REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Yvette Morris, the Chief of the Radio and Television Section of the Information Service, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the World Trade Organization, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Organization for Migration, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Children's Fund.

Sudan

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said insecurity persisted and fighting continued in parts of South Kordofan State. Ongoing insecurity and restrictions on the movement of humanitarian actors continued to severely limit humanitarian access to the displaced civilians in and around Kadugli town, which has been deserted by almost 70 per cent of its inhabitants. Many people continued to live in the bush and in the Nuba Mountains, and OCHA remained gravely concerned at the tense and unpredictable situation in Abyei.

The UN humanitarian team has called for humanitarian corridors, particularly between Kadugli and El Obeid, to allow safe passage to persons who wish to leave. OCHA called on all conflict parties not to target civilians and to respect and protect them in accordance with international humanitarian law, as well as to ensure that humanitarian organizations had immediate, unconditional and safe freedom of movement.

OCHA was facilitating an interagency request to the Central Emergency Response Fund for additional funding. The appeal for Sudan was currently 43 per cent funded, with US$ 731 million received out of the US$ 1.7 billion sought.

World Refugee Day 2011

Adrian Edwards of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that, ahead of World Refugee Day on Monday, High Commissioner Antonio Guterres was in Tunisia, where he had yesterday visited the Choucha refugee camp close to the Libyan border.

At the height of the crisis the camp had hosted more than 22,000 people. Today it was sheltering some 3,500 people from nearly 30 countries, mostly refugees and asylum-seekers. Tunisian families were also hosting more than 70,000 Libyan refugees.

Today, the High Commissioner was scheduled to visit the border area in southern Tunisia and the Ramada camp.

IOM Resettles 90,000 Refugees from Thai Camps

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said that the number of refugees resettled by IOM and its partners from Thailand since 2004 has reached 90,000.

The vast majority, some 72,000, came from Myanmar. Another 16,000 were ethnic Hmong from Laos, resettled to the United States from the grounds of the Wat Tham Krabok temple in Saraburi province, mainly between 2004 and 2005.

The 90,000 milestone, ahead of World Refugee Day on Monday, brought the number of refugees from Thai camps accepted by the United States over the past seven years to over 71,000. The remaining 19,000 had been accepted by other resettlement countries including Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Japan.

This year IOM Thailand and its partners, who include the Royal Thai Government, the resettlement countries, UNHCR and the International Rescue Committee, have resettled over 3,775 refugees from the Thai camps – most of them Karen and Karenni ethnic minorities fleeing conflict in Myanmar.

The ongoing IOM operation included providing medical screening, cultural orientation and travel to thirteen countries.

Children’s Rights and Business Principles

Marixie Mercado of the UN Children's Fund said UNICEF, Save the Children and the Global Compact would host a consultation in Geneva on Monday on developing principles to guide business on the full range of actions it could take to enable the private sector to be a more positive force for children.

Previous consultations had been held in Delhi and Brazil earlier this year, and the Children’s Rights and Business Principles should be released around the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in November.

Education programme for Congo Brazzaville

Ms. Mercado said that three months after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan its Government had approved a number of UNICEF funding proposals, including a US$ 6.4 million education programme for Congo Brazzaville.

Japan was one of UNICEF’s most important donors, and UNICEF was grateful for this support. An advisory on the signing ceremony taking place in Brazzaville on Monday would be sent to the press on Monday.

Human Rights Council

Ms. Morris said that the Human Rights Council was today concluding its 17th session by adopting the remaining draft resolutions. Cédric Sapey would be keeping journalists updated on the adoptions throughout the day.

The President of the General Assembly had yesterday submitted the draft resolution on the “Review of the Human Rights Council” to the General Assembly, which was scheduled to consider it today. The full text of the draft resolution was available on the website of the General Assembly.

The Human Rights Council would elect its new President and Bureau at an organisational meeting taking place in Geneva on Monday, 20 June.

UNCTAD Agenda

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the UN Conference on Trade and Development said UNCTAD's third Public Symposium would be held from 22-24 June, bringing together civil society representatives and Member State officials under the theme “Making Trade and Finance Work for People and the Planet”.

The symposium was organised around two meetings on Wednesday and Thursday mornings, on “Financial and Monetary Reforms for Sustainable Development: Global and Regional Initiatives” and “Making the transition to a green economy fair and equitable”. The afternoons would be dedicated to debates on these questions.

WTO Agenda

Ankai Xu of the World Trade Organization said that the trade policy review on Canada would be held from next Monday to Wednesday, 20 to 22 June. On Tuesday, there would be a Trade Policy Review Body on the monitoring of world trade-related developments. An informal Trade Negotiations Committee meeting would be held the next day, on Wednesday 22 June, probably followed by a briefing in the afternoon.

Turning to the agenda of the WTO Director-General, Ms. Xu said Mr. Lamy would attend the Trade Policy Review Body meeting on Tuesday and deliver welcoming remarks at the WTO Chair’s programme for academic institutions. On Wednesday, Mr. Lamy would chair the informal Trade Negotiations Committee meeting, before travelling to Paris in the afternoon and attending a dinner of the G-20 agricultural Ministers in the evening. On Thursday, 23 June Mr. Lamy would attend the meeting of the G-20 Agricultural Ministers and travel to Brussels on Friday, where he would deliver a speech at the World Customs Organization.

Ms. Xu said the WTO Public Forum 2011 would be held from 19-21 September under the theme “Seeking Answers to Global Trade Challenges”. A video contest would be organised and WTO encouraged people and groups to submit videos about trade issues. The winner would be invited to the Public Forum.

Press Conferences

Ms. Morris said a press conference on the fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention, to be held in Geneva from 20-24 June, would be given at noon today in Room III.

UNHCR would give an embargoed pre-briefing on the release of its 2010 Global Trends report at 1 p.m. in Press Room I, to be followed by a WTO press conference on dispute settlement at 2.15 p.m.

Other

The Committee on the Rights of the Child would wrap up its current session today. The Committee was due to present its concluding observations on the Czech Republic, Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Cuba, Finland and Costa Rica this afternoon.

The Conference on Disarmament had met yesterday, hearing a statement by Gioconda Ubeda, the Secretary-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean, followed by discussions focused on nuclear weapon-free zones. The Conference was scheduled to reconvene on Wednesday, 22 June at 3 p.m.

The Intersessional Meetings (Standing Committee Meetings) of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, also known as the Ottawa Convention, would start on Monday, 20 June at the headquarters of the World Meteorological Organization. Documents about the meeting were at the back of the room.