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,

**Black Box statement

The “black box” sent to UN Headquarters from Rwanda in 1994, and just discovered here the day before yesterday, has been turned over to the Under-Secretary-General for the Office of Internal Oversight Services, Mr. Dileep Nair, who is inquiring into the circumstances in which senior officials were not informed that it had reached UN Headquarters.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), based in Montreal, Canada, was consulted and has advised that the “black box” should be sent to an agency competent to read out its contents, in the presence of an ICAO monitor.  The arrangements required are under way, and the “black box” will be carried by hand for the read out.  When this is received by the United Nations, the next steps will be decided.

**Palestinians

The Secretary-General said this morning that the situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis remains extremely tense, with no discernible progress in peace efforts.

At the same time, he told the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the Israeli Prime Minister’s announcement of a plan to evacuate the Gaza Strip settlements is encouraging, and he looks forward to seeing a timetable for that.

He added, “An evacuation of Gaza Strip settlements should be seen as part of a broader process, an interim step that could revitalize stalled peace efforts, consistent with the Road Map”.  We have copies of his statement upstairs.

The Secretary-General began the meeting by calling for a minute of silence in memory of those killed in yesterday’s terrorist attacks in Madrid, and he reiterated his profound sympathy to King Juan Carlos and the Government and people of Spain.

**Haiti

In Haiti, the integrated UN assessment mission began its first rounds of consultations yesterday following the arrival in the country of mission leader Hocine Medili. 

Upon arrival in Port-au-Prince, Mr. Medili and his team conferred with UN Resident Coordinator Adama Guindo and heads of UN agencies on the humanitarian situation. 

This morning Mr. Medili met with Haiti's interim President, Mr. Boniface Alexandre.  He had an earlier meeting with the new Chief of Haitian Police, Mr. Leon Charles.  Today’s schedule also includes meetings with representatives of the diplomatic community; the Head of the Special Mission of the Organization of American States, Mr. David Lee; and the Vice-Foreign Minister of Chile. 

En route to Haiti from New York, Mr. Medili met in Miami with US military authorities.

**Haiti -– Humanitarian update

On the humanitarian side, I had told you before that on Wednesday and Thursday, an inter-agency assessment mission went to Cap Haitien from Port-au-Prince via Gonaives.  The situation in Cap Haitien is calm and commercial activities appeared to have resumed.  Markets along the road appear to be well stocked and no road blocks were encountered.

Following this mission, today the World Food Programme sent a first convoy with 10 metric tonnes of food to Cap Haitien in order to distribute rations to schools.  Next week a UN inter-agency convoy made up of vehicle from UNICEF, WFP as well as some NGOs, is due to leave for Cap Haitien with food and medicines.

Also today a security assessment mission left Port-au-Prince to assess the road to the Dominican Republic.  Most of the trade between the two countries takes place along this road.   

**Cyprus talks

At today's meeting of the two leaders in Cyprus, Special Adviser Alvaro de Soto indicated that he intended to begin a series of intensive consultations with each side separately.

Mr. de Soto informed the leaders that he believed this was the best way to facilitate forward movement on the core issues, given the difficulty of formulating in the direct format a package of trade-offs to improve the plan.

While this process is underway, there will not necessarily be daily meetings between the leaders.  They will meet as necessary.

**Security Council

The Security Council held back-to-back meetings to adopt three resolutions -– all unanimously, and all on Africa.

In the first meeting, the Security Council decided to extend the mandate of the UN mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea for six months until 15 September.

Then, in a resolution on Liberia, the Council decided to freeze without delay assets of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, his immediate family and close allies and associates in a move aimed at preventing them “from using misappropriated funds and property to interfere in the restoration of peace and stability in Liberia and in the subregion”.

In addition, Council members adopted a resolution reinforcing the arms embargo against armed groups in the Kivus and Ituri provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.  It requests the UN Mission in the DRC to inspect the cargo of aircraft and of any transport vehicle in the region.  It also establishes a Security Council committee to deal with the issue and requests the Secretary-General to name a four-member group of experts.

**Kosovo -- Grenade

The Secretary-General’s Special representative for Kosovo, Harri Holkeri, has condemned the grenade attack, which occurred early today on the house of Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova.  He described the attack as “outrageous and cowardly”.

The UN Mission in Kosovo has briefed the President on the police investigation so far and discussed security procedures to protect senior officials of the Kosovo Government.

The UN Mission takes this attack very seriously and will thoroughly investigate this and other extremist actions, which undermine security for the people of Kosovo.

**CTC/Vienna Declaration

A two-day counter-terrorism conference, organized by the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ended in Vienna today with the adoption of a declaration reaffirming the need for a central role for the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee in the global fight against terrorism.

The Vienna Declaration identifies seven areas of further counter-terrorism cooperation.  These include:  greater coordination to meet the capacity-building needs of the memberStates, and an intensified encouragement to member States to ratify and implement anti-terrorism conventions and protocols.

The conference participants have agreed to hold a follow-up meeting on the Vienna Declaration within six months, and they’ve accepted the invitation of the League of Arab States to host that meeting in Cairo.  We have a press release with details.

**Myanmar

The UN Refugee Agency says that it will begin providing assistance to improve basic services and infrastructure in areas in Myanmar where refugees may want to return from camps in neighbouringThailand.

But UNHCR stresses that the current situation along the Myanmar-Thailand border is not conducive to refugee returns, and an acceptable settlement between Myanmar’s Government and insurgent groups is an essential prerequisite to refugee repatriation in the area.  There are more details available in UNHCR’s briefing notes upstairs.

**Update on Sahnoun

We have an update from Mohamed Sahnoun, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Africa, who is currently in East Africa in support of the Sudanese peace process.

Mr. Sahnoun discussed the Sudanese peace process in Asmara today with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Foreign Minister Said Abdullah.

**UNICEF/Korea

Carol Bellamy, the Executive Director of UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, is on her way to Pyongyang for a three-day visit to North Korea.  She’ll also visit South Korea.  Bellamy is there to highlight results for children that are being achieved with UNICEF support in North Korea, as well as the challenges that remain.

**Arjan Erkel

The acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, today appealed for the release of a Doctors without Borders worker who was abducted two years ago in the Russian republic of Dagestan.  Arjan Erkel, a Dutch national, is believed to be in ill health, and Ramcharan is asking all those who are in a position to obtain his release to do so expeditiously.

**The Week Ahead at the United Nations

And we have the Week Ahead for you to help you with your UN coverage next week.

That’s all I have for you.   Abdurrahim?

Questions and Answers

Question:  On terrorism, the Security Council yesterday adopted a resolution naming ETA by name.  It turns out that it’s not 100 per cent clear who actually carried out the attack.  What are the Secretary-General’s thoughts on that and does he feel that the adoption of that resolution may hold repercussions for the credibility of the Security Council?

Spokesman:  I don’t have a Secretary-General view on that.  And for any questions regarding that action, I’d have to refer you to the Security Council.  Yes, Mark?

Question:  Can I just get something very straight?  Is the OIOS currently conducting an investigation into allegations surrounding the “oil-for-food” programme and specific allegations of Benon Sevan?

Spokesman:  No, not to my knowledge.  I’ll have to double check with them, but not to my knowledge.

Question:  Because I’ve heard from several people they are.

Spokesman:  Well then I’ll check with them and I’ll let you know.  I think we might have more on this subject sometime next week.  Yes, Mark, the other Mark?

Question:  Fred, in different circumstances and this black box -- say it had been happening in something like the British Government -- there would be quite public calls for ministers to step down.  It would seem like it’s quite a large scandal.  Does the Secretary-General feel that this is really damaging his credibility at all and is this also perhaps damaging the credibility of the United Nations as a whole?

Spokesman:  Well, I mean, he recognized the seriousness of it yesterday in his comments to you coming out of the Security Council lunch.  He said he was incredulous –- I forget his exact words, but in effect he said it was a major cock-up, I don’t know if that was the expression he used.  Foul up?  Anyway, something like that.  He has done whatever he can.  First, asking the Inspector General to look into what happened in ’94 and why it would appear that the people who had possession of this thing didn’t report that information up the chain.  There’s nothing else, really, that he can do.  The people involved have since left the United Nations –- the two individuals I mentioned yesterday –- who transported the black box from Kigali to New York and who received it here in New York and put it in a file cabinet in New York and said nothing more about it.  Yes, Philippe?

Question:  Beyond the question of the black box, the report from Le Monde and from the French judge said that the UN refused to cooperate with the inquiry, and they give several examples.  They say, for example, that the UN refused to hand over a memorandum from one of the UN investigators in Kigali whose name is Michael Hourigan, is this true?  And who in the UN handled the request for this kind of documents and for cooperation on the larger investigation?

Spokesman:  I assume it would have been the Secretary-General’s office.  The Hourigan (?) memo, I believe, was given to the Office for Internal Oversight Services and as such is considered confidential.  I believe, though, that we turned it over, again on a confidential basis, to the Tribunal for Rwanda so that it could be consulted by defence attorneys; and I understand that a number of them did consult that memo, but we never went public with it.  

Question:  But you never gave it to the French justice?

Spokesman:  I don’t believe so, but I don’t actually have the rationale for that.  I’d have to find that out for you.  [At the end of the briefing, he said that there had been no formal request for the Hourigan memo.]

Question:  Can I follow up on that?

Spokesman:  Yes.

Question:  Was there a sense in the UN at that time that this was not the mandate of the ICTR?  That the ICTR should not look into who was responsible for the downing of the plane of the President?

Spokesman:  That was eventually the judgement of the prosecutor at the time, Louise Arbour.  Yes?

Question:  I still have the same question.  Do you have more details -- I mean I asked you this two days ago -- regarding why there was no investigation in the crash by the Secretary-General, by Boutros Boutros Ghali at the time?  There is one presidential declaration by the Security Council and at least two if not three resolutions asking him in April, May of 1994 to investigate the crash.  And there is no answer expect for a little sentence in a report in April 1994 by Mr. Boutros Ghali about the crash itself.  Why?

Spokesman:  It’s very difficult to re-establish what took place 10 years ago.  I speculated for you when this question came up earlier in the week that because we had not been able to have access to the plane, that our soldiers were blocked by Rwandan presidential guard troops, that we probably wouldn’t have anything of value to tell the Council.  But I can’t honestly tell you that we never reported anything to the Council.  All we have are press reports or allegations that we never reported.  And I have been unable to reach responsible people from 10 years ago who could tell me what their recollection was of how we responded to those Security Council requests for information.

Question:  If I may follow up?  You did mention that General Dallaire was (inaudible) and couldn’t get to the crash site.  Do we have any more details on how this black box ever came to the UN in Kigali if the UN couldn’t get to the crash site?

Spokesman:  No.  That’s one of the issues that the Inspector General will have to look into.  In the paper trail I mentioned to you yesterday, there was no indication of how it ended up in the UN mission headquarters in Kigali something like two to three months after the crash.  That’s one of the mysteries.  Yes, Louis?

Question:  Do you know how long it’s going to take, Fred, just to find out what’s on this black box?  Do you have an idea as to, you know, is this a very long process just finding out what’s on the black box once you’ve got the black box or is it…?

Spokesman:  My understanding is that these instruments record the last 30 minutes of cockpit conversations.  So, it would be a 30-minute tape to transcribe.  If the quality of the tape is good and there isn’t the problem of language, meaning the people doing the transcribing don’t have to resort to interpreters -- in theory, under international aviation rules all cockpit conversations are supposed to be in English -- it can be done very quickly.  I mean, it’s a half hour tape to transcribe.  It can be done in a matter of hours, or if some technical difficulties arise, so that figuring out exactly what’s being said takes longer, it could be a few days.  But it’s apparently not longer than that.  It’s a matter of hours or days.

Question:  If I can follow that up, when you say that this black box is going to be handed to the appropriate authorities, what do you mean by that?  Who will actually be looking at what’s on this tape?  Will it be the UN?  Will it be outside experts?  Who will it be?

Spokesman:  No. It will be outside experts.  The International Civil Aviation Organization gave us a list of technically competent authorities or organizations who can do this.  Colum came in in a hurry and has a pressing question.

Question:  No, I am just curious the last time there was this sort of an important piece of evidence of a crime, there was that tape in the Israeli case in southern Lebanon that had gone missing.  And at that point the Secretary-General asked Mr. Connor to do a sort of investigation, and there was a great effort to make sure that this was as transparent and public as possible and required a very detailed and, in many ways a more compelling, a more persuasive than usual report from within the UN system, and I wonder whether we can expect that the OIOS can provide a public report -- whether you’re going to publicize the information that’s on these records or is there going to continue to be a certain degree of secrecy around this whole issue?

Spokesman:  Well, that will be for Mr. Nair to decide.  He reports to the General Assembly, as you know, and the majority of his evaluation reports are made public.  But it’s his call in the end and we’ll have to see what he decides.  Who haven’t we heard from this side?

Question:  On the terrorist attack in Madrid, I asked yesterday and I must repeat today:  did the Secretary-General get any communication by phone or by letter from the Spanish Government on this criminal act in Madrid?

Spokesman:  He did speak later yesterday afternoon, and we squawked it, I don’t know if you heard it, that he had two telephone conversations:  one with Prime Minister Aznar and one with King Juan Carlos.

Question:  Any ideas of the authorship of this terrorist act?

Spokesman:  No, I don’t think you should look to us.  As I said to you yesterday, I think that would be for the Spanish authorities to investigate.

Question:  But is the Secretary-General interested in finding out who could be the author of this?

Spokesman:  I think the whole world would like to know.  Yes?

Question:  When they say, the president and the Security Council, that they condemn (Inaudible) for something that (Inaudible) didn’t do, that is the case that they are approving the resolution (inaudible) if there is a remedy.

Spokesman:  I am not quite sure what you’re asking.

Question:  The Security Council yesterday approved a resolution that named specifically ETA for this terrorist act.

Spokesman:  Yes.

Question:  If ETA is not responsible, what would be the next step of the Security Council?  Is there any precedent for that?  Has something happened before similar to this?

Spokesman:  I am not aware of a precedent.  But again, this is from human memory.  And as far as procedures go, the Security Council is master of its own procedures.  Should it want to amend or rescind a resolution, I assume there would be a way to do it.  They would just do it.  But I can’t speak for them; I have to emphasize.  You’d have to ask the President of the Council.  I can just say in general terms they’re master of their own procedure.  Let’s take Ricardo?

Question:  Fred, back on the black box.  Why is it that difficult for the UN to get in touch with these people that were working here 10 years ago?  Has the UN tried to contact them, and they are not coming through, or what’s the..?

Spokesman:  Yes.  I believe in the last 48 hours we attempted to get through to both individuals.  I believe we, I’d have to double check, I think we got through to one of them.  The one who was in charge of the Air Operations Unit in peacekeeping here in ’94 has been retired for something like eight years and I think he is the one we weren’t able to reach.

Question:  (Inaudible)

Spokesman:  Say it again?

Question:  Who was it you did get in touch with?

Spokesman:  The second one was Roger Lambo, a Kenyan national…

Question:  A Kenyan? 

Spokesman:  Well, he may have been a naturalized Canadian.  He was, as I understand it, born in Kenya.  He was head of the Air Safety Unit or Air Operations Unit of the UN mission in Kigali and he has subsequently, and I think I told you, may also previous to his UNAMIR experience, have worked for the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.  He went back to ICAO Montreal and has been back and forth since on various assignments here.  It turns out that he was actually in this building a week or two ago.  So I think we were… (Interrupted)

Question:  Ooh!

Spokesman:  On something else, yes.  So we were able to speak to him.

Question:  And what did he say?

Spokesman:  I can’t tell you, I don’t know. Yes?

Question:  Is it the Secretary-General’s wish -- I know he wants to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible -- but is it his wish to try and get to the bottom of this before the tenth anniversary?  And I would like to have your thoughts on whether, I mean on the coincidence of the fact that we’re, you know, three weeks away from the tenth anniversary, and all of a sudden this story pops up?

Spokesman:  I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence.  The story was driven by the actions of a French judicial inquiry and the media coverage of that inquiry.  The Secretary-General would like it cleared up as quickly as possible.  He has asked Dileep Nair to look into it and we expect in a matter of days, I would think, a reaction from whatever specialty agency will listen to these tapes.  So, yes, we certainly hope it would be done by 7 April.  Yes, Mark?

Question:   Just trying to understand the mechanism of the discovery of the black box.  I am a bit confused about the Air Safety Unit, as I looked inside the DPKO organogram or whatever.  Isn’t that Transport Unit?  Is that linked?  I am not sure.

Spokesman:  I think it’s linked but separate.

Question:  Okay.  Any way, just trying to get a sense of what happened.  Someone went into a room?  Which room was it?  That would be very helpful, and who inhabited that room and went and unlocked a filing cabinet that hadn’t been unlocked for 10 years… (Interrupted)

Spokesman:  I don’t have those kinds of details… (Interrupted)

Question:  Well it would be quite helpful to have those details because it would help us to analyse some of the circumstance… (Interrupted)

Spokesman:  Well those are some of the things that Mr. Nair will be looking into and he will reconstruct… (Interrupted)

Question:  So, is that something that’s private, that can’t be shared with the public, this is confidential information…? (Interrupted)

Spokesman:  I told you as much as I thought you needed to know yesterday:  It was found in the Air Operations or Air Safety Unit of the Peacekeeping Department which is located across the street in the UNITAR building.  It had apparently been in a filing cabinet.  Had it been in that filing cabinet for 10 years?  We don’t know.  That’s something that Mr. Nair will be looking into.  He’ll reconstruct as many of the details as he can in this investigation.  It was found across the street in the Air Safety Unit.  I don’t know if it’s a big office or small office; I didn’t go over there to see what their offices are like.  I didn’t look at the cabinet that they found it in, if indeed it was in a cabinet.  I was told it was in a cabinet.  But all those things will be look into by Mr. Nair.

Question:   On another matter, has the CARICOM asked you formally yet for this investigation to have (Inaudible)?

Spokesman:  No.  Let’s take Philippe?    

Question:  Thank you.  This Air Safety Unit you’re talking; at that time was it under the responsibility of Kofi Annan?  Is it part of DPKO?

Spokesman:  Yes.  It’s part of Field Administration, I think… FALD, that’s what it used to be called.  I think it’s still called that.

Question:  So, Kofi Annan was the boss of Andy Sequin, the guy who made the decision to…(Interrupted)

Spokesman:  Yes.

Question:  Okay.  And I have another question:  On the decision by Louise Arbour to investigate the cause of the downing of the plane, why that decision?  The Security Council asked to be informed about that.  She has one of her investigators who apparently comes forward with information on that.  Why does she take the decision to investigate that and doesn’t refer it to the Security Council?

Spokesman:  Well, we’ll have to go back to the record for whatever she said at the time.  I don’t have that with me.  But we can look that up for you.  Let’s take Colum, then we’ll take Celine.  Go ahead Colum.

Question:  Okay.  It’s just a follow-up to my earlier question.  The Secretary-General you said that is delegating the decision to Dileep Nair in terms of whether the contents of this tape will be made public, and if that is the case, why is the Secretary-General not going to make a decision, and why is he not willing to make a commitment now to be as transparent as possible, given the fact that the UN’s credibility is not all that high at the moment on this issue of, you know, the black box existence?

Spokesman:  He’s turned the matter of investigating the circumstances of ’94 and how this tape came to Headquarters and how the decision was made, if it was made, not to report its presence here up the chain of command and how over 10 years, no one at the top ever came to know that the voice recorder or black box was here in this building or on these premises.  OIOS, who is doing this investigation, has its own way of doing things and the head of that service, Mr. Dileep Nair, makes the call on whether he goes public or not.

Question:  Yes, but he works for the Secretary-General, I mean…

Spokesman:  No, he reports to the General Assembly.  That’s part of…

Question:  Is he not hired by the Secretary-General?

Spokesman:  We have to look into the procedures.  But the whole idea of having his office report to the General Assembly is to make him as independent as possible.  Celine?

Question:  Thank you.  Yesterday you said that the person who put that black box into the file cabinet did not report it up to the chain of command, but yet there was a paper trail of it.  So, I don’t understand what kind of paper?  Apparently the person made a note that they had put this box in that cabinet, right? 

Spokesman:  Yes.

Question:  So what…(Interrupted)

Spokesman:  The note probably stayed in the cabinet too.  I don’t know these details.  I did mention to you that one of the things that we first checked was the log of the pouch because it was sent by pouch.  We have a log of all the pouches that come in.  We checked that.  Then we started looking into the Air Safety Unit, because reportedly, it had gone from the pouch to the head of the Air Safety Unit.  We did find a piece of paper in which the head of the Air Safety Unit at the time said that this black box had been received here, it was in pristine condition, he indicated that he had sent out the index number to try to identify what plane this recorder might belong to.  Got no reply to that.  His other option was of course, to send it out for analysis.     

He looked into that option.  He was told it would cost $25,000 and because he felt that, to his eye, in his judgement, the condition that he called pristine of this black box precluded it from being associated with the air crash in Rwanda.  So, he put it in a drawer.  That appears… sorry?

Question:  Did he make a note?

Spokesman:  Yes, we saw a note in which the word pristine appears.  But this paper trail and all these details, please, let’s let the Inspector General reconstruct as clearly and authoritatively as possible what happened.  This is 10 years ago.

Let me take the other Mark.

Question:  I just wanted to follow up on my earlier question and also on [inaudible] first question.  I’m wondering about the Secretary-General’s feeling about the credibility.  I understand that you said yesterday that [inaudible]… There doesn’t seem to be too much general doubt about that.  I just would like to know what the Secretary-General thinks in more general terms.  Is this damaging to the United Nations credibility at a particularly difficult time? 

And secondly, following up Mark’s first question. Some extra digging on Rwanda on this issue has obviously turned up the black box.  August 19^th in Baghdad has spawned two or three investigations.  Why is there not going to be an OIOS follow-up on the oil-for-food programme?  Is the Secretary-General still determined that that’s not going to happen or?

Spokesman:  He has not determined that an investigation of oil-for-food will not happen but we have nothing to announce to you today.  His feeling about the black box incident I think was clear from his rather candid statements to you yesterday.  I don’t think I need to flesh that out.  But he, as a manager, tends to look forward rather than back and he’s taken the steps within his power to investigate this, to turn the black box over to the appropriate authorities for analysis, and will see what happens next. 

Let’s go to Ms. Sharma

Question:  Was the head of the Air Safety Unit now, he or she, aware of the black box? 

Spokesman:  As of yesterday or as of the day before yesterday, yes, because they were found on the premises of this Unit.  I don’t know that person’s name.  It was recently turned over.  There’s a new head of that Unit as of last year or so.  You can find out easily enough who it is.  Please don’t ring them up.

Question:  Housekeeping on Iraq, on the accountability report that was given to the Secretary-General last week, does he plan to take any disciplinary action, and if so, when?

Spokesman:  He took that question coming into the building a little earlier this week and he said soon.  He didn’t exclude disciplinary action but he didn’t predict that there would be such.  But he said his decision regarding the findings of that panel would be coming forward soon. 

Question:  On the same topic, we’ve obviously been asking for that report to be released and I’m curious to see whether other UN staff members, families, others had made request of the Secretariat to make that report public?

Spokesman:  I’m not aware of any requests.  I’ll have to check for you to see if there were any apart from a public call by the Staff Union for the report to be made public.  That’s the only thing I’m aware of.  I’ll have to check if there were any private correspondence.  Bill?

Question:  Has the Iraqi Governing Council indicated any desire for the United Nations to return in a political role in Iraq to determine what kind of transitional government will be formed?

Spokesman:  Still not.

Question:  Apparently the United Nations guy who sent the black box talked with a French judge in 2002 and I believe at that time the French judge came to the United Nations and asked the question, do you have that black box.  Why was it not found at that time?  Why was it found two days ago after a report in Le Monde and not when the judge asked for it?

Spokesman:  My impression is there was a never a request for the black box.  The information given by Mr. Lambo to the French judge I believe was in the form of written answers to written questions.  And some of his replies to those questions were published in Le Monde, where he described how he had put the black box in the pouch on the instructions of air operations here in New York.  I’ll double check for you, but I don’t believe there was ever a formal request for the black box.  And I’m also told there was never a formal request by that French judge for the Hourigan memorandum.

Yes? 

Question:  What’s the position of the Secretary-General on the great Middle East initiative put in place by the Bush administration?

Spokesman:  Seeing that this is being discussed among governments and he’s not going to impose his views at this time.

Question:  Mr. Larson is not going to participate in that summit next week?

Spokesman:  The answer is no.  We did check for you the last time you asked that question and neither Mr. Larson or anyone else has been invited to that summit, anyone else from the United Nations.

Thank you very much.

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