REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by spokespersons and representatives of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, the International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said today the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would conclude its examination of the last country review for this session, on Panama. The rest of the session would be devoted to consideration, in closed meetings, of early warning and urgent action situations, as well as the adoption of concluding observations on reports just reviewed, which would be made public on the last day of the session, Friday, 12 March. Concluding observations and recommendations would be issued on reports of Argentina, Cambodia, Cameroon, Guatemala, Iceland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Monaco, the Netherlands, Panama and Slovakia.

In the Conference on Disarmament, the Deputy Minister for Multilateral and Global Affairs of the Republic of Korea was at this moment addressing the Conference, Ms. Momal-Vanian said. This afternoon, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ireland would make a statement. Also scheduled to speak at the Conference later in the week were the Secretary of State of Romania, on Wednesday afternoon; the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, on Thursday morning; and the Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, on Friday morning.

International Women’s Day

In New York, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) had opened its fifty-fourth session yesterday, Ms. Momal-Vanian noted. The Secretary-General would be commemorating International Women’s Day (8 March) early tomorrow, participating in a panel discussion held within in the framework of the CSW, which would look back at what had been achieved and what challenges remained 15 years after the Beijing Declaration.

In Geneva, UNOG was organizing an event on 8 March, in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of France. The French cineaste Coline Serreau would present extracts from her new film, a documentary “Solutions locales pour un désordre global”, which would be released next month, following which she would answer questions from the public. Also present would be Nicole Fontaine, former European Parliament President, and Glaucia Boyer of the United Nations Development Programme, who would speak about solutions women have brought to international challenges. The event would be held on Monday, 8 March, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Assembly Hall.

The Secretary-General’s message on the occasion of International Women’s Day had been sent to journalists.

Human Rights

Rupert Colville of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) announced that the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth had this morning signed a Joint Declaration, updating a 1998 Memorandum of Understanding, dealing with the principles of cooperation between the two organizations. A press release would be sent out later today.

In Egypt, the High Commissioner was calling on the Egyptian Government to immediately order its security forces to stop using lethal force against unarmed migrants trying to enter Israel via the Sinai Desert, after the latest in a series of some 60 fatal shootings over the past two and a half years, Mr. Colville said. She had also called for an urgent independent inquiry into the killing of so many individuals by State security forces, and the wounding and disappearance of dozens more, on the Egyptian side of the Sinai border, since July 2007. While migrants often lost their lives accidentally, there was no other country where so many unarmed migrants and asylum seekers appeared to have been deliberately killed in this way by Government forces. “It is a deplorable state of affairs, and the sheer number of victims suggests that at least some Egyptian security officials have been operating a shoot-to-kill policy”, the High Commissioner had said in her statement, adding, “It is unlikely that so many killings would occur otherwise; 60 killings can hardly be an accident.”

The latest victim had been killed at the weekend, Mr. Colville said, the ninth reported fatal shooting of a foreign migrant in the Sinai during the first two months of 2010. At least 33 had been reported killed in the Sinai between July 2007 and October 2008. There was then a six-month lull, until May 2009, and then from May until December 2009 another 19 would-be migrants or refugees had been shot. The victims included several women and at least one child, and there were reports of other children being wounded. The fact that the shootings stopped for six months, and then resumed, strongly suggested that the killings followed a pattern that was not random. The High Commissioner was asking the Egyptian Government to issue an immediate order to its security forces to ensure that firearms were used in strict compliance with international standards and to launch an independent and credible inquiry into the killings. A press release was available.

Responding to a journalist who wondered if any of these migrants had tried to stay in Egypt, and if so what treatment they had received, Mr. Colville said the area where the killings had taken place was the real desert – harsh, bleak desert along the border, south of Gaza. No one would go there unless they wanted to cross the border. In terms of treatment of those who were caught or wounded, the situation was fairly opaque. He referred journalists to a Human Rights Watch report of November 2008 for further details. There could well be more casualties, he added. There were people who had disappeared who had not contacted their families, as would have been expected if they made it to their destination country.

Asked where the migrants had come from, Mr. Colville said most of those killed came from sub-Saharan Africa, in particular the Horn of Africa – Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia. However, many of those killed still had not been identified.

Responding to a question as to what Israel was doing to ensure safe labour flows, Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) noted that Israel was trying to reach out to some countries, including Thailand, to establish bilateral labour migration programmes, but as far as he knew they had not entered into force yet.

Situation in Chile

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that, following Saturday’s earthquake, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which was headquartered in Santiago, had announced that, so far, no victims had been identified among the 987 staff of the United Nations who lived and worked in Chile. However, several buildings belonging to United Nations agencies in the capital had been damaged, including ECLAC headquarters. ECLAC Executive-Secretary Alicia Barcena had told ECLAC staff to stay home through Wednesday, until a comprehensive safety evaluation of the building was completed.

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the Government had responded quickly and effectively to the earthquake. Following preliminary assessments made by the Chilean Government, it had requested targeted support in the form of priority relief items, including field hospitals equipped with surgery facilities; an autonomous dialysis centre; generators; field camps; satellite phones; structural damage assessment systems; salt water purification systems; mobile bridges; and field kitchens. The Chilean National Emergency Office was coordinating emergency assistance efforts. The Government had declared six regions as disaster zones – Valparaiso, Metropolitana, Libertador O’Higgins, Araucania, Biobio and Maule.

The first assessments indicated that 2 million persons had been affected, with 723 deaths, and that 1.5 million houses had been damaged. Electricity was being re-established progressively, and requested assistance was being dispatched: 25 satellite phones had been despatched from Geneva by the International Telecommunication Union and 20 were being sent from New York. The non-governmental organization Telephones without Borders had already deployed since day one to provide telecommunications support. Bilateral assistance was also flowing in, and the Governments of Argentina, Brazil and Mexico were in contact with the Chilean Government to provide assistance. There were also 22 United Nations organizations already in the country, which stood ready to provide assistance, at the Government’s request.

Paul Garwood of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that health services and health care continued to be available to meet demands according to the Chilean Authorities. The Government’s major concern today was to re-establish routine health services that was required by patients including dialysis, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. In the disaster zone, 8 hospitals were currently unusable and 10 had suffered major damage and were being evaluated. However, there were 76 other hospitals in the area operating without major difficulties. Chile’s armed forces had installed five temporary field hospitals. WHO was installing four field hospitals and coordinating with neighbouring countries, including Argentina and Brazil, which had committed to sending large-capacity field hospitals to Chile. Those hospitals could be up and running within 24 hours. Peru was also sending a field hospital with surgical capacity.

Asked for clarification on the exact state of the unusable hospitals, Mr. Garwood said at least six hospitals had completely collapsed and two had suffered severe damage and were no longer operational.

A journalist said that it appeared as if each aid organization was working on its own, and asked if there would be coordination of assistance in Chile as there was in Haiti. Ms. Byrs of OCHA noted that it was impossible to compare the two situations. Unlike in Haiti, the Chilean Government was coordinating relief operations and was also in charge of any assessments. The Government was making very targeted assistance requests, and the United Nations stood ready to respond to those.

Brigitte Léonie of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDIR) said that, for UNISDIR, Chile was a good example of the success of preventive measures in reducing the impact of disasters – there had been some 700 deaths despite the enormous force of the quake. Chile had a long history of disaster prevention, and had integrated seismic considerations in its building construction. That could be seen in the figure of 1.5 million buildings that had been damaged, but not completely destroyed. That had prevented many deaths.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that IOM was working with civil society partners to assess the situation and needs of vulnerable migrant communities in Chile, in particular the large migrant populations in the Santiago metropolitan area, so as to best target what assistance was needed. For the moment, information was extremely fragmented. They knew, for example, that were almost 200 families who had been directly affected in the greater metropolitan area, but it was expected that that number would rise. IOM would also determine if some of those migrants would like assistance to return home.

Situation in Haiti

Mr. Chauzy said that the challenge faced by humanitarian staff in Haiti now was to deliver assistance regularly where it was needed. There were more than 414 spontaneous sites in and around Port-au-Prince alone, which currently sheltered more than 603,000 persons left homeless by the quake. The big difficulty until now had been to try and follow the movements of those earthquake victims. IOM and its partners – notably Google Earth – had therefore launched a new interactive map to track the precise location of those victims, for the moment concentrating on Port-au-Prince and its environs. That allowed for a better targeting of assistance. Anyone who had access to the Internet could use the maps. Users had first to download Google Earth, and then go to www.cccmhaiti.info, where they could find the latest "priority sites" or "all sites" maps.

As an example of the logistical challenges faced in delivering assistance, Mr. Chauzy noted that it took two hours to travel five kilometres by car in Port-au-Prince.

In a health update, Mr. Garwood of WHO said that, so far, there had been no increase in infectious disease cases reported in Haiti. Suspected malaria cases had increased during the period from 25 January to 23 February, with the number of consultations rising from 5 to 10 per cent. Consultations for cases of watery diarrhoea had remained the same, at about 15 per cent. And consultations due to injuries had decreased from 35 per cent to 5 per cent in the same period. Mobile clinics had started surveillance this week, and a preliminary report would be issued next week. In terms of immunization activities, undertaken jointly by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Ministry of Health and WHO, 47 sites had completed immunization activities with almost 150,000 people vaccinated.

Mongolian Dzud

Marc Vergara of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that Mongolia had been hit by a very severe winter, which was placing rural populations in great danger. Low temperatures this week were hovering at less than –40 centigrade, with huge snowfalls, and had left half of Mongolia’s 21 provinces in need of emergency assistance. These winter emergency conditions, known as dzud in Mongolia, would continue through April. UNICEF was flying emergency assistance to 4,000 schoolchildren in six provinces this weekend, which would be followed by six overland truck convoys during the next few weeks.

UNICEF had asked for $2.8 million to respond to this emergency. They now lacked $1.3 million to respond to the needs of 40,000 children living in some 500 dormitories. UNICEF was providing those children and their families with warm clothing, food, fuel, blankets and hygiene kits. In 2001, the last time Mongolia had experienced a dzud, although not as bad as this year, there had been a clear increase in poverty and a corresponding rise in malnutrition among children.

Other

In an update requested by journalists on the situation in Darfur, Ms. Byrs said that gaining access to civilians affected by the fighting in Darfur was currently the main objective. Since January 2010 there had been increased fighting in all three Darfur states, including air strikes. Late last night they had received information from the field and it was incorporated in a situation update at the back of the room.

In the wake of the destruction wreaked by storm Xinthia, which had battered the Atlantic Coast of France, Ms. Léonie said that UNISDIR was underscoring the message that building away from coastlines was the best way to prevent flooding, as set out in the Hyogo Framework for Action. There were more than 1.2 billion people throughout the world who lived in coastal areas. In France and the United Kingdom alone, there were 5 million persons in each country that lived in flood zones. Integrating risk reduction in construction was the best way to protect people.

Gaëlle Sévenier of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that available was a press release summarizing the outcome the fifteenth session of the Commission for Climatology, which had been held in Antalya last week. Notably, the Commission had agreed to support development and implementation of mechanisms to generate, exchange and disseminate high-quality climate information at global, regional and national levels on an operational basis.

Ms. Sévenier also announced that, following the first meeting of the High-Level Task Force for the Global Framework for Climate Services last week, Jan Egeland of Norway and Mahmoud Abu-Zaid of Egypt had been elected co-Chairs of the Task Force. As everyone knew, Jan Egeland had been the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator from 2003 to 2006. Mr. Abu-Zaid had been the Minister for Water Resources and Irrigation of Egypt from 1997 to 2009.

Mr. Garwood announced that the Erick Laroche, WHO Assistant-Secretary-General for Health Action in Crisis, would hold a press briefing on the health situation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on Thursday, 4 March at 10:30 a.m. in press room I.