POINT DE PRESSE DU SERVICE DE L'INFORMATION (en anglais)
Marie Heuzé, the Director of the Information Service of the United Nations Office at Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also addressed by Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.
Secretary-General’s Upcoming Trip to Europe and Africa
Ms. Heuzé said the Secretary-General will be heading for Europe and Africa next week. His first stop will be Brussels where he will meet officials of the European Commission and the head of the European Parliament, as well as the King and the Prime Minister of Belgium. He will then go to Paris where he will participate in the International Conference on Support for the reconstruction and development of Lebanon, a conference that will be hosted by President Jacques Chirac. It is expected that the Government of Lebanon will present at the conference a new economic reform programme, which will include post-conflict reconstruction as well as economic recovery and reforms, to address Lebanon’s debt sustainability problem and restore the foundations for sustained growth.
The Secretary-General will then travel to Africa. His first stop will be the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the UN's largest peacekeeping operation is based. The Secretary-General will meet with the President and other senior Government officials. He will also meet with peacekeepers and express his personal gratitude for the contributions they are making under difficult and often dangerous conditions, in a country that is key to so much of the future stability of the region. He will then attend the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, where Darfur and Somalia will be at the top of his agenda. The Secretary-General’s last stop in Africa will be Nairobi, where he will meet with staff at the UN's headquarters on the continent.
The Secretary-General will be back in New York in February where he will attend a meeting of the Middle East Quartet in Washington on 2 February.
Ms. Heuzé said the Secretary-General on 17 January made remarks at the ceremony for the handover of the presidency of the Economic and Social Council. The Secretary-General said that it was the role of the UN, and the Economic and Social Council in particular, to facilitate the effective implementation by Member States of the ambitious development agenda reached through a landmark series of global conferences and summits. The new year presented a tremendous opportunity for ECOSOC to advance this role. ECOSOC will be meeting in Geneva starting 2 July for three weeks.
Committee on the Rights of the Child
Ms. Heuzé said the Committee on the Rights of the Child is continuing its session. Yesterday, the Committee considered the second periodic report of Mali, and a press release was available in English and in French. Today, the Committee is taking up the third periodic report of Honduras.
Human Rights
José Luis Díaz of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said High Commissioner Louise Arbour arrived in Kathmandu today. Upon her arrival, she said she is visiting Nepal for the second time to show direct support for human rights and the peace process in the country, both to the Government and the people of Nepal. Since the High Commissioner’s last visit to Nepal in January 2005, Ms. Arbour recalled that significant changes had taken place. Bringing an end to the 11-year conflict had been a great achievement, and the process of building lasting peace and an inclusive democracy was a great challenge. The High Commissioner affirmed that her Office will continue to work with all the people of Nepal to ensure that the protection and promotion of human rights remains at the centre of this process.
The High Commissioner will make two trips outside Kathmandu, to Nepalgunj and Bardiya in the Mid-Western Region and to Sindapulchowk in the Central Region, to highlight the importance of monitoring the human rights situation in communities where they are most vulnerable. The office in Nepal is OHCHR's largest field operation.
Mr. Díaz said the High Commissioner will be in Nepal until 25 January, and from there will go to Japan. This will also be her second visit to that country.
WIPO
Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization said the Standing Committee on copyrights and related rights started meeting on 17 January to try to move forward on the question of the Broadcasting Treaty following a mandate received from the General Assembly last October to hold two special sessions of the Standing Committee in January and June and to try to move to a diplomatic conference later this year. The Standing Committee is moving forward on this issue and there will be a read out on this meeting on Monday, 22 January at 11:30 a.m.
Ms. Shamoon said WIPO will host the third global congress on counterfeiting and piracy on 30 and 31 January. The congress will be held in collaboration with INTERPOL, the World Customs Organization and several private sector organizations. The meetings will be open. A press release is available with information on how to register for the congress which will be held at the Geneva International Conference Centre.
In response to a question, Ms. Shamoon said there are some interesting personalities coming to attend the congress, including from the private sector, the pharmaceutical industry, government ministers, personalities from Africa where the problem of counterfeit medicine is very serious, and others. There will be around 500 participants and the website of the congress has the full list of confirmed speakers. Counterfeiting and piracy are very much cross-cutting crimes, affecting numerous industries, including medicines, automobile parts, batteries that explode and baby shampoos that contain bacteria. Counterfeit and piracy can kill people and this is the third such congress to discuss the extent of the problem and its implications, both socially and economically.
Answering another question, Ms. Shamoon said the problem of counterfeit medicine in Africa is very serious. According to the World Health Organization, at least 10 per cent of medicines globally are counterfeit, and in developing countries, this percentage can rise to at least 25 per cent.
Piracy is also a very serious problem, Ms. Shamoon said, leading to lost revenues and income and undermining the livelihood of artists and creators. Both piracy and counterfeit have economic, social and cultural implications.
Other
Ms. Heuzé said available at the back of the room is a press release issued today in Nairobi and Geneva on how Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa are currently experiencing numerous simultaneous crises and humanitarian emergencies, many of them crossing or spilling over borders between the three countries. The release said these natural and man-made emergencies – drought, floods, Polio, the conflict in Somalia as well as their direct consequences in the form of water-borne diseases, Rift Valley Fever, and displacement – have broken out in rapid succession and threatened people’s life, health and livelihoods with disastrous humanitarian consequences.
Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said the provisional agenda of the meeting of WHO’s Executive Council, which will meet from 22 to 30 January at WHO headquarters, is available in the press room. The Council will hear a speech by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan on 22 January. There will be interesting discussions on Polio, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Avian Influenza and chronic diseases. The annotated agenda is also available.
Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said in recent weeks, there have been heavy floods in Burundi which have affected hundreds of thousands of persons who now need food aid for the next six months. The situation is deteriorating rapidly and will not improve before the next harvest in June. Seven of Burundi’s provinces are affected. WFP has been distributing food to the affected provinces since the beginning of the month to 400,000 persons. According to preliminary assessments by OCHA, WFP and FAO, the loss of agricultural product because of the rains and floods is estimated at between 50 per cent and 80 per cent.
Ms. Berthiaume said the situation for Bhutanese refugees in Nepal is critical. If no new funds are given to WFP, it will be forced to reduce its food rations to 100,000 Bhutanese refugees there.
Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said at 6 a.m. local time in Sri Lanka this morning, several thousand of an estimated 9,500 people remaining in Vaharai, a pocket of rebel-held land on Sri Lanka’s east coast, started to move south towards government-controlled areas of Batticaloa District, according to reports by UNHCR’s field office in Batticaloa, 60 kilometres south of Vaharai. They are reportedly fleeing intensified fighting as government forces advance on rebel positions. UNHCR is very concerned about the safety of any civilians remaining in Vaharai, as well as those in other areas across Sri Lanka’s conflict-ridden north and east. UNHCR called on both parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law including the protection of civilians and their freedom of movement.
Mr. Redmond said UNHCR is opening two more field offices in Colombia to help cope with the humanitarian crisis facing some three million people displaced by violence within the country. This brings to 12 the number of UNHCR locations in Colombia.
Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said IOM’s Director-General Brunson McKinley begins a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia tomorrow, the first such official visit by an IOM Director-General to the country. In Sudan, an IOM operation to provide return assistance to some 10,000 internally displaced persons from South Sudan’s provinces of eastern, central and western Equatoria is due to resume next week when a first group of some 350 persons will board an IOM chartered ferry that will take them on an 18-hour journey up the White Nile from Juba to Bor, in Jonglei state.
Mr. Chauzy said in Thailand, IOM Tuberculosis experts from 11 countries met in Bangkok this week to plan the roll-out of the second phase of a UK-sponsored programme to screen long stay UK visa applicants from countries identified by WHO as having a high incidence of Tuberculosis. In Colombia, the second phase of an IOM programme to use community radio to encourage different social groups to take part in matters of public interest at the local and regional levels will kick off this week.