REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for and Representatives of the World Meteorological Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme, the International Federation for Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the World Trade Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization.

Secretary-General Briefs General Assembly

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 21 November briefed the members of the General Assembly in an informal session on a wide range of issues, from climate change, the budget and the Capital Master Plan to the Middle East, Myanmar and Darfur. A press release on the Secretary-General’s briefing was available in the press room.

Human Rights Committees

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture were both concluding their three-week sessions today at the Palais Wilson, and would be issuing their concluding observations and recommendations on the reports which they had reviewed. Roundup press releases in English and French for both Committees would be available during the day, and copies of the concluding observations and recommendations would be put in the press room as soon as they were available.

The Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families would hold its seventh session at the Palais Wilson in Geneva from 26 to 30 November 2007. During the session, the Committee would consider the initial report received from Ecuador. On Wednesday, 28 November at 3 p.m., the Committee would discuss the follow-up to a study on violence against children; the status of reporting; promotion of the Convention; and organizational matters, including cooperation with other treaty bodies and treaty body reform. A background press release had been issued yesterday in English and in French.

International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People would by commemorated in a Special Meeting at the Palais des Nations on 29 November. The Special Meeting would be opened by Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Under-Secretary-General and Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, who would read out the statement for the Day being made in New York by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Other speakers would include Representatives of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories; the League of Arab States; the Organization of the Islamic Conference; the Non-Aligned Movement; the African Union; Non-Governmental Organizations accredited to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; and the Permanent Observer of Palestine. A press release would be issued on Monday, 26 November, with all the details.

World Meteorological Organization

Carine Van Maele of the World Meteorological Organization said the 40th Typhoon Committee session was continuing its work in Macao, China. Available at the back of the room was a press release with details of its work so far. Next week, from 28 to 30 November, there would be a meeting of around 50 experts from 35 Mediterranean countries to discuss how to improve and use the climatic information available so far, and how to digitalise this information. An information note on this meeting would be available during the day. WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin 2006 was being issued today, and one of her colleagues would be speaking about it. She just wanted to explain that this week, journalists had received information on carbon dioxide emissions from the Climatic Change Secretariat in Bonn. The difference between those figures, and the ones in the WMO Bulletin was that the former were figures received by Governments under the Kyoto Protocol and concerned 2005, while the latter were global figures for 2006. After Mr. Braathen, another colleague would brief journalists about an expert meeting on requirements of the catastrophe insurance and weather risk management markets for national meteorological and hydrological services.

Geir Braathen of the World Meteorological Organization said WMO’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin 2006 was being published today. The Bulletin showed that from 2005 to 2006, carbon dioxide continued to increase, and had increased by about 2 parts per million, which was about 0.53 per cent. Also nitrous oxide and other important greenhouse gas had increased by about 0.25 per cent from the previous year. Methane remained almost unchanged. The importance of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas was getting more and more important. If one looked at the contribution of carbon dioxide to the radiative forcing of Earth, i.e. the heating capacity, this contribution was 87 per cent for the last decade, but over the last five years, it had gone up to 91 per cent, which showed that carbon dioxide was gaining importance as a greenhouse gas. This information was based on global data from stations all over the world. The map in the executive summary showed where the stations were situated.

Maryam Golnaraghi of the World Meteorological Organization said WMO had been working over the years with the operational national meteorological and hydrological services of its 188 members as a critical priority of the Disaster Risk Reduction Programme of WMO. WMO was working with partners to initiate national and regional early warning system projects around the world to ensure that scientific and technical forecasting information was well integrated in the disaster risk reduction preparedness in all countries. From 26 to 28 November, there would be a meeting to bring together WMO partners from the International Federation of the Red Cross, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and other agencies as well as top experts at the national level from meteorological agencies, disaster risk management and civil protection authorities, and from the national coordination platforms to develop a clear plan as to how it would implement these issues moving forward, and these would then be communicated in terms of documentation of good practices and annual meetings of early warning systems.

Ms. Golnaraghi said WMO had initiated a major partnership with the insurance sector and the risk management sector, which was the private sector involved in development of financial risk transfer mechanisms for weather and climate related hazards, and with the World Bank and World Food Programme, for the development of catastrophe insurance and weather risk management strategies in developing countries. From 5 to 7 December, there would be a meeting which would bring together top insurance companies as well as partners, and the critical aspect of he meeting was that these markets could not develop without meteorological, hydrological and climate related observations which were provided by the national meteorological services.

Bangladesh

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund had authorized the second disbursement of almost $ 6 million in support of life-saving relief assistance for victims of the super cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh. This came after the first disbursement of almost $ 9 million. The UN team was preparing a Cyclone Response Plan, but she did not have further information for now. The material damages resulting from the cyclone were very serious according to the information received from the evaluation missions. More than 363,000 homes had been destroyed and more than 800,000 houses partially damaged, and 461,750 livestock had been killed. Results from the initial rapid UN emergency assessment of the needs and damages in nine of the worst affected districts indicated that approximately 4.7 million people were affected by the cyclone in these districts and a further 2.6 million required immediate livelihoods and life-saving relief assistance. The fishing sector had been seriously damaged by the cyclone. An information meeting for States parties on the situation in Bangladesh was presently ongoing at the Palais to discuss the UN appeal for Bangladesh.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said WHO and the Government of Bangladesh were preparing a joint needs assessment of emergency drugs that would be required for the next six months. Health was a priority need in the cyclone-affected areas because of the large number of displaced people and acute shortages of safe drinking water. Some of the clinics and hospitals in the affected areas had been damaged by the cyclone, but exact figures were not available. Stocks of vaccines had been kept cold and safe by using electricity generators, cold boxes and other means in spite of an extended power breakdown following the cyclone. The pre-positioning of essential drugs and medicines before the cyclone including water purification tablets was a major advantage in terms of preparedness and response.

Maryam Golnaraghi of the World Meteorological Organization said the point she wanted to stress was the importance of how forecasts allowed the Government of Bangladesh to evacuate 600,000 people to shelters before the cyclone. Otherwise they would now be seeing a major tsunami-like event on their hands. With the collaboration of WMO’s regional sensor in New Delhi, forecasts were issued to the Bangladesh Meteorological Service every three hours, two hours and finally every one hour. Then, with the Memorandum of Understanding between the Bangladesh Meteorological Government and the Government, and the network of 30,000 volunteers working in the region, this evacuation had been carried out. So it was very important to stress how the emergence of these forecasts and warnings were helping to reduce the losses. The other issue that needed to be stressed was the failing infrastructure of the country that was also challenging the response and rescue operations. WMO was working with developing and least developed countries on how to build back better so that the infrastructure could withstand the severity of this kind of events now and as they became stronger in the years to come.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said she had spoken this morning to her colleagues in Bangladesh who had been on an evaluation and assessment mission to the worst affected areas in Bangladesh and what they had seen was absolutely catastrophic. The damage was worse than they had expected, with infrastructure, crops and livestock totally destroyed in many areas. People moved around in boats or waded in water. Distribution of relief was very complicated and one week after the cyclone, some victims had still not received any help. UNICEIF was worried about the risk of diseases and epidemics against five million victims, half of whom were children. The cold water, the vulnerability of many of the children, malnutrition and lack of access to basic care meant that an even bigger catastrophe could affect these children. Many children had lost their parents. UNICEF’s priorities included making available for children and others access of clean water, food and care. UNICEF also wanted to start registering the children who were alone and to look for their parents. Thousands of schools had been damaged. UNICEF’s efforts now were based on providing food, clean water and sanitation. UNICEF was also providing psychological support to some 30,000 children traumatised by the cyclone.

Ms. Taveau said a dispatch by AFP issued yesterday stated that UNICEF was setting up camps for cyclone orphans. This was a bad interpretation of a release which had been issued by UNICEF which said that in the camps, UNICEF was providing tents for children.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said today, WFP was launching an appeal for $ 54 million to help 2.3 million vulnerable persons for six months and provide them with 615,000 tons of food. WFP was continuing with the distribution of food, including high-energy biscuits, by helicopters, boats, trucks and all available methods. A second distribution to 465,000 persons had taken place, and WFP would now start the distribution of 750 tons of rice to 2.2 million persons by all the available methods as reaching all the affected persons was not easy. WFP originally had a big programme in Bangladesh which meant that it had available stocks in the country. Some countries were promising aircrafts to help distribute the food. The situation remained very serious and grave, with victims losing their livestock and crops. The Bangladesh army was also carrying out efforts to help the victims who needed everything.

OCHA in North Caucasus

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, responding to a question by a journalist who said he had seen reports that the United Nations was pulling out of the North Caucasus in Russia, ending its humanitarian operations there, and asked for more details, said it was true that the OCHA office in the North Caucasus was concluding its coordination role at the end of 2007. This was because there was no longer an emergency humanitarian situation there. OCHA was gradually phasing out its coordination operations, which had started in 1999 with an office in Moscow and another in Nazran. OCHA had started to downsize its operation in the Northern Caucasus since 2004 because the transitional programme put the emphasis on recovery and transition activities. Other United Nations agencies were not pulling out from the Northern Caucasus and their recovery and development activities were continuing, like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Children’s Fund. OCHA would be continuing its cooperation with the Russian Federation, through the Ministry of Russian Federation for Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters and the UNDAC disaster assessment and coordination training, but coordination activities were no longer necessary.

Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency said on the North Caucasus question, UNHCR was still going to stay in the North Caucasus, and it planned to continue its legal and permanent shelter activities in the region in 2008. She had more details on UNHCR’s work there if journalists were interested.

Somalia

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF was still very worried about the situation in the country. Despite the relative calm in the fighting in Mogadishu, hundreds of families continued to flee the capital. UNICEF was very worried about the level of malnutrition among children, especially those under the age of five years. In the Afgooye camps, UNICEF was distributing 3,000 litres of water daily to help 260,000 people there. Starting next week, UNICEF would be starting a vaccination campaign against polio, measles, tuberculosis as well as a distribution of vitamin A for children and pregnant women.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said that the main needs of the displaced persons in Somalia were water and shelter. It was raining now in Somalia and the shelters were soaked with water. WFP continued with its food distributions to the displaced persons, in collaboration with CARE. She recalled that French navy ships were now escorting ships carrying food for WFP to Somalia. The first two escorted ships carrying enough food for 200,000 persons for one month arrived safely on 19 November and they were presently being unloaded. WFP needed $ 40 million for the next six months to help Somalia. If more funds were not forthcoming, WFP would be forced to start cutting its rations next March.

Jennifer Pagonis of the United Nations Refugee Agency said UNHCR was very concerned about the fate of at least 26 Somalis who remained detained at an airport in Nairobi. They were among 49 Somalis, mainly women and children, who reportedly flew from Mogadishu to Nairobi and then on to Kampala in Uganda, but they were returned to Kenya. The group arrived back in Nairobi on 13 November and were detained at the airport. Around 23 of them were forcibly returned to Mogadishu on 20 November without being given the opportunity to request asylum which they should have been allowed to do under both Kenyan and international law. Since 19 November, UNHCR had been repeatedly requesting access to the initial group of 49, however, it still had not received access to them. UNHCR had received reliable information that all of the Somalis in the group expressed fear of persecution if they were returned to Somalia. UNHCR was concerned now about the 26 Somalis remaining in the airport who could be returned to Mogadishu, and it urged the Government of Kenya to give them access to these people.

Human Rights

Yvon Edoumou of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was commemorated on 25 November. On that occasion, High Commissioner Louise Arbour today issued a statement in which she said that every day, in all corners of the world, countless women and girls were killed, mutilated, beaten, raped, sold into sexual slavery or tortured. Most of the survivors of this violence had little hope of seeing their tormentors pay for their crimes. And so the violence goes on. The High Commissioner said this impunity was built on a foundation of discrimination and inequality. States had largely accepted the international human rights framework in place to prevent, condemn and punish discrimination against women. But unless these inequalities were addressed, including in the economic and social spheres, the violence would persist.

Mr. Edoumou said the Special Rapporteur of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, would start a mission in Bolivia on Monday, 26 November. He would be in Geneva in December to present his findings to the resumed sixth session of the Human Rights Council (10 to 14 December).

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Cyclone in Philippines

Pierre Kremer of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said in light of the 30th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, which was meeting from 26 to 30 November, he wanted to present the President of the Philippines Red Cross Society who would talk about what was happening this week in the Philippines. He invited journalists to attend discussions on 26 and 27 November on the major humanitarian concerns including climate change, migration, the major sanitary concerns including diseases and epidemics, and violence, including urban violence.

Richard Gordon, President of the Philippines Red Cross Society, said that a super typhoon was headed towards the southeastern regions of the Philippines. Right now, it was affecting about 21 provinces. There were 200,000 families in evacuation centres now and a state of emergency had been declared in some of the provinces. What was peculiar was that these areas had been hit regularly for the past year. In fact, they had just finished rebuilding 12,300 homes that were demolished last year. This was a cycle of disaster and poverty probably caused by climate change, as the same area had been hit four consecutive times last year. As the Red Cross societies met, this matter of climate change was important as it was causing crises in Bangladesh and the Philippines and it was essential to focus on how to mitigate the risk, map the hazards, and provide relief so that climate change did not have to be a humanitarian challenge, which it had increasingly become.

Other

Janaina Borges of the World Trade Organization said that following the Dispute Settlement Body meeting that was suspended on Monday, 19 November, there was an informal meeting that just started this morning. It was expected to be a short briefing and there would be a briefing at WTO right afterwards.

Ms. Borges said next week, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy was going to China and would meet with the Minister of Commerce on 26 November. On 27 November, he would be in Shanghai where he would meet with senior officials and would visit the WTO Centre in Shanghai. The Director-General’s detailed itinerary was available in the press room. The trade policy review for Thailand would be held on 26 and 28 November. There were accession negotiations for Serbia on 27 November, and an informal meeting for Cape Verde on 29 November. On 30 November, there would be a meeting for the Committee on Trade Environment, followed by negotiations on trade environment.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said concerning the outbreak of a disease of unknown etiology in Cacuaco municipality in Angola, an update was made available on 21 November which talked about 390 cases, but that figure was now up to 414 cases. The investigation of the outbreak had revealed extremely high levels of bromide in plasma sampled from several affected patients. WHO had deployed further technical and operational support to assist Angolan health authorities, including seven new experts. WHO had developed and transmitted to hospitals in Cacuaco guidelines on how to treat the sick persons. She noted that the research continued to try to identify this disease as only 5 samples of plasma had showed the high levels of bromide. Some other 200 samples were on their way to be analysed. If they did not reveal more information, WHO would start analysing plants and food and water in Cacuaco.

Ms. Chaib said the intergovernmental meeting on pandemic influenza preparedness which opened on 20 November would be concluding its work today. They had been working past 9 p.m. the last two days, so she had no idea when they might finish today. The discussions were continuing and the delegates were meeting in two working groups. The first working group was working on principles such as benefit sharing, transfer of technology, access, responsibility, virus sharing etc. The second group was working on operations or mechanisms, what were the mechanisms of virus sharing, the terms of reference of the WHO Collaborative centres, influenza laboratories, etc. There would be a press release issued probably on Monday, 26 November, on the meeting. The meeting would forward its report to the World Health Assembly in May through the forthcoming Executive Board which was meeting in January 2008.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said another cyclone, named Guba, had affected the east of Papua New Guinea, causing severe floods. Some 145,000 people were affected, including 163 dead, and at least 13,000 had been displaced. The province of Oro remained virtually cut off and was accessible only by air or sea. A state of emergency had been declared by the Government and the Prime Minister had announced the immediate release of $ 18.5 million to assist the affected communities. Available was a note with more details.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said WFP was concerned about a deterioration of the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There were now enormous logistical problems affecting the distribution of food, mainly concerning security.

Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency said there had been several public reports in recent days about limited returns to Iraq. While UNHCR welcomed improvements to the security conditions and stood ready to assist people who had decided or would decide to return voluntarily, it did not believe that the time had come to promote, organize or encourage returns. That would be possible only when proper return conditions were in place - including material and legal support and physical safety. Presently, there was no sign of any large-scale return to Iraq as the security situation in many parts of the country remained volatile and unpredictable.
According to a survey done by UNHCR’s staff in Syria, there were many reasons for returns to Iraq other than considerations of improved security. Of some 110 Iraqi families UNHCR spoke with in Syria the majority said they were returning because they were running out of money and/or resources, faced difficult living conditions, or because their visas had expired. There were more details in the briefing note and in the Iraq assessment document.

Ms. Pagonis said UNHCR was seriously concerned about the deteriorating security situation and various incidents reported from return areas in eastern Sri Lanka.
Around 250 displaced people, who returned to their villages of origin in the Trincomalee district a few weeks ago, after fleeing escalating violence in 2006, fled their homes again this week back to welfare centres in Batticaloa district after serious security incidents in their villages. UNHCR had received reports of a number of killings, abductions, incidents of harassment and general insecurity in these areas. These incidents had made the returns unsustainable for these IDP families.

Teresa Buerkle of the Food and Agriculture Organization said that on Monday, 26 November, the Director-General of the FAO Jacques Diouf would give a press conference at 11:30 a.m. on the outcome of thirty-fourth session of the FAO Conference, which would be concluding on 24 November. He would be talking about the preparation of an action plan to reform the organization and the implications of the new budget. He would also discuss plans for two high-level international meetings at FAO next year. The press conference would be held in Rome, but it would be possible for journalists in Geneva to participate through an audio link in press room 1.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said the 94th session of the IOM Council will be held from 27 to 30 November, and all its meetings would be open to the press. Burundi and Viet Nam would officially join IOM as new members on the opening day, bringing IOM’s membership to 122 States. The briefing notes included many details on this story and a number of other ones.