REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which also heard from Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency, and the International Organization for Migration.

Geneva Meetings

Ms. Heuzé said there were a number of important meetings currently convened in Geneva.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was meeting at the Palais des Nations from 31 July to 18 August. Yesterday, the Committee had been scheduled to consider the periodic report of Israel. As Israel had requested a postponement because of the current situation, the Committee decided to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. The press release on yesterday’s debate was available in English and in French. This morning, the Committee would be concluding its review of the periodic report of Yemen, which it started yesterday, and this afternoon, it would start the consideration of the periodic report of South Africa.

The Conference on Disarmament had yesterday opened the third and last part of its 2006 session. It had started a focused and structured debate on negative security assurances and there had been more than 20 speakers. Available was a press release in English and in French and the statement by UNOG Director-General and Secretary-General of the CD.

The Working Group on Indigenous Populations, which was a subsidiary body of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, was today concluding its session, which started on 31 July. Yesterday, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People had been commemorated in a ceremony at the Palais, and there had been a cultural event with presentations from indigenous peoples. At 11:45 a.m. in Room III, the Chairman of the Working Group, Yozo Yokota, and other participants would be briefing journalists.

Ms. Heuzé said the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights would hold its fifty-eighth and last session from 7 to 25 August. The Sub-Commission would submit its final reports and transfer its ongoing studies to the new Human Rights Council, which was expected to establish a successor body.

The Social Forum, another subsidiary body of the Sub-Commission, was meeting yesterday and today, and the theme of its fourth session was the fight against poverty and the right to participation: the role of women.

The Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery and the Working Group on Minorities, both subsidiary bodies of the Sub-Commission, would be meeting from 8 to 11 August. The priority theme of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery was the human rights dimension of prostitution – legalization/criminalization and exploitation of prostitution. The Working Group would be meeting daily from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Room XXV. The Working Group on Minorities would also be meeting daily in public in Room XXVI. There were documents available at the back of the room on these meetings.

Lebanon

Ms. Heuzé said that, before giving the floor to her humanitarian colleagues to talk about the situation in Lebanon, she wanted to underline two fundamental priorities which the United Nations had been stressing since 12 July: an immediate cessation of hostilities and the safe access by humanitarian actors from the United Nations system or from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to the affected population in the south of the country. Access was the most serious problem affecting the humanitarian aid effort right now and the situation remained very volatile especially after last night’s bombing of main roads.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said WHO and its partner NGOs had been working tirelessly in Lebanon, but access to south Lebanon remained an enormous problem. For example, WHO hoped that a convoy carrying medical aid for 13,000 persons would leave for the south on Saturday, but it was not sure that it would be able to go. Concerning the situation in shelters for displaced persons, WHO had set up an early warning and response system for disease surveillance in at least 60 shelters to help it to detect any development of medical problems among the people who were living in difficult conditions with little access to water and sanitation. WHO also continued to work with the Lebanese health authorities to distribute medication to hospitals and shelters. Concerning funding, WHO had requested $14 million and it had received $3.9 million so far.

In conclusion, Ms. Chaib said that in a press release issued yesterday, WHO had warned that while medicines were essential to alleviate suffering and were a core element in the international relief efforts for Lebanon, inappropriate donations could cause more harm than good. It said expired medicines, those ready to expire, partially used medicines, free samples, products of uncertain quality, and poorly labelled donations wasted valuable resources. She also said that additional field hospitals were no longer required as the Lebanese health facilities were able to cope with the situation.

Patrick McCormic of the United Nations Children’s Fund said despite the escalation of hostilities, UNICEF and its partners had managed to begin a campaign to immunise tens of thousands of children displaced by the conflict amid fears that mass population displacement could trigger an outbreak of measles, polio or other diseases. The initial focus of the campaign was some 18,000 children who were now camped in crowded and often unsanitary conditions in the Beirut area. Next week, the vaccination teams would switch their attention to the much larger number of displaced families staying in Mount Lebanon and other parts of the country.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said there had been heavy bombardment last night of the road between Beirut and the Syrian-Lebanese border point Arida. The road had been badly damaged and three bridges had been destroyed and today, WFP was unable to transport aid from Syria to Beirut. WFP was today sending a team to further assess the damage to the road and to see whether secondary roads could be located. There had also been heavy bombardment of the south of Beirut overnight, an area where many of WFP’s drivers lived. As a result, some of them did not show up to work today and a convoy of trucks going to Tyre and Rashidya had been delayed. Another convoy going to Jezzine had departed as scheduled.

Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency said the situation of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the ongoing conflict in Lebanon – within the country and in neighbouring Syria – was becoming increasingly difficult as the crisis deepened. In Lebanon, after overnight bombing on the road between Tripoli and Beirut, UNHCR was awaiting further information on how this would affect UN convoys coming into the country from Syria, where UNHCR had a supply base, and its operations distributing relief to the north of Beirut. Lebanese authorities estimated that some 800,000 people were now displaced in Lebanon with 130,000 living in public shelters, mainly schools.

Annick Bouvier of the International Committee of the Red Cross said ICRC’s latest bulletin on Lebanon/Israel was available at the back of the room. It noted, among other things, that in the last few days, ICRC health teams had delivered vital medical supplies for the treatment of war-wounded and chronically ill persons in Marjayoun and Jezzine. On 2 August, a team proceeding from Tyre had supplied 9,000 litres of fuel for running the essential civilian infrastructure including hospitals and water pumps. The team had also distributed 6,634 ready-to-eat meals, 125 blankets and 650 family food parcels to displaced persons in Tyre. More details were available in the bulletin.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said IOM was reassessing escape routes by land and sea as key roads and bridges north of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, were bombed early this morning. An IOM convoy carrying 470 Filipinos and 250 Sri Lankans was to leave this morning using the coastal highway to the Al Arida border crossing via Tripoli, until today the only real escape route by land. But the bombing of infrastructure around Juniyeh, just north of Beirut has cut a vital link to the Syrian border. All future evacuations were now on hold until the situation was re-assessed and a feasible option was found, but the more than 600 Filipinos and Sri Lankans would have to be moved, maybe by sea, because there was nowhere to house them in Beirut.

Gaza: Ms. Heuzé said that a joint statement by United Nations humanitarian agencies working in Gaza was issued yesterday and was available in the back of the room. A number of facts and figures on the continuing violence demonstrated the impact on 1.4 million civilians as well as on infrastructure in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Since 28 June, 175 Palestinians had been killed, including approximately 40 children, and over 620 persons had been injured. Statistics on the number of artillery shells, rockets fired and aerial bombings were included in the note.

Human Rights

Praveen Randhawa of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that three Commissioners of the Independent Special Commission of Inquiry for Timor-Leste were due to arrive today in Dili for their first visit. They would stay in Timor-Leste until 12 August. During the visit, the Commissioners would meet with the secretariat of the Commission of Inquiry based in Dili to receive information on the progress of its investigation and direct it for further investigation, as well as to meet with Government officials, the diplomatic community, representatives of UNOTIL and UN agencies, civil society and other relevant institutions and groups. The three Commissioners would convene for a second time in Timor-Leste in September, and the report was expected to be submitted by 7 October through the High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Secretary-General and the national parliament of Timor-Leste.

Ms. Randhawa drew attention to a statement issued yesterday by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in which the Committee members expressed extreme concern about the killing of children and other civilians during the current conflict in the Middle East and that attacks by the conflicting parties were apparently carried out without consideration of the rights of children and other civilians to be protected during armed conflict. The full statement was also available on the OHCHR website.

Finally, she wanted to highlight that 12 members of Iraq’s Parliamentary Human Rights Committee would visit the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Interparliamentarian Union next week from 7 to 11 August, in an initiative jointly organized with UNAMI. During the week, the parliamentarians would engage in dialogue to deepen their human rights knowledge as part of their country’s reconstruction efforts.

Other

Patrick McCormic of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF was afraid that progress in education made in Afghanistan would be reversed. UNICEF warned that schools in Afghanistan were the targets of increasingly dramatic attacks, spreading from the south and southeastern regions to all the provinces. The number of incidents so far this year, 99, was six times more than the result of such incidents in the same period in 2005. UNICEF called on all parties in Afghanistan to seize targeting children, education workers and schools. More details were available in the press release at the back of the room.

Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was deeply concerned about the safety of civilians caught in the middle of the fighting between the Sri Lankan Government forces and fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), particularly in the Trincomalee District in the northeast of the country. The fighting had caused displacement, injury and loss of life and property amongst all ethnic communities. There were reports that thousands of civilians are trying to flee the town of Muttur. UNHCR is particularly concerned by reports of deliberate displacement of particular communities.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said IOM and the African Capacity Building Foundation were organising a two-day capacity building workshop on migration, development and poverty reduction. The workshop, which opened on 8 August in Dakar, would bring together government representatives from 22 countries of West and Central Africa, the African Union, regional economic communities, migrants' associations, civil society and the private sector.