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 provided information on the Secretary-General's activities in Mauritius, the tsunami relief effort, activities in New York and Geneva, human rights and other issues. Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme, the International Organization for Migration, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization participated in the briefing.

Secretary-General Calls for a Global Warning System for Natural Disasters

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said that in an address to the High Level Segment of the International Meeting on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States in Mauritius yesterday, the Secretary-General said that the recent tsunami has taught the world once again the need for prevention and early warning. "We need a global warning system – and one that covers not just tsunamis but all other threats, such as storm surges and cyclones," Mr. Annan said.

The Secretary-General had also participated in a meeting yesterday organized by the Seychelles and the United Kingdom on "Reefs, island communities and protected areas - committing to the future". The Secretary-General noted that less than one percent of the world oceans were protected, compared to twelve percent of the land area, adding that reefs in particular were both especially vulnerable and especially important.

Copies of the Secretary-General's two statements were in the press room.

The Secretary-General had given a press conference in Port Louis this morning. Copies of his opening remarks would be put in the press room shortly and the full transcript of the press conference would be announced once it had been received.

General Assembly to Hold Plenary on Tsunami Relief Assistance

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the General Assembly would be holding a plenary meeting on Tuesday, 18 January at 10 a.m. to consider the strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian and disaster relief assistance. The Secretary-General was expected to address the meeting. The meeting, which was expected to focus on the tsunami, was requested by members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

First Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security Named

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Secretary-General had appointed David Veness of the United Kingdom as the first UN Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security, following agreement by the General Assembly to create that post, to oversee all security work for the United Nations. Mr. Veness would begin his term of office on February 28. Catherine Bertini had been serving as the interim head of the new Department for the past 15 months. The biography of Mr. Veness was available in the press room.

Geneva Activities and New Documents

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Staff Coordinating Council of the United Nations Office at Geneva had last year organized two collections to held victims of the famine in Kenya and the terrorist attack in Beslan. The Council had raised 10,000 Swiss francs for each collection and had coordinated with the World Food Programme to identify projects in Kenya where the money could be used; and with the United Nations Children's Fund to identify projects in Beslan. The money raised from Staff Day would be given to the non-governmental organization SOS Enfants Sans Frontiers to help the victims of the floods in Haiti. At a ceremony to be held on Monday, 17 January, at 4 p.m. in Room C-529, the Staff Coordinating Council would be handing over the cheques to the three organizations. Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, would be participating in the ceremony. The Permanent Representatives of the Russian Federation and Kenya to the United Nations Office at Geneva as well as a representative from the Haitian Mission had been invited to attend the ceremony. Journalists were welcome to attend.

The collection organized by the Staff Coordinating Council for the victims of the tsunami had raised 25,000 Swiss francs, and the Council was presently consulting with UNICEF to identify which programmes in the Indian Ocean countries affected by the tsunami could benefit from the money.

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the Committee on the Rights of the Child was continuing with its thirty-eighth session. Today, the Committee would be considering the situation of children in Austria. Yesterday, press releases in English and French had been issued on the consideration of the report of Luxembourg by Committee members. On Monday, 17 January, the Committee would consider the situation of children in Belize.

The Secretary-General would launch the UN Millennium Project's report entitled "A Global Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals" on 17 January. Available in the Documentation Centre were press kits on the report as well as copies of the embargoed report itself.

Tsunami Relief Effort

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said that situation report 15, dated 13 January, on the tsunami relief effort was available at the back of the room. Among other things, the report said that no outbreaks had been reported yet. However, based on previous experience, WHO expected an increase in disease in the third week. The fact that there had not been any outbreak was a testament to the countries who had been strengthening disease control mechanisms.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the humanitarian relief efforts were increasingly coming under control. However, the flow of humanitarian assistance had to continue. It was also necessary to continue sending assessment missions to pinpoint where the needs were.

Ms. Byrs said there were 500 humanitarian aid workers in Banda Aceh from the United Nations, including international and local staff, and that number continued to increase. There was an urgent need for 100,000 tents to house the humanitarian workers and the victims as the rents had gone through the roof. Also there was a need for interpreters and persons to provide psychological support to the victims. Only 20 per cent of the population had been inoculated against measles which was a concern.

Concerning the security situation, Ms. Byrs said humanitarian aid workers now had to register with the Indonesian authorities. Margareta Wahlstrom, the Special Coordinator for Humanitarian Assistance to Tsunami Affected Communities, had been meeting with the local authorities to clarify the possible consequences of this decision. In exceptional cases, the United Nations accepted to be escorted by the Indonesia army in its work.

Ron Redmond of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said that in Indonesia, UNHCR had carried out a security assessment mission in Lamno on the west coast of Aceh by helicopter. The mission had found more than half of the total population of 23,400 displaced and in urgent need of shelter and assistance. UNHCR hoped to get relief supplies to Lamno this weekend by helicopter. It was also exploring the option of sending the supplies by boat. Assistant High Commissioner Kamel Morjane would be visiting Sri Lanka from 18 to 20 January. Some 130,000 tsunami-displaced people had so far received UNHCR shelter and non-food relief items in Sri Lanka.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said that WFP had to date responded to the food needs of more than 1 million tsunami victims. It had distributed more than 10,000 tons of food. The Executive Director of WFP, James Morris, would be arriving in Sri Lanka tomorrow to see for himself the WFP food distribution operation. In Indonesia, a lot of food distribution was being done by sea. WFP had come to the aid of 300,000 persons in Aceh, but it hoped to increase that figure to 400,000 by the end of next week. In Myanmar, WFP was also using boats to distribute food to some 15,000 persons in the affected areas. In Somalia, WFP had distributed food aid to 20,000 tsunami victims.

Niurka Pineiro of the International Organization for Migration said that IOM Banda Aceh had yesterday and today loaded 20 tons of tents, mosquito nets, cooking sets and some food aid on to a small cargo ship which would go to the devastated town of Calang on the west coast of Aceh. Calang, which had a population of 14,000 before the tsunami, had reported 6,000 persons dead and 4,000 missing. It had been completely cut off when the tsunami swept away road access. In Sri Lanka, IOM's emergency activities in areas affected by the tsunami had expanded.

Ms. Pineiro said that in addition to its on-going counter trafficking programmes in the tsunami affected countries, IOM would implement a rapid response trafficking awareness raising project in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, with a primary focus on the more than one million internally displaced persons.

Human Rights

José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that on Monday, 17 January, the Commission on Human Rights would be meeting to elect its chairperson for the sixty-first session. The rest of the Bureau, three Vice-Chairpersons and the Rapporteur, would also be elected. This was supposed to be a brief session with no substantive statements. The meeting would start with a minute of silence for the victims of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, then the outgoing Chairperson, Ambassador Mike Smith of Australia, would speak. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour would also make a brief statement. Then the Working Group would proceed to the elections. It was expected that Indonesia would chair the sixty-first session of the Commission.

Mr. Díaz said that economic, social and cultural rights had traditionally been treated as a poor relation of international human rights law. The position of the UN's human rights programme, and most of the international human rights movement, was that all human rights were interdependent and indivisible and were on equal footing. There was an open-ended Working Group established by the Commission on Human Rights which was meeting at the Palais des Nations now to try to come up with an Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which would permit persons to submit individual claims that their economic, social and cultural rights had been violated and to seek legal redress. If journalists were interested, he had an interesting statement from the High Commissioner to this Working Group which reflected the position of the Office and of most of the international human rights movement on the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights and the right of any person to claim rights like the right to food or to education or to housing through the courts. Some countries did not even recognize economic, social and cultural rights as human rights.

In response to a question, Mr. Díaz said that the fact that the international community had been studying this issue for so long was a measure of the debate at the international level. Some very powerful countries did not even consider economic, social and cultural rights to be on an equal footing with civil and political rights. These States did not even consider economic, social and cultural rights to be human rights, only aspirations, saying that there was no obligation on States to implement them. This was only the second meeting of the Working Group and he expected there would be quite a few more of these meetings before there was agreement on a draft that could be forwarded to the Commission on Human Rights and then the General Assembly. Economic, social and cultural rights were still a very controversial issue and the Office expected that it would take a lot more time before there was any consensus on the draft Optional Protocol.

Other

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said that available at the back of the room were three media advisories. The first concerned the WHO Executive Board which would meeting from 17 to 25 January. Among other issues, the Executive Board would be discussing post-tsunami relief and reconstruction efforts in Southeast Asia and global emergency preparedness and response. The two other media advisories concerned the launch of the "The UN Millennium Project" on 17 January by the Secretary-General. On 18 January, WHO would host a special launch in Geneva focusing on health.

Catherine Sibut-Pinot of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said that available at the back of the room were copies of the latest edition of "Transnational Corporations" (number 3 for 2004). A note to correspondents on the publication was also available. There were two UNCTAD press conference next week. On Monday, 17 January at 2:30 p.m. in press room 1, two experts from India would brief journalists about a meeting to be held from 17 to 19 January on trade in professional services: the new realities. There would also be a press conference on 19 January at 2 p.m. in press room 1 on a meeting on the liberalization of the trade of industrial products and its impact on developing countries.

Josep Bosch of the World Trade Organization said that today at 4 p.m., WTO would distribute embargoed copies of a report by the Consultative Board to the Director-General entitled "The Future of the WTO" which addressed institutional challenges in the new millennium. The Director-General, Supachai Panitchpakdi, and a member of the Consultative Board who was also a former WTO Director-General, Peter Sutherland, would brief journalists on the report at 11 a.m. on Monday, 17 January.

Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization reminded journalists that there would be a ceremony this afternoon at 4 p.m. to mark the filing of the one millionth international patent application. There would be a press release after the event.

Ron Redmond of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said that several thousand Congolese refugees had arrived in Uganda in recent days, saying they were fleeing fighting in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 persons, mostly women and children, had arrived, most of them in poor health and in immediate need of assistance.
Niurka Pineiro of the International Organization for Migration said that expatriate Iraqis who wanted to take part in IOM's out-of-country voting for Iraq's Transitional National Assembly had to be ready to register to vote during the 17 to 23 January registration period. Some 900 registration and polling stations were being established in approximately 150 locations across the 14 host countries.

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