REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the UN Refugee Agency, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization and the International Organization for Migration.

Secretary-General in Turkey

Ms. Heuzé said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was in Istanbul where he would be participating tomorrow in a ministerial conference of the neighbours of Iraq to discuss the situation on the border between Turkey and Iraq. The international community was trying to dissuade Turkey from carrying out a military incursion in the north of Iraq against Kurdish rebels. While in Istanbul, the Secretary-General would also meet with Ibrahim Gambari, his Special Adviser on Myanmar, before Mr. Gambari left for Myanmar on a visit from 3 to 8 November at the invitation of the Government.

Human Rights Committees

Ms. Heuzé said the Human Rights Committee was today concluding its autumn session after having considered the reports of Georgia, Libya, Austria, Costa Rica and Algeria. The Committee’s concluding observations and recommendations on the first three reports were already available in the press room, and the last two sets would be available during the day, as well as the roundup press releases in English and in French.

The Chairperson of the Human Rights Committee, Rafael Rivas-Posada, would speak to journalists about the session right after the briefing.

The Committee against Torture and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights would be held at the Palais Wilson from 5 to 23 November. The Committee against Torture would be reviewing the reports of Benin, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Norway, Estonia and Portugal. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights would be considering the reports of Ukraine, Saint Marino, Belgium, Costa Rica and Paraguay. The background press releases for both Committees were already available in the press room in English and in French.

Meetings on the Convention on Conventional Arms (CCW)

Ms. Heuzé said three meetings relating to the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW) would be held at the Palais des Nations starting next week. The Meeting of the High Contracting Parties to the CCW would be held from 7 to 13 November. The Ninth Annual Conference of the States Parties to the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices (Amended Protocol II), annexed to the CCW, would be held on Tuesday, 6 November. And the First Conference of the High Contracting Parties to Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War (ERW), annexed to the CCW, would be held on 5 November. Three press releases on the meetings were available in the press room.

Meeting of Peacebuilding Commission

Ms. Heuzé said the Peacebuilding Commission would be participating in an event in Geneva for the first time on 6 November. The event entitled “Our Common Peacebuilding Challenge: the contribution of International Geneva”, aimed to nurture a greater engagement between the UN Peacebuilding Commission and the key stakeholders located outside of UN Headquarters. The morning meeting was intended to be a session of “New York talks to Geneva” and the afternoon meeting was oriented towards showcasing International Geneva’s peacebuilding capacity and expertise. The Chairman of the Peacebuilding Commission, Ambassador Yukio Takasu, and the Head of the Peacebuilding Support Office, Assistance Secretary-General Carolyn McAskie, would be keynote speakers. The event, which was not open to journalists, would be held in Salle XXII. There would be a briefing held for journalists on Tuesday afternoon. The event was being organized by UNOG and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

Director-General’s Activities

Ms. Heuzé said Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, would be travelling to Paris to participate in the “Séance solennell de la Cour des comptes” 5 November, which commemorated the 200th anniversary of the creation of “la Cour”.

Situation of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon, West Bank and Gaza

Matthias Burchard of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East said available was a press release on Lebanon. He recalled that over 31,000 residents of Nahr El Bared camp fled at the outburst of hostilities between the Lebanese army and Fatah al Islam militants in May, mainly to the southern camp of Beddawi. The return of displaced families started in early October. So far 1,184 families had returned. UNRWA had constructed 56 temporary shelters with water and electricity connection. Since the end of the conflict, the Agency had assisted 3,000 families with rental subsidies and temporary accommodation, so as to ease overcrowding and strain on services in Beddawi camp. Damage assessment on the new camp was still ongoing. The Lebanese army was still de-mining the camp. Once that was done, UNRWA would repair homes where possible and at the same time would plan for the larger scale reconstruction on the same site. UNRWA had appealed for $ 55 million in its emergency appeal for Nahr El Bared camp. So far, approximately $ 24 million had been pledged, including $ 10 million from the United States.

Mr. Burchard said that in Gaza, regarding the fuel issue, UNRWA took note that this issue was not closed, and a final decision was only suspended by the Israeli Attorney General, and hoped that ongoing consultations among various concerned parties would avert this. UNRWA was however very concerned about reports that fuel deliveries via the Nahel Oz pipeline had been reduced. If this was not reversed, it could have dire consequences. Thirty-five per cent of Gaza’s electricity came from the only fuel generator. It did not take much imagination to know the consequences of this on ordinary life, in particularly for the health sector. UNRWA was also concerned by the apparent Israeli intention to permanently close the Sufa crossing, since this would reduce by two thirds the capacity to import humanitarian goods - leaving only one crossing, Kerem Shalom in the south, which was not suited for major transactions and imports. UNRWA, with thousands of workers on the ground, was uniquely placed to make its own assessment of the humanitarian situation. It was therefore cynical to keep doubting the extent of the humanitarian crisis supported by reports from ICRC to World Bank.

In the West Bank, over the past months, UNRWA had been facing increasing and unprecedented restrictions in accessing communities in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These affected both movement of staff and transport of goods. The cumulative effect of these restrictions strongly lowered UNRWA's ability to respond to the needs of its beneficiaries, in a context where they are made more and more needy, vulnerable and impoverished by the same access restrictions. For 2007, UNRWA had appealed for $ 245 million in emergency aid in the occupied Palestinians territories. As at 1 November, $ 132.6 million had been pledged, representing around 54 per cent of total budget needs. The shortfall of around $ 108 million had led to sizeable reductions in emergency activities across the board. UNRWA therefore appealed to the donor community to be forthcoming in the remaining months of this year.

Somalia

Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency said the situation in the Somali capital Mogadishu had calmed down since Tuesday, reducing dramatically the number of civilians fleeing the city after some 90,000 fled an outbreak of violence over the weekend, according to the latest figures collected by a network of UNHCR’s local partners. The situation however remained volatile and tense with people living in fear. Fighting earlier this year led to an exodus of nearly 400,000 people from Mogadishu, with only 125,000 returning so far. There were currently 450,000 people internally displaced after fleeing Mogadishu this year, bringing the total number of IDPs in Somalia to an estimated 850,000. The UN Refugee Agency had delivered aid to 78,000 people in Afgoye this year and was prepared to carry out another distribution.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said WFP had distributed 2,557 tons of food aid to 110,000 IDPs, newly displaced after fighting in Mogadishu. The IDPs were camped in 27 locations along the road between Mogadishu and Afgoye. The IDPs had received the equivalent of one month’s food aid rations. WFP and its partners were also seeking to identify where other IDPs were located to be able to provide them with food aid. Most of the IDPs had come with very little and needed help in all areas including shelter, water, food, health care and sanitation. In previous months, WFP had carrying out six distributions of food aid to 100,000 IDPs in Afgoye. It also distributed 718 tons of food to 40,000 inhabitants of Agroye suffering from a bad harvest, and 2,283 tons of food to 124,000 people, both IDPs and victims of the bad harvest, in the south and centre of Somalia.

Afghanistan

Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency said more than 356,000 Afghans had returned home from Pakistan in 2007 as voluntary repatriation was suspended this week for the annual winter break. The voluntary repatriation of registered Afghans from Iran would continue throughout winter without any break. To help returnees settle back in their home areas, UNHCR provided shelter kits to the neediest families, allocated funds for water and sanitation programmes, and built and repaired 375 water points and 525 household latrines. With over 4 million returnees from Pakistan and Iran since UNHCR started assisting returns in 2002, the Government of Afghanistan and its partners were struggling to ensure their sustainable reintegration after decades of war. Some 3 million registered Afghans remained in exile in the region today, including about 2 million in Pakistan and 910,000 in Iran. Many said they could not return home due to a lack of security, shelter and livelihood opportunities.

Chad

Miranda Eeles of the United Nations Children’s Fund said that concerning the situation in Chad, the plan was to keep the children in the orphanage, while the judicial process was underway. The children were still being looked after by a team of social workers and all their needs were being attended to. Preliminary results showed that the children were healthy, with no sign of malnutrition. There was no plan to return the children to where they were from as the judicial process continued. Next week, a team would be going to the border area where the children came from to find out more information about their background, their situation, nationality etc.

Anna Schaaf said the International Committee of the Red Cross had visited the foreign nationals in detention in relation to the case of the children in Chad, and they had been given the opportunity to write Red Cross messages which were being transmitted to their families.

Other

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said the Intergovernmental Meeting on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property would be held from 5 to 10 November at the Assembly Hall of the Palais des Nations. The Intergovernmental Working Group on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property was tasked with preparing a global strategy and plan of action to be presented to the World Health Assembly in May 2008. The public meetings were open to the press.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said the situation of internally displaced people in Iraq’s northern governorates was continuing to deteriorate with monitors observing an increase in forced prostitution among IDPs desperate to survive, according to the latest update of IOM’s monitoring and assessment of the displacement crisis in the country. In Viet Nam, IOM and a local Vietnamese non-governmental organization had completed a successful 16-month pilot project to reach out to victims of human trafficking and provide them with the self-help skills and psycho-social support they needed to reintegrate into mainstream society. In Mexico, IOM and the Mexican National Women’s Institute had signed a cooperation agreement this week to promote the rights of migrant women and to combat the trafficking of women.