REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Secretary-General

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday strongly condemned the murder of Michel Germaneau, a French national working on humanitarian projects in the Sahel region who was reportedly killed by Al-Qaida militants.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Martin Nesirky, had said yesterday that this latest incident was a strong reminder of the urgent need to defeat terrorism throughout the world and in the Sahel region in particular.

The Secretary-General had also issued a message to the Hiroshima Conference for the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons by 2020, set to open today in Japan, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. In his message, the Secretary-General urged all leaders to intensify efforts towards nuclear abolishment. He also urged world leaders, especially those of the nuclear-weapon States, to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to see first hand the drastic reality caused by nuclear war.

In his message the Secretary-General also referred to his own five-point plan, put forward in October 2008, and stressed that the world must build on the momentum generated by the successful outcome of this year’s Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Human Rights Committee

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Human Rights Committee was meeting in private until tomorrow morning, when it would consider the progress reports of the Rapporteur for Follow-up to Concluding Observations and of the Rapporteur for Follow-up to Views.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the remaining of the session would be devoted to the adoption by the Committee of its concluding observations and recommendations on the four State reports it had considered at its current session. The Committee’s concluding observations would be issued this Friday.

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would hold its seventy-seventh session, starting on Monday, 2 August, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. The countries to be considered during the session would be: Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Iran, Morocco, Slovenia, Romania and Uzbekistan.

Geneva International Discussions

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the twelfth round of the Geneva International Discussions opened this morning at the Palais des Nations.

As usual, a series of press conferences would be held this evening in Press Room III, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. Each press conference would last approximately 30 minutes each. The first press conference would be held around 5 p.m. by the three Co-Chairs of the Geneva International Discussions: Pierre Morel, Special Representative of the European Union, Antti Turunen, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Georgia and Bolat Nurgaliev, Special Envoy of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Chairperson-in-Office. This would be followed by a press conference by Georgia.

Situation in Kyrgyzstan

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that UNHCR was appealing today for US$ 23 million, as part of the United Nations Kyrgyzstan flash appeal of US$ 96.4 million, which was being launched today.

UNHCR was also calling on local and central authorities in Kyrgyzstan to improve the situation and the return conditions for some 75,000 remaining internally displaced persons who had been uprooted during the violence, said Ms. Fleming.

The displaced were still meeting a very difficult situation and many had lost all their personal documentation, said Ms. Fleming. They were also frequently reporting instances of detentions and harassment to UNHCR and spoke of difficulties in accessing basic medical services, and of conditions of no electricity and poor waste management.

As winters were very harsh in this part of the world, reconstruction of housing and emergency shelter was a major priority to UNHCR, said Ms. Fleming. UNHCR had also expressed concerns about the Government’s plans to construct multi-storey buildings to accommodate those who had lost houses, replacing the old traditional neighbourhoods. UNHCR believed that the displaced should be given the choice to have their homes reconstructed and thus welcomed the recent statement by President Rosa Otunbaeva calling for a possibility for the affected population to opt for either a new apartment or for the reconstruction of their destroyed home.

Marco Jimenez of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that an estimated 100,000 children had been displaced by the violence. The UNICEF had airlifted about 200 metric tonnes of health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education supplies. UNICEF had so far gathered 40 per cent of the approximately US$ 11.8 million needed to cover children’s needs.

Situation in Haiti

Marco Jimenez of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), giving an update of the current situation in Haiti, said that so far, 1.2 million people had been reached by the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Cluster with fresh water supplies.

Further, 500,000 children were expected to be reached with the second round of emergency immunizations consisting of diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, rubella and polio, said Mr. Rodriguez. Also, up to now, 63,000 children were benefiting from recreational activities and psychosocial support in the network of 225 UNICEF–supported Child-Friendly-Spaces.

Among the good news was that the nutrition situation remained stable and under emergency thresholds, with no increase in acute malnutrition, said Mr. Jimenez.

Afghanistan

Marco Jimenez of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that 3 million children should be reached in a three-day-long polio immunization campaign in the south, south-eastern and eastern regions of Afghanistan. The campaign was taking place in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Migration

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that in the Arauca Province of Colombia one hundred young men and women, victims of violence perpetrated by illegal armed groups and at high risk for recruitment into these groups, were receiving support from IOM to learn new skills, create micro enterprises and move away from violence. Some of the business opportunities offered to the participants included computer maintenance, internet cafes management and others.

The Arauca region, located in eastern Colombia, had suffered the effects of violence by illegal armed groups, including forced displacement, confinement, anti-personnel mines, reduction in agricultural activity, and attacks on oil industry infrastructure, said Mr. Bloch.

This initiative, aimed at developing the skills and interests of youth at risk while promoting their human rights, and preventing their involvement in violence, was part of an IOM project that received support from the Italian Cooperation Programme and the International Committee for Community Development, said Mr. Bloch.

On another topic, Mr. Bloch said the IOM Office in Moldova together with the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Moldova had recently released the results of a joint study titled “Moldovan Migrants' Health - Impact of the Socio-Economic Welfare”.

The study carried out during the period January to March of this year had polled 2,300 respondents in 12 regions of the country and had examined factors contributing to migrants' health such as access to health services in Moldova and abroad and health problems exacerbated by migration such as transmission of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, said Mr. Bloch.

A copy of the report can be seen on the IOM Moldova website at: http://www.iom.md/index.php/en/media-center/146-new-publication-migrants-health-study