REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Refugee Agency, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Organization for Migration, the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction and the International Labour Office.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee opened its sixth session yesterday afternoon and discussed a study on the best practices in the matter of missing persons. It would continue the discussion this morning, before taking up the consideration of questions related to the right of peoples to peace. This afternoon, the Advisory Committee would divide itself into three working groups charged with elaborating study mandates by the Human Rights Council. On Wednesday, the Committee would examine the question of discrimination in the context of the right to food. The details of the programme of work of the Advisory Committee were available in the background release and the press release issued yesterday afternoon.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child was this morning starting its consideration of the report of Afghanistan, which would take up the whole day. The Committee would adopt in private its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports which it examined, and would issue them at the end of the session on 4 February. Tomorrow, the Committee would consider the report of New Zealand, and it would take up the report of Singapore on Thursday, 20 January.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was today considering the report of Israel. It would examine the report of Kenya tomorrow, the report of Liechtenstein on Thursday, 20 January and the report of South Africa on Friday, 21 January.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said available at the back of the room were copies of the remarks made by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday, 14 January before the General Assembly to present his priorities for the year 2011. Also available in her office were copies of his remarks made yesterday in Abu Dhabi to the Fourth World Future Energy Summit on clean energy and the green economy.

Today, UNOG Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze would meet with the Jamaican Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Kenneth Baugh.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Tunisia/Côte d’Ivoire and Haiti

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay would give a press conference on Wednesday, 19 January at 2.30 p.m. on the situation in Tunisia. Obviously human rights lay right at the heart of the situation in Tunisia and would be a vital part of the solution, not just civil and political rights such as torture, arbitrary detention and freedom of speech but also economic, social and cultural rights, especially economic rights which lay right at the heart of the protests. A statement would also be issued.

Asked if the Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial killings, the right to food, torture and others had issued statements on the situation in Tunisia, Mr. Colville said there was a joint statement issued late on Friday, 14 January, but of course the situation had evolved considerably since then. They were closely watching the situation.

Chris Tidey of the United Nations Children’s Fund said the UNICEF country representative would be releasing a statement on Tunisia today.

Concerning Haiti and the return of Jean Claude Duvalier, Mr. Colville said there were major issues surrounding him and the considerable range of human rights abuses that took place in Haiti during the 15 years that he was in power. There were also other issues like corruption. It was not clear if Haiti was in a position to arrest and charge Jean Claude Duvalier. His return clearly raised issues of impunity and accountability, which OHCHR was looking into.

Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said two appeals were being launched in Geneva this morning. The first, by regional humanitarian actors in West Africa, in consultation with the country teams of Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea and Mali, referred to as Côte d’Ivoire+4, which was a $ 32.7 million emergency plan to respond to the actual and potential humanitarian needs of up to 2 million people in Côte D’Ivoire, as well as up to 100,000 refugees and other vulnerable groups, including 420,000 returnees and third country nationals. The appeal would be revised continually as the situation evolved and could require a major increase if the situation worsened. The press releases and the appeals were available at the back of the room under embargo until 11 a.m. Geneva time today. The second appeal concerned Liberia. To date, Liberia had seen the largest number of Ivoirians arriving onto its territory with almost 600 new arrivals per day. This appeal was launched in an effort to reinforce the response for the needs of an estimated 50,000 refugees and an additional 25,000 returnees and third country nationals pouring into Liberia. The financial requirements for the Liberia appeal amounted to $ 55 million to cover the most urgent humanitarian needs for a six month period. There were more details in the notes.

Melissa Fleming of the UN Refugee Agency said the latter had now strengthened its presence in the west of the country to cope with the needs of displaced people there following the recent clashes. UNHCR teams had deployed in Man and Danane this week, where they would be registering displaced people and monitoring their protection needs. In total, UNCHR estimated that there were more than 18,000 displaced people in this area. UNHCR was particularly concerned by the conditions at the Catholic mission in the town of Duekoue, where some 13,000 people were staying. The church compound there did not have the sanitation facilities to cope with the numbers. Meanwhile in eastern Liberia work had been continuing at Bahn on the building of the new camp for refugees there, but the difficult jungle conditions had made this slower going than anticipated. Food distribution was ongoing to refugees spread across 23 villages near the border. UNHCR believed there to be some 30,000 refugees in Liberia. UNHCR’s representative for Liberia was in Geneva for the launch of the appeal and she could set up interviews with him if there was interest.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said WFP was part of both of these emergency action plans. In Liberia, working together with the Food and Agriculture Organization, they were going to be providing food aid to about 60,000 people, including 50,000 refugees and 10,000 from host communities. Of those, just more than 32,000 refugees and about 7,500 people in the host communities would also receive assistance to grow their own food and plant their own crops in order to provide their families with food. The Government of Liberia had allocated lands in order to allow the refugees and vulnerable populations to start generating their own income. The price of the staple food, rice, had increased by 50 per cent. There were also reports about people from the host communities being concerned about their job security. In Côte d’Ivoire, at the moment, they were working on a plan for 45 days to assist 18,000 internally displaced persons, but clearly that number was growing and it would be expanding. The worse case scenario saw WFP considering the possibility of needing to feed 200,000 people. At the moment they were working with the 18,000, but expected this number to grow in the coming weeks. At the moment, WFP was working with its UN partners to deliver food to 12,700 internally displaced persons in Duekoue by road from Abidjan. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Chris Tidey of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF today released a news note reiterating that in any emergency, children were obviously the most vulnerable, and UNICEF was urging national and community leaders in Côte D’Ivoire to ensure that those responsible for the welfare of children were able to work and that children were not placed in the front line of political action. Children had been disproportionately affected by this crisis, particularly if they looked at Liberia where again nearly 30,000 currently could be found. Over 60 per cent of those 30,000 were children, including over 6,000 children who were under the age of five. In terms of UNICEF’s response, particularly in Liberia, the first school started for about 100 refugee children and similar school arrangements were being made in four additional communities. Access to safe water had now been provided to more than 17,000 refugees in the influx areas. UNICEF had also been providing 4,000 people in 11 of the affected communities with access to proper sanitation facilities.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said IOM was appealing for an initial $ 3.5 million to carry out a series of operations helping internally displaced people in Côte d’Ivoire, third country nationals, transit migrants and refugees who would be going into the neighbouring countries. The appeal included funds to help up to 25,000 Liberian nationals return home from Côte d’Ivoire, track and assess the needs of mobile populations in Côte d’Ivoire, including transit migrants and third country nationals, help Ivorian refugees and Guinean migrants with medical and transport assistance to Guinea, and also to train border guards in Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea and Ghana on protecting migrants that actually started to cross the border. IOM had released emergency funds in order to provide assistance immediately from the Revolving Fund that would need to be reimbursed.

In response to a question about the mass graves in Côte d’Ivoire and whether the figure of 80 bodies had been confirmed, Mr. Colville said that they still had not been able to confirm any of the mass graves.

Iraq

Melissa Fleming of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was very concerned by reports that Sweden planned to send around 25 Iraqis back to Baghdad tomorrow. A number of those scheduled to be returned belong to religious and ethnic groups targeted by violence in Iraq. They and others appeared to have profiles that would warrant protection under the 1951 Refugee Convention or the European Union’s Qualifications Directive. UNHCR was troubled that its advice, including on the situation of minorities in Iraq, was not sufficiently taken into account by Sweden when reviewing negative decisions that were made in 2008 and 2009. UNHCR believed that the recent deterioration in the situation of minorities in Iraq had not been adequately taken into account. UNHCR had frequently appealed to States to ensure that asylum applicants originating from Iraq’s central governorates of Baghdad, Diyala, Ninewa and Salah al-Din, as well as from Kirkuk province, benefit from international protection in the form of refugee status. UNHCR understood that many of those being returned on Wednesday came from these areas.

In response to a question, Ms. Fleming said in 2010, UNHCR was aware of 10 flights from European countries to Baghdad, and one in 2011, and the numbers returned in 2010 were 413 persons, and so far in 2011 were 51.

WHO Executive Board

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said the WHO Executive Board was continuing its work until Tuesday, 25 January. Many topics would be discussed today, including criteria for choosing the Director-General, the health-related Millennium Development Goals, cholera, reinforcing the global health system, vaccination around the world and, if there was still time at the end of the day, a document on malaria. If journalists were interested in any of these topics or others, they should contact her and she would direct them to her colleagues who were directly covering each topic.

In response to a question concerning what was written in the British Medical Journal on the possible revision of procedures affecting prequalification of medicines following the Mediator case, Ms. Chaib said WHO was following the Mediator case in France. WHO prepared lists of essential medicines which it proposed to countries, but Mediator was not among them. WHO had a big department dealing with this issue and if there was interest she could set up a briefing on the security of medicines.

World Meteorological Organization

Claire Nullis of the World Meteorological Organization said WMO had been getting a lot of questions from journalists around the world about the connection between the floods in Australia, Sri Lanka, Philippines and Brazil and the influence of La Nina on all of this. WMO had put together some questions and answers on this which were available on the WMO website, and some copies were also available at the back of the room. Ms. Nullis said that WMO hoped to publish on 20 January the statement on the global climate on whether 2010 was indeed the warmest year on record. They were still waiting for the final date from the UK Met Office, and depending on when they received it, they would publish their findings. They hoped to put it out on Thursday. On Monday, 24 January at 11 a.m. they would have a press conference on the latest la Niña update. This update looked ahead as to how long the current La Niña was expected to last, and obviously given the current weather impact, this was something that was awaited with a lot of interest.

Yemen

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations Refugee Agency said the High Commissioner for Refugees had just returned from a trip to Yemen and UNHCR was very encouraged by positive meetings that they had had over the past days with the Yemeni authorities and representatives of al-Houthi on the need for improved humanitarian support in northern Yemen. The discussions which took place in Sa’ada were part of a mission of the High Commissioner, jointly with the EU Commissioner. This was the first top-ranking UN visit to Sa’ada since the latest round of conflict between August 2009 and February 2010.

Sri Lanka

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said that in Sri Lanka, more than 1.1 million people had now been affected by floods according to the Disaster Management Centre. More than 58,000 people were now sheltering in displacement camps in the east of the country. IOM has been asked by the UN and the Government to coordinate the work of the aid agencies on the ground, providing emergency shelter and essential non-food items to more than 1.1 million people. IOM had also agreed to provide free transport and logistics for humanitarian supplies for flood victims. Pending an appeal to be launched later this week, IOM
had committed funds to provide non-food item kits to about 3,000 families in eastern Sri Lanka.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the appeal for Sri Lanka would be launched on Thursday, 20 January at 3 p.m. Geneva time.

Other

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development reminded journalists that there was a briefing today at 11:30 a.m. to present the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2011 published by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Tomorrow, there would be an expert meeting on enterprise development policies and capacity-building in science, technology and innovation and building this in developing countries. A note to correspondents with details would be sent out shortly. Among the participants was Beatrice Ayuru, who was an entrepreneur from Uganda who had set up a school and had received the prize of a female entrepreneur in a developing country last year. She could set up interviews with her for interested journalists.

Dizery Slim of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction said Margareta Wahlström, Special Representative for the Secretary-General on Disaster Reduction, would give a press conference on Monday, 24 January, at 10 a.m. on the disaster figures for the year 2010. She would be accompanied by the Director of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters.

Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Office said on Monday, 24 January, ILO was organizing a press briefing under embargo at 2:30 p.m. on the launch of " the Global Employment Trends 2011: the challenge of a jobs recovery". It was embargoed until 23:00 GMT on 24 January 2011. The report was traditionally issued every year in January. Among other things, the report showed that even if the economic situation was improving, the social situation concerning employment remained stagnant. The economic crisis had exacerbated the vulnerability of people. They had not yet returned back to the situation that they had before the economic crisis and would not reach it in 2011. On 20 January, a press release and the report would be available online under embargo and she would give the journalists the password to access them.

A journalist asked about the G-20 French presidency organizing a special meeting of labour ministers to discuss the crisis. In response, Ms. Perthuis said there was an ILO task force in Paris and they were working with them. The first thing was to decide on a date. Mr. Sarkozy may ask to hold such a meeting during the first trimester of 2011.