REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Office at Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by
Spokespersons for and a Representative of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Organization for Migration, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Secretary-General Appoints Former U.S. President as Special Envoy for South Asian Earthquake Disaster

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday appointed former U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush as his Special Envoy for the South Asian Earthquake Disaster. As the Special Envoy, former President Bush will represent the Secretary-General and the United Nations system in the national and international response to the 8 October earthquake in South Asia. He will lead the Organization’s efforts and sustain international political will to support humanitarian, medium-term and long-term rehabilitation, reconstruction and risk reduction.

The transcript of the joint press conference between the Secretary-General and former President Bush was available in the press room.

Security Council Extends Mandate of Investigation Commission into Murder of Hariri

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Security Council had yesterday adopted a resolution in which it extended the mandate of the UN International Independent Investigation Commission into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri for at least another six months until 15 June 2006 and authorized it to give technical assistance to investigations into other terrorist attacks in Lebanon. Council Resolution 1644, following the Investigation Commission’s latest report on new evidence pointing to Syria's involvement in Mr. Hariri's murder and Syrian procrastination and efforts to hinder the probe, acknowledged the Lebanese Government's request that those eventually charged be tried by a tribunal of an international character. It requested the Secretary-General to help the Lebanese Government identify the nature and scope of the international assistance needed for this and to report back soon to the Council.

The text of this resolution was available in the Documentation Centre.

Secretary-General Welcomes Central Emergency Response Fund

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly have welcomed the Central Emergency Response Fund, the first concrete result of the Outcome Document of the World Summit. Mr. Annan said the Fund will allow the Humanitarian Coordinator and all our humanitarian staff to respond much more quickly and it will provide essential means they have lacked over the past year. The Fund was expected to be fully operational by March 2006.

Available in the Documentation Centre was the transcript of the joint press conference between the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the Fund strengthened the previous Central Emergency Revolving Fund, which had been a loan facility of $ 50 million established by the General assembly in 1991, augmenting it with an additional $ 450 million grant element. OCHA welcomed the Fund which Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the Emergency Relief Coordinator, had been urging for months. The Fund would save lives by providing immediate funding for initial life-saving assistance during the early days and months of an emergency, as most lives were lost in the first days. The Fund would also help to ensure resources to support life-saving aid in crises that were overlooked and seriously under-funded. To date, there were $ 213 million in pledges for the Fund which was very encouraging. The new Fund would be launched in mid-January 2006 and should be fully operational by March 2006. A short document with more details was available at the back of the room.

Migrants

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families was today concluding its third session. Available in the press room was the press release on the Day of General Discussion which the Committee held yesterday on protecting the rights of all migrant workers as a tool to enhance development both in the country of origin, and in the county of employment. A round-up would also be issued today. The Chairperson of the Committee and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants would be coming to the briefing later to speak to journalists about their week-long session.

International Migrants Day was commemorated on 18 December. The Secretary-General’s message on the occasion of the day was available in the press room. The Committee would this afternoon show a film “Birds of Passage – labour migration from Sri Lanka to the Middle East” at 3 p.m. at the Palais Wilson.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said on the occasion of International Migrants Day, IOM had issued an embargoed press release which said that more attention should be paid by the international community to the large numbers of migrants stranded far from their homes and in need of assistance and protection.

Prasad Kariyawasam, the Chairperson of the Committee, said the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families was concluding today its third session. It met before two important events, one was International Migrants Day and the other was that the General Assembly had decided to next year hold a high-level segment on international migration and development. This was a result of the growing feeling that the issues pertaining to migrants now had to be discussed. The migration process was very much on the front burner of the world agenda now. In that context, the work of the Committee had become important. Yesterday, the Committee had held a Day of General Discussion on protecting the rights of all migrant workers as a tool to enhance development. The purpose of the discussion was to develop a contribution from the Committee to the high-level segment next year.

Jorge Bustamante, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrant workers, said it was particularly important to realise that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families had unfortunately resulted in a new division among countries in the world between countries of origin and countries of destination of international migration. These distinctions came from the fact that no country of destination had ratified the Convention. This was an unfortunate outcome. It was important to decrease the vulnerability of migrants in the context of human rights and labour rights. However, new practices were arising, like sub-contracting, which increased the vulnerability of migrant workers. The international community had to be imaginative to decrease vulnerability of migrant workers. The trafficking of human beings, especially women and children, was also on the rise and this was very sad.

Mariette Grange, from the International Catholic Migration Commission, said she represented civil society and non-governmental organizations which had been working on migrant issues for many years because they believed that migrants rights were human rights. It took 13 years for the Convention to enter into force and it had now been ratified by 34 States parties. Unfortunately, when migration was mentioned, it was often as ammunition in electoral campaigns, and not so much with a view to look at a vulnerable population. It was very important, for social cohesion, that this Convention received more ratifications.

Pakistan

Vincent Lusser of the International Committee of the Red Cross said a bulletin with updated figures concerning the ICRC operation in Pakistan would be issued later today. ICRC teams were going back to villages that they had visited before, and they were finding new and increasing needs. The information that the emergency would last all through the winter should be taken very seriously. In spite of aid getting in, there were still many needs. ICRC had today finished its first planned phase of emergency distribution. Some 204,000 persons had been provided with aid with 4,800 tons of material. A second round of distribution including warm clothing and essential household items, as well as corrugated iron sheets was starting. ICRC’s initial appeal for $ 62 million Swiss Francs had been covered by more than 90 per cent, and ICRC was expecting funds for its 2006 appeal for 97 million Swiss Francs.

Refugees

Ron Redmond of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said UNHCR was scheduled to finish its humanitarian operations in West Timor, Indonesia on 31 December, ending six years of work in the region. The focus of its efforts there had been finding long-term solutions for refugees who fled to West Timor from East Timor to escape the violence that followed the August 1999 referendum on independence for East Timor. That work had now been completed.
Mr. Redmond said UNHCR had opened a new refugee site in southern Chad to cope with refugees from the Central African Republic who started crossing the border in early June to seek safety from general lawlessness and instability in the north of the country. Last Wednesday, the first convoy of 200 of some 12,500 refugees who had been temporarily housed at the nearby Amboko refugee site were transferred to the new settlement at Gondje, near Gore, the main city in southern Chad. There had been no recent reports of fresh arrivals from the Central African Republic, but according to local authorities, a further 3,500 refugees were reported to be staying in villages near the border.

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

Sian Bowen of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the International Federation had launched its appeal for 2006 and 2007 for 430 million Swiss Francs. The press release in a number of languages and the appeal itself were available outside. The main appeal was made up of 74 individual appeals.

Susan Johnson, Director of Operations of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said over this past year, there had been at least 400 natural disasters to which the members of the International Federation had responded at local and national levels. In about one quarter of these disasters, the Federation’s members had asked for help to respond to the disaster and the Federation had been able to help through its own Disaster Relief Emergency Fund. Over the next two years, the International Federation was appealing for 430 million Swiss Francs, 47 per cent of which was for supporting its national societies in Africa. The next largest region was for the Asia-Pacific region which took up 29 per cent of funding. The International Federation also offered global programmes including guidance, technical advice, training for members, disaster preparedness and communications.