REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which also heard from spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Human Rights Council

Ms. Heuzé drew attention to the Order of the Day of the Human Rights Council, which included consideration of and decisions on a number of important texts and declarations. With regard to the Draft Convention on Enforced Disappearances, Ambassador Kessedjian, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Open-ended Working Group on a Draft Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and one of the architects of the text, was in Geneva and would be available to meet with interested members of the press.

Geneva activities

Ms. Heuzé said that the Conference on Disarmament would hold its last plenary meeting of this part of the 2006 session on Thursday, 29 June 2006, before taking a break from 3 to 30 July 2006. The Presidency of the Conference would be held by Ambassador Ousmane Camara, Permanent Representative of Senegal, from 26 June to 18 August 2006.

The meeting of the Administrative Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission had begun this morning under the chairmanship of H.E. Mr. Tassos Kriekoukis, Ambassador of Greece. A press briefing would be organized at the end of the meeting on 29 June 2006, at around 5:30 or 6:00 p.m.

Ms. Heuzé said that the annual session of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) would begin in Geneva on Monday, 3 July 2006. The World Economic and Social Survey 2006 would be launched before the opening of the session, as was traditionally the case. Mr. José Antonio Ocampo, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, would launch the Survey in a press briefing at noon on Friday, 30 June 2006, in Room III. The report would be embargoed until 4 July (time to be confirmed).

On the occasion of the opening of the ECOSOC session and following the statement which he will deliver on behalf of the Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown will give a press conference on Monday, 3 July at 12.30. He will also be launching the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Progress Report 2006. Asked if the report would be given in advance, Ms. Heuzé said that she will check and will confirm the precise time of the embargo.

A number of other press conferences would be held in connection with the ECOSOC high-level segment (3-5 July), including one on Tuesday, 4 July 2006, at 10 a.m., organized in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Mr. Anwarul Chowdhury, Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. The press conference would launch a report on remittances to least developed countries. Mr. Jean-Philippe Chauzy of IOM said that the report would be available on IOM’s website as of Friday, 30 June 2006.

Ms. Heuzé said that a list of the press conferences scheduled for next week would be made available on Friday, 30 June 2006.

At 3:30 p.m. today, there would be a brief ceremony at the new building at the Pregny gate to unveil a satellite image as seen from space that had been donated to the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) by the European Space Agency. Mr. Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director-General of UNOG, would be accepting the gift on behalf of the United Nations.

Mr. Ordzhonikze would also be having a working meeting with the heads of the United Nations funds, programmes and specialized agencies to discuss the collaboration of UN system partners in Geneva. The meeting was being held in the context of the reform of the UN system requested by the Secretary-General.

Ms. Heuzé said that Mali had for the first time designated a Permanent Representative to UNOG who was based in Geneva. The Permanent Representative had presented his credentials to the Director-General on 26 June 2006 A press release is available.

Small arms

Ms. Heuzé said that the United Nations Small Arms Review Conference had opened yesterday in New York. The statement of the Secretary-General had been made available in the press room, along with other press kit materials. Extensive information was also available on the UN website.

Other

Annick Bouvier of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that in an official letter sent to H.E. Mr. Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, on 13 June 2006, Jakob Kellenberger, President of ICRC, had called for ICRC visits to persons detained in connection with the situation in the northern Caucasus to be resumed and conducted in accordance with the standard procedures used by the organization throughout the world. ICRC detention visits in the Russian Federation, which were governed by an agreement reached in 2000, had had to be suspended in September 2004 because there were too many obstacles to conducting them properly. Since then, the ICRC had been having discussions with the Russian authorities on resuming its visits to detainees. The ICRC regretted that these negotiations had failed. In his letter, Mr. Kellenberger pointed out that the ICRC followed its customary working procedures in some 80 countries around the world. He concluded by emphasizing that he was prepared to go to Moscow to discuss the future of cooperation between the Russian Federation and ICRC with President Putin.

Responding to questions from journalists, Jérome Sorgue of the ICRC, said that the ICRC’s customary working procedures required the following: access to all detainees and all detention places, the possibility of individual meetings with detainees, and the possibility to conduct repeat visits in future. The letter had been sent in an effort to relaunch negotiations with the Russian Federation on renewing ICRC’s visits.

Jennifer Pagonis of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that the High Commissioner, Mr. António Guterres, would be making an official visit to the Netherlands on Wednesday and Thursday, 28-29 June 2006. He was scheduled to meet the Prime Minster, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, and various other senior government officials. Their discussions would focus on the main refugee situations around the world, especially in Africa, and also talk about European asylum and resettlement policy. The Government of the Netherlands had been among UNHCR’s top five donors for the past seven years. The Netherlands was also an important source of private sector contribution and one of 16 countries around the world that operated refugee resettlement programmes.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that in Pakistan, three days of heavy rain had delayed a planned IOM evacuation of 1,025 earthquake-affected families from villages in Muzaffarabad Tehsil in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The villages were considered to be at high risk from landslides and floods during the monsoon season, which had arrived early this season. IOM was holding daily meetings with other partners to assess the situation in camps and begin early evacuation of families at risk. If the weather improved and the go-ahead was given, IOM was expecting to start the movement of approximately 100 families on Wednesday, 28 June 2006.

On Timor-Leste, Mr. Chauzy said that IOM food deliveries to IDP camps in Dili and Liquisa had continued through the past four days, despite mass demonstrations calling for the resignation of Prime Mininster Alkatiri and celebrations following his decision to step down on Monday. The arrival of thousands of demonstrators from western districts during the weekend had fuelled fears of violence, swelling numbers in Dili IDP camps to some 72,000 people, but fears of clashes between rival factions had proved groundless. In addition, IOM and UNICEF were planning to construct a child friendly space in the Comoro airport IDP camp later this week. The camp, which is managed by IOM and NGO partners, now housed some 6,000 people, including hundreds of children. A second, smaller camp in the National Stadium was scheduled for completion later this week.