REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was also attended by spokespersons and representatives of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Japan earthquake

Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization said she had put at the disposal of journalists a set of questions & answers developed by WHO on the nuclear incident in Japan. The questions & answers would be updated regularly and, while they were currently only available in English, they would hopefully be translated rapidly. The document was available at the back of the room, as well as on the WHO website.

Maryam Golagnari, Chief of the Disaster Risk Reduction Division of the World Meteorological Organization, said that following the Chernobyl incident the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), together with WMO and a number of United Nations agencies, had established very clear procedures for the consideration of any release of particles into the atmosphere that could cause cross border environmental issues with various consequences. As a result of these procedures, and following what had happened in Japan, WMO's environmental emergency response mechanism had been activated by IAEA on Saturday 12 March. A set of operational, meteorological centres -- notably the ones in Tokyo, Beijing and Obninsk -- had been set up to follow-up on the modelling of the trajectories of the movement of the particles in the atmosphere to be able to provide clear guidance to countries that could potentially be at risk. The role of these operational centres, which were run by the national meteorological services of the respective countries, was to provide the trajectories to both IAEA and the national meteorological services of the countries so that guidance could be provided to the Governments for protection of the population.

Ms. Golagnari said the Japanese Meteorological Agency was the lead agency within Japan. It was in full operation and had just issued a website where all the information was available to the public and media in English. Furthermore, arrangements had been made with the Meteorological Service of Austria to provide meteorological support to the IAEA’s Incident and Emergency Centre in Vienna. Arrangements were also made with Méteo Suisse, the Meteorological Service of Switzerland, to provide meteorological support to WHO Headquarters. The latest information with respect to the trajectories could be obtained through the Japanese Meteorological Agency and a briefing note would be issued shortly.

Clare Nullis of WMO said that the meteorological conditions have so far been mainly off-shore -- that is, the winds have been dispersing materials towards the open ocean. However, these conditions would fluctuate as weather systems developed and progressed in the region over the coming period. According to the latest forecast issued by the Japanese Meteorological Agency, at 1200 JST today, the winds near the surface would be north-easterly and later easterly, and at 1,000 meters above the surface they would be easterly and later south-easterly. Tomorrow, 16 March, the forecast was for northerly winds and later westerly near the surface and at 1,000 meters. For conditions outside of Japan, the Chinese Meteorological Administration was issuing fairly regular updates in English.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said the 2.18 million migrants who were registered as living in Japan, some of whom in the earthquake-affected area, did not necessarily have access to the information they needed due to language barriers. IOM therefore fully supported the activities carried out by the Japanese media to inform migrants on where they could receive help. In addition, IOM was providing vital information for migrant communities in many languages on the IOM Japan website.

Libya

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that with reports of intensified fighting in Libya, UNHCR was becoming worried that people needing to flee combat areas and seek refuge were either unable to go or prevented from doing so. Typically, UNHCR would expect to see significant numbers of injured people and women and children in a mass displacement of this nature, but so far its staff at the borders with Egypt and Tunisia had seen very few. UNHCR appealed again to all parties to ensure safe passage for all civilians fleeing violence. UNHCR continued to believe that the situation for sub-Saharan nationals in all parts of Libya was particularly critical. Its hotlines continued to receive calls for help from refugees and asylum-seekers trapped in Libya. UNHCR was hearing of Eritrean refugees being detained in both eastern and western parts of the country. At both borders it was very difficult to keep up with the people coming in and those that needed to be evacuated. The United Nations High Commissioner Antonio Guterres had yesterday released an additional USD 5 million from UNHCR’s operational reserve to cover the costs of a further 75 UNHCR flights carrying some 15,000 third country nationals to sub-Saharan African destinations.

Ms. Pandya said that IOM was urgently asking Governments to provide substantial funding to evacuate the many migrants who were stranded in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Niger. There had been growing tension and frustration among the thousands of migrants who were camping out in freezing night-time temperatures with difficult shelter and sanitation conditions, and the trauma of their flight from Libya had taken their toll. All agencies were doing the best that they could in this very difficult situation, but it was not an easy situation that the migrants found themselves in. Thousands of migrants had been at the border areas for many days and simply wanted to go home. IOM and partners, including many governments and UNHCR, had assisted nearly 30,000 migrants to return home so far. Another 4,100 were due to be evacuated today, but bad weather conditions on the ground may hamper efforts. Yesterday, IOM had evacuated nearly 4,000 migrants to Bangladesh, Mali, Sudan and other countries. However, the night before, 7,580 people had fled Libya. The math was clear. Evacuations had to be dramatically scaled up to deal with an outflow of people that was not going to stop for the foreseeable future. This included a group of 800 Ghanaians who had been forced out of their homes and onto the beaches of the Libyan city of Misrata after being told that they had two days to leave the country. IOM was also working hard to assist more than 800 Senegalese, Mauritanian and Bangladeshi migrants stranded on the Algerian-Libyan border, the majority of them at Ain Amenas, about 1,000 kms south-east from Algiers. However, IOM’s appeal for USD 49.2 million, launched last week as part of the United Nations’ flash appeal, was only been 48 per cent funded. Unless funds were received in the next few days, IOM would be unable to evacuate more migrants. At least a 285,000 people had crossed into Tunisia, Egypt, Niger and Algeria since the crisis began, but a United Nations team in Tripoli had reported seeing large numbers of migrants inside the airport and in makeshift camps outside with truckloads of mostly African migrants en route to the Tunisian border.

Christian Cardon of the International Committee of the Red Cross said that a ship loaded with 180 tons of food and non-food items had arrived in Benghazi this morning and the ICRC still had a medical team that was ready to intervene within 24 hours in the eastern part of the country. In addition to the medical presence in Benghazi, ICRC now also had a logistical base in the Libyan city of Tobruk.

Responding to a question, Corinne Momal-Vanian said that the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Libya, Abdul Ilah Khatib, and Rashid Khalikov, the Humanitarian Coordinator, were now in Libya.

Côte d’Ivoire

Ms. Fleming said that Côte d’Ivoire was verging on, if not already in, a humanitarian crisis. UNHCR and other organizations had been doing what they could to reach people who had been affected and were displaced. It was distributing aid in Abidjan to many thousands of people who had fled. However the difficulties in doing so continued to be compounded by huge problems of insecurity and the resulting limited humanitarian access. New fighting was reported in Abidjan’s commercial district, and overall the situation remained fragile for Abidjan’s residents and humanitarian workers alike. UNHCR was still able to reach people, but urged for continued attention to this situation, which continued to worsen.

Responding to a question, Ms. Fleming said that Côte d’Ivoire appeared to be sliding towards civil war. This was a dramatic situation and at least 300,000 people were displaced inside the country; in neighbouring Liberia, which was receiving the most refugees, UNHCR had registered almost 90,000 people. This was getting close to a situation where almost a million people were on the run and in a very desperate state.

Ms. Pandya said that tomorrow IOM would be evacuating more than 400 migrants back to Mauritania from Abidjan by bus after receiving an urgent request from the Mauritanian Embassy. With violence in Côte d'Ivoire having again escalated in the past few weeks, leading to an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people being displaced in Abidjan alone, increasing numbers of migrants and Ivorians were fleeing the country. The Mauritanian Embassy in Abidjan had already evacuated nearly 1,800 Mauritanians by bus but still had several hundred of its nationals camped out in insalubrious conditions in the embassy's vicinity. An estimated 40,000 Mauritanians were living and working in the country, 10,000 of whom were believed to be in Abidjan. Côte d'Ivoire was host to many hundreds of thousands if not millions of migrants from many neighbouring countries and other West African countries. Therefore, this crisis was very much a regional crisis, and more and more people were arriving in neighbouring countries, with about 100 Ivorian asylum-seekers crossing into Ghana overnight on 11-12 March. IOM was desperately urging Governments to provide more funding for the Côte d’Ivoire crisis as it had still only received USD 700,000 out of an initial USD 3.5 million appeal in January. More information was available in the note at the back of the room.

Turkey

Rupert Colville said that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights added its voice to those both within and outside Turkey who were expressing serious concerns about the recent imprisonment of journalists there.

On 3 March, nine Turkish journalists and writers had been detained by the police on accusations of involvement in the so-called “Ergenekon” conspiracy, which had allegedly been designed to overthrow the Turkish government. They had been detained under an order from an Istanbul court, which authorized their police detention for questioning “on suspicion of being members of the Ergenekon terrorist organization and of spreading hatred and enmity among the population.”

Those detained included Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener, two prominent journalists known for critical reporting on the Turkish criminal justice system and police. Mr. Sener worked for the daily newspaper Milliyet, and Mr. Sik was the co-author of a book about the Ergenekon investigation and trials.

After being brought before the prosecutors and formally charged with being members of the Ergenekon organisation, Mr. Sik and Mr. Sener had been imprisoned on Sunday, 6 March, to await trial, said Mr. Colville.

The investigation was subject to a secrecy order, so the full details of the alleged evidence justifying the investigation and detention of the journalists was not publicly available. It was not yet clear whether those detained were under investigation for their legitimate activities relating to their professional duties as journalists and broadcasters, or whether there was other evidence against them unrelated to their work as journalists.

OHCHR called on Turkey to guarantee freedom of opinion and expression in accordance with international standards, including Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to ensure that journalists were not prosecuted and imprisoned because of their journalistic work and critical reporting.

If there were genuine reasons to suppose that any journalists have committed crimes outside the scope of their journalistic work, then those reasons should be transparent to the journalists themselves and to their defence lawyers. Otherwise, inevitably, suspicions would continue to mount that these arrests are politically motivated.

Bahrain

Responding to a question on Bahrain, Mr. Colville said that the Secretary-General had appealed last night for restraint and prevention of further violence. OHCHR echoed the Secretary-General’s calls.

There were worrying reports that a very large number of people had been injured after protests at the weekend, especially on Friday and Sunday.

With regards to the three individuals mentioned last Friday, against whom there had been a campaign on social networking sites inciting violence, Mr. Colville said that, interestingly, shortly after that briefing was reported by journalists, the offending social media content had been removed. However, the three individuals reported that they continued to receive telephone phone calls threatening them. These calls were very similar in content, followed more or less the same pattern, and appeared to have been scripted.

On a more positive note, the Government of Bahrain had sent a letter to OHCHR, saying it "condemns and deplores all violent threats made towards any individual and will be investigating the matter accordingly." OHCHR welcomed that commitment, and, of course stressed that it needed to be seen to be -- and to be -- a transparent, and preferably independent investigation.

Afghanistan

Mr. Cardon said the ICRC update on its activities in Afghanistan in January and February this year was at the back of the room, showing that the situation of civilians continued to worsen on a daily basis and was catastrophic in the first two months of this year. The major causes were an increase in suicide operations carried out by armed opposition groups in public spaces and an increase and intensification of operations led by international military forces, causing numerous civilian casualties. The ICRC was particularly concerned about the increasingly difficult access to health services. The current situation also had a bearing on its activities of the ICRC, as the humanitarian space was retreating and it became necessary to adapt to the new environment. More details were available at the back of the room.

Boat arrivals on Lampedusa

Ms. Fleming said that in the last 24 hours, 22 boats carrying over 1,600 persons, nearly all young Tunisian males, landed on the small Italian island of Lampedusa. This brought the total number of Tunisians having arrived in Italy since mid-January to just over 10,000. It seemed that departures were taking place from various locations along the Tunisian coastline. UNHCR staff were present on Lampedusa and were trying to help the Italian authorities deal with this situation.

The outflow from Tunisia was unrelated to the ongoing crisis in Libya, said Ms. Fleming. From its interactions with Tunisians arriving in Italy over past weeks, UNHCR believed that most were seeking employment and better economic opportunities, rather than international protection.

UN staff and partners in Tunisia had reported that some villages appeared largely empty of their young male population, with only women, children and elderly people remaining. This type of outflow was not atypical of countries in transition, and UNHCR was well aware of the many demands on the Tunisian authorities at present. Solutions to this type of flow needed to be found in dialogue between the concerned governments, including arrangements for the orderly and dignified return of persons who were found not to be in need of international protection.

Agenda

Corinne Momal-Vanian said that, contrary to what was expected, the Conference on Disarmament would not meet this morning. It would meet on Thursday to hear an address by the Chilean Ambassador, who would speak on the occasion of the end of Chile’s presidency, before China takes over the presidency as of next week.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the briefing would be followed by a press conference at 11.30 a.m. on the launch of a UNAIDS/WHO/UNDP Policy Brief on using the flexibilities in the TRIPS agreement to improve access to HIV/AIDS treatment. Speaking would be Paul de Lay, Deputy Executive Director of Programme at UNAIDS, as well as Mandeep Dhaliwal, Cluster Leader, Human Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversities, UNDP, and Zafar Mirza, Coordinator of WHO's Department of Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property Innovation. This would be followed by an OCHA press conference at 12.30 p.m. in Press Room I on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with Max Hadorn, Humanitarian Coordinator for the country. On Wednesday 16 March, Francesco Branca, WHO Director of Nutrition for Health and Development, would brief journalists on global nutrition challenges at 1.30 p.m. in Press Room I.

Ms. Chaib said a WHO-organized International Conference on Environmental and Occupational Determinants of Cancer would take place on 17 and 18 March in Spain.

Dr. Maria Neira, Director of Public Health and Environment, WHO, added that around 19 per cent of all cancers could be prevented if more was done on primary prevention and tackling environmental and occupational determinants of cancer. The objective of the conference in Spain was therefore to review the enormous scientific evidence and look at the existing interventions, why they were widely and successfully applied in some countries but not in others, why the general population was not yet sufficiently aware, and how greater awareness could be achieved. More information was available on the WHO website, and Spanish and English notes were at the back of the room.

Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Organization said the ILO Director-General had conducted an official visit to Egypt during which the Egyptian Minister in charge of manpower had announced that trade unions would be registered and allowed to function freely. A press release on this historic moment had been circulated over the weekend.

Ms. Perthuis said that journalists were invited to a debate on the socio-economic situation in the Maghreb region, to take place on the morning of Monday 21 March at ILO's premises with Government officials, including Egypt’s Minister in charge of manpower, as well as representatives of social partners in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt. Further information would follow this week.

Ms. Perthuis announced that Michelle Bachelet would be at the ILO this week for a meeting of the Social Protection Floor Advisory Group, which held its second meeting on Thursday and Friday to follow up on the first meeting, which had been held last August. Ms. Bachelet would also give a press conference on Thursday from 4-5 p.m. at the ILO on social protection, as the Advisory Group would make ten recommendations serving as a basis for the discussions of the G20. Ms. Bachelet would then be in Paris on Tuesday and Wednesday for meetings with French officials, including the Foreign Minister and the Minister for Labour, Employment and Health.