REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired this briefing which was also addressed by Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

Human Rights Council

Ms. Heuzé said the Human Rights Council opened its second session yesterday at the Palais des Nations. The Secretary-General, in his message to the Council, had drawn its attention to the violations and abuses to which the people of Darfur were being subjected, and which threatened to get even worse in the near future. This morning, the Council was discussing the reports of the Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances, the Independent Expert on minority issues, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people. Some copies of the three reports were available in the press room.

Ms. Heuzé noted that there were more than 50-odd reports, each with 30 pages or more, which the Council would be discussing during this session, and they were all available on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. If journalists had difficulty in accessing these reports, then they could come to the Information Service for help.

José Luis Díaz of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, responding to a questions by a journalist who said yesterday at the Human Rights Council, Pakistan had asked the Council to make some time to discuss the statement of the Pope on Islam and the issue of religious tolerance and wondered if a time had been set, said the question of religious intolerance was on the agenda and it would be discussed during the presentation by the Special Rapporteurs on religious freedom and on racial discrimination. On the timetable at present, the discussion would take place on 29 September, but there was a possibility that it might be brought forward.

General Assembly

Ms. Heuzé said the General Assembly was opening its general debate today in New York. The Secretary-General would be addressing the Assembly and would review some of the major challenges the world has faced during his ten years as Secretary-General, and still did now. His statement as well as the statements by the President of the General Assembly and others would be distributed to journalists as soon as they were received from New York.

Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of UNOG, was in New York to attend the General Assembly’s general debate. He would also be taking part in the seventh high-level talks with regional bodies and other international organizations at the Security Council.

Lebanon

The Secretary-General yesterday briefed the Security Council in closed consultations on his recent report concerning his travels to the Middle East and other recent developments in the implementation of resolution 1701, concerning Lebanon. That report, which was out as a document, detailed some progress in ending the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, including the expansion of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the lifting of Israel’s blockade on that country. Following the arrival in recent days of personnel from France, Italy and Spain, UNIFIL now had about 4,800 personnel on the ground. Also on Lebanon, electrical repairs in the country were proceeding more quickly than originally projected. Meanwhile, the UN Mine Action Service reported that, so far, nearly 17,000 cluster bomblets and more than 600 other items of unexploded ordnance had been cleared and destroyed jointly by the Mine Action Coordination Centre of South Lebanon, which was overseen by the UN Mine Action Service, UNIFIL engineers, and the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Committee on the Rights of the Child

Ms. Heuzé said the Committee on the Rights of the Child was continuing its session at the Palais Wilson in two chambers. Today, the Committee was taking up the report of the Congo in chamber A, and the reports of Syria and Denmark on the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography in chamber B in the morning and afternoon respectively. Tomorrow, the Committee would be taking up the reports of Benin and Ireland.

New Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights

José Luis Díaz of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the Secretary-General yesterday announced the appointment of Kyung-wha Kang of the Republic of Korea as Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights. She will succeed Mehr Khan Williams towards the end of the year. Ms. Kang was currently Director-General of International Organizations at the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea, with a portfolio that covered a wide range of UN issues, including human rights. She had also been the Chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women during its forty-eighth and forty-ninth sessions in 2005. A press release had been issued yesterday and her biographical note was available.

Other

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said she had placed a document at the back of the room which was not an WHO press release but it concerned the official launching today of UNITAID, an international drug purchase facility which aimed at contributing to scaling up access to diagnostic kits and treatment of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis for the poorest people in developing countries funded primarily by innovative financing mechanisms such as the solidarity contribution on air tickets. Today in New York at 3 p.m. New York time, the UN Secretary-General would participate in the official launch of UNITAID on the margins of the opening of the General Assembly. A memorandum of understanding with the World Health Organization would be signed.

Ms. Chaib said one of the WHO experts who had gone to Côte d’Ivoire had returned to Geneva and a briefing with him would be arranged for 20 September in the afternoon. The exact time would be announced later. The WHO Influenza Pandemic Task Force, which had been endorsed by the World Health Assembly as a temporary mechanism to advise WHO on issues related to avian and pandemic influenza until the coming into force of the International Health Regulations (2005) on 15 June 2007, would hold its first meeting on Monday, 25 September, at WHO headquarters. The meeting would review the Task Force members' roles and responsibilities, should they be called upon the Director-General to provide advice in the areas of avian and human pandemic influenza.

Michael Bociurkiw of the United Nations Children’s Fund said that in three months times, the second anniversary of the tsunami would take place. The first of UNICEF’s many permanent schools for Aced and Nias were officially opened yesterday. The schools would set new standards in child-friendly design and earthquake resistance in the tsunami ravaged province of Aceh, and it could work as a model that could be used in other disaster areas like Pakistan following the earthquake. The two schools were part of a $ 90 million investment UNICEF had agreed on with the Indonesian Government to build 367 permanent schools in Aceh and Nias. Available was a press release at the back of the room with more details.

Mr. Bociurkiw said UNICEF had had a big meeting yesterday in New York on child survival which had looked at the progress on high child morality rates in 60 countries.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said in Gaza, Ramadan would be starting at the end of the week and the school year would be beginning. But half of the Palestinians living in the occupied territories were unable to feed themselves without assistance. The situation was worse in Gaza where 70 per cent of the population could not feed itself without assistance. This represented a 30 per cent increase in the number of people who needed assistance in comparison to August 2005. The economy was near total collapse in Gaza. WFP this month had increased the number of the persons which it was providing with food aid by 25 per cent to 220,000 persons, and it would try to further increase the number as the situation was deteriorating on a daily basis.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said a DVD prepared by OCHA in Indonesia portraying the memories of some victims of the tsunami was available at the back of the room. It was called “Stories of Aceh and Nias”.

Ms. Byrs said concerning the floods in Ethiopia, according to the latest updates, approximately 363,658 persons were now known to have been affected by the ongoing floods in seven of Ethiopia’s nine regions and 145,048 had been displaced. This was an increase of 163,000 affected persons since the launch of the joint flash appeal on 25 August. A joint rapid impact assessment of the flood affected areas countrywide had been proposed to attempt to evaluate the impact of the disaster on food security and livelihoods and it would start today. Amhara region remained one of the worst affected regions of the country with 97,800 people affected, 70 per cent (68,477) who were in need of immediate food assistance for the coming four months and 38,000 who had been displaced and were living in temporary shelters. In Amhara, 70 per cent of the flood affected population had lost their crop and were in need of food assistance for at least the coming four months. The Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland had approved an allocation from the Central Emergency Response Fund of $ 3 million and the Netherlands had contributed $ 2.5 million.

Ms. Byrs said there was a press release available at the back on the room about the cleaning up of the polluted sites in Côte d’Ivoire. The clean-up operations had started on 17 September and would continue for six weeks. More details were available in the press release.

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said the downward trend in asylum applications in most industralized countries continued unabated, according to the latest UNHCR statistical report being released today. More details were in the press release.

Mr. Redmond said Somali refugees continued to flee to Kenya. Yesterday, UNHCR transported 662 refugees who arrived over the weekend at the Kenyan border town of Liboi, to the UNHCR camp at Dadaab. Since 13 September, more than 3,400 Somalis had escaped growing tensions and fighting in their country and had found refuge in neighbouring Kenya. Since the beginning of the year, more than 26,300 Somalis had sought refuge in Kenya.

Catherine Sibut of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development said
Kamran Kousari, UNCTAD’s Special Coordinator for Africa, would be launching the 2006 Report Economic Development in Africa - Doubling Aid: Making the "Big Push" Work, on 20 September at noon. The report was embargoed until Thursday evening. The embargoed reports and the press release would be available shortly. The report noted that the international community had promised to double official development aid to Africa by 2010, but this alone would not be enough to achieve durable reductions in poverty.

Ms. Heuzé said Jean-Michel Jakobowicz of the Economic Commission for Europe had asked her to inform journalists that available was a press release on the meeting of ECE ministers to tackle pressing urban challenges which was being held in Room VII today. UNECE ministers of housing, spatial planning and land management would focus on questions crucial for future urban development.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said during the first stop of his official visit this week to the island of Hispaniola, IOM’s Director General Brunson McKinley met with Haitian President Réne Préval, Prime Minister Jacques E. Alexis, and other high level officials to discuss migration issues. Mr. McKinley also visited communities in Port-au-Prince, where reconstruction efforts were underway as part of the IOM’s Haiti Transition Initiative (HTI) which focuses on working in areas where there are few opportunities for employment and recreation. Later today, the Director General will arrive in the Dominican Republic where he will meet Vice President Rafael Alburquerque, Secretary of the Interior and Police, Franklin Almeyda, and the Director of Immigration, Carlos Amarante, and other high level officials.

Mr. Chauzy said a new Survey on Haitian Migration to The Bahamas- Research recently concluded by the IOM and the College of the Bahamas (COB) confirmed that Haitian nationals migrate to The Bahamas from increasingly varied points in their homeland, in many instances in an irregular manner, primarily in search of work.