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 of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Telecommunication Union, the Universal Postal Union, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the UN Refugee Agency, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Food Programme.

Geneva Meetings

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Committee against Torture was today holding a public meeting with States parties to discuss its working methods, in particular reporting requirements, with a view to finding synergies and optimizing the work of the Committee to better promote and protect human rights. For most of the rest of the week, the Committee would be meeting behind closed doors until Friday, 18 May when it would release its observations and recommendations on the reports of Denmark, Luxembourg, Italy, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Japan and Poland which it considered during the session. As usual, a press release would be issued on the morning meeting in English and in French.

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was meeting in private all of the week until Friday, 18 May, when it would issue its observations and recommendations on the reports of Nepal, Hungary, the Netherlands (Antilles), Finland and Latvia which it reviewed during the session.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Conference on Disarmament was this morning holding the first plenary of the second part of its 2007 session under the presidency of Ambassador Sarala Fernando of Sri Lanka.

Available in the press room was the message of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the ministerial conference of the Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting today in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Human Rights

Yvon Edoumou of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said High Commissioner Louise Arbour was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of a three-country visit to the Great Lakes region. Yesterday, Ms. Arbour met with President Joseph Kabila, the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister, as well as representatives of non-governmental organizations. On Wednesday, the High Commissioner would meet with the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Justice and other senior Government officials. Questions concerning the fight against impunity, violence against women and child soldiers would be among the main issues discussed between the High Commissioner and the Congolese authorities. On Thursday and Friday, the High Commissioner would be visiting the eastern part of the country including Kisangani, Bunia and Goma. Ms. Arbour would then travel to Burundi (19 to 22 May) and Rwanda (23 to 25 May).

The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin, would be visiting the United States from 16 to 25 May. Mr. Edoumou said the Special Rapporteur would be holding meetings with United States officials to look at the fight against terrorism and its correlation with the promotion and protection of human rights.

Other

Sanjay Acharya of the International Telecommunication Union said World Information Society Day, 17 May, was proposed by the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005 and was then endorsed by the General Assembly. This year, ITU was organizing a global event at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, 16 May as the 17 May was a day off in Switzerland. The theme of the commemoration this year was “Connecting the Young”. The highlight of the global event would be the presentation of the ITU World Information Society Award. During the event, Sheikha Al-Mayassa Bint Hamad Al-Thani, Princess of Qatar and Chair of the reach out to Asia initiative, would launch a campaign along with ITU to secure CHF 2 million to support 250 new scholarships in addition to creating 1,000 new internship opportunities within the next three years, by 2010.

Rheal LeBlanc of the Universal Postal Union said on the occasion of World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, a conference on the information society, organized by the UPU International Bureau in conjunction with the International Telecommunication Union, would be taking place at UPU headquarters in Berne on 8 June. UPU wished to highlight to the need to prioritise connectivity. Affordable high-speed Internet was a must for developing countries. More reliable telecommunications systems offering reasonably priced services in developing countries was what the UPU needed to step up its efforts to extend its postal financial network throughout the world. Available was a press release with more details.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said a UNICEF team currently visiting Zimbabwe would be in Geneva next week and it was agreed that they would brief journalists on Tuesday, 22 May after the briefing.

Ruth Landy of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization said GAVI was honouring Guyana, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia which had begun to help pay the cost of providing new vaccines to their children. They were doing so more than a year before GAVI would have required it as part of a new funding cycle. This would be recognized during a special ceremony in the course of the World Health Assembly, currently meeting at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Available was a press release with more details.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said the opening speech of Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, to the World Health Assembly would be available shortly. Available was the statement of the Minister of Health of Indonesia who was talking about the changes in the H5N1 virus. Also a press release on the opening meeting would be available shortly. This morning, the President of the Executive Council would be presenting his report, followed by the statement of the Director-General and statements from countries to the plenary. Starting 11:30, the Prime Minister of Norway and the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, the two invited speakers, would be addressing the plenary. At the end of the morning meeting, Committee A would open, but it would start its work at 2:30 p.m. after the lunch break. Committee A would be discussing Avian Influenza and Pandemic Influenza among other issues. There would be a press conference at 5 p.m. in press room 1 on the migration of health workers. Committee B would be discussing tomorrow the health situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, among other issues.

Mark Oliver of the World Meteorological Organization said the election of the President, the Vice-Presidents and members of the Executive Council, and for the appointment of the Secretary-General of WMO would be held tomorrow starting 9:30 a.m. at the Geneva International Conference Centre where the fifteenth congress of WMO was being held. There would be a press briefing by the new Secretary-General around noon tomorrow. The current Secretary-General of WMO, Michel Jarraud, had been nominated and there were no other candidates so there might not even be a vote. Available was a note on the voting procedures.

Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was highly concerned about living conditions for hundreds of Palestinians stuck at the Al Waleed refugee camp close to Iraq’s border with Syria. It was particularly worried about the lack of medical facilities as many of the camp’s 942 residents needed urgent medical attention. A UNHCR team visiting Al Waleed camp last weekend verified that the Palestinians were living in precarious conditions. Living conditions were likely to get worse during the summer months. An estimated 1,400 Palestinians were also living in desperate conditions in refugee camps along the Iraq-Syria border. Today, Palestinians fleeing Baghdad for the Syrian order had nowhere to go aside from Al Waleed, which lacked the infrastructure to support them. UNHCR had repeatedly called for international support, but with limited success.

Ms. Pagonis said on Monday, 14 May, the Sri Lankan Government launched the return of tens of thousands of displaced civilians to West Batticaloa in eastern Sri Lanka, an area that until recently was under rebel LTTE control. UNHCR was fully involved in the return process. UNHCR and its partners were looking at possible reintegration packages and were calling on the international community to help with assistance, as well as asking the Government to expedite its own rehabilitation plan for the return areas.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on 15 March, OCHA had asked for $ 9.6 million for Madagascar, which since December had been affected by six tropical storms and cyclones. The food security situation in Madagascar had deteriorated, especially in view of the drought that had preceded the storms. OCHA was doubling its appeal and was now asking for $ 19.5 million and the money was needed urgently to allow for the situation of agricultural production in the country to be regulated before the next cyclone season. The Government of Madagascar last February requested international aid to help with the damage.

Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said for well over a year, WFP had been trying to convince the international community of the humanitarian crisis in the Central African Republic. Finally now, funding for humanitarian operations there were improving. People were living in the bush in northwest of the Central African Republic, fearing for their lives and too scared to return to their homes. Often they were reduced to living off wild roots and berries. WFP had recently scaled up its operations in the country to help some 230,000 people in need. However, because the private sector had been brought almost to a complete halt, the current infrastructure could not cope with the scale of the new operation and WFP needed additional financial support to do the job itself. WFP urgently needed an additional
$ 3.5 million over the next nine months to upgrade its logistics capacity. WFP’s current food assistance operation in the Central African Republic still required a further $ 25 million in addition to the new funds required to reinforce logistics.

Mr. Pluess said that Food Force, WFP’s popular humanitarian video game, was currently sweeping now across Europe. This week, WFP was unloading the German, Finnish and Norwegian versions of the game which has already been downloaded over five million times. These versions came in addition to the Japanese, Chinese French, Italian, Polish, Hungarian and the original English version launched in 2005 as the world’s first humanitarian video game.

At the end of the briefing, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier reminded journalists that Thursday, 17 May is an official holiday at the United Nations at Geneva.