REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Marie Heuzé, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the World Food Programme, the International Labour Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Organization for Migration, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Refugee Agency.
Dennis McNamara, Special Advisor on Displacement to UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland, addressed the briefing on his recent visit to Somalia, and a separate summary of his comments is available.
Geneva Activities
Paying tribute to the thousands of men and women who currently serve, or have served, as United Nations peacekeepers, more than 60 former "blue helmets" from France, Ireland and Kenya gathered on 1 June 2006 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva at a flag-raising ceremony in observance of the fifth annual International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. The flag-raising ceremony at the Ariana Park Memorial was followed by a round table opened by Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze. His statement was made available to the media.
Also on 1 June, Dr. Patricia Lewis, member of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), had presented to Sergei Ordzonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva and the Secretary-General of the Conference on Disarmament, the report of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission entitled “Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms”. The report was the product of the deliberations of 13 Commissioners and their Chairman, Hans Blix. It confronted the global challenge posed by weapons of mass destruction and put forward 60 recommendations for the world community, both Governments and civil society.
Ms. Heuzé said that on 15 and 16 June, UNIDIR would be organizing a seminar on this issue in Geneva and Mr. Blix would participate.
Ambassador Valery Loshchinin of the Russian Federation, the incoming President of the Conference on Disarmament, had yesterday presented to the Conference the work plan that he intended to follow for the month of June, which would mainly be devoted to a thematic discussion on the prevention of an arms race in outer space. The next plenary would be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 8 June, and there would also be plenaries on 13, 20 and 22 June. Copies of the press release on the plenary were available in English and in French.
A 15-member High-Level Panel set up by the Secretary-General in order to generate proposals on a stronger and more effective United Nations was today meeting in Geneva to continue discussions on how to ensure better coherence and performance in the areas of development, humanitarian assistance and the environment. Ms. Heuzé recalled that the Panel was created in February and it held its first meeting in April in New York. Available at the back of the room were documents including a press release on the meeting, the terms of reference for the study the Panel was preparing on United Nations System-Wide Coherence in the Areas of Development, Humanitarian Assistance and the Environment, and the list of members of the Panel. At 12:45 p.m. today in Room III, Jens Stoltenberg, the Prime Minister of Norway who was one of the three Co-Chairs of the Panel, and the Executive Director of the Panel would meet with journalists. The Panel members arrived in Geneva yesterday and would remain until Saturday.
Ms. Heuzé said the Committee on the Rights of the Child was today concluding its three-week session and a round-up press release with the observations and conclusions of the Committee would be available later in the day. The full texts of the Committee’s recommendations would also be put in the press room as soon as they were available.
The commemoration of World Environment Day was marked on 5 June. The theme of the Day this year was “Don’t Desert Drylands” to remind the world in the International Year of Deserts and Desertification of the importance of caring for the world’s vast areas of arid and semi-arid land. The United Nations Development Programme was issuing a new report entitled “Global Deserts Outlook” on the occasion of the Day and the main host city this year was Algiers. Available was the embargoed report and other documents, as well as the Secretary-General’s message on the Day.
UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS
Ms. Heuzé said the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting to review progress made in the fight against HIV/AIDS would be concluding today in New York. Available in the press room were all the documents related to this meeting. They included the statement by the Secretary-General, as well as summaries of interesting panels dealing with HIV/AIDS.
Sudan
Ms. Heuzé said Secretary-General Kofi Annan had expressed his concern that, despite the appeals of the African Union (AU) and the international community, the Abdulwahid faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement had failed to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement prior to the 31 May deadline set by the African Union in its communiqué of 15 May 2006. The Secretary-General deeply regretted this failure and said he would remain in touch with the AU leadership on the possible follow-up measures. The Secretary-General strongly believed that the only way forward in addressing this devastating conflict was through the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement, as well as the decisions of the African Union and the Security Council.
Today, in New York, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hedi Annabi, who had just completed talks in Sudan, would be presenting their report on the results of their visit to the Security Council. Their talks concerned the implementation of the Abuja Peace Accord for Darfur, assessing the additional needs of the African Union Mission in Sudan which needed to be strengthened immediately, and the requirements for a possible transition from the AU to the UN.
Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said WFP’s Executive Director James Morris would be arriving in Khartoum today to visit WFP’s largest emergency operation which had recently been hit by a severe shortage of funds to feed some 6.1 million people across Sudan. Available was a press release with more details.
International Labour Conference
Hans Von Rohland of the International Labour Organization said that ILO’s Director-General Juan Somavia was issuing a new report entitled “Changing patterns in the world of work” which was being presented to the International Labour Conference which described recent trends and future prospects in what it called an “emerging global labour market”. Copies of the report and the press release were available.
Kami Papiola of the International Labour Organization said the International Labour Conference started on 31 May and would continue until 16 June. There were more than 4,300 delegates and advisors on the list of participants which included Government delegations, trade union delegations and employers organizations. The plenary would start on Monday, 5 June and the discussion would be based on the report “Changing patterns in the world of work”. There would also be a discussion on the regular report on the situation of workers in the occupied territories in Palestine. The three technical committees had already started their work. There would also be two specific special discussions on the question of forced labour in Myanmar.
Stephen Pursey of the International Labour Organization said it was good to consider a longer perspective on what was happening to employment and that was what the “Changing patterns of the world of work” report was doing. The report looked at what had been seen changing and also looked ahead. It was now possible to talk about an emerging global labour market. In the past, the global labour market was made up of the sum of national labour markets. While the movement of workers across boundaries was not easy, the liberalization of trade and finance and the lowering of transport and communication costs meant that a very large number of the world’s work force were working for employers who were in the global product market and that meant that they were affected by global changes. Among the figures highlighted in the report were that about 84 per cent of the world’s work force were living in developing and transitional countries, and about 40 per cent of the world’s work force were women, and that figure was gradually creeping up.
Indonesian Earthquake
Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the United Nations was today launching an Earthquake Response Plan for $ 103 million to support the urgent needs of more than 200,000 people severely affected by the earthquake in Indonesia over the next six months. The priorities included emergency shelter, medical assistance, clean water and sanitation, and food and child protection. Available was a press release as well as the Earthquake Response Plan. Figures concerning the victims were not very specific and it was believed that anything from 200,000 to 600,000 persons had been displaced. Available was a press release with more details on the Earthquake Response Plan.
Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said WFP had managed to move some 170 tons of food into the earthquake zones and it was presently distributing the food. In one small village in Kluten, 99 of 104 houses were completely destroyed. The village population said their first needs were shelter and food. Food prices had increased. WFP still faced problems concerning lack of appropriate storage space, and the shortage of agreements with non-governmental organizations to carry out the distributions.
Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said IOM was consolidating and expanding its emergency response to Saturday’s devastating earthquake on Java, delivering relief supplies to the worst-affected areas and helping hundreds of injured people return home from hospital. IOM was appealing for $ 16.5 million for transport and logistics, livelihood support, medical assistance, provision of emergency shelter and non-food items, as well as water and sanitation for people displaced by the disaster.
Palestinian Occupied Territories
Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said a humanitarian crisis was escalating in Palestine and WFP was warning of the growing destitution amongst Palestinians. In order to decrease this impact on the vulnerable population, WFP had decided to expand by 25 per cent its programmes in order to assist some 600,000 non-refugee Palestinians. According to a recent WFP/FAO study, the number of food-insecure Palestinians had risen and 51 per cent of the population now urgently needed food assistance. Since January 2006, the market prices of basic food commodities had been soaring which had led to a sharp increase in food insecurity and there were many visible signs of the present crisis. Many poor families were no longer able to pay educational costs and were pushing their children out to work. There were also increasing numbers of children begging on the street or selling gum at stoplights. A lot of poor families had exhausted their coping strategies.
WFP had an ongoing programme for $ 103 million in the occupied territories but to date, it had only received 29 per cent of this amount. WFP had been assisting so far 480,000 people and that figure would be increased to 600,000 non-refugee Palestinians.
Human Rights
José Luis Díaz of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said OHCHR’s office in Guatemala was expressing deep concern over an increasing number of threats and attacks on journalists and media workers in that country over the past few weeks. The office expressed its solidarity with the journalists who had been threatened and urged full investigations so that those responsible for the acts of intimidation and the attacks on journalists could be brought to justice. Available was a note in Spanish with names of persons who had been threatened or attacked.
Other
Aurelia Blin of the World Trade Organization said there were a number of meetings taking place at WTO next week and they were detailed in the press release. She wished to point out three briefings which would be held on Friday, 9 June on the agriculture negotiations, the informal meeting of the market access industrial products negotiating group, and the dispute settlement body. Director-General Pascal Lamy would be speaking at the International Economic Forum of the Americas on 5 June in Montreal. On 7 June, he would be meeting with the Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez and the Danish Employment Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen in Geneva.
Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR's emergency response to help tens of thousands of people displaced by violence in Timor-Leste was moving ahead with the scheduled departure this weekend of an emergency team that would reinforce staff already on the ground. UNHCR was also planning an airlift of aid supplies from its stockpiles in Amman, Jordan. UNHCR was sending shelter and non-food supplies for up to 30,000 people displaced by the violence and looting. Other aid agencies were also sending supplies. An estimated 100,000 people were displaced in Timor-Leste.
Mr. Redmond said UNHCR was alarmed over a fresh spate of killings, kidnappings and threats in Baghdad that had led to mounting anger, panic and fear among Iraq's Palestinian refugee community. Hundreds had fled to border areas. Unknown assailants had killed at least six Palestinians in the Iraqi capital in the last two weeks, according to reports received by UNHCR staff there. Since February, killings, intimidation and kidnapping of Palestinians in Baghdad had been rife. Iraq was home to more than 24,000 registered Palestinians.
Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said IOM was urgently seeking $20 million to help the rapidly growing numbers of vulnerable internally displaced people (IDPs) in Iraq in need of emergency humanitarian assistance. Nearly 100,000 people had been displaced in Iraq’s central and southern governorates since the bombing of the shrine at Samara on 22 February and numbers were continually rising.
IOM was carrying out emergency distributions of food and non-food items as well as providing clean water and medical assistance. However, funds were needed to continue providing assistance including medical evacuations, the rehabilitation of water and sewage plants and networks as well as health care facilities. More than one million people were displaced in Iraq as a result of decades of conflict with at least 203,000 of them particularly vulnerable and in need of humanitarian assistance.
Ms. Pandya said IOM Timor-Leste, working with the Timorese Ministry of Labour, this week deployed trucks and staff to deliver rice and water to thousands of displaced people in the capital Dili. The UN estimated that between 100,000 and 110,000 people may have been displaced by the violence that erupted in Timor-Leste in mid-May, triggering the intervention of an international peace keeping force (IKPF) led by Australia. In Tanzania, IOM was organizing training for social workers and others involved in assisting victims of trafficking to help them address the psychological consequences of the crime as part of its counter-trafficking work in that country.
Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said in Timor-Leste, the security situation was still very volatile and this made WFP’s work very difficult, especially the loading, transport and distribution of food. Yesterday, WFP had provided highly fortified biscuits to 6,000 children and pregnant women in displaced people’s camps in and around Dili to complement the Government’s relief rations. In agreement with the Government, WFP planned to distribute food to some 30,000 persons in the countryside who had been affected by the fighting. A press release was available with more details.
Monday, 5 June was a public holiday but the ILO General Conference would be meeting as scheduled, Ms. Heuzé said.