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 Marie Okabe, Associate Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon.

**Secretary-General in Paris

This morning at 7:30 a.m., the Secretary-General met for over an hour with the Presidents of South Africa, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to discuss ways to advance the peace process in the DRC.  The proliferation of armed groups in the eastern part of the country is destabilizing the situation and undermining the peace process, they agreed.  The Secretary-General felt that the mandate of the UN Mission in the country might have to be strengthened to address that problem.  In the end, stability could best be achieved by the establishment of a broad-based government, formed through the inter-Congolese dialogue, which could extend its control to all parts of the country.

The Secretary-General then attended the final working session of the Africa-France Summit.  In the margins, he held a series of bilateral meetings, beginning with meeting with the President of Burundi, Pierre Buyoya, with whom he discussed ways to accelerate the peace process in that country.  He then spoke with President Idriss Deby of Chad on the current state of relations between Chad and the neighbouring Central African Republic.

The Secretary-General then met with the new Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, Seydou Diarra, who described his efforts to form a government of national unity, along the lines agreed in Paris last month.  He stressed the urgent need to assure the public and to get the economy back on track.  The Secretary-General said that a UN team would arrive in Abidjan soon to assess the security situation in the country, and he had asked that two UN human rights experts be part of that team.

At the close of the Summit, the Secretary-General joined President Jacques Chirac of France, South African President Thabo Mbeki and President Paul Biya of Cameroon for a concluding press conference.  Asked what can be done to make more men aware of their responsibilities regarding AIDS, the Secretary-General said it was a question of leadership, at the national, as well as at the community, level. He cited Senegal, Uganda and Botswana as countries that have taken positive action and said, “All around the continent, there are good practices that we can learn.”

He then returned to his hotel, where in the late afternoon he was scheduled to meet the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud al Faisal.  That meeting has taken place.  We have the transcript of his press conference.  It’s on our Web site right now because we’re unable to make copies, due to our broken copy machine.

**Security Council

Here in New York, the Security Council is holding consultations on Côte d’Ivoire. At the Secretary-General’s request, Kieran Prendergast, Under-Secretary-

General for Political Affairs, briefed Council members on the political, security, humanitarian and human rights dimensions.

The Secretary-General, as we mentioned a few minutes ago, is sending a multidisciplinary technical assessment mission to Côte d'Ivoire to gather the necessary information on the ground, which would enable him to prepare recommendations to the Security Council on the role the United Nations could play to support the implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement.  That was reached last month, as you know, in France.  The mission is scheduled to depart tomorrow and remain in Côte d’Ivoire until 5 March.

Meanwhile, discussions are under way on a possible human rights inquiry mission to the country.  A press statement on Côte d’Ivoire is expected to be read by the Security Council President, following the consultations.

      **Iraq

Turning to Iraq, today, a UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) missile team inspected the Musaayib Power Station to check for possible storage of missile-related items.  An UNMOVIC biological team carried out an aerial inspection of two sites to the west and north-west of Baghdad.  The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)interviewed two members of Iraq’s former gas centrifuge programme.  One was an engineer and the other a magnet specialist. We have the note upstairs.

**IAEA/Iran

The Director of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, began a three-day visit to Iran today, at the invitation of the Iranian Government.  He visited the site of Nartanz, which the Iranian authorities described as a uranium-enrichment facility that is under construction.  Tomorrow, Mr. ElBaradei will meet with Iranian President Mohammed Khatami and other senior officials, and, on Sunday, he will wrap up his visit with a press conference at 10 a.m., local time in Teheran.

**Ethiopia

A humanitarian appeal for Ethiopia from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.  With crop production down drastically across the Tigray region of Ethiopia as a result of poor and erratic rainfall, combined with reduced agricultural input use, over 2 million people, or 60 per cent of the region's population, are at risk of hunger during this year.  Unless further food contributions are received, relief food stocks are expected to run out around March and April.

**Human Rights

High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello will begin an official three-day visit to Pakistan, starting next Monday, which will be immediately followed by a two-day visit to Burundi.  The visits are at the invitation of the Governments.

In Pakistan, the High Commissioner will meet with the President and other senior officials, as well as UN and non-governmental organization representatives. He will deliver a speech in Islamabad on current human rights challenges and will visit an Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camp in Peshawar, and, on 25 February, he will inaugurate in Islamabad the eleventh workshop on regional cooperation on human rights in the Asia-Pacific Region.

The High Commissioner yesterday also expressed his concern at reports about the killing of 28 Palestinians in recent days in Gaza.  As he has said on many occasions, such indiscriminate use of force in civilian areas can never be justified.  Mr. Vieira de Mello strongly reiterated his call to the Israeli authorities to cease such actions, which can only damage any possible peace process in the region, and he appealed to all parties to refrain from any further violent action.

**Press Releases

A couple of press releases to flag.  The United Nations Development Fund for Women, UNIFEM, and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS, today launched a new Web site on gender and HIV/AIDS.  The web portal is a “one stop shop” on the gender dimensions of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and aims to provide researchers, policy-makers and practitioners with the latest information in a user-friendly informative format.  We have a press release on that with more details.

We also have a press release from UN-Habitat, the Human Settlements Programme, announcing an increase in funding from the Government of the Netherlands.  The new funds will be used in programmes aimed at urban poverty reduction, urban youth development, slum upgrading and urban governance.

**Week Ahead

And then we have the Week Ahead, our weekly feature.  In it, we’d just like to flag one thing, which is that the Secretary-General is being represented at the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by Lakhdar Brahimi, Special Representative for Afghanistan, and by Iqbal Riza, his chief of staff.  On Monday, Mr. Brahimi is expected to deliver a message on the Secretary-General’s behalf.

**Security Briefing

Finally, I think we had announced this earlier to all of you, there will be a general briefing on security issues today at 1:15 p.m. in Conference Room 3, and those of you who are correspondents at the United Nations are invited to attend, in your individual capacity as people who work in this Building.  However, since this is an internal briefing for United Nations staff, you cannot use the briefing for any on-the-record information, and we ask that those of you who go to the briefing respect that.

Thank you very much. Any questions?

      **Questions and Answers

Question:  What time is that briefing?

Associate Spokesman:  It’s 1:15 in Conference Room 3, and it’s open to all staff at United Nations Headquarters.

Question:  Can you comment on reports from Baghdad that the United Nations evacuated half of its humanitarian staff during last two weeks?

Associate Spokesman:  What I can tell you about the situation of the staff is that there are nearly 700 international civilian staff still in Iraq, though the numbers do fluctuate from day to day due to rotations of weapons inspectors and staff.  There are now about 650, more than 650 international staff, which includes humanitarian staff, as well as the UNMOVIC and IAEA staff.  As we had mentioned earlier, we decided that until the situation on the ground became clear, we would allow staff who wanted to leave Iraq to do so.  And so this is being done on a voluntary basis, and, as you can tell with the large number still on the ground, many staff members are staying.  According to the United Nations Security Coordinator’s Office, all operations are being provided at full capacity.

Question:  How many left voluntarily?  Do you know?

Associate Spokesman:  Probably several, maybe a couple hundred ...  I don’t have the exact number.

Question:  When we asked, the United Nations official said there were 1,000 civilian staff working with the “oil-for-food” programme.  Would that be accurate as of a couple days ago?

Associate Spokesman:  Before this voluntary notice went out, there might have been that many.  But as I said, even though I’m giving you this number today, it could rise again.

Question:  When did this voluntary notice go out?

Associate Spokesman:  It was earlier this month.

Question:  Can you tell us what the travel alert said?  What kind of wording you put forth to the employees?

Associate Spokesman:  I don’t think that’s the kind of information we would be putting out in public.

Question:  Is this being called an evacuation?

Associate Spokesman:  No, there is no evacuation.  What I said is what I just mentioned a few minutes ago.  We simply advised our staff that those who wished to leave can do so.

Question:  Is there something unusual about the situation?

Associate Spokesman:  Only that until the situation becomes clear, it was meant to give the staff the choice to stay depending on their comfort level.  It was that kind of an advisory.

Question:  Besides the U2 surveillance planes that we have in Iraq, did the Germans, French, Russian commit to provide more planes to the inspectors?

Associate Spokesman:  I don’t have any information on that.  You’d have to check with Mr. Blix’s office on that.

Question:  This advisory to the staff.  You say that some have gone on vacation, and they might be returning.  My understanding was, according to the advisory, once they go on vacation, they were asked not to return unless it was crucial.

Associate Spokesman:  Well, let me just clarify.  A number of staff did leave.  What I was trying to point out was the fact that the numbers fluctuate depending on rotation, rotation of the inspectors, rotation of humanitarian staff. So it’s not a figure that’s set in stone.  Today, for instance, there are more than 600 -- there are just under 700 actually -- international staff on the ground.  And that number can go up; it can go down.  So, I just prefer that you didn’t report it as a figure that was set in stone.  Let’s leave it at that.

Question:  No, I’m just confused because, even with this advisory, you might still be bringing in fresh people.

Associate Spokesman:  No new staff are being assigned to work.  In other words, the rotation is based on the staff that are slated to be coming in and out.

Question:  Do you have a number of those that have accepted this voluntary notice to leave if they wanted to?  And do you have any idea if there’s been a blip, a sudden increase, or how much of an increase in people taking you up on this voluntary offer in the last day or week?  And what are United Nations supervisors in the field telling these people to do?  How are they advising if somebody says, “I don’t know.”?  Are they under instructions to suggest, for instance, that it might be better to leave the country than stay in it?

Associate Spokesman:  There were a lot of questions on a subject matter that we usually wouldn’t be commenting on.  I think I gave my preliminary response because there were some reports on the wires that needed to be clarified.  But I think I’ll save any further details.  We usually don’t comment on these kinds of issues.  But I simply wanted to clarify that there is no evacuation, that the staff, the hundreds that are there, are still operating at full capacity.  The numbers fluctuate, but there are currently still under 700.  And that is where I think I would like to leave it now.

Question:  The oil-for-food programme.  Is that being taken care of?

Associate Spokesman:  The bulk of the humanitarian staff are oil-for-food programme staff members.

Question:  What is the United Nations doing about this group of civil society that has arrived to act as a human shield?  Are there any figures on that, and how do they fit into the overall picture?  That going to complicate things?

Associate Spokesman:  I have no information on that.  It’s not something that we have been informed of firsthand.  I mean, I’ve probably been reading about it in the press reports like you have.

No more questions?  Have a good weekend.

[Note:  Following the briefing, a clarification was announced concerning staff in Iraq.  Specifically, it was announced that staff members assigned to Iraq but currently out of that country would only return if their presence was deemed crucial for operations.]

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