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.

**Afghanistan

Good afternoon.  We'll start with Afghanistan.

As it began its third session today, the Loya Jirga announced the results of the elections for the officers of its bureau.  Muhammad Qasimyar, Chairman of the Special Commission for the Convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga, was elected Chair with 889 votes.  The Minister for Women’s Affairs, Sima Samar, and a second candidate, Azam Dadfar, were both elected as Vice Chairs with 411 and 257 votes respectively. 

Two secretaries were also elected.

The Loya Jirga then reviewed its agenda and registered three candidates for the position of head of State.  They are:  Hamid Karzai, the Chairman of the Afghan Interim Administration; Masooda Jalal, a pediatrician with the World Food Programme; and Mir Mahfooz Nedai, a member of the Loya Jirga Commission. 

The delegates have already cast their votes for the selection of the President.  And the counting has begun.  It's expected to finish at about 9:30 Kabul time, which is 1 o’clock New York time.  So just under an hour.

In his statement after his nomination, Mr. Karzai said that while reconstruction had started in Afghanistan, Government projects needed to be transparent, properly coordinated and effective.

In her statement, Miss Jalal, the first woman candidate for the president in Afghanistan’s history, said standards should be created in the country so that a new democratic order could be established based on dignity and respect. 

**Security Council

The Security Council met in closed consultations on Sierra Leone.  Members were briefed by Alan Doss, the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Governance and Stabilization.  He spoke of the challenges ahead in the country’s peace-building process.

Then the Council members gathered in a formal meeting and voted unanimously on a resolution to extend the mandate of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) for another six months.

An open meeting on the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, convened at the request of the Arab Group, then began a short while ago.  At the start of the meeting, 35 speakers were listed to take the floor.

After breaking for lunch, the Council is scheduled to meet at 3 p.m. in closed consultations to discuss the draft resolution introduced yesterday on the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Then at 3:30 p.m., a meeting of the Council with troop-contributing countries to the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) is scheduled.

And then the open meeting on the Middle East will resume immediately after that Bosnia meeting.

**International Court of Justice

This morning at The Hague, representatives of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and of Rwanda argued their case in front of the International Court of Justice.

As you’ll recall, last month the Democratic Republic of the Congo filed proceedings against Rwanda for "massive, serious and flagrant violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law" resulting from acts of armed aggression perpetrated by Rwanda on the Democratic Republic of the Congo's territory.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is also claiming that it is entitled to compensation from Rwanda for “for all acts of looting, destruction, slaughter, removal of property or persons and other acts of wrongdoing."

While written rulings from the court can take many years, lawyers for the Democratic Republic of the Congo have also asked the Court to issue a provisional ruling to stop "armed Rwandan aggression in their country.”

The Court will hear arguments again from both sides tomorrow morning and a decision on a request for a provisional ruling is usually made within four weeks.

A verbatim transcript of the proceedings should be available on the Court’s Web site tomorrow.

**Secretary-General presents Award

The Secretary-General last night presented the award for Business Excellence in the Workplace at an event organized by the Global Business Council on HIV/AIDS and the International AIDS Trust.  He said that businesses are recognizing that fighting AIDS is in their interest and that the starting point for that fight was in the workplace. 

He congratulated DaimlerChrysler of South Africa, the recipient of the award, for their programme for prevention, care and treatment, saying it was the best kind of public-private partnership approach in fighting HIV/AIDS. 

“You have shown what can be achieved by facing this insidious enemy head-on,” he said, "and working together to defeat it . . . it is only through such partnerships that we can hope to succeed in the fight against AIDS.”

**World Council of Religious Leaders

In Bangkok today, Kim Hak-Su, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) addressed the inaugural World Council of Religious Leaders.

He reiterated the Secretary-General’s view that “religions may manifest themselves in widely different practices and belief systems, but at heart we are dealing in universal values:  to be kind, to be merciful, to be tolerant, to love our neighbours.”

Over 100 religious leaders from virtually all religions around the world, including Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Muslim, attended the conference.  The World Council of Religious Leaders is an outcome from the Millennium World Peace Summit in 2000 that was held here at the United Nations.  Its aim is to assist the United Nations and its agencies in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, and in addressing global social and environmental problems. 

**World Food Summit

The World Food Summit: Five Years Later ended today in Rome. 

In his closing address, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, said that the last four days had been an important step towards achieving the common goal to eradicate hunger in a world where it ought to have been eradicated long ago.  In closing, he said that we all know that the elimination of hunger is not only a moral imperative but can only benefit a more interdependent world.

In other news from the Summit, a total of 43 countries signed the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.  Those signatures took place during the Summit.  The Treaty now has 56 signatories and we have a press release with the list.

**Burundi

Concerned that continued fighting will hinder vaccination campaigns aiming to reach over 3 million Burundian children, United Nations officials in Burundi called yesterday on all parties to the conflict to observe "Days of Tranquility.”

The United Nations humanitarian workers appealed to the warring parties to ensure safe passage of health workers during the next two rounds of National Immunization Days, scheduled for 17-28 June and then from 23-26 July 2002. 

We have a press release on that.

**Press Releases

Two other press releases to mention.  The Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), James T. Morris, today urged the United States House of Representatives to act quickly to avert a humanitarian disaster in southern Africa, where 12.8 million people are threatened with starvation over the year ahead. 

Addressing the International Relations Committee, Morris said the crisis was caused by a combination of erratic rainfall, economic decline and government mismanagement.  Morris noted that this crisis is the first in history in which

HIV/AIDS plays a major role, as the countries most affected by the drought are also at the epicentre of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Morris made a similar appeal to the international community to increase its assistance for southern Africa during this week’s World Food Summit in Rome.

Then from Geneva, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ruud Lubbers, called on European leaders to invest more in the refugee agency, which has helped hundreds of thousands of refugees, including those from Afghanistan, to return home and stay there.  If the UNHCR does not get the support it needs, he said, “desperate people will continue to take desperate measures.  This includes resorting to human smugglers and fuelling crime”.

Lubbers said UNHCR’s work had contributed to the sharp drop in Afghan asylum-seekers during the first quarter of this year by 33 per cent across Europe as a whole and 24 per cent within the European Union.

**Budget

Today, Lesotho became the 82nd country to pay its regular budget contribution for this year in full.  That was with payment of about $11,000.

**Press Conferences

Two press conferences to announce for tomorrow.  At 11:15 a.m., Shashi Tharoor, the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, will be joined by Georg Kell, the Executive Head of Global Compact, and Jane Nelson from the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum.  And that will be to launch a book called "Building Partnerships" on the growing cooperation between the United Nations and the business community in tackling a range of development issues.

And then at 1:15 p.m. tomorrow, His Excellency Leonard She Okitundu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will brief the press on the situation in his country.

That's all I have.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Do you have news from Afghanistan on the election?

Spokesman:   No, we don't have anything other than what I gave you.  I hope at 1 p.m. we'll have the results -- or sometime after 1 -- with the numbers for each of the three candidates. 

Question:  Will we be getting a statement perhaps today on the results of the Loya Jirga also?

Spokesman:  Let's see whether we want to let that come out of Kabul or whether we'll be issuing something from here.  But we'll be chasing that for you.

Thank you very much.

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