POINT DE PRESSE DU SERVICE DE L'INFORMATION (en anglais)
Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Office at Geneva, chaired the briefing, which included the participation of Spokespersons for the World Food Programme, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Refugee Agency, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Labour Office, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the International Organization for Migration and the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Secretary-General in Switzerland
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Kofi Annan would today be meeting two senior figures in the world of sports. At 11 a.m. in Lausanne, he would be meeting with Jacques Rogge, the President of the International Olympic Committee. Around 3 p.m. in Zurich, he would be meeting with Joseph Blatter, President of the International Federation of Football Association (FIFA). The main aim of the meetings was to discuss the impact of sports on development. There would be two press stakeouts. The first would be at 11:45 a.m. in Lausanne at the offices of the International Olympic Committee with the Secretary-General and Mr. Rogge. The second would be at 4:15 p.m. in Zurich at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich with the Secretary-General and Mr. Blatter.
This evening, the Secretary-General would be going to Davos where he would be participating in the World Economic Forum. At noon on Wednesday, 25 January, he would be participating in the opening media lunch of the Forum with the theme “the impact of sports in the world”. The Secretary-General would also participate in the plenary session of the Forum where he would deliver a presentation on “a new way to think about the United Nations”. The provisional programme of the Secretary-General was available in the press room.
New Statements, Message, Appointment and Report by the Secretary-General
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said available in the press room were new statements by the Secretary-General welcoming the mission by the British Foreign Secretary to Cyprus, Greece and Turkey; expressing sadness at the loss of 42 Slovak citizens serving with the NATO-led Kosovo Force; condemning the killing of eight Guatemalan peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and offering condolences on the death of President Ibrahim Rugova of Kosovo. Also available was the message of the Secretary-General to the Summit meeting of the African Union in Khartoum, and the biography of Peter Sutherland who had been appointed as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for migration. The texts were all available in the press room.
The Secretary-General’s latest report on the situation in Abkhazia (Georgia) was also available in the Documentation Centre.
Geneva Activities
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Committee on the Rights of the Child was continuing its work at the Palais Wilson. The Committee was today reviewing the reports of Saudi Arabia and Thailand. The Committee would be concluding its session on Friday, 27 January, when it would release its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Switzerland, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Peru, Ghana, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Trinity and Tobago, Hungary, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, Mauritius, Saudi Arabia and Thailand.
The Conference on Disarmament was today holding the first plenary of its 2006 session under the Presidency of Ambassador Zdzislaw Rapacki of Poland.
The General Assembly has designated 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, as the International Day of commemoration in memory of Holocaust victims. Next Friday, UNOG would be observing the first commemoration of the International Day under the theme “Remembrance and Beyond”. There would be a ceremony held at 3:45 p.m. on 27 January in Room XIX of the Palais which would be attended by the Director-General of UNOG, Sergei Ordzhonikidze; the Permanent Representative of Israel to UNOG, Itzhak Levanon; and a former UN staff member who was a survivor of the Holocaust, Tom Luke. At 4:30 p.m., the commemoration ceremony being held at Headquarters in New York would be transmitted live to the Palais. The embargoed message of the Secretary-General on the occasion of the Day was available in the press room, as was an information note on the commemoration ceremony to be held in Geneva.
There were two interesting press conferences which would be held today. The first would be held at 3:15 p.m. by the Secretary-General of UNCTAD on the presentation of the UN’s Economic Situation and Prospects 2006 report. Around 4 p.m. (to be confirmed), David Nabarro, Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, would give a background briefing on the coordination of the UN system action in the fight against Avian Flu.
Côte d’Ivoire
Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said that in Côte d’Ivoire, WFP had suspended its operations following the attacks on the UN in the country. For the moment, WFP staff was unable to return to work. WFP was especially worried about the situation of persons who had remained in Guiglo who needed aid, including 7,000 displaced persons and thousands of Liberian refugees in camps in the town. Called onto the streets by local radio broadcasts last week, looters had stripped WFP’s two warehouses in Guiglo of 683 metric tons of food and had ransacked the main office. Replacing the food would cost at least $ 530,000 while losses to theft and damage at WFP’s office were estimated at $ 100,000. WFP fed a total of nearly 700,000 people in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as 200,000 victims of the unrest in neighbouring Liberia, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali.
Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recalled that the UN had appealed for $ 36 million for Côte d’Ivoire, and had only received 45 per cent of that amount.
Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR’s office in Guiglo was destroyed after protesters looted the premises and then set fire to the building. All files were lost, as well as five cars, one motorcycle and three generators. UNHCR staff had been evacuated and the Refugee Agency was already looking for ways to resume its activities on behalf of more than 10,000 refugees in Guiglo, primarily Liberians.
Other
Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization said there would be a briefing on Wednesday, 25 January at 11 a.m. in press room by Francis Gurry who would be speaking about cyber squatting and the number of domain name cases in 2005.
Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Office said according to ILO’s annual Global Employment Trends report which was released today, the number of people unemployed worldwide had climbed to new heights in 2005 as robust economic growth had failed to offset an increase in people seeking work, especially among the vast and growing legion of jobless youth. The total number of jobless stood at 191.8 million people at the end of 2005, an increase of 2.2 million since 2004, and 34.4 million since 1995. The report also showed that of the more than 2.8 billion workers in the world, 1.4 billion still did not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the $2 a day poverty line. Copies of the press release and the executive summary were available at the back of the room.
Jeff Johnson of the International Labour Office said in 2005, there was no change in the unemployment rate. However, the number of unemployed had crept up to 191 million people. The report highlighted that the main concern of ILO was that of the working poor. Over the last decade, there had been little improvement in the conditions of the working poor. The economic growth in 2004-2005 had not translated in any way into improvements for the working poor.
Brigitte Leoni of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction said there would be a press briefing on Monday, 30 January in press room at 11 a.m. to give the official figures for the 2005 natural catastrophes and disasters.
Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said in Yemen, between 12 January and 23 January, at least 27 smugglers’ boats carrying an undetermined number of people across the Gulf of Aden from the Horn of Africa had arrived along the coast of Yemen, often with tragic consequences. In the past weeks, at least 70 people – mostly Somalis and Ethiopians – had died in incidents involving four separate boats. Dozens more were missing. Last September, UNHCR had called for international action to stem the flow of people falling prey to smugglers after at least 150 boat people died in a three-week period. UNHCR continued to work with local authorities in north-eastern Somalia’s Puntland region to inform people about the dangers of using smugglers to cross the Gulf of Aden. But the traffic continued.
Mr. Redmond said there was a rapidly changing situation in western Uganda as a result of fighting over recent days in the Kivu region of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some 20,000 Congolese refugees had arrived in western Uganda by last weekend, fleeing actual fighting or fears of fighting. By Monday afternoon, about 7,000 of them had already gone back to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but UNHCR remained worried about the volatility of the situation in Kivu. UNHCR was making preparations to receive several thousands of the recently arrived refugees in Nakivale, an established refugee settlement in Isingoro district of Uganda. While space was available for newcomers, water supplies were limited.
Nearly 800 Sudanese refuges had arrived in eastern Chad since 1 January, fleeing continued insecurity in the neighbouring West Darfur region of Sudan, Mr. Redmond said. They arrived at the Gaga camp, and said more people were ready to leave Darfur because of the insecurity. UNHCR had temporarily reduced its staff in two of the five regional offices in eastern Chad as a precautionary measure following attacks. UNHCR maintained enough people in the two field offices to continue delivering essential services to the camps, and it was assessing the security situation on a daily basis.
Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said in Thailand, health workers from refugee camps and migrant communities on the Myanmar border would meet with local officials and donors in Tak's provincial capital on Friday 27 January to review contingency plans to cope with a possible outbreak of bird flu. In Pakistan, with intermittent rain and snow in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and North West Frontier Province causing flooding, collapsed tents and misery for the people living in villages and camps, IOM continued to expand on their urban Rapid Response Teams in Muzaffarabad. Emergency Shelter Cluster members with extra personnel capacity had been brought in to form Rapid Response Teams to provide emergency shelter assistance.
Ms. Pandya said in Greece, IOM Deputy Director General, Ndioro Ndiaye, yesterday joined corporate leaders and personalities from around the world to discuss how the business community could become more active in combating human trafficking.
Renilde Vanden Broeck of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said journalists were invited on 27 January to a speech to be given at CERN by President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan on his country’s collaboration with CERN and its approach to basic science.
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier asked the Spokesperson for CERN to prepare a programme of President Musharraf’s visit and put it in the press room for journalists.