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 also heard from Spokespersons for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Trade Organization, the World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency, the World Meteorological Organization and the International Organization for Migration.

Secretary-General’s Statements

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke yesterday at the beginning of the General Assembly’s two-day informal thematic debate on civilians and the challenge for peace, saying that the meeting came at a time of rising intolerance and growing cross-cultural tensions. He said that events of recent years – from terrorism and the means used to fight it, to offending words or publications – had only accelerated these trends. Today, the Secretary-General warned, there was an urgent need to rebuild bridges and to enter into a sustained and constructive intercultural dialogue, one that stressed common values and shared aspirations. He said that the world needed to reassert the truth that diversity was a virtue, not a threat, and noted the role that the media and religion could play in promoting such diversity.

The full text of the Secretary-General’s statement was available in the press room.

Also available was a statement by the Secretary-General in which he said he was greatly encouraged by the peaceful conduct of the final round of presidential elections in Timor-Leste on 9 May. The Secretary-General congratulated the people and authorities of Timor-Leste and trusted that the same peaceful and democratic spirit would prevail during the vote counting and tabulation process over the next few days.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Committee against Torture had yesterday concluded its review of the report of Japan. This morning, the Committee was meeting behind closed doors to discuss individual communications, and this afternoon at 3 p.m., it would conclude its consideration of the report of Poland which it started yesterday morning. The Committee will next meet in public on Friday, 18 May when it will conclude its session and issue its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports which it has considered.

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights would also be presenting its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports which it had considered this session on Friday, 18 May.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Conference on Disarmament would be starting the second part of its 2007 session on Monday, 14 May, and it would conclude on 29 June. The first plenary would be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, 15 June under the Presidency of Ambassador Sarala Fernando of Sri Lanka.

Uruguay Floods

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said OCHA was concerned about the situation of clean drinking water in Uruguay following the worst floods there since 1959. More than 110,000 persons had been affected by the floods, and some 12,000 people had been evacuated. These figures were likely to rise in the coming hours when the flood waters reached low-lying areas. The Government had officially requested the assistance of the United Nations to support the relief efforts, and OCHA had immediately approved an emergency cash grant for $ 30,000 for the local purchase of relief supplies. The floods had caused severe damage to public infrastructure, including roads, water supply sewerage, drainage, power and telephone lines, housing and other facilities. A damage assessment was currently underway. Some 30,000 persons currently had no access to safe water. The Durazno Department was the worst affected. Based on preliminary estimations, the United Nations had identified as priorities the provision of food and basic relief items such as blankets and mattresses, as well as the provision of sanitary products to avoid disease proliferation.

Human Rights

José Luis Díaz of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said journalists had seen the statement of the Secretary-General out of New York on 9 May in which he expressed deep concern about reports of aerial bombardments in North Darfur over the last three weeks. He could now give journalists more details about those attacks from the human rights officers who went to the region at the end of last month and the beginning of this month. The reports received at OHCHR pointed to a series of attacks near El Fasher in North Darfur, carried out between 19 and 29 April. The bombardments appeared to have been indiscriminate and disproportionate, not distinguishing between military and civilian targets. The attacks were reportedly carried out with helicopter gunships and Antonov airplanes. They resulted in numerous civilian casualties and destruction of property, school buildings and livestock. In one incident cited by the Secretary-General, the school in the village of Um Rai was struck by rockets fired from a Government helicopter. Some of the 170 pupils in the schools were injured in that particular attack. Two civilians were killed in the attack on the village. Some of the other villages attacked in the 10-day period included Al Jira, Anka, Birmaza and Hashaba. OHCHR was seeking to gather more information from the area on the attacks and their consequences. What was known was that the attacks had contributed to an already critical humanitarian situation and had spread terror among the civilian population.

Mr. Díaz said High Commissioner Louise Arbour would be embarking on a two-week visit of the Great Lakes region starting Monday, 14 May when she would arrive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She would be in that country until 18 May, and would then travel to Burundi from 19 to 23 May, and then would go to Rwanda on 25 May. In those countries, the High Commissioner would be meeting with the Heads of State and other senior authorities, non-governmental groups, United Nations agencies and the diplomatic community. The High Commissioner would be looking at a number of issues, but he wished to draw attention in particular to the importance of addressing past abuses, including through transitional justice mechanisms, in order to consolidate a sub-regional trend towards peace and development.

Notes with more details on both topics would be issued during the day.

Other

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Kingsley Amaning, the Resident Humanitarian Coordinator for Chad, would speak to journalists at 12:15 p.m. today on the launch of the revised appeal for Chad. A press release would also be released at the press conference.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF and Chad had signed an agreement for the demoblization of child soldiers throughout the country. UNICEF’s support in the demobiliation and reintegration of children would be carried out on two levels. It would help the Government prevent the recruitment of children into armed forces and ensure their liberation and reintegration. It would also assist the Government with a national programme to release children from armed groups, offer them support, and then reintegrate them into their communities. A press release was available.

Ms. Taveau said another press release was available concerning Nigeria, which had achieved Universal Salt Iodization, the first African country to achieve this. UNICEF congratulated the Government of Nigeria. Now, 98 per cent of the households had access to adequately iodized salt and 100 per cent iodized salt was being produced at the factory level.

Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said thanks to renewed support form the international community, the World Food Programme would now be able to end its ration cuts to some 1.28 million displaced persons in Northern Uganda. This was due to donations from the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office and other countries. WFP procured all its food within Uganda and it had become the single largest food-purchasing organization in the country. This was a very efficient way of tackling the issue of food security. In April, WFP had had to cut rations to the 1.28 million displaced persons in Northern Uganda at the worst time of the year, the annual lean season, because of a shortage of funding. WFP was also feeding 183,000 refugees in Uganda and 500,000 victims of drought in the Karamoja region. The refugees would also have their rations restored to normal next month. The drought-affected persons in Karamoja were not included in the ration cuts imposed in April. WFP had so far received $ 70.4 million, or nearly 52.4 percent of the money needed to help feed nearly 2 million people in Uganda in 2007. A press release was available.

Anoush Der Boghossian of the World Trade Organization said the Regional Trade Agreements Committee would be meeting all of next week. On 16 May, there would be a session on trade and development negotiations. Director General Pascal Lamy would be in Paris next week to participate in the OECD Forum session and to meet with OECD trade ministers.

William Spindler of the UN Refugee Agency said people displaced by the recent fighting in Mogadishu were gradually returning to the Somali capital. UNHCR staff reported that people were only returning to the parts of the city which were not involved in the fighting. Families who used to live in neighborhoods affected by the fighting were still reluctant to go back, mainly because of the reported presence of soldiers from the Transitional Federal Government and allied Ethiopian troops. Although the fighting has ceased in Mogadishu, the situation remained tense. Some of the 250,000 internally displaced persons within the city were unable to return because their homes had been destroyed by mortar shelling. Many continued to live in former public buildings,

Mark Oliver of the World Meteorological Organization said a press conference would be held today at 2 p.m. in press room 1 on guidance for heat and health warning systems to tackle the threat of heat waves by Leslie Malone of WMO’s World Climate Programme. In 2003, heat waves in Europe killed an estimated 2,000 persons, and in India, at the end of April, beginning of May, a serious heat wave killed many people, and hundreds of others were hospitalized. Many meteorological services had predicted another hot summer to come, perhaps as hot as the summer of 2003. WMO had been working with the World Health Organization and the Commission for Climatology to provide specialized guidance.

Jean Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said IOM Director General Brunson McKinley would arrive in Pakistan this weekend to meet with senior government officials, attend the 34th Session of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM) in Islamabad May 15-17th, and visit IOM projects in areas affected by the October 2005 earthquake.

Mr. Chauzy said an agreement signed this week between IOM Colombia and Carrefour Colombia paved the way for the sale of products made by vulnerable populations in the French retailer's 35 stores in Colombia. The alliance between Carrefour Colombia and IOM would strengthen income generating projects that benefit some 1,500 people, which were contributing to their socioeconomic stabilization.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier reminded journalists that in connection to the World Health Assembly which was starting on Monday, 14 May at the Palais des Nations, there would be a press conference today at 11:30 a.m. by Fadela Chaib and Iain Simpson of the WHO Department of Communications on the main themes before the World Health Assembly (14-23 May). Also, at 11:20 a.m. on Monday in press room 1, there would be a media roundtable with Michael O. Leavitt, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services on the participation of the United States in the World Health Assembly.