REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Officer-in-Chief of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, the International Labour Organization, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Organization for Migration, the UN Refugee Agency, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

At the beginning of the briefing, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier welcomed a group of young journalism students who were attending a seminar organized by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNICEF on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Secretary-General Condemns Attack in Kabul

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday strongly condemned the senseless attack that took place in Kabul in the vicinity of the Indian Embassy and the Afghan Ministry of the Interior, which reportedly killed 17 individuals and injured 80 more.

The Security Council, expressing its strong concern over the increase in violence and criminality in Afghanistan, extended yesterday the authorization for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for 12 months beyond 13 October 2009.

The statement of the Secretary-General was available in the press room.

Climate Change

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the two-week climate change negotiating session in Bangkok would be concluding today. Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said yesterday that the session had made real advances in putting together the necessary architecture to make a Copenhagen agreement work on the ground. He added that developing countries had been very constructively engaged in making real progress on adaptation, technology, capacity-building and reducing emissions from deforestation. There was now a need to advance on the key political issues, Mr. de Boer said, highlighting the need for developed countries to set ambitious reduction targets and provide significant finance to help developing countries step up their efforts. Mr. De Boer stressed that, without clear guidance on these two issues from political leaders, the work ahead for negotiators would be very difficult.

This negotiating session was the last before the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit took place in December.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the ninety-seventh session of the Human Rights Committee would be meeting from 12 to 30 October. Reports submitted by the Governments of Switzerland, Republic of Moldova, Croatia, the Russian Federation and Ecuador on measures taken to implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights would be reviewed by the Committee.

The eleventh session of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families would be meeting from 12 to 16 October 2009. The Committee would be reviewing efforts by Sri Lanka to implement its obligations under the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. It would also hold a day of general discussion on migrant domestic workers.

The background press releases for both committees were available in the press room. The meetings would both be taking place at the Palais Wilson.

Question

Asked whether there would be a Special Session of the Human Rights Council to tackle the situation in Jerusalem and on implementation of the Goldstone report, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Council had not received an official request for a special session.

World Health Organization

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said she had put a media advisory at the back of the room about a joint WHO/UNICEF report which would be launched in New York on 14 October on a new strategy to reduce child deaths from diarrhea. The report would be launched via a teleconference by a number of speakers including Ann Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director, and Elizabeth Mason, WHO Director for Child and Adolescent Health and Development. The embargoed report and a press release would be available on 13 October. More details about how to participate in the teleconference were available in the media advisory.

Gregory Hartl of WHO said there would be the weekly update on the H1N1 influenza coming out later today, but there would be no press conference. The update showed that they were seeing quite a bit more activity in the northern hemisphere, across north America and many parts in Europe, and also in Japan. They were definitely seeing a much increased activity. In the southern hemisphere temperate zones, there was a noticeable decrease there from countries like Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, which they had been speaking about earlier.

Study on Globalization and Informal Jobs in Developing Countries

Janaina Borges of the World Trade Organization said WTO and the International Labour Organization would be launching together on 12 October a study on globalization and informal jobs in developing countries. The event would take place at WTO at 11 a.m. on 12 October with the participation of Pascal Lamy, Director-General of WTO, and Juan Sommavia, Director-General of the ILO. The authors of the report would also be present. Journalists were invited to attend. Copies of the embargoed study would be available this afternoon.

Corinne Perthuis of the ILO said that there would be a question and answer session at noon when journalists could ask questions, but they were invited to come at 11 a.m. to listen to the statements of Mr. Lamy and Mr. Sommavia.


Camp Ashraf

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said OHCHR had welcomed the Iraqi Government’s release of 36 members of the people’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI), which was also known as Mujahedeen El Khalk. They were detained when Iraqi security forces took control forcibly of Camp Ashraf at the end of July. Eleven people were killed and dozens wounded during the 28-29 July operation in Camp Ashraf, which was home to some 3,400 members of the PMOI. All detainees in Iraq, including members of the PMOI, were entitled to proper judicial procedures. If there was evidence that they had committed a crime, they were obviously entitled to a fair trial. They should be granted all the rights guaranteed to them and to all other detainees under international and domestic laws. OHCHR believed that it was a matter of paramount importance that a long-term solution be found for the residents of Camp Ashraf, either inside Iraq or elsewhere. OHCHR recognized that the past history of several members of this group was a complicating factor, but they believed that the status quo was not tenable. In the meantime, the fundamental rights of the Camp’s occupants should be respected, including the right not to be forcibly returned to their home country, Iran, so long as there was a risk of torture. OHCHR was urging the Government of Iraq to do its utmost to ensure that Camp Ashraf’s population’s rights were guaranteed in future while the search for a solution continued at both national and international levels.
Along with the UN Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), which had been very active in this case, OHCHR would continue to monitor the situation in Camp Ashraf over the coming months.

Indonesia

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the emergency-recovery phase would be starting in Indonesia in the second week of October. As of 8 October, Indonesian authorities had confirmed 739 deaths, 296 people missing, and 2,219 people injured. The reported number of damaged houses increased to 234,395. Government authorities had indicated that there were people in remote areas who had not received assistance yet. In order to address this, helicopters carried out at least 13 trips to remote areas and distributed relief items on 6 and 7 October. As international search and rescue teams continued to depart, the United Nations Disaster and Assessment Coordination team’s focus had shifted to humanitarian coordination. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said she had told journalists at the last briefing that nearly 70,000 children had returned to school in Pedang, 40 per cent of the town’s school population. Many children had expressed their fears for the future – of more earthquakes, more building collapses, the inability to rebuild their lives. UNICEF was supporting efforts to provide reassurances and comfort to these children through protecting their health and assisting the early reopening of schools. Safeguarding water supplies and ensuring proper sanitation and hygiene in affected communities was of paramount importance. According to the latest figures, 1,138 classrooms had been severely damaged, 580 moderately damaged and 548 slightly damaged, leaving an estimated 90,000 children in need of education support. UNICEF had asked for $ 3 million in funding to help in the fields of water and sanitation, health, nutrition, education, child protection, communication and advocacy, and emergency cooperation.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said IOM’s emergency response to the earthquake in Indonesia had been boosted with a EUR 924,000 contribution from the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Department. The funding would be used to provide logistical support to the government and aid agencies working on the ground to deliver relief supplies to disaster areas. The European Commission’s funding would also pay for emergency shelter and non-food items for some 50,000 victims, which were urgently needed ahead of the monsoon rains which were expected to start next month. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Paul Garwood of WHO said there had been an increase in the number of health facilities that had been reported damaged or destroyed in Indonesia. Almost 100 health facilities had been damaged by the earthquake in Sumatra. They saw potential health risks remaining in coming days including typhoid, cholera and diarrhea as a result of contaminated water sources. WHO was working with its health cluster partners in the Ministry of Health to supply water into affected areas through support from Norway.

Yemen

Ms. Byrs of OHCA said Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, John Holmes, arrived in Yemen yesterday on a four-day visit to assess the humanitarian situation and meet with senior government officials and aid partners. Continuing fighting was prompting further displacements in Hajjah and Amran Governorates. Relief operations in Haradh had intensified with internally displaced persons registration taking place in Hajjah governorate. New non-governmental organizations on the ground were investigating possible opportunities for engagement. The United Nations continued to advocate for humanitarian access from the Saudi Arabia side of the border to Al-Elb, where, according to government sources, 2,000 internally displaced persons were in need of assistance. As of 9 October, the Yemen Flash Appeal was about 16 per cent funded.

Andrej Mahecic of the UN Refugee Agency said the situation in the north of Yemen remained tense and volatile. An increasing number of displaced Yemeni civilians from the northern Sa’ada governorate continued to flee to the neighbouring provinces as the fighting between the government troops and the Al Houti forces entered the third month. Sa’ada governorate remained out of reach and access to the adjacent Al Jawf governorate had been restricted to just one district. According to new arrivals in Al Mahrak camp in Hajjah governorate, the fighting in Sa’ada had spread to southern districts as more and more internally displaced people were fleeing from these parts, particularly from Haidan district. The civilian population continued to bear the brunt of the ongoing conflict and the humanitarian situation was dire.

Ms. Dorothea Krimitsas of the International Committee of the Red Cross said they had issued yesterday a press release about the situation in Yemen, recalling that more must be done to ensure that aid got through. This was one of ICRC’s primary concerns. Another was safety of the civilian population in northern Yemen, in particular in Sa’ada governorate. Unless more was done to protect civilians and to ensure that they could receive life saving aid, then the situation would definitely further deteriorate and ICRC was very much concerned about that.

Other

Ms. Taveau of UNICEF said UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman visited the Philippines yesterday to see the damage done by a tropical storm and subsequent massive flooding. She visited a number of little villages affected, including Santa Cruz village in low-lying Pasig City, metro Manila, where during the first few days after the storm hit, the school was home to 700 people, 300 of them children. Ms. Veneman met and spoke with some of the children and mothers who remained in the school to discuss their needs. UNICEF had provided the Pasig City authorities with family kits and kits with essential medicines, as well as water and hygiene kits. Ms. Veneman had also met with the President of the Philippines to discuss response efforts and the emergency relief needs that UNICEF could meet, as well as ongoing efforts to promote the rights of all children in the country.

Mr. Mahecic of UNHCR said UNHCR was repeating its call for Congolese refugees currently in Burundi not to return to their native South Kivu. This followed an incident yesterday where more than 400 Congolese refugees from the recently closed camp in Gihinga, Central Burundi, were stopped from entering their country by immigration officials of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The immigration services said their actions were based on security concerns for the group. UNHCR has repeatedly urged the refugees not to go back to their native South Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the moment.

Brigitte Leoni of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction said 14 October was the International Day for Disaster Reduction. ISDR and WHO were working jointly on a campaign on securing hospitals from disasters. The World Bank was also a partner in this project. They had urged that all new hospitals be built in a way to resist possible disasters. There were a number of events being prepared around the world on this occasion. On 12 October, there would be an ISDR/WHO briefing at 11:30 a.m. in Room III on their joint project and on other events around the world.

Paul Garwood of WHO said WHO was happy to be involved with ISDR in this event as the theme was very important. They had seen in the Philippines, Indonesia and throughout Asia in recent weeks the amount of damage that had been inflicted on health facilities and how that resulted in people being without emergency healthcare. By raising as much awareness as possible and by helping countries as much as possible to make their health system more robust, that would lead to better healthcare for all people.