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 was also attended by Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Telecommunication Union, the World Trade Organization and the International Organization for Migration.

Secretary-General Condemns Attack on UNAMID in Darfur

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was very troubled by the 9 April attack on United Nations–African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) police personnel outside of the Zam Zam camp for internally displaced persons near El Fasher. One UNAMID police officer was injured and two UN vehicles were hijacked by four unidentified gunmen in the incident. The Secretary-General condemned in the strongest terms such attacks on UNAMID personnel who had been deployed to Darfur to contribute to peace and stability. He called on both the Government of Sudan and the rebel movements to ensure that UNAMID was able to fully implement its mandate. A press release from UNAMID with more details about the attack was available in the press room as well as the text of the Secretary-General’s message.

In a related development, the United Nations and African Union envoys heading international efforts to resolve the Darfur conflict were in Sudan. The UN’s Jan Eliasson and the AU’s Salim Ahmed Salim
Had held talks in Khartoum and in Southern Sudan and would travel to Darfur where they were expected to meet local representatives of civil society and the region’s other movements.

Statements by the Secretary-General

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said three new statements by Secretary-General Ban were available in the press room. The first was the statement he made as he launched a Global Compact Network in Russia during a meeting with over 30 top executives of Russian businesses. The second was the statement of the Secretary-General to Moscow University, where he affirmed his expectation that Russia’s engagement in the United Nations would keep pace with the challenges and opportunities the world faced.

In the third statement on Nepal, the Secretary-General congratulated the people of Nepal on the Constituent Assembly election which took place in a generally orderly and peaceful atmosphere.
He commended the Nepalese for their enthusiastic participation in this historical event and appealed to all parties to remain calm while awaiting the results.

In response to a question about the Secretary-General’s travel plans regarding an invitation to attend the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said she could only confirm what had been said by the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General that the Secretary-General had conveyed to the Chinese Government some months ago that he may not be in a position to attend this important event as a result of scheduling issues.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the eighth session of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families will start at the Palais Wilson on Monday, 14 April. During its two-week session, the Committee will review efforts by Syria and Bolivia to implement their obligations under the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. At its first meeting, the Committee will elect a new Bureau from among its members, including a Chairperson, three Vice-Chairpersons and a Rapporteur. The Committee will consider the initial report of Syria (CMW/C/SYR/1), on the afternoon of Tuesday, 15 April and continuing on the morning of Wednesday, 16 April. On Wednesday afternoon and the morning of Thursday, 17 April, the initial report of Bolivia (CMW/C/BOL/1) will be examined. The Committee’s observations and recommendations on the reports will be released at the end of the session on Friday, 25 April. On the morning of Friday, 18 April, the Committee will celebrate the fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Convention with a round-table discussion on the importance of human rights in the context of today’s migration debate.

Human Rights

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour warmly welcomed the latest change to Senegal’s Constitution, which now made it possible for its courts to try former Chadian President Hissene Habre, who was accused of gross human rights violations during his time in power. In the High Commissioner’s view, this was a very positive development in the struggle to strengthen accountability. It was rare for one State to take measures to enable the prosecution of a former Head of State of another country, and Senegal should be commended for its leadership in this regard. There were more details in the briefing notes. In 2006, the African Union took the unprecedented step of urging Senegal “to try the case on behalf of Africa”, and since then the country had adopted a number of legal amendments to its Constitution in addition to the one earlier this week to allow its legal system to deal with such a case. The latest amendment was adopted by the National Assembly on 8 April. Ms. Arbour hoped that with this latest amendment, the final obstacles preventing this case from coming to court had finally been clear away. She also urged the international community to continue its support to Senegal to ensure that Hissene Habre would go on trial in the near future. He had been accused on matters related to thousands of cases of torture that took place during his time in power, unlawful killings and other serious human rights violations. Mr. Habre had been living in Senegal since he was deposed in 1990. He ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990. OHCHR had given a lot of technical advice to Senegal on this issue.

Mr. Colville said there would be a press release from OHCHR later this morning on the elections in Nepal. One interesting aspect that OHCHR had noted there was the very high and enthusiastic participation of women in the vote.

UNRWA

Elena Mancusi Materi of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said she had some updates on UNRWA’s operations, with a special focus on Lebanon and the reconstruction of the Nahr El Bared Camp, which was destroyed by fighting over the period May-September last year. This was the biggest single project that UNRWA had even undertaken, in close dialogue with the Government of Lebanon, to rebuild a whole town for about 30,000 refugees. UNRWA Deputy Commissioner General, Filippo Grandi, had just inaugurated 150 new units of concrete housing, providing shelter to 114 families in the area adjacent to Nahr El Bared Camp. This development was particularly important, as it lowered the pressure on the near-by Beddawi Camp, where Nahr El Bared Camp refugees had fled and taken shelter during the fighting. Beddawi schools, which had been used to host people escaping the fighting, had now been vacated and cleaning and maintenance was on-going in the installations for resumption of operations. Some families were being allowed back into Nahr El Bared Camp to view the destruction and retrieve their belongings. Forty-five refugees per day could enter the old camp site. Discussion was on-going with partners for de-mining the camp and for rubble removal, but the rubble removal would not start until necessary funding was collected. UNRWA would soon announce the date of a pledging conference, asking for donor commitment to the Nahr El Bared reconstruction plan. The long term reconstruction would cost over $ 200 million. UNRWA was thankful to the European Commission for its recent 6.4 million euro donation to emergency activities. UNRWA also called for enhanced support from Arab donors, both for its general fund and emergency activities.

UNRWA was grateful to the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent for the agreement just signed in Abu Dhabi to contribute $ 5 million to the re-development and de-congestion of Neirab camp near Aleppo in Syria.

Ms. Mancusi Materi said the situation in Gaza continued to be very difficult, with erratic supplies and related protests by the population. In the month of March, 2,400 trucks entered the Gaza Strip, down from 10,318 in March 2007. Cattle also recently entered for the first time since 17 December last year. There was a strong price increase of red meat, also due to the scarcity of animal feed, while lack of electricity for refrigeration reduced the life of frozen food. Import of dairy products from West Bank had been replaced by more expensive Israeli products, which further reduced the purchasing power and consumption in Gaza. Sanitation remained an issue of strong concern. UNRWA has been providing litres 112,000 of diesel to municipalities each month for solid waste management. However, lack of electricity often left no option to coastal municipalities than to dump sewerage into the sea. The waste water treatment plan in the north of the Gaza Strip, identified as a priority project by Tony Blair, continued to be halted like all other infrastructural projects. In terms of UNRWA’s operations, a needs assessment was carried out and was leading now to the expansion of UNRWA’s school feeding programme. In total, approximately 110,000 Gaza children were being fed daily through the programme in approximately 110 schools.

Vaccination of Malians against Yellow Fever, Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever in Brazil

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said a week-long campaign to vaccinate 5.7 million people across the southern half of Mali will begin on Saturday, 12 April. This is the first time ever that a mass vaccination campaign will be undertaken thanks to “south-south” vaccine supply. South America’s only manufacturer of Yellow Fever vaccine, Bio Manguihos of Brazil, will be supplying half of the vaccine necessary. Three million doses are coming from the Brazilian company, while the other three million does will be provided by Sanofi Pastuer, one of the other two WHO pre-qualified manufacturers of Yellow Fever vaccine. The vaccine campaign will take a week and is funded by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. Available was a press release with more details.

Ms. Chaib said that as of 28 March, the Brazilian health authorities have reported a national total of 120,570 cases of dengue in Brazil, including 647 dengue haemorrhagic fever cases, with 48 deaths.
The Ministry of health was working closely with partners to implement the required control measures and to identify priority areas for intervention.

Rising Food Prices

Teresa Buerkle of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said FAO is today launching its latest Crop Prospects and Food Situation report. It will be launched in Rome with FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. The report forecasts that the cereal import bill of the low-income food-deficit countries as a group will increase by 56 per cent in the current marketing year. This comes after a significant increase of 37 per cent in the previous year. For low-income food-deficit countries in Africa, the cereal import bill is projected to increase by 74 per cent. This increase is due to the sharp rise in international cereal prices, freight rates and oil prices. International cereal prices have continued to rise sharply over the past two months, reflecting steady demand and depleted world reserves. On 2008 cereal production, the report forecasts that it will increase 2.6 per cent to a record 2,164 million tons. Should the expected growth in 2008 materialize, the current tight global cereal supply situation could ease in the new 2008/2009 season. Much will depend on the weather. FAO has launched an initiative on soaring food prices, offering technical and policy assistance to poor countries affected by high food prices in order to assist vulnerable farmers to increase local food production.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme (WFP) said WFP was currently undertaking a detailed assessment of 30 countries in the world, including 23 which were in Africa, on the impact of increasing food prices on their populations. These countries already had extreme levels of food insecurity and vulnerability and their populations already spent a significant proportion of their incomes on food. These countries relied substantially on fuel and food imports. The conclusions were not available yet.

Ms. Berthiaume said that the revised media backgrounder on rising food prices and their impact on the hungry was now available and copies were at the back of the room. To date, WFP had received
$ 800 million in response to its 2008 appeal for $ 2.9 billion, and $14 million in response to the additional appeal for $ 500,000 million caused by the increasing food prices. WFP’s main donors were the United States, the European Union and Canada. In order to minimize the increase in prices of cereals, WFP had changed the food it distributed. Instead of buying yellow corn which was used to make biofuels and was thus more expensive, WFP bought white corn. WFP had also stopped distributing canned meat and fish. It also tried to buy more food from the regions the aid was destined for to cut down on transport prices.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF was particularly concerned about the deterioration of the situation in Haiti in recent days because of increased prices. Yesterday, UNICEF Representative in Haiti, Adriano Gonzalez-Regueral, said the situation in Port au Prince was tense. The schools and markets remained closed. The situation of Haitian children was already one of the worst in the world. More than half the population lived on less that one dollar a day, and 45 per cent of the population were below the age of 18 years. One in 12 children died before the age of five because of treatable diseases and malnutrition. More than 200,000 children had lost one or two parents to AIDS, and between 3.2 and 6.7 per cent of females between the age of 15 to 24 were infected with HIV/AIDS. UNICEF was working with the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization and other partners to help Haitian children. A briefing note and a background note with more details were available.

Other

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF has launched its annual Arabic version of the Humanitarian Action Report 2008 which called for support for both immediate relief and long-term development in conflict-ridden and disaster-prone countries across the Middle East and North Africa. A press release was available with more details.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said OCHA strongly condemned renewed acts of violence against international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the past three weeks, four serious security incidents had affected NGOs, which had temporarily suspended their operations, and this of course affected the well being of the vulnerable population in need of aid. The NGOs wanted to resume their operations, but called on the local authorities to improve security conditions and to launch investigations to track down the culprits and bring them to justice.

Concerning Ethiopia’s Humanitarian Response Plan 2008, Ms. Byrs said the Government and its humanitarian partners needed $ 68 million to implement the plan for 2008. As for the situation in Kenya, OCHA had in January launched a flash appeal for Kenya, but this had been expanded to increase response to the drought and had been extended through 2008. The expanded appeal sought $150 million for emergency actions. Further details were available in the notes at the back of the room.

Sanjay Acharya of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said ITU Telecom Africa 2008 will be taking place in Cairo from 12 to 15 May. A follow-up of the Connect Africa Summit, which was held in Kigali last October, will be held there. On another issue, Mr. Acharya said this year the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day is being commemorated on 15 May, as 17 May is a Saturday, and celebrations in Cairo will focus on connecting persons with disabilities. The World Telecommunication and Information Society Award will also be presented this year in Cairo. At the same time, the facilitation for the follow-up on the World Summit on the Information Society will take place in Geneva. The Internet Governance Forum will meet at the Palais des Nations on 13 May, and from 19 to 23 May, the Business Action Line Facilitation meetings will take place at ITU.

Janaina Borges of the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Thursday, 17 April, WTO will release its preliminary numbers about world trade performance in 2007 and prospects for 2008. A press release with the figures will be released on the same day. WTO Economists will discuss the figures at a press conference in Room III at 11 a.m. on the same day.

With regards with the Doha negotiations, there will be a meeting on industrial goods on Monday, 14 April, starting at 10 am. The meeting may resume on 16 April. There might be a meeting on 15 April on agriculture negotiations, but it will be announced later. The Dispute Settlement body will meet on Friday, 18 April. Director-General Pascal Lamy takes part in the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank this weekend in Washington. Back in Geneva, Mr. Lamy will meet on 15 and 16 April with Marek Belka, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, American business representatives and representatives of the Global Services Coalition

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said assessments by Iraq's Ministry for Displacement and Migration and IOM of Iraqis having returned to their original homes from internal displacement or asylum abroad revealed that return had not brought them relief from the humanitarian crisis they suffered during their displacement. Priority needs among the 5,200 people assessed by IOM monitors out of nearly 78,200 returnees identified so far across the country were food, fuel, non-food items and access to health care and medications.

In Kenya, Ms. Pandya said IOM had suspended "go and see" visits for internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled last December's post electoral violence in the Southern Rift valley areas of Molo and Kipkelion and who were currently living in the Nakuru Showground IDP camp. In Trinidad and Tobago, as evidence of human trafficking and migrant smuggling increases in that country, IOM was conducting a two-day training seminar on Direct Assistance and Victim Identification. IOM Director General Brunson McKinley this week carried out a three-day official visit to Ecuador where he participated in the Ibero-American Forum on Migration and Development and held meetings with Ecuadorian authorities.