QUESTION: How much of a test do you think that the Global AIDS Fund is both for the donors and for the recipients as to how well they administer it and make it actually achieve something?

SECRETARY POWELL: Your question is the Global Health Trust Fund and�I want to make sure I got it right �as it goes into operation, how well will it be used to go to the right people to make--

QUESTION: To what extent is it a test of whether AID policy can work and the recipients are not deservedly capable of accepting?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think that's a very excellent question and we are looking at ways to administer that fund, so that there is accountability, so it goes to worthy recipients, and for the most part the non-governmental and private organizations, and it will be done through organizations that have experience in managing these kinds of accounts and these kinds of donations to undeveloped countries. So, I think we'll be okay on that, but we have to watch it very carefully. I'm not prepared right now to identify exactly how we're going to do it, but we've got some good ideas on how best to funnel the money out to deserving recipients and make sure there is solid accountability.

QUESTION: When you made your policy speech in South Africa, you talked about people stepping down after many years in power, but when you were in Uganda, you were silent on a guy who's been in power for many years and may be for a lot longer, and you also talked about being -- understanding the culture and the traditions where you are. Have you perhaps picked up the fact while you're in Africa, that U.S. values can't always be applied in Africa?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think U.S. values are a good example of a model of what you can achieve moving down a path of democracy, and you'll remember in the speech I listed a number of long-serving African leaders who have moved aside and stepped down.

With respect to President Museveni in Uganda, he was just reelected and it's, you know -- I cannot tell what he will do when he comes up for reelection again, but I got the impression that he is going to try to change the nature of "the Movement", as it is called, his political movement -- so that it becomes more pluralistic. But he is determined to do it at his pace. And, so, I think we can encourage, we can nudge, we can talk to opposition leaders, we can push for openness and transparency in elections and, hopefully, they'll take the clue that if they continue to move in this direction, good things tend to happen to them. They get greater standing in the world community, more people are interested in providing them assistance. They are more likely to obtain trade opportunities if they move in that direction. I think that's the case both of President Moi and with President Museveni.

With respect to President Moi, from both our private conversations and our public conversations, I have no reason to believe that he will not follow the constitutional process next year. But, of course, I'm not a fortune teller; I'm just a Secretary of State.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, if you look at the continuing costs of the Rwandan genocide, originally you had up to a million people killed there, now in the Congo maybe two more million people killed, and then you have just a continuing war and occupation. The whole region is disturbed. Are you ready to --.are you willing to reconsider some of the rhetoric that came out during the campaign that this is not the kind of thing where the United States would want to get itself involved, would not want to take preventive action next time around?. In other words, have you done some reflection on what you'd do if you have a calamity of that order again in Africa?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think it is still the best policy for us to provide assistance to nations that are willing to put forward forces from the region. I don't think the United States will be able to be the court of first resort whenever there's a crisis like this -- send in the American Army, to put down the conflict -- because we're the biggest and we have the most capability. We have found that our forces are quite extended and we have to have a clear understanding of the missions we are going into. So, with respect to Africa, I think the approach we have taken of increasing the capability of indigenous forces to respond to these kinds of things and picking up quite a bit of the bill for these kinds of operations. In Sierra Leone, the force is now moving up to 17,500 troops with just a few U.S. troops there serving a liaison function. But we're picking up $300 million of the bill and that seems to me to be a pretty good allocation of the effort, as opposed to the American Army going into every crisis area in the world.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you're at the end of your trip. You've met a lot of Africans of all kinds, leaders and politicians. I wondered if you could kind of sum up how they responded to you. How they responded to you, and do you think that your African-American origins had any effect on them? What effect did that have?

SECRETARY POWELL: They reacted well, principally because I'm the Secretary of State of the United States of America. But there's underneath that, I think, a bit of pride that I'm an African-American. It shouldn't be unreasonable. If I was the first Irish Secretary of State visiting Dublin, I'd suspect I would be greeted warmly. So, I think there's a certain pride and I have always been proud of, pushing forward my African-American background, Caribbean background, and on occasion, I've even pushed forward my Scottish background, and a couple of others that are miscegenated somewhere in the Powell family tree. But principally my Caribbean and African-American background because I think it shows people what you can accomplish in society where there are opportunities available to all and where diversity can be a source of strength, not a source of conflict. It took us a long time to get there, and I benefited from what African-Americans went through before my time, and I feel it's important for me to always be a witness to their sacrifice, not to my own achievement, but to the sacrifice of those who went before me that made it possible for me to have the positions that I've had. And to the extent that gives inspiration to African leaders and the African people, I'm pleased to use that. Many of them had read parts of my book; I had my book quoted back to me on a couple of occasions. Sometimes correctly in context (laughter); other times not. And so I'm pleased that there is that sub-text to my presence and to my visit.

QUESTION: Did you, Mr. Secretary, learn anything about Africa? I know you've been there several times before, but did you learn anything during this trip that you'd care to talk about? And, also, could you give us a little bit of a preview of what you expect in the NATO meetings coming up in the next couple days?

SECRETARY POWELL: I knew HIV/AIDS was a catastrophe, but I didn't really know, have a good sense of how much of a catastrophe it was until you hear stories of a grandmother who has lost 12 children and now is trying to support 34 grandchildren.

Alma met with some of those yesterday. And to see that it is so much more than a health crisis, it's a destroyer of society, creating orphans all over the continent and destroying the future in some countries. Infection rates that approach 20 and higher percentages -- 20 to 30 percent -- is just going to be devastating. So I came away even more seized with the necessity for the world community to try to do more.

Secondly, I was troubled by the fragility of the economies in every -- most every place we went. All of them are having economic difficulties. Some of them are so heavily reliant on aid, it's not clear when they will be able to stand on their own feet, which encourages me again to do everything we can for debt relief and also for trade -- African Growth and Opportunity Act being an example of that. They desperately need investment. The per capita incomes of the countries we visited in the last two days, the per capita income -- South Africa set it aside --but Mali, Uganda , and Kenya, we're talking $300 a year, which is not much on which to educate your children, put food on the table, or do anything other than survive.

Until we can create conditions where trade will go in, and start to generate wealth in those countries, they are not going to get ahead. So debt relief, trading opportunities and making those countries accountable if they want debt relief and trading opportunities, there's no point in creating these kinds of more favorable conditions if the money is all going to be lost through corruption. So, that comes back full circle to democracy, transparency, the rule of law. I think I repeated it everywhere I went. The rule of law. Rule of law. So that people have confidence in where their investment is going and the money circulates within the country and doesn't head off to Switzerland.

NATO meetings in Budapest should be quite interesting and lengthy. There are a lot of them (laughter). The NAC Ministerial tomorrow, I think, will be pretty straightforward. Principal focus, I think, will be on Macedonia. It's very troubling there right now and I think you'll see the ministers press for respecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Macedonia, welcoming the new expanded unity government and the coalition, condemnng the actions of the NLA, and encouraging the Government of Macedonia to move more aggressively on political reconciliation.

I'm sure we'll have a discussion on missile defense and my conversations with Mr. Ivanov ten days ago or so; that's very high interest to them and for us. I'm sure we'll also talk about the size of the force levels in Bosnia and KFOR. I'll try to reassure them that there isn't a big split in the administration. Secretary Rumsfeld has been told by the President to try to get our force levels down around the world in order to reduce the turbulence and the [inaudible]. But Mr. Rumsfeld and I and the President have all said we are not going to bail out of our commitments to SFOR and to KFOR. So, we will press. We want to see what are called MSU's -- multinational specialized units -- go in to provide those additional police functions that are needed and reduce the burden on military forces. But, as I said at the Ministerial meeting in February, we went in together, we'll come out together. And, there's no split within the United States Government on that.

QUESTION: If I might follow on that. How much work do you think you have to do to convince the Europeans that you are serious on that point? Because when Secretary Rumsfeld makes comments like that, there're reactions to them.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I think I'll try to persuade them not to overreact to every press statement that is slightly out of context. If you look at everything Don said in that interview, he was talking about the need to get our force levels down, put more police in; but he also said we're not going to leave, we're not going to leave prematurely before we think it is appropriate to leave. So, I think Don has been saying it correctly, but people have found ways to have this great split between the Pentagon and the State Department, which is really two different perspectives, but we have the same answer: we went in together and we'll come out together.

QUESTION: Can you look at the time? Can you give us some feel for the time line on Bosnia vs. Kosovo? I mean, are we looking at years and years in both places or is Bosnia -- we drawing down in Bosnia now -- is there any kind of a time line at all?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think I can. I think it's going to be years. I don't think you necessarily have to keep the troop levels the same and they have been coming down steadily. And I think there will be decisions made tomorrow to reduce the Bosnian troop level more. So, you can continue to reduce the troop levels, but I think it will be some time before those countries are free-standing on their own, and able to handle their own business and their own affairs.

QUESTION: Do you expect discussions about the European Defense Initiative and the European Defense Force and what's your position on what Turkey says about that?

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm sure ESDP/SDI will be discussed. I have had some of my staff in Turkey over the weekend trying to find a solution. I don't know if we'll have a solution in time for tomorrow, but, if not, we'll just keep moving on and look for a solution after Budapest.

We continue to support ESDI with the provisos that we've always had. One, it has to result in added capability within the Alliance, and it also has to be closely linked to NATO with respect to the planning functions. I will, I'm sure, have an opportunity to encourage my colleagues to do more with respect to defense spending and the right kind of defense spending to enhance the kind of capabilities they need for ESDI activities.

QUESTION: I just wanted to ask, since the Administration came in, you've been talking about these police forces for Bosnia. What are you doing about it? When is there going to be such a thing?

SECRETARY POWELL: There are 19 of these multinational specialized units that are supposed to go in. Only 11 have gone in so far. So I'm going to be pressing for the additional eight and seeing if there are other kinds of units that can be found that can perform these mostly police and constabulary functions that don't require military forces. I don't know of any American forces. As you know, in a lot of these overseas police operations, Americans have volunteered as individuals to work for the UN or to work for forces. But we don't have those kinds of units that we would deploy. We wouldn't deploy military police units on an extended basis because it seems they are a rare commodity, believe or not, in the United States Army and there's a limit to how many of them you could spare to put in that kind of permanent deployment. And there are other sources of units in other nations that could do the job quite adequately.

QUESTION: Assistant Secretary Kelly has just met with Japanese and South Korean counterparts. It's also the end of the month and Korea policy was supposed to be finished by the end of the month. Do we have a new Korea policy and what is it?

SECRETARY POWELL: We're not prepared to announce it yet. I've got two days. Right? I don't think we ever said the end of the month, Robin. We did? I didn't. Oh, Boucher did. Why, I'd throw him over the side. (Laughter) We're getting close to it. I mean, we've had a chance to look at the situation. Kelly came back with some insight as to the thinking in the region. So I think we'll be moving forward shortly, but I don't have anything to announce right now or to give you a specific date when a policy would be announced, or whether it'll be a big announcement, or whether we'll just start executing. Yeah, well, see you, Robin.

QUESTION: Thank you. You sort of described the NATO Foreign Ministers. Everything is being harmonious, but we do -- we just had this United Nations Human Rights Commission vote; we have Kyoto. Do you expect to get beaten up a little bit? Do you expect to be defending the United States? Are you going to be raising this UN vote? Will things get a little bit heated behind the scenes, you think?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think of the UN vote. The UN vote is behind us and we'll make a judgment next year and I don't think it will be hard to get a favorable vote, if that's what we choose to do. And that's what we ought to do. Kyoto is not directly on the agenda, but I have a hunch we'll be talking about it in various fora. It is still a heated issue in Europe and I look forward to those conversations and I'm sure the President will be discussing it when he comes for both Brussels and Goteborg.

Okay, thanks guys.