REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which also heard from Spokespersons and Representatives of Australia, the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Environmental Programme, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Food Programme, the United Nations’ Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

General Assembly Opens in New York Today

Ms. Heuzé said the General Assembly was today opening its sixty-first session in New York. For those who would be following the work of the General Assembly on the webcast, the Information Service had put in the press room a note on how to be able to directly follow the work of the Assembly through the webcast. The Assembly was opening at 10 a.m. New York time, 4 p.m. Geneva time. At 7:30 p.m., the President of the session, Sheika Haya Al-Khalifa, would be addressing journalists and the media here would also be able to follow the press conference direct on the webcast.

A press kit on the work of the General Assembly was available in the press room, which included information on the high-level dialogue on international migration and development which would be held on 14 and 15 September.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said the UN’s high-level dialogue on international migration and development would be starting in New York on Thursday, 14 September. IOM welcomed this event, the first time that the subject would be addressed at the UN at such a level and it came at a time when migration consistently topped the political, economic and social agendas across the world. IOM saw the dialogue as a potential catalyst for very much needed action on key migration issues which could in turn ensure that migration could become a potent force for development. Later this week, IOM would be presenting an initiative which would involve multi-agency participation aimed at helping address this very issue concerning the global labour market. Available was a press release which outlined the need for this debate to pave the way forward for much needed action. Also available was a publication entitled “migration’s development within and beyond frontiers” which put together all the studies that IOM had carried out since the beginning of 2005 in the migration research series on development issues.

Sudan

Yesterday, the Secretary-General had warned the Security Council that “the tragedy in Darfur has reached a critical moment,” and urged the international community to live up to its promise last year to protect civilians in trouble and immediately press the Sudanese Government to accept United Nations peacekeepers. Mr. Annan urged the Government of Sudan to embrace the spirit of resolution 1706, to give its consent to the transition, and to pursue the political process with new energy and commitment. He said the consequences of the Government’s current attitude -- yet more death and suffering, perhaps on a catastrophic scale -- would be felt first and foremost by the people of Darfur. But the Government itself would also suffer, if it failed in its sacred responsibility to protect its own people. It would suffer opprobrium and disgrace -- in the eyes of all Africa, and the whole international community.

Ms. Heuzé recalled that in resolution 1706, the Security Council voted to deploy a UN force of more than 17,000 peacekeepers across Darfur to support the African Union force whose mandate ends at the end of the month.

“My voice alone will not convince the Government,” the Secretary-General said to the Security Council, detailing his efforts to explain the transition to the Government, and to clear up any misconceptions or myths. “It is time now for additional voices to make themselves heard. We need governments and individual leaders in Africa and beyond, that are in a position to influence the Government of Sudan, to bring that pressure to bear without delay. There must also be a clear, strong and uniform message from this Council.” Mr. Annan said. The Secretary-General’s remarks on Darfur to the Security Council were available in English and in French, as were other notes on the situation in Lebanon.

Ron Redmond of the United Nations Refugee agency said the situation on the ground in Darfur was still desperate for a lot of people, and it was frustrating for humanitarian workers who were unable to get to those victims. There were 2 million internally displaced persons in Darfur and it was increasingly difficult to get to many of them. In many cases, UNHCR had to use helicopters to get to the isolated areas if they could get to them at all. But it was a relatively limited amount of territory where humanitarian actors could operate.

Secretary-General’s Report on Iraq

Ms. Heuzé said the Secretary-General’s latest report on Iraq, dated 1 September, was released yesterday in New York and copies were available in Geneva. The Secretary-General warned that Iraqi society today stood at a critical juncture, adding that with Government figures showing an average of 100 civilians killed everyday and over 14,000 wounded each month, the State ran the risk of a breakdown into civil war. The report was available in English and Arabic.

Terrorism/11 September

Ms. Heuzé said she knew journalists were interested in UN efforts in the fight against terrorism. The Information Service was preparing a press kit on the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. Yesterday, in remarks on the 11 September attacks, the Secretary-General said that last Friday's adoption by the General Assembly of a United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy sent a clear message that terrorism was unacceptable, no matter who committed it, no matter what the reason. It underlined the resolve of all Governments to take concrete actions to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, prevent and combat terrorism in all its forms, and strengthen the individual and collective capacity of States and the United Nations to do so -- all while ensuring the protection of human rights. He urged all Member States to honour the victims of terrorism everywhere by taking swift action to implement all aspects of the strategy. In this way, they would demonstrate the international community's unwavering determination to defeat terrorism.

Seventh Meeting of States Parties to Mine Ban Convention/Landmine Monitor

Ms. Heuzé said the seventh meeting of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on their Destruction would be starting on Monday, 18 September, unfortunately at the same time as the Human Rights Council. There would be a press conference at 9:30 a.m. on 18 September with Micheline Calmy-Rey, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland; Teresa Gambaro, Australia's Special Representative on Mine Action and Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs; and Ambassador Caroline Millar of Australia, President-designate of the seventh meeting. She invited Ambassador Millar to brief the media on this meeting.

Ms. Millar said she had left at the back of the room some information, including on Australia’s five-year 75 million dollar mine action strategy, and there was also a fact booklet on the state of the treaty. The States parties would be meeting for all week next week and it was taking place at the crossroads. There had been extremely good progress in some areas, but there were also more obligations that needed to be met, particularly with respect to mine clearance. States parties would be grappling with how to deal most effectively with these challenges. The two major objectives of the meeting were to review progress on the implementation of the Convention since the last meeting in 2005 and examining the state of donor funding; and to lay the groundwork for addressing the future challenges. The first 10-year mine clearance deadlines were due in 2009 and the States parties would discuss how these deadlines could be met to the greatest extent possible and how to implement requests for extensions. An action plan would also be announced to promote the universalization of the treaty and its implementation.

Ms. Heuzé said there would be a press conference at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 13 September when the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research would be launching the Landmine Monitor Report 2006.

Jacqueline Hansen, Landmine Monitor Project Manager at UNIDIR, added that tomorrow was the global release of the Landmine Monitor Report 2006 towards a mine-free world. This was the eighth annual report. Landmine Monitor was a project of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. This year, it provided an annual update which covered landmine-ban policy production, use, stockpiling, trade, mine clearance, mine risk education, mine casualties and survivor assistance and mine action funding in 126 countries and areas. A press kit would also be available tomorrow.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Heuzé said Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, will today deliver the message of the Secretary-General to the Second Congress of World and Traditional Religions in Astana, Kazakhstan. The message was available under embargo.

For the Human Rights Council, Ms. Heuzé said the draft agenda had been put in the press room at the end of last week. The Council would be meeting from 18 September to 6 October. The first week, it would mainly hear from thematic Special Rapporteurs and Experts and the second week would be mostly devoted to country-specific Special Rapporteurs and Experts. Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico, the President of the first session of the Human Rights Council, would be speaking to journalists on Thursday, 14 September at 3 p.m.

Ms. Heuzé said in a few moments, she would be holding a press conference on the presentation of the book and DVD of the film series on United Nations Secretaries-General: "A la maison de verre" in press room 1. She invited all journalists to attend.

Côte d’Ivoire

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said OCHA deployed yesterday a three-person UNDAC team to Cote d'Ivoire in order to strengthen the response of the Government and its partners to the toxic waste contamination crisis, particularly in the areas of technical coordination and information management on health and security issues. Preliminary observations had indicated that the majority of toxic waste sites were not adequately secured and were not marked with adequate signage to warn the population. Security perimeters of 150 metres had now been set up around each of the 13 contaminated sites. A team of five French civil protection officers, accompanied by an EU expert on coordination, had arrived in Abidjan last Friday. An expert from OCHA’s emergency environmental section, which was shared with UNEP, had arrived in Abidjan today and OCHA was now waiting for the first assessments of these experts. WHO and UNICEF had contributed medicines worth nearly $50,000 (25 million CFA) to the Ministry of Public Health. According to the figures provided by the authorities in Abidjan yesterday, six people had died and 9,000 had been poisoned by the dumped hazardous waste.

Michael Williams of the United Nations Environmental Programme said the emergency response described by his colleague from OCHA was clearly the most important issue in Abidjan. Another issue involved international environmental law, and whether it had been broken in Côte d’Ivoire and if so, by who? This had an impact on the broader politics of international waste. The Basel Convention would have its biannual meeting in December in Nairobi, and with the growth in global trade and the rising price in the managing and disposing of hazardous waste, there were growing opportunities and incentives for illegal trade. The Government of Côte d’Ivoire and the secretariat of the Basel Convention were both investigating what exactly had happened. As of now, no concrete answers had been found, but this had no effect on the emergency clean-up efforts.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said WHO had been invited to provide technical assistance to the health authorities in Côte d’Ivoire and how to deal with the health consequences of this hazardous waste. WHO would be immediately sending experts to Abidjan and their terms of reference were to carry out an assessment of the cases present in the hospitals and what were the short- and long-term health consequences of this hazardous waste.

Other

Michael Bociurkiw of the United Nations Children’s Fund said in the past few days, UNICEF and the Barcelona Football Club had signed a landmark five-year agreement to promote UNICEF issues by wearing a UNICEF logo on their shirts. Today was the first day that they would be playing with these shirts. The club and its foundations had also agreed to raise 1.5 million euros over five years and essentially would support the Children United against AIDS campaign and would initially concentrate on the children of Swaziland.

Mr. Bociurkiw said the situation in South Asia with regards to the weather and flooding continued to be particularly grave. In Pakistan, the situation was particularly bad. The first anniversary of the earthquake in Pakistan was 8 October, and most humanitarian actors had thought that most of the camps for internally displaced persons would be closed by now, but in fact, in some areas in Northwest Frontier Province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the opposite was happening because heavy rains had loosened soil in earthquake affected areas and quite significant numbers of families had had to return to the lowlands to IDP camps. The IDP camps population was now 34,000, up from 27,000 and this had challenged UNICEF’s and the UN family’s camp disengagement strategy. UNICEF was committed to helping the IDPs in the camps for as long as necessary in the areas of health, education, water and sanitation.

In India, heavy monsoon rains continued across five states and more than 2,200 lives had been lost since the early summer on account of the floods, Mr. Bociurkiw said. Cattle and livestock losses had exceeded well over 100,000 and approximately 150,000 houses had been partially or fully damaged. UNICEF was providing assistance in all of the affected states.

Catherine Sibut of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development said a note to correspondents had been sent out last week on the TourismAfrica event which was being held this week at Palexpo this week and which UNCTAD was a partner in. This afternoon, a panel discussion was being held on the global outlook in tourist investment in Africa with participation from panellists from UNCTAD, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank among others. There was also a presentation on UNCTAD’s e-tourism initiative: strategy in action.

Ms. Sibut said that a report entitled “foreign direct investment in least developed countries at a glance 2005-2006” would be released on Friday, 15 September. A press release was also available on the report.

Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization said the Standing Committee on Copy Rights and Related Rights was meeting this week to continue discussions on questions relating to the updating of the rights of broadcasting organizations, specifically traditional broadcasting and cable casting organizations. The meeting opened on Monday, 11 September and would conclude on Wednesday, 13 September. A briefing would be organized on Thursday, 15 September as the meeting would conclude late tomorrow. This meeting was looking in particular into the question of recommending a date for a diplomatic conference in 2007 and making that recommendation to the General Assembly of WIPO which would open on 25 September.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said WFP was renewing its appeal to the fighting parties in Sri Lanka to allow humanitarian actors to access the civilian population. She recalled that a government ship flying under the flag of the International Red Cross had docked in Jaffna on 9 September carrying food and other aid as well as commercial goods. The boat had been refused security clearance by the LTTE and there was a risk that it could be attacked. The boat was offloading its cargo onto little boats and this could take a long time.

In Afghanistan, the implementation of WFP’s operations was becoming increasingly difficult because of deteriorating security conditions in the south and southeast of the country, Ms. Berthiaume said.

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said some 400 Sudanese refugees currently in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo were scheduled to return home to South Sudan on Wednesday, 13 September. They would travel on a UNHCR convoy departing from the Aba area of the Democratic Republic of Congo's Oriental Province. Most of the South Sudanese refugees were housed in sites in the Aba area and many of them were eager to return to their country. Out of some 5,000 Sudanese refugees accommodated in Aba, UNHCR and its partners had so far registered 3,200 refugees who expressed a wish to return.

Mr. Redmond said in Slovakia, a refugee reception centre yesterday burned to the ground. All 40 asylum seekers accommodated in the centre in Brezova pod Bradlom, 100 kms north of Bratislava, were evacuated in time and there were no injuries. Some of those housed in the centre managed to take a few personal belongings, but most had to leave with only the clothes on their backs. The asylum seekers were taken to Gabcikovo, another accommodation centre east of Bratislava.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said on Wednesday, 13 August, the first 15 of an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 Vietnamese scheduled for resettlement in the United States over the next three years would leave Viet Nam with IOM. These persons were the first beneficiaries of the Humanitarian Resettlement (HR) programme, an extension of the "Orderly Departure Program" (ODP) that has successfully resettled over 470,000 Vietnamese to the United States since 1980.

In Nepal, IOM was today opening a liaison office in the capital Kathmandu. The office, IOM’s 292nd office worldwide, was expected to work with the Nepalese Government to enhance its migration management capacity and to help it to address irregular migration issues including human trafficking.