REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Yvette Morris, Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by spokespersons for and representatives of the World Meteorological Organization, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the International Organization for Migration.
Geneva Activities
Ms. Morris began by introducing a group of journalism students from the Netherlands who were taking part in a human rights course and who were attending the briefing along with their teacher. They would also be visiting other human rights institutions and United Nations bodies in Geneva.
Today in the Human Rights Council Judge Richard Goldstone was right now presenting the report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. Judge Goldstone’s presentation would be followed by statements by the concerned countries, Israel and Palestine, and would continue with an interactive debate with the members of the Council. Judge Goldstone and the other members of the Fact Finding Mission would give a press conference this afternoon at 1.45 p.m. in Room III.
Travels of the Secretary-General
Ms. Morris announced that the Secretary-General was coming to Europe this week. He would travel first to Sweden and Denmark before coming to Geneva over the weekend. The first leg of his trip was an official visit to Sweden, where he planned to meet with the Prime Minister and have an audience with the King. He would visit the gravesite of former United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, and deliver a lecture at Uppsala University. From Stockholm, the Secretary-General was scheduled to go to Copenhagen, where he would address the thirteenth Olympic Congress. He would also deliver a lecture at the University of Copenhagen and have a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Minister for Development Cooperation.
From Copenhagen, Secretary-General Ban would come to Geneva, where he would attend the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecom World, which begins on Monday, Ms. Morris said. She understood that during those activities on Monday, the Secretary-General would join the Secretary-General of the ITU in a press conference which should take place sometime around the middle of the day.
Activities of the UNOG Director-General
Ms. Morris said that the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, would attend the ceremony in Strasbourg on Thursday to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Council of Europe. Speakers at the ceremony would include Danilo Türk, the President of Slovenia and José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, as well as former President Mikhail Gorbachev and former President Vaclav Havel. UNOG worked very closely with the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and held with them an annual tripartite meeting on issues of mutual concern.
Climate Change: The Road to Copenhagen
In Bangkok, the negotiations on a comprehensive climate change agreement had gone into their second day in Bangkok. That was the penultimate round of negotiations ahead of the Copenhagen Conference in December. In his statement at the opening, Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, warned that there was “no plan B” for failure at Copenhagen. He said, “If we do not realize plan A, the future will hold us to account for it.” He added that time was pressing and had almost run out.
Flooding in the Philippines
Ms. Morris noted that the three humanitarian spokeswomen – representing the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) – were attending a seminar in Brussels. There was some information, however, on the flooding in the Philippines. There were two press statements at the back of the room – one from OCHA and one from UNICEF.
At the request of the Philippines authorities, OCHA had dispatched a disaster response adviser to the country, and other humanitarian staff in the United Nations country office would operate from the disaster operations centre in the coming days in order to ensure proper coordination with the Government. UNICEF had provided $143,000 in supplies to address the urgent needs of affected children and their families in the wake of tropical storm “Ondoy”. UNICEF had also expressed grave concern about the growing number of children and families affected by the storm. WFP was also working closely with the authorities in the Philippines and, as an initial step, WFP would provide food rations to approximately 180,000 Filipinos.
Ms. Morris added that the three spokeswomen – Elisabeth Byrs (OCHA), Emilia Casella (WFP) and Veronique Taveau (UNICEF) – were reachable by e-mail.
Gaëlle Sévenier of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that the Philippines Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services had logged record rainfall – 410.6 millimetres in 9 hours – on Saturday in the Metro Manila area, as a result of tropical storm Ketsana, also know as Ondoy. Those exceptionally heavy rains had partly flooded the city of Manila and the town of Rizal, had affected more than 400,000 and, to date, had killed 240 persons. According to the Service, the rains were the heaviest in the Philippine capital since 1967. The Southwest Monsoon would continue to be felt in Luzon and the western part of Visayas today, and would progressively dissipate over the next three days with the exception of isolated showers and thunderstorms. However, forecasters predicted the formation of a tropical cyclone east of the archipelago later in the week, probably on Thursday.
H1N1 Influenza
A journalist observed that he had seen nothing on the website of World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan regarding her recent donor meeting in New York, where she had met with representatives from Governments concerning the need to raise funds for the 85 or so poor countries unable to afford vaccines and anti-virals to combat the H1N1 flu pandemic. That was of particular concern as, in a speech by the Director General made earlier in Asia, she had predicted failure – that is, that countries would not deliver. Responding, Gregory Hartl of WHO said the text of a joint statement by Margaret Chan and Secretary-General Ban on this topic had been posted last night on the United Nations website and WHO was putting it up this morning on the WHO website as well.
As for an update on who would be the next expert to brief the press on the H1N1 pandemic, Mr. Hartl said nothing was known yet. They might do an update on Friday, in conjunction with the regular weekly briefing.
Situation in Yemen
Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that UNHCR was concerned about Yemen, where the humanitarian situation in the north was still dire, and also owing to growing arrivals by the sea across the Gulf of Aden. The situation in the Sa’ada Province in northern Yemen remained tense and volatile. A fragile calm had been reported over the weekend in the city of Sa’ada, which had been virtually cut off from the rest of the world for more than six weeks. Local residents and displaced people, caught up in the fighting between the government troops and the Al Houti forces, continued to face a dire humanitarian situation, unable to leave the embattled city to seek safety and shelter elsewhere. Although UNHCR still had no access to the area, it had managed to distribute some assistance through local partners.
Though information was scarce, UNHCR was concerned about recent reports of clashes close to Al Sam camp, one of three remaining camps for the displaced in the province. People in the camp were worried, as residents of Al Aqad village, half a kilometre away, had been reportedly alerted by the authorities to vacate the area. UNHCR had also received sketchy reports of an attack on a makeshift settlement of displaced persons in Al-Azqool. No casualties had been reported. Other unconfirmed reports said a number of internally displaced persons were stranded close to the Saudi border.
The Al Mazraq camp in neighbouring Hajjah Province continued to grow and had already surpassed its planned capacity, now sheltering some 7,000 displaced persons, with more people continuing to arrive, Mr. Mahecic continued. Work on a new site for the displaced, identified yesterday, would start immediately. In addition, UNHCR had received a formal agreement from the Saudi authorities to carry out a cross-border operation to support the displaced population in northern Yemen. UNHCR had positioned tents, mattresses, blankets and other aid items for more than 2,000 people on the Saudi side of the border.
In addition to the estimated 150,000 people affected by the fighting in Yemen since 2004, the country was also hosting some 150,000 refugees and asylum-seekers who had come across the Gulf of Yemen and the Red sea, Mr. Mahecic observed. September and October were the height of the sailing season and the number of arrivals by sea was staggering. More than 50,400 people had arrived in Yemen from the Horn of Africa so far this year, already passing the total for all of 2008, when 50,091 people had crossed. More than half the arrivals this year were Ethiopians, and the rest were Somalis, who automatically got refugee status in Yemen.
Other
Fadéla Chaib of WHO noted that there would be a press conference tomorrow on the launch of a new joint WHO/UNICEF/UNAIDS/Global Fund report assessing progress towards universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment. The press conference would be held at 10 a.m. in Room III. A media advisory had already been sent out and this afternoon a press release on the report, under embargo, would be sent to journalists.
Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) highlighted that in the declaration by Heads of State of the G-20, the G-20 had asked UNCTAD, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to monitor investment trends and report on them every three months, in particular with regard to the risks of protectionism.
Ms. Sibut-Pinote also announced the launch, on 22 October, of a report on information economy, which provided an update on the information and communications technology divide, in particular with regard to developing countries. The principal launch of the report would be in Geneva, and Ms. Sibut-Pinote would provide more details as the date moved closer.
Announcing press conferences this week, Ms. Morris said that on Thursday, 1 October, the Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC) would hold a press conference on the ITC report on the effects of the global trade slump on least developed countries, at 11:30 a.m. On Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees would brief in Room III at 1 p.m. on the outcome of the annual UNHCR Executive Committee Meeting. Also on Friday, at 11:30 a.m. in Room III there would be a briefing on the 2009 Human Development Report, which this year was called “Overcoming barriers: Human mobility and development”. Speaking would be Papa Seck, a statistics specialist with the Human Development Report Office in New York and Cécile Molinier, the Director of the UNDP Office in Geneva.
Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that the IOM Director-General had taken part in a high-level round table at the United Nations in New York yesterday on various integration policies in urban areas. The round table was co-organized by IOM and the Alliance of Civilizations. For those interested, the webcast of the round table was available on the United Nations website (http://www.un.org/webcast).