REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which provided information about the statement by the Secretary-General on the elections in Iraq, the Conference on Disarmament, the Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, the floods in Guyana and other issues. Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization and the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees participated in the briefing.

Statement by the Secretary-General on the Elections in Iraq

The Director said that in a statement on the elections in Iraq, the Secretary-General had paid tribute to the courage of the Iraqi people, and had congratulated the Independent Election Commission of Iraq, as well as the thousands of Iraqi election workers and monitors, on having organized and carried out elections so effectively in such a limited timeframe and such daunting circumstances. Copies of the statement were in the press room.

Conference on Disarmament

The Director said the Conference on Disarmament was this morning holding a public plenary meeting which would be followed by private consultations. The speakers this morning were the Russian Federation, New Zealand and South Africa.


Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Darfur

The Director said that the Secretary-General would today be presenting to the Security Council in New York the report of the Commission of Inquiry on whether acts of genocide were committed in Darfur, Sudan. The report was 177 pages long. Only copies of the executive summary were available in the press room.

José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that as mentioned by Marie, copies of the executive summary of the report of the Commission of Inquiry on Darfur were available. The Secretary-General would hand it over to the Security Council today. The Office of the High Commissioner had supported the Commission of Inquiry by appointing investigators and legal, military and forensic experts to work with it. The Executive Secretary of the Commission had also come from the Office of the High Commissioner. The evidence collected by the Commission of Inquiry was being held in a safe and sealed place at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to be used by a competent jurisdiction that wished to draw upon it.

Working Group on Forced and Involuntary Disappearances

The Director said that the Working Group on a draft legally binding normative instrument for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearances had started yesterday its meetings in Room XII at the Palais des Nations. The Working Group's meetings were public and would conclude on 11 February.

Questions

A journalist asked why Peter Hansen, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), would be leaving his job. In response, the Director said that Mr. Hansen had taken over as Commissioner-General in 1996 and his third mandate of three years would be concluding at the end of March or the beginning of April. The Secretary-General's rule was that heads of agencies and funds should have a maximum of 10 years in service. She said that she could not comment on the candidates as this was the call of the Secretary-General.

The journalist said that on behalf of the Association of Journalists Accredited to the United Nations Office at Geneva (ACANU), she hoped that the Director would convey to Mr. Hansen the thanks of the Geneva press corps for all his help over the years.

A journalist asked if the High Commissioner had received any responses from the United States Government on the conditions of detentions in Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Díaz said that he would have to check if the High Commissioner had received any specific information from the United States. As journalists knew, the detainees in Guantanamo Bay were now entering their fourth year of detention, and on that occasion there was likely to be a statement later this afternoon by a number of Commission on Human Rights mandate holders.

In response to a question on any members of the Commission of Inquiry could brief journalists about the report, the Director said that she would check, but as journalists knew, this was a report which the Secretary-General would be presenting to the Security Council. Fred Eckhard, the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, had been asked the same question yesterday and he said that maybe it would be possible later. A briefing today would not be possible, but maybe it could be set up after the Security Council studied the report.

Guyana

Damien Personnaz of the United Nations Children's Fund said that Guyana in Latin America had been affected by the worst floods in 30 years. A large part of the capital had been flooded for almost two weeks. Some 200,000 persons had been affected by the floods. Around half of the affected persons were children. All the schools remained closed, and school buildings were housing many of the affected persons. The United Nations agencies would soon be launching a flash appeal, and UNICEF's part would be for $ 1.7 million for three months to ensure the availability of clean drinking water. The sanitation situation was very bad, and there were fears of epidemics of diarrhoea and dysentery and other diseases.

Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said that around 375,000 persons still remained in shelters in Guyana. Many were suffering from skin rashes and vomiting due to poor hygiene conditions. Children were playing in water polluted by floating dead animals and garbage. During the past week, WFP with the assistance of Ecuador had sent two Hercules aircrafts carrying around 27 tons of emergency food rations to the region. WFP planned to provide for one month food aid to 10,000 of the worst affected people, focusing on women and children.



Other

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said that available at the back of the room was the agenda of a WHO-UNAIDS sponsored meeting of global partners promoting HIV vaccine research and development which would be held in Montreux on 2 and 3 February. There would be a press release at the end of the meeting on Thursday afternoon.

Ms. Chaib said that the second session of the open-ended intergovernmental Working Group on the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was meeting from 31 January to 4 February to discuss activities of the secretariat since the first session held in June as well as budgetary and managerial issues. The Convention would be entering into force on 27 February.

Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said that in Madagascar, WFP had started today sending emergency rice to immediately assist thousands of persons affected by the cyclone Ernest and the following tropical storm which had struck south of Madagascar last week. More than 11,000 persons lost their homes and a large part of the affected city remained under water. This was hampering relief efforts.

Jennifer Pagonis of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said UNHCR had written to the Government of Tanzania to express concern about the forced return of nine Burundian asylum seekers. UNHCR staff had interviewed the nine upon their arrival in Tanzania in late December and had found that the two families had genuine reasons to fear persecution if they went back to Burundi. While remaining grateful to Tanzania for its long-standing commitment to refugees, UNHCR appealed to the authorities to ensure that all asylum seekers continued to be treated fairly in accordance with international law. UNHCR also requested that it be part of any screening process of asylum seekers in Tanzania.

Ms. Pagonis also said that UNHCR was launching a one-year project to look into the complex issue of transit migration from sub-Sahara Africa into Europe and its impact on refugee projection.

Jean Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said that with more than 500,000 persons still homeless in Sri Lanka after the tsunami, IOM Director-General Brunson McKinley had stressed the need for villages and communities to be rebuilt quickly if people were to recover both physically and psychologically from the disaster. After touring Sri Lanka's southern and eastern coasts on 29 and 30 January, he said that IOM was now looking at providing a longer-lasting form of housing.

In Indonesia, Mr. Chauzy said that IOM Banda Aceh and the Japanese Self Defece Force would expand a UNICEF/Ministry of Health measles vaccination campaign for children between 6 months to 15 years along the west coast of Indonesia. .

Michele Klein Solomon of the International Organization for Migration said IOM would be hosting a workshop for governments, international organizations and non-governmental organizations on the relationship between migration and development on 2 and 3 February at the Varembe Centre in Geneva.