistan.  It notes that fighting around the city of Gardez has disrupted the schedule in that area.

The notes also contain updates on locust infestation in six provinces, efforts to assist flooding victims, and an update on refugee returns.  More than 400,000 Afghan refugees have returned to Afghanistan in the last two months.

**East Timor

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, today swore in the new Minister of Finance of the Second Transitional Government, Madalena Brites Boavida.  She was selected on the recommendation of Chief Minister Mari Alkatiri and replaces Fernanda Borges who resigned last week.  One of the new Finance Minister’s first tasks will be to prepare for the Donors Conference which will be held in Dili 14-15 May.

We have more details in the briefing notes from Dili.

**UNHCR

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says it has been receiving disturbing reports over the past few days from a maritime insurance company, registered with Lloyds of London, of an incident concerning a pair of stowaways on board a cargo ship that is currently touring a number of ports in European Union countries.  The two men, who are in their early twenties, are believed to be Iraqis and, according to the ship’s captain, seem to want to claim asylum.  However, it appears that they may have been prevented from doing so in four different European Union countries so far.

You should see the UNHCR briefing notes if you want to know more about this situation.

**North Korea

The United Nations is warning today, at a 12:30 p.m. press conference here and in a press release, that the humanitarian crisis in North Korea would worsen dramatically within weeks unless the international community pledges more aid immediately.

**United Nations and Regional Organizations

Ongoing efforts to enhance cooperation in conflict prevention and peace-building will be discussed by the United Nations system and regional organizations from 30 April to 2 May, at a working level meeting to be convened at United Nations Headquarters by the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Kieran Prendergast.  The meeting is a follow-up to the fourth high-level meeting between the United Nations and regional organizations convened by the Secretary-General in February of last year.

Eighteen regional and subregional organizations have been invited, and we have the full list upstairs.  The meeting constitutes part of the Secretary-General’s broader efforts to move the international community from a culture of reaction to a culture of prevention, as called for in his report to the Security Council on “Prevention of Armed Conflict”.

**Press Freedom Day

World Press Freedom Day will be observed on Thursday of this week, and we already have available as a press release with a joint statement by the Secretary-General, High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, and Koichiro Matsuura, the Director-General of UNESCO, drawing particular attention to the threat of terrorism to the freedom of the press.

Noting the killing earlier this year of US journalist Daniel Pearl, the statement emphasized, “Journalists have human rights like everyone else, rights which have not been forfeited because of their choice of profession.”

To observe Press Freedom Day, we will have a meeting, on “Covering the War on Global Terror”, which will begin at 10 a.m. on Thursday in Conference Room 2. Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette will open that programme, which will be webcast live on the Internet.  And we also have a press release out on the racks.

**Press Conferences

The press conference that I referred to earlier scheduled at 12:30 p.m. will feature Carol Bellamy, the Executive Director of UNICEF; Jim Morris, who is the new Executive Director of the World Food Programme; and Kenzo Oshima, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.  And that, of course, will be on the humanitarian crisis in North Korea. 

And then I have one press conference to mention to you tomorrow.  At 10 a.m. in this room, Lt. Gen. Manfred Eisele, the team leader of the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration assessment mission, which recently visited Sierra Leone, will brief on the mission’s report.

That’s all I have.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Fred, one draft resolution from the Council indicates that the Council may just extend MINURSO’s mandate for six months without taking a decision on the options.  Has Mr. Baker made clear his intentions what should happen?  In other words, if the Council decides nothing substantial on the floor?

Spokesman:  First, I don’t want to speculate on what the Council is going to do.  But I have nothing beyond the statement that I have read.

Question:  Is the Security Council going to decide this afternoon about the increase of the “oil-for-food” programme?  This is my first question.  And second is, how long will the fact-finding committee stay in Geneva?

Spokesman:  In Geneva?  On your first question, you better check with the oil-for-food programme.  I don’t have the details on when that matter comes before the Council.  So check with Hasmik, if you don’t mind.

On the second, I think you should wait to hear from Kieran Prendergast at the stakeout.  He will talk to you after he gives the Council the Secretary-General’s reaction to the developments in Israel today concerning the fact-finding team.  And he will take your questions.

Question:  Would you have any idea what time that will happen?

Spokesman:  For Kieran?

Question:  Yeah.

Spokesman:  He was called down at 11:30 a.m., but then the discussions on Western Sahara went longer than expected.  I don’t know even if he’s there by now.  But I think his own presentation, depending on questions from the Council members, shouldn’t be more than 15 minutes or so.  So, he should probably be scooting out to the stakeout pretty soon.

Question:  Fred, do you have any schedule for the Iraqi talks tomorrow?

Spokesman:  No, I don’t have anything to give you on that yet.  We may have something to announce a little later in the afternoon.

Question:  Fred, there’s a serious situation, again, developing in Madagascar.  What are the latest United Nations efforts to move to prevent possible civil war there?

Spokesman:  The Secretary-General continues to support the OAU efforts in Madagascar.  The Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Ibrahim Fall, continues to follow the issue very closely.  I’ll have to double-check for you whether he’s going to be travelling there.  [He isn't.]  And if you check with me after the briefing, I’ll try to get the latest on Mr. Fall’s movements.

It’s very worrying.  We thought we had it resolved in Dakar when the President and the challenger agreed to respect the results of the recount.  Now that that appears not to be the case, we’re again plunged into uncertainty in Madagascar.  So, I think everyone is focusing on the effort to try and prevent violence from breaking out once again.

Thank you very much.  So we will be going on to Carol Bellamy, Mr. Morris, Mr. Oshima in just a few minutes.

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