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 about Geneva Activities, in particular highlighting the first session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women since its move to Geneva; United Nations action to counter terrorism; the situation in Kenya; and reports being launched in Geneva. It also provided an update on flooding in Southern Africa, where continuing torrential rains were continuing to threaten millions. Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Labour Organization, and the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction participated in the briefing.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Heuzé recalled that the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women had opened its fortieth session at the Palais des Nations yesterday, the first meeting of the Committee since its transfer here from New York. The meetings were being held in Room XIV, which was above the General Assembly Hall, on the fifth floor. Today, the Committee would be taking up the report of Bolivia, and tomorrow there would be a related press conference given by the Minister of Justice and the Vice Minister for Gender Affairs of Bolivia, to be held in Room III at 12 a.m. As the Committee was new to Geneva, each time a country presented a report before it, the Information Service would be arranging this type of encounter between the high-level members of the delegation and the press.

Outlining the programme for the rest of this week for the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Ms. Heuzé noted that, on Wednesday, it would review the report of Burundi; on Thursday, it would take up the report of Saudi Arabia; and on Friday, it would consider the report of France.

Also meeting in Geneva, at Palais Wilson, the Committee on the Rights of the Child had opened its forty-seventh session yesterday, Ms. Heuzé continued. Over the course of its three-week session, the Committee would examine the reports of Timor-Leste, Germany, the Dominican Republic, Ireland, Kuwait and Chile. Georgia, which was to have presented its report today, had informed the Committee that it was unable to send a delegation at the present time and therefore the Committee was meeting in closed session today. Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Committee would look at the initial report of Timor-Leste; on Thursday, it would take up the reports of Timor-Leste under the Convention's two Optional Protocols on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and on the involvement of children in armed conflict; and on Friday it would examine Germany's report under the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict.

As always, Ms. Heuzé added, meeting summaries, in French and English, would be issued by the Information Service shortly following each open Committee meeting.

Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the WHO Executive Board would be meeting at WHO Headquarters from 21 to 26 January 2008. The 34-member Board, representing the 190 States members of the organization, would discuss a range of issues including climate change and health, pandemic influenza preparedness, the eradication of polio, strategies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, the global immunization strategy and female genital mutilation.

The President of the Council would open the meeting, and then WHO Director-General, Dr Margaret Chan, would present her report, highlighting recent public health successes and setting out some of the threats to global health. A press note was available at the back of the room in English, Spanish, and French. All meetings were open to the press, and for ease of reference all documents relating to the Executive Board session were available on the WHO website in six languages at the following address: http://www,who.int/governance.

UN Action on Terrorism

Ms. Heuzé observed that the fight against terrorism was a priority issue for the United Nations – and that focus had been further sharpened following the Algiers attacks on United Nations premises a month ago that had led to the death of a number of our colleagues. At the end of last week, on Friday, 11 January, the Secretary-General had received from the Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security a preliminary report on circumstances leading up to that terrorist attack in Algiers. Having studied that report, the Secretary-General had decided –as former Secretary-General Annan had done following the Baghdad bombings – to appoint an independent panel to establish all the facts concerning the attack and also to address strategic issues vital to the delivery and enhancement of staff security for the United Nations in its operations around the world. The panel would seek the full cooperation of the Algerian governmental authorities.

Secretary-General Ban, in his statement, fully recognized the global reality of the environments in which the United Nations operated and the need to work actively with Member State support to improve the security of the staff, Ms. Heuzé said. The composition of the independent panel, which would draw on international experts from outside the United Nations system, and its more detailed terms of reference, were expected to be announced shortly.

Copies of the Secretary-General's statement, as well as transcripts of his comments made yesterday at an informal press encounter in New York, which touched on this subject, had been made available in the Press Room, Ms. Heuzé said.

Yesterday, the Secretary-General had also made a statement on the terrorist attack on a hotel in Kabul on Friday, killing six persons, underscoring the necessity to take action to counter terrorism. The statement would be made available in the Press Room, in French and English, as soon as the official text was received, Ms. Heuzé said.

Alliance of Civilizations Meeting

Ms. Heuzé said that today the Secretary-General was in Madrid, where this morning he was opening the Alliance of Civilizations Forum. The initiative had been created by Spain and the Turkish Government in the wake of the Madrid bombings to encourage dialogue between civilizations, to address the growing polarization between nations and cultures worldwide, and to develop partnerships to promote cross-cultural understanding globally.

Kenya

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said UNHCR and World Concern had yesterday begun a second distribution of basic commodities to an estimated 3,000 displaced people in Narok, some 140 kilometres southeast of Nairobi. In addition, UNHCR had dispatched trucks carrying sanitary supplies for up to 20,000 girls and women yesterday from Nairobi to major towns in the Rift Valley. In all, UNHCR expected to deliver nearly 50,000 sanitary packs for 16,000 women and girls in the provincial capital, Nakuru, and another 10,000 packs for 3,300 beneficiaries in Eldoret.

In addition, UNCHR was assembling "family kits" of non-food items at its Nairobi warehouse, bringing in supplies from around the region, Mr. Redmond said. The kits – consisting of plastic sheeting for shelter, blankets, jerry cans, mosquito nets and kitchen sets – would help a total of 16,000 people. UNHCR had also sent a team of 10 emergency staff to Nairobi to assist its Kenya staff, who had dealt exclusively in the past with refugees, in order to get help to many of the reportedly over 200,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kenya. As calm returned to some parts of the country, the Government estimated that IDP numbers in some 500 IDP sites, as well as community centres, had dropped by nearly 50,000, down from 255,000 at the beginning of last week to an estimated 203,000 by the week's close.

UNHCR's budget for Kenya would be $7.6 million - part of a United Nations consolidated appeal of more than $40 million that was expected to be launched tomorrow in New York.

In neighbouring Uganda, the number of people who have crossed the border from Kenya had now reached more than 6,100, according to Ugandan authorities, Mr. Redmond added. The Ugandan Authorities wanted to move the refugees, who had gathered in several eastern border districts, to a temporary site in Mulanda, and UNHCR had agreed to provide transportation and to channel assistance to the refugees through the Uganda Red Cross.

In response to a question, Mr. Redmond confirmed that UNHCR operations for refugees in neighbouring countries, as well as for the 270,000 refugees inside Kenya, had not been unduly affected by events in that country.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said IOM was working with Kenyan authorities and the Kenya Red Cross to plan two new sites for internally displaced camps on the outskirts of Eldoret. The decision to establish camps at Burnt Forest and Noigam followed a rapid assessment of the areas by the Kenya Red Cross, the District Commissioner, IOM and various other humanitarian actors. Approximately 20,000 people were believed to be at Burnt Forest and 14,000 at Noigam in the environs of Eldoret, although a clear picture of numbers would only emerge once the displaced were registered.

The new camp at Burnt Forest, about 30 minutes away from Eldoret, would host 3,000 to 4,000 displaced people initially, and if needed, could expand. Noigam Camp, where the demarcation work was already beginning, was expected to be ready to host around 6,000 people in the next two days, Ms. Pandya said.

Southern Africa Floods

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the situation in Mozambique was worsening, owing to the continuing torrential rains in its neighbouring countries – Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Those rains were swelling the courses of the four major rivers in Mozambique. Some 30,000 people had been evacuated to established resettlement centres, out of a total of 72,000 who had been displaced in Mozambique by the floods so far. Critically, the Cahora Bassa Dam on the Zambezi River, which normally discharged 4,500 cubic metres of water a second, had been forced to release 6,600 cubic metres a second to keep from bursting. That meant that many regions were flooded. People had already been forced to flee beyond areas that were considered safe during the devastating floods of 2007.

Among the sectors hardest hit were agricultural production, with 37,000 hectares of planted fields completely destroyed, and a good deal of livestock drowned. A joint team of United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations, and government authorities, was currently undertaking an assessment mission from 13 to 18 January to evaluate and report on the status of food security in the affected areas. The Central Emergency Response Fund was studying the situation in the country; OCHA had dispatched a Coordinator on 12 January to coordinate the humanitarian response there; and humanitarian organizations had set up a base in Caia. A briefing note was available at the back of the room.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), turning to the situation in neighbouring Malawi, stressed that the floods there endangered 1 million out of a total population of 13 million. The whole April harvest was also threatened with destruction, which would entail serious consequences for food security in a country that was already among the world's poorest.

UNICEF estimated that 200,000 women and children under the age of five in Malawi would be in need of urgent humanitarian assistance in 2008, Ms. Taveau said. UNICEF was launching an appeal for just under $2.5 million to provide for immediate needs in Malawi. Available at the back of the room was an immediate needs assessment document.

UNHCR Appeal for Release of Lao Hmong Detainees in Thailand

Mr. Redmond said that UNHCR was calling for the release of 149 Lao Hmong refugees held in Thailand's Nong Khai Immigration Detention Centre since December 2006. The group - including many children - had now spent 400 nights in detention, yet had not committed any crime. UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller, had declared that there was "no basis for the detention of these 149 people, who have been recognized as in need of international protection". She further called for them to be allowed to take up offers already made to leave Thailand for Australia, the Netherlands, Canada and the United States.

UNHCR recognized that efforts had been made by Thailand to improve the conditions in the detention centre, but the measures did not go far enough and overall conditions still fell well short of international standards. Mr. Redmond underscored that UNHCR was particularly concerned that 90 children, including five born in detention, were being held in these sub-standard conditions.

Iraqi Displaced

Ms. Pandya said IOM had begun to distribute essential food and non-food items to more than 5,000 families in need of urgent humanitarian assistance in Iraq's northern governorates of Erbil and Suleimaniyah. The majority of those being helped were mainly those displaced internally by the violence in the country, and in particular those who had been displaced by the Turkish shelling. IOM was targeting those who had yet to receive assistance from other sources and who were particularly vulnerable, such as pregnant women and children. A press note was available in the back of the room.

Global Employment Trends 2007

Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Organization (ILO) announced that ILO would be publishing its annual Global Employment Trends report, on Thursday, 24 January. The report reflected the impact the global credit squeeze and skyrocketing petrol prices were having on the employment sector. In the report, the ILO Director-General also examined the unemployment rate, and observed that it was much higher than it ought to be given the growth rate, in particular in Asia.

The report was being exclusively launched in Geneva, and there would be a press conference with the main authors of the report, Lawrence Johnson, Dorothea Schmidt, and José Maria Salazar, Executive Director of ILO's Employment Sector, on Tuesday, 22 January, following the briefing, at 11.45 a.m. in Room III. A press release and PDF electronic versions of the report in several languages, as well as hardcopies in English, would be available. All information on the report was under embargo until 23 January at 12 midnight Geneva time, as the report was being officially launched on 24 January.

State of the World's Children 2008 Report

Ms. Taveau of UNICEF announced the launch of the UNICEF flagship document, the "State of the World's Children 2008" Report, which would be held on Tuesday, 22 January at 1.30 p.m. Geneva time, in Room III. Presenting the report would the UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan and Bience Gawanas, the Commissioner for Social Affairs of the African Union.

The report would be made available to journalists on Friday, 18 January, but was under a strict embargo until 12.30 p.m. GMT on the day of the launch, Ms. Taveau said.

Other

Brigitte Leoni of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) said that the 2007 disaster figures would be released at a press conference on Tuesday, 22 January, at 11.45 p.m. in Room III, following the briefing. Presenting the figures would be Debarati Guha-Sapir, Director of the Centre for Research on Disaster Epidemiology, and Helena Molin Valdes, Deputy Director of ISDR.

Ms. Pandya said that IOM and Colombia's Family Welfare Institute had signed two cooperation agreements on preventing the recruitment of children and adolescents into illegal armed groups and to continue providing assistance to victims. One project would benefit some 20,000 minors at risk of being recruited into illegal armed groups and another 800 will receive direct advice and assistance. The other initiative would work with young children (under six years) to prevent future conscription into illegal armed groups. According to Human Rights Watch, some 11,000 Colombian minors were currently involved with illegal armed groups.