REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which provided information on the Secretary-General's European trip, the review of the 1995 Social Development Summit, the fear of the renewed spread of polio around the world, a fraud case at WMO, Geneva activities, as well as latest developments on the tsunami relief efforts and other issues. Representatives of the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Labour Office, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund and the International Organization for Migration also participated in the briefing.

Secretary-General's European Trip

Mrs. Heuzé said the Secretary-General delivered an important speech in London yesterday on his vision for the United Nations agenda for 2005 in which he said that today, the world faced threats to the world order and world peace of a kind and a scale not seen since the height of the Cold War. Those threats ranged from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction to AIDS and other diseases that could spread globally. The Secretary-General's speech was available on the UN Internet website and copies had been placed in the press room. In a press encounter, the Secretary-General was asked about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s statement on its nuclear program. He said that he hoped that it was not a definitive position and urged the other countries involved in the six-party talks "to engage North Korea and bring them back to the table, and for the talks to resume as quickly as possible". Mr. Annan also held bilateral talks, among others with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, and the Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn.

The Secretary-General was this morning continuing his bilateral meetings and this afternoon, he would be flying to Munich where he would attend he annual security conference and deliver an important statement on collective security during his stay. Embargoed copies of the statement would probably be put in the press room late this afternoon. The Secretary-General was scheduled to fly back to New York on Sunday, 13 February.

Review of 1995 World Summit on Social Development

The Director said that in New York, a ministerial-level review of the 1995 World Summit on Social Development was addressed yesterday by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Fréchette. Available were copies of a press kit in English and in French which outlined the progress made in implementing the 10 commitments made in Copenhagen 10 years ago. The statement was also available in English.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Heuzé said that the Working Group on Internet Governance would be meeting at the Palais des Nations from 14 to 16 February. Also next week, the second Preparatory Committee meeting of the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society would be held in Geneva from 17 to 25 February. The Preparatory Committee would evaluate progress made on the Summit’s Plan of Action, which was agreed to by 175 countries at the Geneva phase of the Summit last December, and would focus on preparations for the second phase, which would take place in Tunis from 16 to 18 November. Mr. Y. Utsumi, ITU Secretary-General and Secretary-General of the Summit, and Mr. J. Karklins, Chairman of the PrepCom, would be briefing journalists at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 16 February on the opening of PrepCom II.

The Director said that at the request of ACANU, which has repeatedly protested that Geneva is no longer the venue of the launching of new reports and studies, a new report by the Food and Agriculture Organization on "The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2004" would be launched simultaneously in Geneva and Rome at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 15 February. Alexander Sarris, Director of Commodities and Trade Division at FAO, would come from Rome to brief the press corps in Geneva. Embargoed copies of the report in English, French and Spanish would be available in the press room on Monday, 14 February.

The sixth session of the Working Group on the right to development would be meeting from 14 to 18 February in Salle XVII at the Palais des Nations in public session.

WHO Fears of Renewed Spread of Polio

David Heyman, Representative of the Director-General of WHO for polio eradication, recalled that since last September, three children had carried the polio virus into Saudi Arabia, going across land from West Africa, through Sudan, and into Saudi Arabia. The most recent one of those incidents had occurred in mid-December. A Nigerian boy living with his family near Mecca, who had not travelled outside of Saudi Arabia for the previous two years, but whose home had been visited by travellers with children from Nigeria, had become sick with polio despite having been vaccinated. He recalled that polio was transmitted from the infected faeces of a sick child to the environment and then mouth of the healthy child. Also for every child who was paralyzed, there could be up to 250 other children in the area who carried the virus but did not show manifestations of the disease.

Dr. Heyman said five of the six countries today which still had endemic polio were members of the Islamic Conference (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Niger, and Nigeria). Also polio had spread from Nigeria to five other countries in sub-Saharan Africa which were now polio re-infected. At the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia each year, the sanitation was quite impeccable. There were very seldom any outbreaks of any disease. In response to the most recent case, Saudi Arabia had been in touch with WHO and had provided it with information. WHO's guidance to pilgrims around the world was that as long as polio was present anywhere in the world, it remained a risk to any other country through any international travellers. So pilgrims were one way that the polio virus could be spread, but there were also many other ways. For countries which might feel that they were at risk from Saudi Arabia or any other country, the most important thing to do was to continue their surveillance for polio. This is where WHO stood today.

In response to a question, Bruce Aylward, WHO Coordinator of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, said that these three cases were not a setback in terms of the plans to interrupt the transmission of polio by the end of 2005. Among other steps, the Saudis had arranged immunization campaigns in advance of the pilgrimage in areas which may be at risk of communicable diseases, and Saudi Arabia's normal immunization coverage was over 95 per cent. It was not possible to quantify the risk at this point, but there were a number of positive elements including that this was the low season for polio, and the pilgrimage mainly involved adults. The Saudi sanitation system and the immunization campaigns in advance also helped. The investigation was continuing.

WMO Fraud Case

Carine Richard-Van Maele of the World Meteorological Organization said that WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud would be participating on Wednesday, 16 February, in the third Earth Observation Summit. A press release would be issued next week.

Ms. Richard-Van Maele said that since she had received many telephone calls and inquiries following an article in the New York Times on a case of fraud at WMO, she and her colleague from WMO's Resource Management were present to answer any questions. She recalled that this case of fraud was discovered by WMO staff in July 2003. The case had been handed over to the Swiss Justice in November 2003. The media had been informed about it in December 2003. The Swiss investigation was still ongoing. In January 2004, when Mr. Jarraud became Secretary-General, he had launched an action plan for management reform of WMO.

Joachim Muller, Director of Resource Management at the World Meteorological Organization, said he wanted to explain what was currently being done at WMO to reform the organization. Mr. Jarraud's action plan for management reform had three phases: to re-establish the integrity of the organization by establishing a new internal control system; to enhance transparency within the organization through better provision of key information to Member States and senior management; and to improve the efficiency of the organization. WMO had gone a long way already in implementing this reform plan.

In response to a question, Mr. Muller said that as a result of the reform plan, WMO could say confidently that the fraud case could not be repeated, thanks to the new solid internal control systems. The suspect in the case had left the organization and his current whereabouts were unknown. WMO was now a new organization in the area of administration.

Answering questions on whether the former Secretary-General of WMO or others were being investigated, Ms. Richard-Van Maele said that there were other people who were probably being investigated but no names could be revealed at this stage.

Human Rights

José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, responding to a question on the visit of High Commissioner Louise Arbour to the Russian Federation, said he could send journalists her schedule during the visit.

Tsunami Relief Efforts

Ron Redmond of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said that towards the end of the month, the three Swiss Super Puma helicopters put at the disposal of UNHCR and other agencies to help with the tsunami relief efforts in Indonesia's Aceh province were expected to wind up their mission. The emergency phase of the tsunami operation where the helicopters had been so essential to fly in badly needed relief supplies to remote areas was almost at an end. Now the relief operation was moving into the rehabilitation phase where road transport and boats would be used to move heavy supplies. UNHCR expressed its tremendous appreciation to the Swiss Government for its generous gesture.

Damien Personnaz of the United Nations Children's Fund said that available was a press release on how malnutrition and disease were threatening Aceh's tsunami generation children in emergency relief camps. A nutrition assessment said one in eight children in the tsunami-affected areas of Indonesia suffered from acute malnutrition. Diarrhoea, fever and coughing were also widespread.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said that IOM had been asked by the Government of Indonesia to assist in the rebuilding of tsunami destroyed health infrastructures by building up to 37 temporary health clinics using modified IOM temporary shelter units.

Other

Erica Meltzer of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said that the UN Tropical Timber Conference would resume from 14 to 18 February. The Conference was negotiating a successor agreement to the 1994 document. There would be a press release later today. There would also be a press release today on the outcome of the WSIS meeting this week which agreed on four indicators to measure the information society.

Luis Cordova of the International Labour Office said that the seventh ILO European meeting would be held from 15 to 18 February in Budapest. In this context, there would be a launch on Monday, 14 February of the global employment trends for 2004. There would be a briefing in Geneva at 11 a.m. on Monday about the report.

Aurelia Blin of the World Trade Organization said that on Monday, 14 February, the Trade Negotiations Committee would be meeting, chaired by Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, and on Tuesday, 15 February, the General Council would be meeting. Mr. Supachai would be attending the General Council. The Cotton Subcommittee would be meeting on Wednesday, 16 February, and on Thursday, 17 February, the Dispute Settlement Body and the Regional Trade Agreements Committee would be meeting. A meeting on Russia's membership negotiation would also be held.

Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization said that there would be a press conference on Tuesday, 15 February on the activities in the international trademark system in 2004.

Damien Personnaz of the United Nations Children's Fund recalled that last week, he had spoken about how UNICEF was providing aid to 50,000 displaced persons in Ituri in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, the number of people being supported by UNICEF had almost doubled to 85,000. The situation was now very precarious in the area. All the schools in Ituri were closed.

Ron Redmond of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said that UNHCR was growing increasingly concerned about a group of 102 Iranian Kurd refugees, including at leave five pregnant women and a large number of children, who arrived at the Iraqi/Jordanian border in three batches over the past four weeks. The refugees were from Al Tash, a long-standing refugee camp in Iraq. They had not been permitted to enter Jordan, nor to join another group of 660 refugees who had been living in a camp in no-man's land between the two countries for the past year and a half.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said that IOM had assisted a group of 23 Indian irregular migrants who were stranded in the northern Mauritanian city of Zouerate while trying to reach the northern shores of the Mediterranean. This was the third group of stranded migrants assisted by IOM in Mauritania since November 2004. Another group of 24 stranded Indian migrants was scheduled to return home with IOM assistance on 17 February.

Mr. Chauzy said that in Colombia, IOM was sponsoring a two-day international symposium devoted to discussions on restoring peace and justice.