REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which provided information on new developments regarding the reform of the United Nations, new statements by the Secretary-General, Geneva activities and other issues. Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Labour Office, the World Health Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UNHCR, the World Food Programme, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Organization for Migration participated in the briefing.

Reform of the United Nations

Mrs. Heuzé said Secretary-General Kofi Annan had issued a statement last Friday on the draft outcome produced by the President of the General Assembly which he called an important step towards decisive action for halving poverty by 2015, reducing the threat of war, terrorism, and proliferation, and promoting human dignity in every corner of the world. The document, which captured important points raised by Member States during months of deliberation, was a valuable guidepost for advancing development, security, and human rights, the Secretary-General said, adding that the world's leaders would need to move forward on all fronts to ensure an outcome that reflected the needs of all Member States. In the coming weeks, under the leadership of the President, Member States would begin the next round of discussions. "Much is at stake, and I am confident that when world leaders meet in New York this coming September, they will agree on the most far-ranging and ambitious reforms of the United Nations in its 60-year history. I pledge my best efforts to assist the membership and the President in reaching that goal," the Secretary-General said in the statement.

The draft outcome document was about 20 pages long and copies were available in the Documentation Centre. On human rights issues, which were of particular interest for Geneva, the document said clearly that Geneva would remain the headquarters of the Human Rights Council.

A new President of the Assembly General would be elected on Monday, 13 June, as well as 21 Vice-Presidents and the six Presidents of the main Committees.

The Director said the Secretary-General would launch a progress report on reaching the Millennium Development Goals on Thursday, 9 June. Prepared by 25 UN agencies and international organizations, the report would present the most comprehensive and up-to-date statistics available on all eight of the Millennium Development Goals. The Secretary-General would speak to the press on Thursday at 11:45 a.m. New York time. Since most of the UN international organizations were based in Geneva, a round table would be held at the Palais des Nations on Friday, 10 June at 2:30 p.m. with representatives from the International Labour Office, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, the International Telecommunication Union, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to highlight some of the issues and questions in the report. Copies of the report would be made available on Thursday.


New Statements by the Secretary-General

Mrs. Heuzé said a number of new statements by the Secretary-General had been placed in the press room. They included his statement on Syria in which the Secretary-General had instructed his Special Envoy for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, Terje Roed-Larsen, to travel as soon as possible to Syria to meet with President Bashar Al-Assad.

Also available were copies of the Secretary-General's statement on Nepal in which the Secretary-General condemned the senseless deaths of dozens of people in the explosion that tore through a passenger bus travelling on a road in southern Nepal on Monday.

Geneva Activities

Mrs. Heuzé said the second part of the 2005 session of the Conference on Disarmament would hold its second plenary on Thursday, 9 June at 10 a.m. For now, there were no speakers on the list. Starting Monday, 13 June, Ambassador Wegger Strommen of Norway would succeed Ambassador Joseph Ayalogu of Nigeria as President of the Conference for four weeks.

The Working Group on contemporary forms of slavery was continuing its annual meeting from 6 to 10 June in Room XXV. The provisional agenda was available.

The Ad Hoc Group of Experts of the States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention would be meeting in private at the Palais des Nations from 13 to 24 June.

Human Rights

José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the newly established office of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Kathmandu, Nepal, was issuing as statement this morning in which it strongly condemned the attack on a bus yesterday which killed dozens of persons. Mr. Díaz said that the incident constituted a great breach of international humanitarian law for which the perpetrators should be brought to justice. OHCHR in Nepal was mandated to monitor the observance of international humanitarian law and human rights law and it was sending a team to the area to investigate the incident. The office was also appealing to anyone with information about those responsible for the attack to come forward and assist its investigation.

Asked if there was any progress to be noted in Nepal despite the attack on the bus, Mr. Díaz said he did not think that it would be possible to make such an assessment right now.

In response to a question on whether there had been tensions or a conflict between the Colombian Government and OHCHR over the human rights office in Colombia, Mr. Díaz said he did not think one could call it a conflict or say that the Government wanted OHCHR to leave Colombia. There had been recent discussions with parts of the Government on evaluating the work of the Office, but no later than the last session of the Commission on Human Rights, the whole Commission, and the Colombian Government, had approved a Chairman's statement expressing strong support for the OHCHR office in Colombia and its mandate. There might be differences of opinion in some parts of the Government on aspects of the office’s work, but there was broad agreement that the office should remain there and that it was doing a good job.

Other

Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Office said the International Labour Conference was now in its second week. Available at the back of the room were copies of the statement - in Arabic and in French - presently being read out by the Algerian President Abdelaziz Boutlefika. Also available were copies of the statement to be made by ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. A note to the press on youth employment would be issued this afternoon. There would also be a panel discussion entitled "Youth Employment Network" held this afternoon in Room XVII from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. On Wednesday, 8 June, the Conference would be discussing the report entitled "A Global Alliance against Forced Labour" and Roger Plant, Head of the ILO Forced Labour Programme, would speak to journalists at 2 p.m. tomorrow in press room 1.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said she wanted to remind journalists that there would be a briefing at 2 p.m. in Room III this afternoon on the meeting being held on cancer at WHO since yesterday.

Ms. Chaib said another interesting meeting would be held jointly by WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization at WHO from 8 to 10 June on food security. A note to correspondents would be available shortly.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said OCHA continued to face funding problems concerning the appeals for certain countries in Africa. The appeal to help victims of the drought in Djibouti had only received 5 per cent of the $ 7.5 million needed. The four-week-old appeal for Benin had received no contributions whatsoever to the required $ 5.9 million. For the Democratic Republic of the Congo, out of the $185 million OCHA had requested, only 26 per cent of that figure had been received. This was very worrying as OCHA followed how contributions for African countries were decreasing. Ross Mountain, the Humanitarian Coordinator, was touring Scandinavian countries this week to raise the profile of these emergency situations. If this trend continued, basic and important humanitarian programmes like vaccination programmes for children and the fight against malnutrition would be left without funds.

Ron Redmond of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said UNHCR was deeply concerned about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the department of Narino on Colombia's pacific coast near the Ecuadorian border. During the past three months, some 1,000 persons had been forced to flee their homes as a result of battles between illegal armed groups operating in the area. UNHCR stressed the urgency of helping the largely indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities in the area who were living under vulnerable and extremely precarious conditions.

Mr. Redmond introduced a new colleague, William Spindler, who had just arrived to join the media relations office of UNHCR from Bogota. In response to a question on why there was no aid reaching these communities, Mr. Spindler said there was a problem of lack of resources facing many non-governmental organizations and the authorities. Security and lack of access to some of these places were also a factor. The fighting had also intensified this year. UNHCR was trying to urge the authorities to take a closer look at the situation, but the whole of Colombia was in the midst of a humanitarian crisis and there were many needs.

Mr. Redmond said UNHCR thanked the Government of Kyrgyzstan for its successful relocation of about 470 Uzbek asylum seekers from the makeshift border camp where they had been living since the violent crisis that erupted in the Uzbek town of Andijan on 13 May. This was a very welcome development. UNHCR would maintain its presence in south-eastern Kyrgyzstan for the time being so that it could help the Government with the new camp as well as with related issues such as carrying out a refugee status procedure for asylum seekers.

Cathy Jewel of the World Intellectual Property Organization said the inter-governmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore had opened its deliberations yesterday. Interested journalists could ask her for documents on the meeting. The meeting would conclude on Friday, 10 June. She would try to set up a briefing for Friday morning.

Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said available at the back of the room was a document entitled "What terrible thing do we have to do to get the Government's attention?" This was a quote from a man in the war-torn province of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between 6 to 9 July in Gleneagles in Scotland, the world's eight richest nations would meet for the G8 Summit. At the top of the agenda was debt relief and poverty alleviation. With documents such as the one just mentioned, WFP was trying to interest journalists in the upcoming weeks about the forgotten corners of human tragedy around the world. The document gave information about a number of such forgotten areas around the world and also provided contact numbers.

Jean Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said that in Sudan, a first group of some 300 vulnerable internally displaced persons had reached the Busseri River which they hoped to cross later today with IOM assistance ahead of the rainy season. They were part of a large group of around 5,000 internally displaced persons who decided to leave Mabia camp in Western Equatoria to walk to their homes in Western Bahr El Ghazal, a distance of about 365 kilometres. The health situation of the group needed constant monitoring.

Mr. Chauzy said that between 1.5 and 2 million internally displaced Ugandans could be eligible to vote in the 2006 elections. A comprehensive Action Plan which outlined the core constraints facing the full participation of internally displaced persons in the 2006 elections and proposed interventions and capacity building programmes to ensure active and secure participation would be released this week.

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