REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency, the International Telecommunication Union and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that she wanted to welcome the new President and members of the Executive Committee of ACANU who were elected or re-elected yesterday. The Information Service was determined to continue to work with ACANU in a spirit of partnership, confidence and professionalism.

Secretary-General in Tanzania

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had arrived yesterday in the capital of Tanzania and went straight to a meeting with Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete. At that meeting, the two discussed the global economic and financial crisis; the upcoming elections in Tanzania; the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which is expected to complete its work next year; and regional issues, including Burundi, Zimbabwe, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Human Rights Council will hold its main 2009 session from 2 to 27 March in Room XX, the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room. The session will start with a high-level segment from 2 to 4 March during which it will hear from nearly 70 dignitaries. There was a background press release in the press room.

Among those speaking during the high-level segment will be Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, President of the 63rd session of the General Assembly. He will address the Council at 12:30 p.m. on 4 March, and on 5 March, he will hold a press conferences. Journalists will be informed as soon as the exact time is decided upon.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said today at 2 p.m., the Secretary of the Human Rights Council, Eric Tistounet, will brief journalists about the Council’s session in press room 1.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will this morning conclude its review of the periodic report of Croatia. Next week, the Committee will review the periodic report of Montenegro on 2 and 3 March, and it will conclude its session on 6 March.

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will today conclude its first session, which mainly dealt with organizational mattes. The Committee Chairperson, Mohamed Al Tarawneh, and the Vice Chairperson, Ana Pelaez Narvaez, will brief journalists in press room 1 today at 3 p.m.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Conference on Disarmament will hold a plenary on Tuesday, 3 March starting 9:40 a.m. to hear statements from high-level dignitaries from Iran, Chile and Japan.

Cholera in Zimbabwe

Fadela Chaib of the World Food Programme said that in Zimbabwe, the number of cholera cases had reached 84,027, with 3,894 deaths, and a mortality rate of 4.6 per cent. A United Nations inter-agency humanitarian mission had been in Zimbabwe from 21 to 25 February, and upon their return, they said that the country’s humanitarian crisis remained grave and called on both the government and the international community to support efforts by the humanitarian community to strengthen its work there. The outbreak had not yet been brought under control in any of Zimbabwe’s provinces. More efforts had to be made to control the situation. The lack of access to clean water, the broken and blocked sewage systems and the uncontrolled refuse continued to preclude any improvement. Efforts were being made to decentralize the Cholera Command Centre, now in Harare, in favour of small command centres across the country to ensure access to people in distant villages. More than 61 per cent of deaths were happening in communities because they did not have adequate access to cholera centres.

Tuberculosis

Ms. Chaib said 24 March was World TB Day. There were two upcoming important meetings relating to tuberculosis to be held in Rio and Beijing.

Judith Mendel Brun Schmid of the World Health Organization said every year, for World TB Day, WHO came up with an annual report on tuberculosis, the Tuberculosis Control Report. The report would be launched on 24 March in Rio. Many working with TB would be in Rio for a partners forum on TB. Some 1,600 persons were expected to be there. The main launch of the report would be in Rio, attended by the President of Brazil and many other dignitaries. The embargoed report would be made available to journalists the week before, and there would be a briefing held at the Palais des Nations on 19 March. She could also provide interested journalists more information about the partners forum.

Glenn Thomas of the World Health Organization said a ministerial meeting will be held in Beijing targeting 27 Ministers whose countries have a high burden of multi-drug resistant M/XDR-TB. The meeting also coincides with the latest update on the XDR-TB. There are now for the first time more than 50 countries which have confirmed at least one case of XDR-TB. The United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Qatar and Oman are among the new countries who have reported cases. The meeting is being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, hosted by the Ministry of Health in China and organized by WHO. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan would be attending the meeting. There will be a press conference on 1 April to coincide with the meeting.

Durban Review Conference

Doune Porter of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, updating journalists about the Durban Review Conference against racism which was coming up in April, said the Working Group which was negotiating the text of a draft outcome document for the conference completed its initial read-through of the document during informal consultations on 26 February. It was still very early in the negotiating process on the text of document. This first read-through had been an opportunity for government representatives to express their positions and to find areas in which there was common ground. The atmosphere throughout the negotiations had been constructive and all decisions had been made on the basis of consensus. Sixty nine paragraphs had been informally adopted during the first read-through and 86 new paragraphs had been added. Informal negotiations would continue on the text and although there remained areas of disagreement, delegates had expressed a willingness to work together on compromise language that was acceptable to all. More details would be posted later today on the Durban Review Conference Website www.un.org/durbanreview2009.

In response to a question, Ms. Porter said the United States had joined the current round of consultations and had been participating actively in the negotiations. They had not yet confirmed whether they would take part in the conference itself.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there was a notable rise in violations against civilians and attacks against humanitarian workers in North Kivu which of course had led to new population displacement. Some fled the fighting, while others moved from villages to the forest and back again. In South Lubero, villages had been repeatedly looted. Between 14 and 24 February, seven security incidents against humanitarian actors had been documented, in comparison to 15 incidents since the beginning of the year. The aim of the incidents was mostly theft. The increase in these incidents could cause humanitarian organizations working in the province to reduce or limit their work, which could have disastrous consequences for the population. One international non-governmental organization had suspended its work since 23 February for two weeks. The humanitarian community was launching an appeal to all the parties in the territory to respect and protect the civilian population as well as the humanitarian actors and their equipment.

Ms. Byrs said in Haut-Uele, humanitarian actors continued to look for solutions to logistical problems facing them in distributing aid to the vulnerable population.
For some areas only accessible with difficulty, they were envisaging to ask for help from MONUC’s helicopters. ECHO, the European Union’s Humanitarian Department, was sending two flights with aid every week to Dungu. Humanitarian actors were also worried about the situation of 5,500 persons blocked in Sambia, 80 kilometres east of Dungu, and inaccessible because of insecurity.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said WFP was preparing an emergency operation targeting 142,000 beneficiaries who were driven from their homes or lost their crops and possessions as a result of the attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army in Haut-Uele district. In addition, the airlift from Entebbe to Dungu that began on 30 January was continuing. Last week, the airlift delivered more than 113 tonnes of food to Dungu which was now being distributed to displaced people and host families in the communities outside of the town. In addition a 14-truck convoy had just returned to Beni to be re-supplied and to return north again. A lot of coordination was needed to reach all the displaced persons, who were dispersed around a large area.

Sri Lanka

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said 40 metric tons of WFP food sufficient to feed some 80,000 for a day was delivered to the government designated safe zone in the Vanni today. For this operation, the Government of Sri Lanka made available a tug boat that sailed under an ICRC flag. This was a new development as WFP had been looking for a new way to deliver food there. Since September, WFP had been sending food by boat convoys, but due to security, it had not been able to send in a convoy since 16 January. Since the fighting had intensified, there were about 36,000 internally displaced persons in Government controlled areas, and WFP was supporting a communal cooking initiative there by providing a complete food basket of dry rations which allowed cooking inside the centres. So far 145 metric tonnes of mixed food commodities had been provided to 11 transit camps/welfare villages.

William Spindler of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was deeply concerned about the physical security of the civilian population still trapped inside the conflict zone in the Vanni region. UNHCR urged the Government to exercise caution and the LTTE to allow these civilians to move to areas where they felt safe. UNHCR was urging the Government to continue to make necessary preparations to receive and accommodate the large numbers expected during the coming weeks and months. UNHCR had received 300 acres of land from the Government of Sri Lanka and it was focusing on practical contingency measures on the ground to set up the necessary structure to receive up to 42,000 persons by the end of next week. Given the size of the civilian population still trapped in LTTE held territory and expected into government controlled areas as military operations advanced further, UNHCR had asked the government to provide another 300 acres to bring the total potential reception capacity to 85,000 persons.

Somalia

William Spindler of the UN Refugee Agency said over 40,000 internally displaced persons have returned to Mogadishu in the last six weeks. The majority of the returnees were from Hiraan, Mudug, Galgaduud, Lower and Middle Shabelle in the southern and central regions, which were experiencing a combination of renewed conflict and severe drought. Many internally displaced persons were returning as complete families but others were heads of households who had left their relatives behind in the settlements for internally displaced while they checked the conditions of their properties. The latest returns were taking place at a time when Mogadishu was experiencing some of the heaviest fighting in recent months, resulting in many civilian casualties and renewed displacement. UNHCR was in the process of assessing the scale and magnitude of the latest displacement. UNHCR was not encouraging returns to Mogadishu at this juncture as the security situation was volatile and the conditions were certainly not conducive.

International Telecommunication Union

Sanjay Acharya of the International Telecommunication Union said ITU’s new ICT Development Index “Measuring the Information Society” was being launched on 2 March. Available at the back of the room were copies of the embargoed report and press release. A press briefing will be held on 2 March at 10 a.m. in press room 1. Overall, the findings state that Northern Europe tops ICT development, with Sweden ranking highest. But the Republic of Korea came in second, followed by Denmark and the Netherlands.

Mr. Acharya said yesterday, ITU and the State of Geneva announced that the fortieth anniversary edition of ITU Telecom World will be held from 5 to 9 October 2009 at Palexpo in Geneva.

Polio

Miranda Eeles of the United Nations Children’s Fund said a coordinated polio immunization campaign was being launched today across eight West African countries. The target was 53 million children under the age of five. The eight countries were Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Togo and Nigeria. The campaign aimed at reaching a critical mass of polio immunization in order to stop the spread of the wild polio virus. The highest priority was to reach every child in Nigeria, which was one of the four endemic countries, and in the high-risk areas across the region. The campaign was scheduled to go in two rounds. The first round was starting today and until 2 March, and the second round would be from 27 to 30 March. The campaign was supported by UNICEF, WHO, Rotary International and other partners. A total of 66 million doses of vaccine were being made available for each round of the campaign, including 33 million for Nigeria alone.