REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE UNITED NATIONS INFORMATION SERVICE

Rhéal LeBlanc, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section at the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing.

Mr. LeBlanc announced that on Thursday, 11 August at 10 a.m., the International Labour Organization (ILO) would hold a virtual press conference to launch its Global Employment Trends for Youth 2022 report. Speaking at the press conference would be Martha Newton, Deputy Director-General; Niall O'Higgins, Senior Employment Research and Technical Specialist; and Kee Beom Kim, Macro-Economic and Employment Policies Specialist.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would open next Monday at 10 a.m. its 107th session, during which it would review the reports of Benin, Nicaragua, the United States, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Zimbabwe and Suriname.

Next Thursday, 11 August at 10 a.m., the Conference on Disarmament would hold a thematic event dedicated to “The centrality of international cooperation and capacity-building in building a safe and secure cyberspace”. This event would be chaired by Mr. Christophe Lutundula Apala Pen'Apala, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Conference was also currently striving to reach consensus on the reports of each of its subsidiary bodies.

Mr. LeBlanc said that the Secretary-General was in Japan to take part in the Peace Memorial Ceremony in Hiroshima tomorrow. During his visit, he would call on world leaders to urgently eliminate stockpiles of nuclear weapons and meet with surviving victims of atomic bombs (hibakusha ) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After Japan, he would travel to Mongolia and the Republic of Korea.

Today at 1 p.m. New York time (7 p.m. Geneva time), Dr. Robert Floyd, Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, would hold a press briefing that would be webcast on UN Web TV.

Mr. LeBlanc reminded correspondents that World Humanitarian Day 2022 would be celebrated on Friday, 19 August at 3 p.m. outside the Human Rights Room at the Palais des Nations, where a wreath-laying and candle-lighting ceremony would be held to pay tribute to humanitarians worldwide. Speaking at the ceremony would be Tatiana Valovaya, United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) Director-General; Michelle Bachelet, UN High

Commissioner for Human Rights; Bradford Smith, Executive Secretary of the UNOG Staff Union; Abdul-Karim Hashim Mostafa, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Iraq to the United Nations Office at Geneva; and Ramesh Rajasingham, Director of the Coordination Division and head of the Geneva arm of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

In response to a question on the United Nations’ reaction to White House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan, Mr. LeBlanc said that the United Nations was guided by the General Assembly resolution 2758 from 1971 recognising “one China.”

Responding to a question on the impact of the recent drone attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, on operations, Margaret Harris for the World Health Organization (WHO) and Shabia Mantoo for the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that the operations of United Nations organizations were continuing as normal in the country. More details, they said, would be provided from Afghanistan offices soon.

On monkeypox, Ms. Harris said that WHO would release a situation report next week and was continuing to update its dashboard on monkeypox.

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