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

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Richard Sydenham, Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly.

Briefing for the Spokesman for the Secretary-General

Good afternoon.

**Guest at the Noon Briefing

The guest at today’s briefing is Olara Otunno, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, who will brief you on the Secretary-General’s latest report on children and armed conflict.  The report for the first time includes a list of 23 parties in five countries on the Security Council’s agenda which recruit and use child soldiers, and also mentions parties in countries not on the Security Council’s Agenda.

**Weapons Inspections

Today, inspectors from the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) continued their work with visits to two separate locations involved in missile activity.  One of those sites is a fiberglass production plant.  When last seen by inspectors in 1998, it employed few people, and now more than 200 people work there.  The plant is principally involved in the production of fiberglass tubing.

The UNMOVIC biological team inspected the Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering within the Baghdad University complex.  The Institute is engaged in training, teaching and research activities in biotechnology and genetic engineering.  It is a new site included in the recent Iraqi declarations.

That same team also revisited the Al Amiryah Serum and Vaccine Institute in Baghdad to seek clarifications from the former Director of the Institute.  The team took physical inventory of the Institute and took some samples.

Meanwhile, one International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team visited three sites where inspectors took environmental samples, inspected the machine tools in the factories, and conducted a radiological survey.  Another IAEA team visited four sites that are part of the Iraqi military armaments structure to produce and test munitions.

The inspection teams also worked over the weekend with visits to a number of sites, including missile factories, glass works, a sulfuric acid plant and a vaccine institute.

For a full update on the inspectors’ activities, please pick reports in my Office.

**‘Oil-For-Food’ Programme

The United Nations “oil-for-food” programme was notified by the Governments of Iraq and Iran that they have agreed to open a border crossing point, the sixth such crossing point under the “oil-for-food” programme, to facilitate bilateral trade between the two countries.  The crossing point is at Khusravi and Mondhariya, northeast of Baghdad.

Benon Sevan, head of the Office of the Iraq Programme, has informed the Security Council’s 661 Sanctions Committee of the agreement, and his office is preparing to deploy UN independent inspection agents to the new crossing point in late January or early February.

We have a press release in my Office.

**Special Court for Sierra Leone

The Secretary-General and the Government of Sierra Leone have today announced that the judges of the Appeals and Trial Chambers of the Special Court have each elected a presiding judge.  This is in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Agreement on the Establishment of a Special Court for Sierra Leone, signed in Freetown on 16 January.

The judges of the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court have elected Mr. Geoffrey Robertson, QC, as presiding judge of that Chamber.  Pursuant to the Agreement, he is also President of the Special Court.

The judges of the Trial Chamber have elected Professor Bankole Thompson as presiding judge of the Trial Chamber.

In further implementation of the Agreement, the Secretary-General, in consultation with the President of the Special Court, has decided to appoint Mr. Robin Vincent as Registrar, as of 1 January next year.  Mr. Vincent currently serves as Acting Registrar of the Special Court.

**Security Council

From the Security Council, at 10:30 today the sanctions committee dealing with Al-Qaeda began a meeting with Michael Chandler, who is to present the committee with his panel's latest report.  We are trying to get him to be the guest at the noon briefing tomorrow.

At 3 p.m., the United Nations Special Coordinator, Terje Roed-Larsen, is scheduled to give a periodic briefing on the Middle East in an open meeting of the Council.  That meeting will be followed by consultations, also on the Middle East.

Friday afternoon, the Security Council held three back-to-back formal meetings.  The Council President read a presidential statement on Liberia, in which members expressed deep concern with the situation in that country, where conflict between the Government and a rebel group threatens to further destabilize the entire region.

The Council proposed the development of a comprehensive strategy among the international community to address the situation, and said it was considering an assessment mission to the region in the first half of 2003.

The Security Council also forwarded to the General Assembly 23 nominations for positions as permanent judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

The Council then voted 14 in favour and one against (Syria), to adopt a resolution strongly condemning last month's terrorist attacks in Kenya, where a bomb blast shook a resort hotel and missiles were fired at an Israeli airliner.  The resolution also calls on all States to cooperate in finding those responsible for those attacks and bringing them to justice.

**Security Council Mission to Kosovo and Belgrade

The Security Council delegation, led by Ambassador Ole Peter Kolby of Norway, which arrived in Pristina, Kosovo, on a three-day visit on Saturday, left Kosovo for Belgrade, Yugoslavia, this morning, after a final press conference, in which Ambassador Kolby said there has been “substantial progress” since Security Council members last visited Kosovo 18 months ago.

He said the delegation was impressed by the work of the United Nations Mission and the Kosovo Force (KFOR), as well as the dedication shown by local political leaders.  We have the transcript of that closing press conference upstairs.

Over the weekend, the Council delegation met United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) officials, Kosovo leaders and Assembly members and members of minority communities, and it also visited both the northern and southern parts of the town of Mitrovica.

In different meetings with Kosovo leaders, the Council delegation stressed that they had focused on three key issues in Kosovo:  full support for the eight standards articulated for Kosovo’s progress by Special Representative Michael Steiner; a demonstrated commitment to multi-ethnicity; and integration.

We have a full account of the Council mission’s activities over the weekend available upstairs.

**United Nations Observer Mission in the Golan Heights (UNDOF)

Out on the racks this morning is the Secretary-General’s latest report to the Security Council on the United Nations Observer Mission in the Golan Heights –- known as UNDOF.

In the report, the Secretary-General notes that while the situation along the Israel-Syrian sector has remained relatively calm, the situation in the Middle East as a whole is very tense, and is likely to remain so unless and until a comprehensive settlement covering all aspects of the problem can be reached.

In light of this situation, the Secretary-General recommends that the Security Council extend the mission’s mandate for a further six months, until

30 June 2002.  The Council is expected to take up the report in closed consultations this week.

**Afghanistan

Tomorrow, the United Nations and the Afghan Government will jointly launch the 2003 United Nations Transitional Assistance Programme for Afghanistan.  This year’s $815 million appeal, which will cover the period from January 2003 to March 2004, intends to help meet immediate humanitarian needs and provide funds for recovery and reconstruction.

Though the humanitarian situation has improved greatly in the past year,

6 million Afghans out of the total population of 23 million remain critically poor, and over 4 million Afghans will need food aid in 2003.  It is estimated that another 1.2 million refugees will return.

This launch was undertaken during the annual meeting of the Afghanistan Support Group (ASG) in Oslo, this year chaired by the Government of Norway.

We have more in a press release.

**Africa Hunger Alert

The World Food Programme (WFP) today officially launched the Africa Hunger Alert campaign, aimed at drawing international attention to the unprecedented hunger crisis gripping the African continent, where 38 million people face starvation.

The campaign represents a global response to a growing number of spontaneous grass-roots initiatives in North America, Europe and Asia.  In a growing sign of concern among ordinary citizens, WFP has recently received hundreds of unsolicited online donations from people of different nationalities, all of them eager to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

**Angola

The Secretary General’s report on the United Nations mission in Angola is out as a Security Council document today.  The report notes that there are real prospects for lasting peace in Angola, but notes that the challenges facing the Angolan people are still considerable.

The disarmament of the civilian population remains central to the overall enhancement and consolidation of peace and security.  Full support for the promotion and protection of human rights is also required, it says.  The major remaining challenges are in the humanitarian and developmental sectors.

The report is scheduled to be discussed tomorrow afternoon in the Security Council.

**Asian and Pacific Population Conference

The Ministerial level of the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference was opened this morning in Bangkok, Thailand.

In a message to the Conference, the Secretary-General underscores that population issues are at the heart of the challenges the region is facing.  He says:  “The Millennium Development Goals, particularly the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, cannot be achieved if questions of population and reproductive health are not squarely addressed.”

In the message, which was read out by Kim Hak-Su, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the Secretary-General also appeals for stronger efforts to promote women’s rights, and greater investment in education and health, including reproductive health and family planning.

One of the co-organizers of the Conference, Thoraya Obaid, the Executive Director of the United Nation Population Fund, emphasized at the Conference that the meaning of the phrases “reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” is clear.  She said:  “The components of reproductive health are safe motherhood; voluntary family planning; protection from and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, and protection from gender-based violence.”

The Conference will end tomorrow with an adoption of a Plan of Action.

We have a press release with more details.

**United Nations Correspondent Association (UNCA) Elections

Finally, the elections for the United Nations Correspondents Association’s (UNCA) Executive Committee for next year ended on Friday.  I’d like to congratulate Tony Jenkins, the new UNCA President for 2003, and all the

15 members of the incoming Executive Committee.  I’m sure you’ll be able to pilot UNCA effectively in the coming year, and I wish you the best of luck.

I’d also like to thank Azim Mian, who has been an able UNCA President over the past year for the helpful role that UNCA has played over the course of 2002.  To all the UNCA Executive Committee members who served this year, thank you.

That's all I have for you.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  There have been some reports that those two ad-hoc committees (on Cyprus) that had been announced a couple of months ago will start working now.  Do you have anything on that?

Spokesman:  I don't.  I'll have to look that up for you. I'm sorry -- I have nothing on that.  I wasn't expecting a question on Cyprus.  I should have known better.

Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly

Good afternoon.

The plenary is taking action this morning on draft resolutions on a number of agenda items.  These are follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit; strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian and disaster relief

assistance, including special economic assistance; cooperation between the United Nations and regional and other organizations; the United Nations year of cultural heritage [23]; assistance in mine action [28]; the situation in central America [38]; and the International Year of Rice, 2004 [168].

The plenary is expected to continue this afternoon on these agenda items.  Due to the amount of work that remains to be done, the President will propose, at the end of today’s meeting, to postpone recess of the current session to Friday, 20 December.  So the new target date for completion of the General Assembly is Friday, 20 December.

Late last Friday afternoon, the Fifth Committee took action on 22 draft resolutions.  These included Capital Master Plan; UN Common System, Financing of the international tribunals; financing of peacekeeping and of UNAMSIL; and proposed revisions to the programme budget for 2002-2003.

The Fifth Committee this afternoon is expected to take action on the remaining drafts before it, which are pattern of conferences; further remaining items under the 2002/2003 programme budget; and the proposed programme budget 2004/2005.  After this work has been completed, the Committee is expected to close its work for the main part of this session.

No meeting of the plenary is expected tomorrow.

Any questions?  Thank you.

* *** *