*EPF204 07/30/2002
White House Report, July 30: Public Diplomacy, Corporate Reform, Brazil
(Press Secretary Ari Fleischer briefed) (780)

WHITE HOUSE TO CREATE GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

The White House is setting up an Office of Global Communications to coordinate public diplomacy efforts of the U.S. government, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters July 30.

The operation, he said, will "work shoulder to shoulder" with the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy, and when needed, with other U.S. government agencies, such as the Commerce Department.

Fleischer noted that the National Security Council at the White House has a coordinating role with a variety of U.S. government agencies, depending on the issue, and he said that is basically how the Office of Global Communications is going to work.

Depending on the issue, the Global Communications Office "will involve different agencies, all of which play a role abroad, but primarily it's going to work with the Department of State," Fleischer said.

President Bush believes that "better coordination of international communications" will help the U.S. to better explain what it does and why it does it around the world, Fleischer said.

The office will be headed by a yet-to-be-named counselor to the president. It will expand many of the responsibilities of the White House Coalition Information Center, the brainchild of former Presidential Counselor Karen Hughes, that was established last fall shortly after the U.S. military campaign began in Afghanistan.

WHITE HOUSE EXPRESSES CONFIDENCE IN BRAZIL'S ECONOMIC TEAM AND POLICIES

The White House said July 30 that it would support international aid for Brazil and expressed "great confidence" in that country's economic team and policies, following statements made over the weekend by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that the president of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, reportedly objected to.

"Brazil is an important friend and ally, and this president and this administration have great confidence in Brazil and its economic team," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

"Brazil has demonstrated its ability to use international monetary assistance effectively, and they have sound economic policies that are in place. The United States will continue to support international financial assistance to Brazil. And that's the president's position and that's the position of the administration, including the (Treasury) secretary, of course," Fleischer said.

O'Neill, interviewed July 28 by Brit Hume of Fox News, said his upcoming visit to Latin America was not intended to bring promises of fresh international aid but, rather, to ascertain the policies officials are planning to implement to deal with their economic problems.

Uruguay and Brazil, he said, "are important friends and allies of the United States, and principally they need to put in place policies that will assure that as assistance money comes, that it does some good, and it doesn't just go out of the country to Swiss bank accounts."

O'Neill said he is "going there to talk with the officials about the steps that they're taking, but also to do something else that I have been doing, to meet with people on the ground in those economies, in factories, in schools, in health care clinics, to understand better what's going on in their societies."

O'Neill is scheduled to travel to Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay next week.

Asked whether Bush still had confidence in O'Neill, Fleischer said: "Yes he does. Of course he does."

BUSH SIGNS INTO LAW MEASURE TO DETER AND PUNISH CORPORATE CRIME

At a July 30 ceremony in the East Room of the White House attended by members of Congress, the Cabinet, business leaders, and the newly formed Corporate Fraud Task Force, President Bush signed into law legislation providing tough new provisions to deter and punish corporate and accounting fraud and corruption.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said the Securities and Exchange Commission is now going to have more authority and more ability through the Independent Accounting Board to oversee the accounting industry -- "more authority, more ability to police the books and make sure that they're accurate.

"And that's what this is all about. This has been a crisis in which the American people did not know that they could read a financial statement and believe that it was honest and accurate. And as a result of this legislation, as a result of the SEC's order for recertification, I think the American people are going to see they can have more faith, more accuracy, and more reliability in the records of America's corporations. And the corporate leaders certainly have been put on notice that if they violate the law, this government will prosecute them."

Fleischer said "as a result of having more accuracy on the records and on the books," the effectiveness of the measure will be proven.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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