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 the World Health Organization, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme and the International Organization for Migration.

Secretary-General and High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon chaired the sixth meeting of his High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis yesterday in New York. The Task Force agreed on its programme of work for 2009, with a focus on reducing hunger, promoting food security and intensifying small-scale agriculture in countries that need – and request – assistance. The Secretary-General also announced that he has agreed with Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain to co-chair a high-level meeting on “Food Security for All” in Madrid on 26-27 January 2009 to gather governments, private entities and civil society groups and examine progress on improvements in food security, define a road map for the future and tackle hunger more effectively. The Secretary-General announced that given the high demands on John Holmes in his role as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, he has asked David Nabarro to assume the role of Task Force Coordinator as of 1 January 2009. The Principal Hub for the Coordination Secretariat would be in Rome, within the premises of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Dr Nabarro would also continue in his role as Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza.

Director-General’s Agenda

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said as agreed by Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze during his recent regular meetings with the Geneva-based regional groups, Special Tours of the Palais des Nations were being organized today and Wednesday, 17 December, for Permanent Representatives. The tours were intended to give Member States a better understanding of the scope and complexity of the structural problems and to raise awareness of the need for a Strategic Heritage Plan to preserve the Palais des Nations. Ensuring the continued functionality of the Palais and safeguarding its unique heritage was a priority for the Director-General and he continued to work closely with Member States in this regard.

On Friday 19 November, the Director-General would be addressing the opening session of the "Inter-Institutional Forum on Universal Shared Values: Challenges and New Paradigms", organized by the Organization of the Islamic Conference on the occasion of the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Biweekly Press Briefings

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the bi-weekly press briefings by the Information Service would stop for two weeks because of the end of year festivities. The last briefing in 2008 would be held on Tuesday, 23 December and the first briefing in 2009 would take place on Tuesday, 6 January. A note to correspondents had been issued.

Zimbabwe

Paul Garwood of the World Health Organization said regarding WHO’s health cluster activities in relation to cholera in Zimbabwe, this week, probably on 18 December, there would be the inauguration of the Cholera Command Control Centre, which was set up by WHO to support the Ministry of Health to properly coordinate all the different activities regarding the cholera outbreak and to better identify where the cases were emerging and to better respond to them. Available at the back of the room were copies of WHO’s first Epidemiological Bulletin from Zimbabwe about cholera which painted a clear picture of what was seen to date of the trend in relation to cholera. Hopefully this week, the WHO Assistant Director-General for health action crises would come to the Palais to brief journalists.

Paul Conneally of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said he would give the floor to Matthew Cochrane who had just come off the plane from Zimbabwe.

Matthew Cochrane of the International Federation of the Red Cross said last night about 6 o’clock local time a Red Cross truck arrived in Harare carrying four cholera kits, with enough treatment solution to treat about 4,800 people. Another 11 cholera kits were also on their way. The International Federation had also sent in another half a million water sachets, enough to treat around 10 million litres of water. These had been distributed over the past few weeks along with about 40,000 public education leaflets explaining simple steps which people could take to reduce their risk to cholera. This was very much another initial step of what would be a significant scaling up of what the Red Cross was doing. They were already in Zimbabwe and were already operational. Given the worsening situation and the fact that people would get significantly worse with the onset of rains, the Red Cross was really putting all its resources in place to respond massively.

John Roche of the International Federation said they were quite concerned with the situation as it was developing, especially with the incoming rains. They were looking at going into contingency planning about how was the best way to respond. They were in negotiations with the Ministry of Health on looking at a better way to scale up and respond immediately. The gap it appeared was at the curative level. It was very difficult to get medical supplies so they were looking at supporting already existing structures and mechanisms and the best way to do that. They were looking at mobilizing their resources, and maybe scaling up their action. They were looking at a draft appeal, which would possibly come out in the next 48 hours, for around 9 million, to concentrate on three main areas: improve access to water; support the treatment centres; and raise community awareness and take simple steps to take precautions and reduce the number of people affected. To date, the published figures were more than 18,000 cholera cases and almost 1,000 deaths in Zimbabwe alone. The epidemic had also crossed the border into South Africa, where the Government was sending supplies and medical assistance into Zimbabwe and was setting up treatment centres on the border which the Federation was supporting through the South African Red Cross. They were worried about the upcoming rainy season. There was an increase in the cholera caseload in Angola, with 10,000 cases, and 8,000 cases in Mozambique. Coming up to the Christmas period, a lot of Zimbabweans who worked in South Africa would be moving back to Zimbabwe for Christmas, and if they did not take measures now to control it, the epidemic would spread much faster and wider in the region.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said WFP had put out an urgent appeal in October for $ 140 million in order to feed upwards of 5 million persons in Zimbabwe. To date, it had received commitments to around $ 15 million and WFP was therefore continuing ration cuts to people in Zimbabwe and expected that to continue in January. Nutrition was important for anyone who was ill, not just those who had cholera.

Papua New Guinea

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said since the beginning of December, severe sea swells, caused by low depression in the waters of Guam and New Caledonia, hit the northern shoreline of Papua New Guinea. A total of five provinces had been affected by the high seas, and the Government estimated that between 50,000 and 60,000 people had been affected. The Government had declared the current situation a national disaster and an OCHA United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination team was sent yesterday and would arrive tomorrow. There were more details in the briefing notes at the back of the room.

UNHCR

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR deplored the cold-blooded murder of a staff member of the Italian NGO, Voluntary Association for International Service (AVSI), in the troubled North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Armed men ambushed the vehicle carrying AVSI staff yesterday afternoon, killing one and wounding another. The incident took place just outside Rutshuru, a town some 80 kilometres north from Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu. In Rutshuru, UNHCR was also worried about reports that Nkunda’s rebels were pressuring internally displaced people currently seeking refuge in a makeshift site close to the base of the UN peace keeping mission (MONUC) to return to their villages. Some 10,000 internally displaced persons were sheltering around the MONUC base, fearing reprisals from armed groups. UNHCR had also received worrying reports that the rebels were stopping people trying to reach the site near the MONUC base.

Mr. Redmond said further north, meanwhile, UNHCR was preparing for a possible new influx of refugees heading to Southern Sudan after reports of a joint military operation by Congolese, Ugandan and Southern Sudanese forces began Sunday to flush out the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) from camps in the remote Garamba National Park in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mr. Redmond said a group of 97 Sudanese refugees, mainly from Darfur, who had been stranded in a makeshift camp in the desert in Iraq since 2005, left this
morning for Amman, Jordan, from where they were scheduled to fly this evening to Romania. In Romania they would be housed in a new Emergency Transit Centre in Timosoara while they wait for their resettlement applications to be processed. The group fled Sudan in the late 1980s and since their departure from Sudan conditions in Darfur had seriously deteriorated.

WFP Calls for Rescue Package for the World’s Hungry.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said this morning WFP’s Executive Director Josette Sheeran launched an appeal to countries to step up and fund urgent operations. When WFP started the year 2008, it was expecting to feed around 69 million people around the world, and at the moment the number was 103 million. WFP’s budget had increased greatly this year because of the food crisis, and this would continue. Next year, WFP aimed to feed around 100 million persons at a budget of about $ 5.2 billion and without a rapid injection of funds, in the very near future, WFP would end up running out of food for assistance to a number of countries by March. The countries at risk right now of either further food ration cuts or new ration cuts were Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti. Ms. Sheeran pointed out that a mere 1 per cent of the money that had been spent for financial bailout packages in recent weeks would completely fund the World Food Programme 2009 budget and in addition permit them to provide hot meals in school for 59 million school children around the world, set up a reserves fund for fast acquisition of food stuff during food emergencies, and boost the agricultural production of small-holder farmers.

International Migrants’ Day

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said available was an embargoed press release on the occasion of International Migrants’ Day (18 December). In the release, IOM Director General William Lacy Swing said countries should recognize the positive contribution that migrants could make to economic growth and recovery and resist the temptation to close doors to them in times of economic slowdown.