REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the press briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Labour Organization, the World Trade Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

Secretary-General Activities

Ms. Heuzé said that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would embark next week on a two week-long trip around the world that would first take him to the Russian capital, Moscow, where he will take part in a conference on Afghanistan organized by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on 27 March. The gathering would focus on the impact that the situation in the war-torn nation had on neighbouring countries, and would also identify ways to jointly confront threats in Afghanistan, such as terrorism and drug trafficking. The Director-General, Mr. Ordzhonikidze, will accompany the Secretary-General and will attend the conference organized by the SCO.

The Secretary-General would then travel to Doha, Qatar, to attend the League of Arab States summit, where he would discuss the Middle East peace process, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan and Somalia. From Qatar, he would move on to The Hague to open the International Conference on Afghanistan on 31 March, said Ms. Heuzé. Next up for Mr. Ban would be the so-called Group of 20 (G20) “Summit for Stability, Growth and Jobs” in London on 2 April. Participants were expected to discuss how to respond to the global recession which had resulted in falling trade and surging unemployment. Mr. Ban was expected to call on G20 leaders to resist protectionism and commit themselves to supporting developing countries, in particular the most vulnerable.

The Secretary-General would then depart for the French capital for a retreat with the UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, which meets twice a year. Mr. Ban’s last stop would be in Istanbul, Turkey, for the second Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, from 5 to 7 April.

Further, the Secretary-General had issued yesterday in New York his latest report on the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, in which he addressed the security situation and the operational functions of the European Union’s EULEX force, said Ms. Heuzé.

Today, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, Mr. Wilfried Lemke, would meet with the Secretary-General at the Headquarters in New York to report on his initial year activities as Special Adviser. The Secretary-General was also scheduled to officially extend Mr. Lemke’s mandate for one year, said Ms. Heuzé.

International Observances

Ms. Heuzé noted that there were several international observances planned for the coming days, namely: the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March, the World Water Day on 22 March, the World Meteorological Day on 23 March, the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade on 25 March and the International Day of Solidarity with Detained and Missing Staff Members also on 25 March.

Today was also the International Day of “La Francophonie”, said Ms. Heuzé. For the occasion, a cultural conference on cultural diversity and the universality of human rights values would take place today at the Palais des Nations at 2 p.m. in Room XIX with Stéphane Hessel and Edouard Glissant.

Human Rights Council Tenth Session

Ms. Heuzé said that this morning, the Council was continuing its consideration of the outcome of State reviews carried out during the third session of the Universal Periodic Review Working Group held last December. Today the Council was considering the outcomes of the reviews of Israel, Cape Verde, Colombia, Uzbekistan and Tuvalu. On Monday morning, the Council would meet in private under its complaint procedures mechanism. Later, it would discuss the follow-up to the special session in Gaza held in January during which presentations will be made by the Deputy High Commissioner, the President of the Council, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food; Olivier de Schutter will be presenting a joint thematic report on behalf of 9 experts who were asked to report back to the Council; the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Richard Falk, will also present his own regular report to the Council.

A press conference with Mr. Richard Falk would be held on Monday after 6 p.m. in Press Room I. Further, 34 draft resolutions had now been tabled for consideration during the current session, said Ms. Heuzé. Action on these draft resolutions would be taken starting Wednesday 25 March until Friday 27 March.

Durban Review Conference

Doune Porter of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, answering to a journalist’s question on whether States had changed their position after the release of the new draft text, said that no States had of yet announced any change in their positions. A large number of States had welcomed the release of the new text. The negotiation process would continue throughout the month of March in informal sessions.

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that generally, the response to the new draft had been very positive. Statements by regional groups, amongst which had been the Latin American and Caribbean Group and the African Group. Both statements had been very favourable to the new draft. It was also his understanding that there were more statements from regional groupings coming out, probably today.

Ms. Porter said that OHCHR believed that this revised and significantly shortened draft was a real solid and meaningful basis for negotiations and a good basis towards a successful outcome of the conference.

Namibia Floods

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there were currently floods at the border between Namibia and Angola. Those floods were due to torrential rains that had started five weeks ago. On 17 March, the President of Namibia had declared a state of emergency for the north-central and north-eastern parts of Namibia. The torrential rains had eased but the rainy season was scheduled to last for another four weeks.

So far the current figures showed that over 200,000 people had been affected and an estimated 92 people had died. Over 8,219 people had also been displaced in relocation camps. Two Inter-Agency assessment missions were currently ongoing, said Ms. Byrs. One was visiting the Cuvelai region and had identified immediate needs in water, sanitation, hygiene, health, shelter and food. A lot of harvest had been damaged.

At the national level, the office of the Namibian prime minister was coordinating disaster management and response, said Ms. Byrs. A United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team was also on standby and ready to go, following the Namibian President’s appeal for international assistance.

There was however not much information on the situation in the part of Angola that was also affected by the floods, said Ms. Byrs. Over 22’000 people had been evacuated and relocated by the Government. The Angolan authorities were also currently rebuilding the road between Angola and Namibia, which had been damaged by the rain. Some 90,000 hectares of agricultural land had also been damaged and several cattle had been killed. The risks these regions currently faced were those linked to waterborne diseases, such as malaria.

Iraqi Refugees

Ron Redmond of the United Nations Refugee Agency said that the first group of Iraqi refugees destined for Germany from Syria and Jordan had left yesterday on a specially chartered plane from Damascus. The 122 people had been selected following a swift decision made by the German Interior Minister's conference last December. Priority had been given to refugees from persecuted minorities, vulnerable cases with special medical needs, traumatized victims of persecution as well as female-headed households who had family in Germany.

Every family that had been resettled yesterday had faced persecution in Iraq in the past three years, said Mr. Redmond. Among those who had left were a man who had survived a kidnapping, a family that had been targeted for their moderate religious views and a young mother who had been living alone in Syria for the past year after her husband had been abducted and never heard of again. She would be reunited with her parents who were now living in Germany.

The German government had been responding to a decision by the Council of the European Union last November that was encouraging the resettlement of up to 10,000 Iraqi refugees in Europe in 2009. The German government was offering 2,500 places for Iraqi refugees, 2,000 from Syria and 500 from Jordan. UNHCR very much appreciated the speed of the response by the German government; with this planeload of refugees departing only three months after the decision had been made by the German Interior Ministers Conference on 5 December 2008. Some government took years to resettle refugees, noted Mr. Redmond.

This was the first time that Germany had initiated such a programme since the early 1980s, when Vietnamese boat people had been resettled. Germany had now joined 15 other countries that had offered resettlement to Iraqi refugees since 2003. UNHCR supported a humanitarian resettlement program which responded to the needs of the most vulnerable individuals, said Mr. Redmond. Germany was setting a very positive example, which UNHCR hoped would inspire other European countries to consider resettling Iraqi refugees during 2009. They estimated that more than 60,000 Iraqi refugees needed resettlement from Iraq's neighbouring countries, the majority were in Syria and Jordan. Last year 17,770 Iraqi refugees had been resettled to third countries, mostly in the west. About 6 percent of them had come to Europe. It was hoped that a much larger number would be accepted and resettled globally this year.

Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Mr. Redmond said that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s North Kivu province attacks by the Hutu rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), were still causing displacement over a wide area of North Kivu. This followed the joint offensive by Congolese and Rwandan forces that had started in January. Since then, the FDLR had been retaliating against the civilian population and had launched sporadic attacks on villages in North Kivu.

In Lubero territory of North Kivu, fresh attacks on civilians by the FDLR had displaced nearly 30,000 people over the past two weeks, according to local authorities. The newly displaced families in the Lubero area reported that FDLR raids had increased during the first half of March, along with growing human rights violations. UNHCR was reinforcing its activities in the Masisi region and was trying to establish presence in Lubero so that they could get swift aid to the displaced, said Mr. Redmond.

United Nations Humanitarian Air Service

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme updating on the financing of the UN Humanitarian Air Service said that they had thankfully received a US$ 640,000 donation from Ireland. This would permit WFP to maintain the West African Air Service until 1 May 2009. WFP was very grateful for this donation but it obviously did not solve the problem beyond the short-term.

Migrants

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said that a conference on migrant’s rights would take place on 25 and 26 March 2009 at the International Conference Centre Geneva (CICG). The gathering, organized by IOM together with its partners, would bring together, amongst others, representatives of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Labour Organization as well as representatives from foreign ministries of different countries, including Bangladesh and Ethiopia and also migrants themselves.

A Ghanaian migrant in Ukraine and president would also address the dialogue on his personal experiences of xenophobia and on integration challenges, as well as the increase of attacks against migrants of African origin, said Mr. Chauzy. The agenda and background documents for the conference can be found under: http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pid/2162.

Turning to Haiti, Mr. Chauzy said that in a bid to help Haitian families improve their food security, several IOM projects were supporting backyard gardens in the towns of Cap-Haitien and Les Cayes. These projects aimed to improve nutrition through the planting of fruit and vegetable plots in the families' gardens. Chronic malnutrition was widespread among the most vulnerable in Haiti. Food security on the island had also been further threatened by the severe hurricanes that had struck the region last year.

World Water Day 2009

Véronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said that UNICEF was highly involved with its partners in the events celebrating World Water Day 2009. More than 2.5 billion people, or 47 percent of the world population were without sanitation and hundreds of millions of people lacked access to safe drinking-water sources. An estimated 4,000 children under five years of age died each day from diarrheal diseases transmitted through water or caused by lack of sanitation and hygiene. UNICEF was working in 90 countries around the world to improve water supply and sanitations in schools and to promote hygiene.

West and Central Africa had the lowest coverage of improved drinking-water in the world. Around 20 percent of the world’s population with no access to drinking-water lived in this region. The most recent figures of 2006 showed the total number of people in the region that had no access to improved drinking-water sources had actually increased over the 1990-2006 period from 124 million to 170 million people, said Ms. Taveau. Only 12 of the 24 countries in the region were on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal water target.

Highlighting two World Water Day initiatives, Ms. Taveau said that UNICEF’s US Bureau, US Fund, was organizing next week the Tap Project campaign. The Tap Project, a grassroots initiative to provide clean water to children around the world, invited individuals to donate US$ 1 or more for the tap water they usually enjoy for free at participating restaurants to support UNICEF’s water programmes. Thousands of volunteers and hundreds of restaurants in the US would participate.

In France UNICEF’s French Committee was organizing a Water Night in partnership with the French Swimming Federation and French Swimmers Laure Manoudou and Alain Bernard, as well as French Sailor Maud Fontenoy. The event would take place in several swimming pools in several cities of France and was aimed at showing the importance of water to children and to raise funds to improve water supply and sanitations in schools in Togo.

Labour

Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Organization said that they were approaching the last week of ILO’s Governing Council. On Monday a High-Level Tripartite meeting would take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the impact of the global financial and economic crisis with the participation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Guy Rider, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Alexander Shokhin, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs and Jonathan Shaw, Minister, UK Department for Work and Pensions.

Ms. Perthuis also said that ILO’s Director-General, Juan Somavia would hold a press conference in Press Room III together with Raymond Torres, Director of the ILO's International Institute for Labour Studies on Tuesday 24 March at 2 p.m. to present the new ILO’s report "Global crisis: the decent work response".

Trade

Janaina Borges of the World Trade Organization said that next week on Wednesday 25 March, Patrick Law, WTO Chief Economist would present WTO’s 2008 trade figures as well as WTO’s projections for trade development in 2009 at a press conference in Washington at the World Bank. A video-link of the press conference would be available in Geneva.

Among the meetings scheduled for next week were WTO’s Goods Council, the Trade Policy Review for Fiji on Wednesday, and the Least-Developed Countries Subcommittee. On Thursday there would be an informal chair consultations about the Russian membership negotiations, said Ms. Borges.

Turning to WTO’s Director-General, Mr. Pascal Lamy agenda, Ms. Borges said that he was today in Addis Ababa to participate to the African Union Trade Ministers meeting. On Monday 23 March and Tuesday 24 March he would be in Washington to meet with the new US Trade Representative, Mr. Ron Kirk and would held several meetings with Congressional leaders, amongst which where Timothy Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury and other Government officials and business representatives.

On Wednesday 25 March and Thursday 26 March, Mr. Pascal Lamy would go to Brussels to take part in the European Business Summit and would meet with Mr. José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission and Ms. Catherine Ashton, European Commissioner for Trade as well as other Government officials and business representatives, said Ms. Borges.

Other

At the end of the briefing, Ms. Heuzé announced that on 30 and 31 March 2009, the Foundation of former Secretary-General Kofi Annan would organize a two-day seminar to build on his mediation mission conducted last year in Kenya. This meeting would bring together key actors who had participated in the mediation effort as well as Kenyan civil society’s representatives, academics, analysts and members of the Kenyan media. The Kenyan Prime Minister and the former Tanzanian President would also be present. The objective is to draw lessons from the Kenya mediation which could be shared with other African countries and the wider world. A press conference would be held at the end on 31 March 2009 at 17h30 CET at the Intercontinental and a media advisory would be distributed next week.