REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which provided information about the launch of the "Alliance of Civilizations" initiative; the reform of the United Nations, tsunami developments, Geneva activities, human rights and other issues. Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Economic Commission for Europe, UNAIDS, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Programme and the International Organization for Migration participated in the briefing.

Secretary-General Launches "Alliance of Civilizations" Initiative

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Kofi Annan had announced yesterday the launch of an initiative for an "Alliance of Civilizations". The initiative was intended to respond to the need for a committed effort by the international community -- both at the institutional and civil society levels -- to bridge divides and overcome prejudice, misconceptions, misperceptions, and polarization which potentially threatened world peace. The Alliance would aim to address emerging threats emanating from hostile perceptions that fomented violence, and to bring about cooperation among various efforts to heal such divisions. Events of recent years had heightened the sense of a widening gap and lack of mutual understanding between Islamic and Western societies -- an environment that had been exploited and exacerbated by extremists in all societies. The Alliance of Civilizations was intended as a coalition against such forces, as a movement to advance mutual respect for religious beliefs and traditions, and as a reaffirmation of humankind's increasing interdependence in all areas -- from the environment to health, from economic and social development to peace and security.

The call for an alliance was initiated by Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain, and co-sponsored by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Both Governments would continue, as co-sponsors, to provide support. Several other Governments and organizations had expressed interest in joining them, and the Secretary-General hoped that more would do so. The co-sponsors had already pledged substantial initial contributions to a Trust Fund set up to finance the initiative, and the Secretary-General would be inviting other Governments and entities to contribute. The Secretary-General was also bringing together a high-level group of eminent persons to guide the initiative. The group was expected to present a report with recommendations and a practical plan of action in late 2006.

Reform of the United Nations

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Secretary-General spoke to reporters following his luncheon with the members of the Security Council. He said, in response to questions about the debate on Security Council reform, that we should not jump to conclusions, with discussions still at a very early stage. He added that the Security Council could be more democratic and more representative, asserting, "There is a democracy deficit in the UN governance that has to be corrected." If we lecture to the world about democracy, he said, we should apply that lesson to ourselves.

Tsunami

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Secretary-General had issued a report entitled "Strengthening of the coordination of emergency humanitarian assistance of the United Nations". The Secretary-General recommended strengthening humanitarian response capability by broadening the capacity base and improving expertise performance benchmarks; improving coordination by making more efficient use of the resources available; strengthening financial mechanisms; and preserving humanitarian space in integrated missions. The report said the tsunami response had highlighted some key areas where response capacity could be strengthened.

Still on the tsunami, Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the UN’s Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, was in the Economic and Social Council Chamber yesterday, where he was working to sustain the momentum of the tsunami recovery effort. Regarding the way ahead, he told the Council that UN agencies, non-governmental organizations, donor and affected governments, and the corporate sector all needed to agree on who was going to do what, when and where. President Clinton also highlighted the need for disaster risk awareness education and urged governments to keep their people informed about what was going on, when they could expect results, and how they could meaningfully participate in their own recovery.

Geneva Activities

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the Conference on Disarmament yesterday held the last plenary of the second part of its 2005 session. The third and last part of the Conference's 2005 session would resume on 8 August, and the first plenary would be held on Thursday, 11 August.

The Human Rights Committee was continuing its work at the Palais Wilson. This morning, the Committee would conclude its consideration of the second periodic report of Slovenia and on Monday, 18 July, it would start its review of the third periodic report of Syria.

The Cultural Event for the International Day of the World's Indigenous People would be held on 21 July at the Palais des Nations. As soon as she had more information on the event, a note to correspondents would be issued.

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said there were a number of interesting press conferences coming up. On Monday, 18 July, there would be a press conference at 2 p.m. by Nitin Desai, Chairman of the Working Group on Internet Governance and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General for the Working Group. On Thursday, 21 July, the new High Commissioner for Refugees would hold his first press conference at 3 p.m.

Human Rights

David Chikvaidze, Media Liaison for the Commission on Human Rights and the Treaty Bodies reported on the work of the Human Rights Committee, noting that today, during its fifth day of work, it was finishing the review of the second periodic report of Slovenia. It had already reviewed the fourth periodic report of Yemen and the initial report of Tajikistan. Next Monday, 18 July, it would be reviewing the third periodic report of Syria, and on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, the initial report of Thailand.

Mr. Chikvaidze announced that next week, on Thursday, 21 July at 11 a.m. in press room 1, on the heels of the review of the last two country reports, i.e. of Syria and of Thailand, the Chairperson of the Committee, Ms. Christine Chanet, would hold a briefing on her initial observations on the country reports presented during the current session of the Human Rights Committee. This briefing was intended to provide journalists in a timely manner with first-hand information on the country reports presented to this session. The briefing was in addition to the wrap up press conference which Ms. Chanet holds at the end of the session, and which was tentatively scheduled for the morning of Friday, 29 July, to be confirmed shortly.

Mr. Chikvaidze also briefed journalists on one of the pre-sessional Working Groups of the fifty-seventh session of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, the so-called Social Forum, which would take place on Thursday-Friday, 21-22 July in conference room XVII. This would be the third time the Forum was held. The theme this year was ‘Poverty and economic growth: challenges to human rights’, which had been addressed within the context of the five-year assessment of the goals set in the United Nations Millennium Declaration.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights would open the Social Forum. There would be four panels:
- Perspectives of those living in poverty: Voices from around the world
- Growth with accountability
- Methods and Instrument
- Conclusions and recommendations.

The fifty-seventh session of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights was scheduled to begin work on 25 July in conference room XVII.

José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said he had brought for journalists copies of the annual report of activities and on funding of the OHCHR. The report said that in 2004, OHCHR received a record amount of voluntary contributions, totalling $60 million. This marked the first time that the voluntary contributions met the OHCHR's budgetary requirements of $54.8 million. There was information in the report on operations of the Office, the support OHCHR provided to the Commission on Human Rights, the special procedures and the treaty bodies, as well as its work in different countries. The report also showed that the number of Governments and institutions providing funding for OHCHR had expanded. The Office would still like to see that base of donors broadened. Ultimately, the Office wanted to see more of its funding requirements coming from the regular budget of the United Nations. Right now, the Office got one third of its budget from the UN regular budget.

In response to a question, Mr. Díaz said that over the past few years, the response from donors had been increasingly more positive. However, the Office wanted more funds to come from the regular budget. Just because the Office had received more than its requirements in 2004 from voluntary donations did not ensure that the same would be repeated in the years to come.

In response to another question, Mr. Díaz said the Office asked donors not to earmark donations for specific projects and happily, fewer donations were now earmarked.

Other

Jean Michel Jakobowicz of the Economic Commission for Europe said two press releases had been issued today and were available in the press room. One concerned the invitation extended to the UNECE Energy Security Forum to contribute to the G8 summit on energy security in 2006. The second concerned a statement issued by the Caspian Sea region countries on global energy security.

Dominique de Santis of UNAIDS said a Special Session on AIDS and security would be held on Monday, 18 July at the UN Security Council in New York. Dr. Peter Piot would brief the Security Council on progress that has been made since the adoption of resolution 1308 which was about AIDS and peacekeeping. Available was an embargoed report which would be presented at the Special Session.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that on Friday, 22 July, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland would be in Geneva and would give a press conference at 11:30 on the humanitarian situation in different regions.

Concerning Hurricane Dennis in Cuba, Ms. Byrs said that she had received questions about why OCHA had only provided Cuba with $ 60,000 despite the extensive damage to the country. She wanted to explain that when there was a catastrophe, OCHA provided an emergency grant of this amount to the affected country. As Cuba had not requested international assistance, OCHA did not provide more. The Government of Cuba had immediately after the hurricane hit distributed $ 123,000 to the affected people. According to the latest figures, 19,200 persons were still evacuated from their homes: 17,700 of them were lodged in 250 government shelters where they received food and medical attention. The latest OCHA situation report with more details was available at the back of the room.

Ron Redmond of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said following repeated UNHCR requests, Assistant High Commissioner Kamel Morjane had written to the Government of Djibouti urgently seeking information on three Ethiopian airmen who had reportedly defected to Djibouti in a helicopter in early June. UNHCR was increasingly concerned that the men may have been forcibly returned to Ethiopia. There was contradictory information coming out about their fate.

In Chad, in a race against the rainy season, UNHCR and its partners had begun moving the first of some 10,000 Central African refugees from the remote border area of southern Chad further inland to Amboko camp. Mr. Redmond said the refugees had arrived in Chad last month after fleeing clashes between Government troops and armed groups in the northern Central African Republic. UNHCR was rushing to get them all relocated to a single site before they were cut off by flooding.

Damien Personnaz of the United Nations Children's Fund said that he had put copies of the press release of the UNICEF emergency appeal for flash flood victims in India at the back of the room. The floods had affected more than 7.7 million people in India, among them 3.5 million children under the age of 18. UNICEF had released
$ 200,000 from its current programmes to immediately support the procurement of essential supplies, and it was now seeking $ 2.78 million to help rebuild the lives of children and women in the worst affected districts.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said WFP had launched an appeal for $ 3 million today to help 66,500 Togolese who had fled insecurity in their country and taken refuge in Benin and Ghana. Some 10,000 Togolese had also become displaced in their own country and would be helped.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said a new report by IOM entitled "Migration, Development and Poverty Reduction in Asia" had been released and there were copies at the back of the room. The report said poverty reduction efforts in Asia should concentrate more on ensuring decently paid and safe employment in manufacturing and urban area to complement rural development policies.

Ms. Pandya said Thailand and the Lao People's Democratic Republic signed a Memorandum of Understanding this week to combat human trafficking between the two countries through agreed action plans in the areas of prevention, protection, suppression, repatriation and reintegration. The accord was facilitated by IOM which provided technical and financial support to the process over the past three years.

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