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 about Geneva meetings, the polio outbreak in Indonesia, human rights and other issues. Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration addressed the briefing.

Geneva Meetings and Press Conference

Mrs. Heuzé said the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was continuing its work at the Palais des Nations. The Committee had concluded its consideration of the reports of Zambia, China, Serbia and Montenegro and Norway and was meeting today in private. On Monday, 9 May, the Committee would meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a draft general comment on article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the right to work. It would continue this discussion at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 10 May. The Committee would be concluding its session and releasing its final conclusions and recommendations on the reports which it has considered on Friday, 13 May.

The Committee against Torture was meeting at the Palais Wilson. This morning, the Committee would be starting its review of the fourth periodic report of Switzerland. And in the afternoon, it would continue its consideration of the fourth and fifth periodic reports of Canada. On Monday, 9 May, the Committee would start its review of the fourth periodic report of Finland.

The Director said that the International Law Commission had started the first part of its fifty-seventh session earlier this week. The list of the 34 members of the Commission was available as well as a number of contacts for interested journalists.

And the Committee on the Rights of the Child would be holding its thirty-ninth session from 17 May to 3 June to discuss reports presented by Saint Lucia, the Philippines, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nepal, Ecuador, Norway, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Yemen. This was the Committee's second session this year. It would be starting on Tuesday, 17 May because Monday, 16 May was a day off for the United Nations.

The Director reminded journalists that the General Assembly of the World Health Organization would start at the Palais des Nations on Monday, 16 May, where some facilities would remain open, despite it being an official day off, to accommodate the Assembly.

Mrs. Heuzé said the press conference with the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka had been advanced to 11:30 a.m. this morning in press room 1. The Foreign Minister was meeting today with non-governmental organizations at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to thank all those who had provided aid following the tsunami and to discuss the recovery and reconstruction process.

Human Rights

José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights, said High Commissioner Louise Arbour would be visiting Colombia next week from 11 to 15 May. The High Commissioner would be meeting with Government officials and representatives of non-governmental organizations. Among the Colombian officials that the High Commissioner was scheduled to meet was the President, the Attorney General, and the full Constitutional Court of Colombia. This would be the third time that a High Commissioner visited Colombia, which hosted OHCHR's biggest field operations, including field offices within Colombia. The High Commissioner would travel inside Colombia, to Choco, one of the regions hardest hit by the armed conflict, and where the Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities had been particularly affected. A note on the visit would be issued at the beginning of next week.

Polio Outbreak in Indonesia

Iain Simpson of the World Health Organization said his colleagues had spoken earlier this week about one confirmed polio case in West Java in Indonesia. There had now been three additional cases confirmed. There was a lot of work going on in Indonesia to try and identify any children who might be suffering from polio. A mass vaccination campaign in the area around the villages where the cases had been identified was also underway to ensure that all children were protected.

Other

Iain Simpson of the World Health Organization said that available at the back of the room was a media advisory on the start of WHO's fifty-eighth World Health Assembly on 16 May at the Palais des Nations. He said among the guests attending the first day of the Assembly would be Bill Gates and WHO was trying to organize for him to give a press conference in the morning. Mr. Gates would give a keynote speech in the afternoon.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme reminded journalists that the Executive Director of WFP, James Morris, would speak to journalists at 2 p.m. on Monday, 9 May at Room III before he addressed the World Trade Organization at 3 p.m. on the relation between food aid and world agricultural trade.
Available was a news release issued a couple of days ago in Rome which noted that total global food aid delivered from all sources had decreased from 10.3 million tons in 2003 to 7.5 million tons in 2004. The latest fall was part of a general decline in food aid volume since 1999, when 15 million tons of food aid were delivered. Over the same periodic, the number of chronically hungry people around the world had increased by nearly 8 per cent.

Ron Redmond of the High Commissioner for Refugees said the number of Togolese fleeing to Benin and Ghana because of general insecurity in their homeland had slowed down sharply over the last two days. A combined total of some 22,600 refugees had now been registered in the two countries since the outflow began in late April. While 67 per cent of the Togolese refugees in Benin were staying with host families, nearly 3,500 others had been transferred to two camps. UNHCR was providing supplies like tents, blankets, plastic sheeting, jerrycans, kitchen sets and soap and the World Food Programme was providing food aid. In Ghana, virtually all refugees had found shelter and basic assistance from family and friends.

Mr. Redmond said UNHCR and its partners were working to repair heavy damage caused in late April by heavy rains and flooding in eastern Kenya's Dadaab refugee camp where some 25,000 Somali refugees had suffered damage to their shelters.

Jean Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said that according to a newly released survey on the needs and aspirations of people displaced by the tsunami disaster in Aceh and the communities hosting them, most affected Acehnese want to return home, resume their jobs and re-establish their communities. The multi-agency US AID-funded study would help the Government, international agencies and local non-governmental organizations to develop appropriate humanitarian aid and reconstruction programmes in the province.

Mr. Chauzy said IOM offices in Vienna and Tirana were coordinating a regional seminar on irregular migration, migration data collection, exchange and protection.

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