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.

**Iraq

Good afternoon.  From Baghdad we can report that a United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection (UNMOVIC) team carried out the inspection of a plant involved in the production of steel structures, forging casts, and moulds and fixtures for different industrial uses.  Two other UNMOVIC teams visited separate locations involved in missile activity.

Meanwhile, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team continued to inspect facilities in the Mosul region and another IAEA team inspected three sites in the Baghdad area.  The full Baghdad report is available upstairs.

**Security Council

The Security Council began its work today with a series of briefings in an open meeting by the chairs of the Council sanctions committees on Iraq and Kuwait, Angola, Afghanistan, and Liberia, as well as working groups on Africa and peacekeeping operations.

The Council then held two formal meetings to adopt presidential statements, one encouraging cooperation with the International Tribunals and the other welcoming the ceasefire agreement in Burundi.

In the first statement, the Council stressed the importance of full cooperation by all States with the work of the two International Tribunals dealing with the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.  It noted that all countries, including Yugoslavia and Rwanda, are obliged under Security Council resolutions to cooperate fully with the Tribunals.

On Burundi, the Council requested the Secretary-General to study ways of responding positively and with urgency to the requests for any expertise and advice which the Secretariat could provide to facilitate the definition of the mandate and the deployment of the African mission provided for in the 2 December ceasefire agreement.

The Council is now holding consultations.

The first item is a briefing by the High-Level Coordinator for Iraq, Yuli Vorontsov, on the Secretary-General’s latest report on the issue of the return by Iraq of Kuwaiti property, as well as missing Kuwaitis and third country nationals.

The second item on the agenda is Guinea-Bissau.  We reported to you on both reports at yesterday’s briefing.

Then at 3 p.m., the Secretary-General’s Special Advisor on Cyprus, Alvaro de Soto, is scheduled to brief Council members in consultations.  The Secretary-General is expected to attend those consultations.

**Counter-Terrorism Committee

For the record, the Security Council yesterday afternoon encouraged its Counter-Terrorism Committee to build a dialogue with international, regional and subregional organizations active in the areas addressed by the Council’s anti-terrorism resolution 1373.

In a statement read by the Council’s President, Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso of Colombia, the Council requested the Committee to invite all relevant organizations to contribute information on their activities in the area of counter-terrorism and to send a representative to a special meeting of the Counter-Terrorism Committee with such organizations on 7 March 2003.

**Human Rights

This morning in The Hague, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, participated in an annual conference, sponsored by the International Criminal Law Network, on the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

He said at that conference that his office is ready to provide concrete help to States so that their legislation would enable judges to carry out national prosecutions under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

He also noted that, among its achievements, the ICC includes enforced disappearances in its list of crimes, an advance from earlier tribunals, and he added that the Statute “represents an advance with regard to the inclusion of gender concerns in the construction of international criminal law”.  While in The Hague, Mr. Vieira de Mello also met with the Prosecutor of the International Tribunals, Carla Del Ponte.

**Press Releases

We have a couple more press releases to highlight for you today.  The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced today that a barge carrying fishing gear is heading along the Sobat River to southern Sudan.  The barge is carrying nets, ropes and hooks, as well as seeds and tools for 27 villages where the malnutrition rate is about 20 per cent.  The ceasefire agreement between the Government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement or Army has allowed access to previously inaccessible communities.

The second press release is also from the Food and Agriculture Organization.  Their “Food Outlook” for December has been posted on their Web site.  And the latest figures show a drop in the global production of cereal, but a rise in the production of pulses.  The press release has more information.

**Budget

One bit of budget information today.  We received full payment of the 2002 regular budget contribution from Pakistan with payment of more than $677,000.  Pakistan becomes now the 117th fully paid Member State for the regular budget.

**The UN Works

      Public relations.  The UN Works programme announced today it will co-produce a 10-part family television series called “What’s going on?” for broadcast on the Show Time network.  Each half-hour episode will examine a critical global issue —- such as HIV/AIDS, conflict and child labour -— by profiling the life of an individual child and each will be hosted by a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador.

The series begins on Sunday, 19 January with an episode on the HIV/AIDS crisis in the Caribbean hosted by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador, Danny Glover.  Other programmes will feature Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas,whowill travel to Sierra Leone to host the episode on child soldiers and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Ambassador, Angelina Jolie, in a segment from a refugee camp in Tanzania.

If you want any more information on this programme, you can contact Dawn Blalock at extension 8333.

**Guest at tomorrow's noon briefing

And our guest at the noon briefing tomorrow will be Stephen Lewis, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.  He'll be here to talk to you about his specialty.

That's all I have.  Mercifully short.  Richard, do you have anything today?  Any questions from you beforehand?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Would you explain what's going to happen tomorrow in the Security Council when Hans Blix is supposed to brief?  Is he going to brief in the morning session or the afternoon?  What is he going to brief on?

Spokesman:  I thought your question would be, would he talk to you when he comes out, and we'll ask him to do that.  He hasn't yet indicated to me whether he will or not, but we will ask him.

Blix will begin his briefing in the morning at 10 a.m.  How long it will go -- we'll have to see.

Spokesman for the General Assembly President

Good afternoon.

The plenary has been taking decisions on Third Committee reports this morning on the following agenda items:  implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development and of the twenty-fourth special session of the General Assembly; social development, including questions relating to the world social situation and to youth, ageing, disabled persons and the family; follow-up to the International Year of Older Persons -- Second World Assembly on

Ageing; crime prevention and criminal justice; international drug control; and advancement of women;

Also, implementation of the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women and of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, entitled Women 2000; report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, questions relating to refugees, returnees and displaced persons and humanitarian questions; promotion and protection of the rights of children; programme of activities of the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People; and elimination of racism and racial discrimination, and a number of human rights questions.

In fact, I was delayed monitoring the vote on human rights questions, that include:  implementation of human rights instruments; human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms; human rights situations and reports of special rapporteurs and representatives; the comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action; and the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

And lastly, the Plenary will be taking decisions on follow-up to the outcome of the special session on children and report of the Economic and Social Council.  These are all votes that are going on Third Committee reports in the plenary this morning.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s briefing, International Migrants Day is observed today and President Kavan’s message is available as a press release and on the Web site.

The next scheduled meeting of the plenary will be on Friday.

Any questions?  Thank you.

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