REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Michele Zaccheo, Chief of the Radio and Television Section of the United Nations Information Service, chaired the briefing, which was attended by spokespersons for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Associations, the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the International Organization for Migration, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Secretary-General’s Trip to Japan

Mr. Zaccheo said the Secretary-General would be arriving in Tokyo, Japan today. He would meet with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Taro Kono, and would take part in the Nagasaki peace ceremony on Thursday. The High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, was already in Hiroshima yesterday where she delivered a message on behalf of the Secretary-General at the Hiroshima peace ceremony, which was available online.

Two statements attributable to the Spokesperson of the Secretary-General were also available. In the statement on South Sudan, the Secretary-General welcomed the signing of an agreement on outstanding issues on governance and responsibility sharing by the South Sudanese parties in Khartoum on 5 August as an important step in the revitalization of the agreement on the resolution of the conflict in South Sudan.

A statement on the earthquake in Lombok, Indonesia, the Secretary-General read as follows: “The Secretary-General is saddened by the devastating loss of life, injuries and damage caused by the earthquake on Sunday, 5 August, in Indonesia's East Lombok, just one week after another earthquake in the same region left more than a dozen people dead and over 150 people injured. The Secretary-General extends his condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government and people of Indonesia, and wishes the injured a quick recovery. The United Nations stands ready to support ongoing rescue and relief efforts, if required.”

Lombok Earthquake

Mathew Cochrane of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Associations said according to information from colleagues in Lombok this morning, the damage in Lombok, particularly north Lombok appeared to be quite severe. According to the Red Cross and Government assessments, about 80 per cent of buildings had been damaged or destroyed. It was important to remember that some of these buildings had already been damaged by the 29 July earthquake. Thousands of people were displaced and the main needs right now were emergency shelter and basic relief. They were still unable to access some remote villages, so they were far from having a complete picture of the damage. The earthquake cut power and communication lines in the area and it also appeared to have cut physical access. For example, contact with a team of about 20 Red Cross volunteers visiting villages affected by the 29 July earthquake had been lost and they had only re-established contact with them earlier today. However, the contact was very basic and he did not have any sense of what they had experienced at this stage.

One of the interesting things coming from Red Cross teams was the psychological toll of the earthquake. Teams spoke of coming across ghost towns and villages that had been abandoned, people were afraid of staying inside, fearful of another earthquake or a possible tsunami. There had been more than 130 aftershocks in the past 24 hours. The sense of terror was often seen in the aftermath of an earthquake, as it was very difficult to differentiate between what was an aftershock and what was the beginning of the next major earthquake. One of the needs going forward, in addition to emergency shelter and basic relief, would be to address these emotional scars and the concerns of communities, particularly remote communities. Colleagues from the Indonesian Red Cross had been active from the outset. About 110 staff and volunteers from the Lombok branch had been activated from the first minutes after the earthquake and they had been involved in search and rescue operations, transporting people to hospitals, and providing first aid, including for some tourists. Some teams had also provided more advanced forms of medical care and had been distributing relief supplies like tarpaulin, mattresses, blankets and other basic items like that. Many of the staff and volunteers involved had family members who had been injured or perhaps even killed, so they would also need care and support, as well as additional capacity. The Indonesian Red Cross had deployed another 140 highly trained volunteers and staff who were expected to arrive today.

Mr. Cochrane said from an international point of view, discussions were underway now about what form of international assistance might be requested. The Indonesian Red Cross and Government were very good at responding to emergencies, a competency born out of experience. However, it seemed that this earthquake, coming on the back of the 29 July earthquake, might have overcome the capacity on the ground in north Lombok, so they were in discussions now about what form that international assistance might take. About a week ago, the International Federation had released about 210,000 CHF from its disaster relief emergency fund in response to the first earthquake, and there should be clarity in the coming 24 hours on whether they would top that up or launch an international appeal for support.

Asked for figures about how many people were actually displaced and how extensive the damage to the buildings was, Mr. Cochrane said a Government figure reported yesterday spoke of 10,000 people displaced, and his colleagues spoke of thousands of displaced persons, but he did not have anything more precise on that. As for the number of persons killed, his colleagues in Lombok said the Government was reporting 104 people killed, but that figure could rise as they got a clearer picture of the precise impact, particularly in remote areas. There were still areas that were inaccessible but he imagined that they would begin to become accessible today or in coming days.

Ebola Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Tarik Jasarevic of the World Health Organization said he had a brief update on the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the response that had been put in place by the national health authorities, supported by the World Health Organization and other partners. The number of confirmed cases was 16, probable cases was 27, so the total was 43, including 34 deaths. There were 31 suspected cases that were currently being observed. In response, under the leadership of the Ministry of Health, partners, including WHO, UNICEF, WFP, IFRC, MSF and the UN peacekeeping mission there were trying to put in place all the necessary measures. WHO had 30 staff, some of them were in Beni, and some of them had been involved in the response in Mbandaka in Equatorial province in a previous outbreak. Staff included logisticians, epidemiologists, communicators, clinical care specialists, community engagement specialists and emergency coordinators. Mobile Lab had been deployed as of 2 August. Contact tracing had started and so far over 900 contacts had been registered in the town of Mangina that was the epicentre, some 30 kilometres from Beni. Treatment centres had been set up by MSF in Mangina and by an organization called ALIMA in Beni.

As for vaccinations, the WHO vaccination team from Guinea, the same expert team that had been involved in the vaccination in Mbandaka, would be deployed soon to start supporting a ring vaccination, with the same definition of people who were eligible to be vaccinated. They were waiting for everything to be put in place so that the vaccination could start this week, first vaccinating health workers and responders, and then moving to contacts and contacts of contacts. There were 3,000 doses in Kinshasa, leftover from the vaccination in Equatorial province, that could be used quickly, and more vaccines were available from the manufacturer if needed. The Protocol was expected to be approved today. Safe burials were being carried out in Beni and a system was being set up to ensure that safe burials were carried out in all affected zones. Transport vehicles were being made available and two planes had arrived to Beni. WHO was also working with neighbouring countries on cross border preparedness. The Regional Emergency Coordinator for Africa had informed neighbouring countries, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and South Sudan, and emphasised the need for heightened surveillance and preparedness actions in those respective countries, particularly along the border with North Kivu, and in that regard, 28 key points of entry had been identified to strengthen surveillance capacity to be able to rapidly detect and respond to potential new Ebola cases. WHO had released $ 2 million from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies and it expected to have in coming days the exact amount that they would need for this response in its initial phase. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros and WHO Deputy Director-General Dr. Peter Salama were travelling to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Thursday to see first-hand the response that was being put in place.

In response to a question about what Dr. Salama said last Friday about maybe needing to use armed guards in search for contacts, Mr. Jasarevic said that this was the big issue that they were looking at. They expected that security would be a major constraint. They were at the very beginning of the process of contact tracing. Some of the contacts may be in areas with security challenges or constraints. For the time being, they had managed to get to Beni and Mangina. MONUSCO had sent some security enhanced vehicles to Beni.

In response to a question on a new strain of Ebola discovered in Sierra Leone, Mr. Jasarevic said an organization called Predict Ebola Host Project had been investigating Ebola viruses in West Africa, sponsored by USAID, and they had found a new species of Ebola virus. There was no human infection and they did not know what risk this specific new species of Ebola could present to humans.

Heatwave and Hothouse Research

Silvie Castonguay of the World Meteorological Organization said she had a brief update on the heatwave in western Europe, which was beginning to cool down. However, a heatwave to northern Europe was on its way. In the last week, 1-7 August, Spain and Portugal had been very close to reaching record highs, especially over the past weekend, with 46.6 degrees Celsius in El Granado, Spain, and 46.4 degrees Celsius in Alvega, Portugal. Lisbon broke its 37-year-old record with temperatures reaching 44 degrees Celsius over the weekend. In northern Europe, Sweden had a record high in July, and in Finnmark, Norway, located within the Arctic Circle, recorded temperatures were as high as 31.2 degrees Celsius on 1 August. North America continued to experience extremely high temperatures, especially in California. The wildfires were continuing throughout the state and getting worse. Extreme temperatures and drought were contributing factors. In Australia, the drought continued with July being the second warmest on record. Australia had been suffering from one of the worst droughts in living record, which had been continuing for seven years and there seemed to be no let up. Despite the situation overall being very dry, there were areas that received above average rainfall.

Michael Sparrow, Climate Expert working at WMO’s World Climate Research Programme, said there had been a lot of news reports about this hothouse earth scenario according to a report from Roxtrum in Stockholm, where researchers were looking at the chances of having average warming of the world of 4 to 5 degrees centigrade over the coming centuries and sea level rises of between 10 and 60 metres. They were looking at an extreme case, a low probability but high impact kind of case. They said in the report that even if countries undertook to keep warming at 2 degrees centigrade or below, there was still a chance that some of the feedback mechanisms in the climate that currently helped by absorbing carbon dioxide – either by the oceans or forests – may go into reverse and cause significant warming. Even if this was a low probability, high impact scenario, they did need to look into this probability with more scientific regress and politicians need to react to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reduce this problem.

In response to a question, Mr. Sparrow that at the level of states and cities in the United States, there was a lot of action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions at the more local level. But actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions needed to be taken worldwide. Responding to another question, he said the Roxtrum study had looked into 10 different areas where there was a potential for sudden increases, what scientists called tipping points, for example significant release of greenhouse gases from thawing permafrost, or oceans, particularly the Southern Ocean, not up taking as much carbon dioxide as before. The world needed to be aware that there was a possibility for significant or sudden increases, which need additional research, but also needed to go back to politicians so that they understood that reducing greenhouse gases was the most effective way to reduce these risks.

Yemen

Tarik Jasarevic of the World Health Organization, updating on what Dr. Salama said on oral cholera vaccination in three districts in Yemen last Friday, said very preliminarily, as they still expected full figures to come, in the first two days, more than 3,000 local health workers had reached more than 200,000 people wither oral cholera vaccine in the three districts. These three districts had been chosen because they were assessed to be the most vulnerable to an escalation of cholera. The figures for the third day of the campaign, yesterday, were now being collected. Oral cholera vaccination normally involved two doses, with the second dose being administered in about six weeks. Some 32 tonnes of vaccines came from the Global Oral Cholera Vaccine stockpile, funded by GAVI, had reached Sanaa in mid-July in response to Yemen facing the worse cholera outbreak with more than 1.1 million cases and more than 2,000 deaths. They wanted to pre-empt a possible new wave to cholera. In response to a question, Mr. Jasarevic said he did not have information on the military situation but the fact was that vaccination teams went into these three districts and administered the vaccinations.

Joel Millman of the International Organization for Migration said that yesterday, IOM and partners launched a regional migrant response plan for the Horn of Africa and Yemen, through which they are appealing to the international community for $ 45 million to support migrants on the move in the Horn of Africa and Yemen from 2018 to 2020. The response plan, developed in coordination with regional and country level non-governmental and intergovernmental partners, was a migrant-focused humanitarian and development strategy for vulnerable migrants from the Horn of Africa, specifically those from Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia, moving to and from Yemen. The plan targeted some 81,000 persons.

Irregular migration from the Horn of Africa to the Gulf countries had been steadily increasing over the past few years, with approximately 100,000 people entering Yemen, a major transit point on this route, in 2017. The plan estimated that, like in 2017, up to 100,000 new arrivals from the Horn of Africa would reach Yemen in 2018, while 200,000 migrants and refugees would return from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Yemen to the Horn of Africa countries in the same period. Of these, 150,000 and 50,000 would return to Ethiopia and Somalia, respectively. This issue involved displacement and the conflict in Yemen itself, but also parallel and somewhat related programmes of encouraging citizens of those two nations to come home from Saudi Arabia. Over the weekend, Mr. Millman said IOM assisted both Ethiopian and Somali refugees leaving Yemen to go home, 132 Ethiopian migrants left from Hodeidah and 116 Somalis left from Aden. There were more statistics in the notes.

William Spindler of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said there had been another movement of 160 Somali refugees who travelled by boat from Aden on Sunday and arrived yesterday in Somalia. This was the latest assisted spontaneous return facilitated by UNHCR, in cooperation with IOM and the authorities of both Yemen and Somalia. With this group, the number of refugees to have returned to Somalia since the programme started in 2017 had surpassed 2,000. So far this year, 1,321 Somalis, including the 116 who left on Sunday, had returned to their places of origin in Somalia. For the past two months, weather conditions had prevented the boats from sailing. Among the refugees were female heads of household looking forward to joining their extended families. Several students were hoping to resume their education. The assisted spontaneous return programme was initiated in 2017 in response to the demand from refugees for UNHCR help in returning home. Yemen currently hosted 270,000 refugees, the vast majority of whom were Somalis. The ongoing conflict in Yemen has affected not just Yemenis but also refugees living among them. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Venezuela

William Spindler of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said UNHCR welcomed last night’s decision of the Brazilian Supreme Court to overturn a decision by a Federal Judge in Roraima border state to suspend admission of Venezuelans to the country and close the border. The Brazilian Government had till now ensured access to its territory for Venezuelan refugees and migrants in need of protection and provided them access to basic rights and services. UNHCR had been supporting the Government as it kept the borders open and allowed people to enter the country to find a safe place to restart their lives. A UNHCR team remained on the Pacaraima border and continued to monitor the situation during the brief closure yesterday. They reported that some 210 Venezuelans were not able to finalize immigration procedures but were not deported. No pushbacks took place.

In response to questions, Mr. Spindler said the number of asylum seekers from Venezuela in Brazil as of 30 April this year was 32,744 Venezuelans who had registered for asylum. On top of that, there were another 25,000 people who had other kinds of legal documents in Brazil like resident permits, or humanitarian visas, or labour and migration visas etc. The total number of Venezuelan asylum seekers this year everywhere was 117,000, and it had already surpassed the total number of Venezuelan asylum seekers from last year.

Haiti

Joel Millman of the International Organization for Migration said IOM had completed the first road to Canaan, an internally displaced persons’ community that had formed after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The road would benefit approximately 200,000 displaced Haitians currently living in Canaan, most of them with no access to electricity, toilets, essential amenities or state services. It would facilitate access to jobs, schools and hospitals located outside the community. The 1.3 kilometre road was part of a programme that began in 2015, USAID funded with partners, to upgrade conditions for the Canaan community. There was more information in the briefing notes.

IOM and Global Entrepreneurship Week 2018

Vanessa Okoth-Obbo of the International Organization for Migration said IOM, UNCTAD and WIPO, in collaboration with some partners, were announcing a call for applications to participate in a youth entrepreneurship pitching event entitled “Start up and scale up for SDGs”. This event would take place in November. Young entrepreneurs from around the world were invited to pitch business ideas that could contribute to at least one of the Sustainable Development Goals. Ten candidates would be chosen to present their ideas during the Global Entrepreneurship Week from 12 to 15 November 2018. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Geneva Activities

Mr. Zaccheo said on Thursday, 9 August, the Humanitarian Task Force for Syria would be meeting, followed by a stakeout. The exact time would be announced later, but it would be around noon.

Also, Thursday was the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples and journalists should have received a press release today from the Special Procedures that was linked to this day.

The Conference on Disarmament was holding a public plenary meeting this morning under the chairmanship of Tunisia.

Also starting today, the Biological Weapons Convention meetings would start in room XVII and proceedings could be followed on UN web tv. The meetings would continue until 16 August. A press release had been issued.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination opened its ninety-sixth session at the Palais Wilson yesterday, during which it will review the reports of Montenegro, Latvia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Mauritius, Cuba and Japan.

The Committee on Torture this morning was having a public meeting devoted to follow-up on articles 19 and 22 of the Convention against Torture. [It was later announced that the meeting had been postponed until this afternoon] The Committee would then meet in private until Friday, 10 August when its session would close.

On Friday, 10 August at 12:30 p.m. in press room 1, the Committee against Torture would be holding a press conference on its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Mauritania, Russian Federation, Seychelles and Chile, which had been reviewed at this session.