REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Officer-in-Charge 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 World Food Programme, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the World Health Organisation, UNAIDS, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Environment Programme,

Secretary-General

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, had said yesterday that the memory of the destruction caused by the dropping of the atomic bomb by the American Army on the Japanese city of Hiroshima 64 years ago, at the end of the second World War, should serve to renew the global commitments to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

In a message issued for the occasion, Mr Ban Ki-moon recalled the five-point plan on nuclear disarmament he had submitted last October, as well as the cascade of new and powerful ideas for security through the elimination of nuclear weapons the world was witnessing these days, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier.

Conference on Disarmament

During its plenary session yesterday, the Conference on Disarmament had also marked the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier. The press release of the meeting is available in the press room.

Also yesterday, the President of the Conference on Disarmament submitted to the Conference a revised draft decision on the implementation of the Conference’s programme of work. To give some time to the delegations to consider this document, it was decided to take action on this text this morning. During this morning’s session the delegation of Pakistan indicated that they were awaiting instructions form their capital, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier. Another meeting of the Conference would take place on Monday morning to take action on the text.

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which had started this week its seventy-fifth session, would take up its consideration of the report of China and the reports of the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau this afternoon at 3:00 p.m. in Room XXVI at the Palais des Nations. The consideration of these report would end on Monday morning.

This week the Committee had already considered the reports of Peru, the United Arab Emirates, and Poland. The Committee would further consider the reports of Greece, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Chile, Chad, the Philippines and Ethiopia said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier.

Global Model United Nations Conference

Today at 6:45 p.m. the Global Model United Nations Conference would hold its closing ceremony in the Assembly Hall, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier. The Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, and Kiyo Akasaka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information would address the participants during the ceremony.

Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The Human Rights Council's Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples would hold its second session in Geneva from 10 to 14 August at the Palais des Nations in Room XX, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier. The Expert Mechanism, a subsidiary body of the Human Rights Council composed of five independent experts, provided the Council with thematic expertise on the rights of indigenous peoples focusing mainly on studies and research-based advice. The experts might also suggest proposals to the Council for its consideration and approval. The Expert Mechanism had held its first session from 1 to 3 October 2008.

International Day of the World’s Indigenous people

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that, as each year, the United Nations would celebrate the International Day of the World’s Indigenous people this 9 August. The message of the Secretary-General for this occasion is available in the press room.

Human Rights Council Advisory Committee

Rolando Gomez of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee was concluding today its one-week long third session. Before concluding its session this afternoon, the Committee was expected to adopt six recommendations to pass on to the Council. Most of the reports of the Committee would be submitted to the next session of the Human Rights Council this September.

Among the recommendations to be adopted this week, there was one study on guidelines on leprosy. Through this decision the Committee would call on the Council to request all relevant UN bodies and Member States to give due consideration to these guidelines which underlined the needs for persons affected by leprosy to be treated with respect, dignity and to enjoy their basic rights. Although there’s been a cure for this disease for more than 60 years, there was still a terrible stigma, which existed today, said Mr. Gomez.

Another decision proposed by the Committee was a Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training. This was the beginning stage of a new declaration, as the Human Rights Council could send it to the General Assembly for adoption, said Mr. Gomez.

H1N1 Update

Gregory Hartl of the World Health Organisation (WHO), answering to various questions by journalists said that they were seeing a decrease of activity in most countries of the Southern Hemisphere; this was probably due to the fact that the winter season was ending there.

On the vaccine manufacturing process and at which point in time the vaccines would be available, Mr. Hartl said that the results of the first clinical trials would be available in early-September. It would then depend on how quickly the regulatory authorities would decide to release or permit vaccination. Also, each manufacturer had different methods for producing their vaccines. Those using a standard egg-based method, using the same facilities they had used previously to produce vaccines for seasonal flu in their facility, a method also called “strain-change”, would not need to conduct clinical trials in the United States, under the US Food and Drug Administration. This was however different in Europe. Other more novel vaccines would need more testing and these would take longer before they would be approved and released for use.

Mr. Hartl said that the vaccines would probably be permitted for human use in early winter. A big question was still how many vaccines could be produced per week. Also it was not known yet whether one or two doses of vaccines would be needed.

Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo

Andre Mahecic of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that a growing number of attacks by the Ugandan rebel group known as the “Lord’s Resistance Army” (LRA) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had forced some 12,500 Congolese civilians to flee from their homes in the past month. The attacks had taken place in the Province Orientale in the north eastern part of the country.

In the month of July, the LRA had launched an unprecedented 55 attacks against civilians in Faradje area, some 100 km west of the DRC’s border with South Sudan and Uganda. It had also targeted villages in the Dungu district, Haut-Uele territory. In the same region, there had been 23 attacks during May and another 34 in June, said Mr. Mahecic.

Since September 2007, the LRA had killed 1,273 people and had abducted 655 children and 1,427 adults. Internally displaced persons also told UNHCR that many women had been raped by the rebels and their households looted and torched, said Mr. Mahecic. More than 226,000 people had been displaced in Haut-Uele territory alone and another 42,000 in Bas-Uele, according to UN estimates.

Mr. Mahecic said that the humanitarian situation in this remote part of the DRC remained extremely dramatic. Most of the internally displaced persons were unable to return home because of the ongoing assaults. They slept in public buildings such as schools and churches. Some had been able to find shelter with friends, relatives or host families who were willing to share some of their meager resources. According to UNHCR’s local partners, regular medical supplies were low, hospitals lacked basic equipment and drinking water was in chronically short supply.

So far, UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies had managed to reach some 45 per cent of the displaced and provided basic assistance such as food, blankets, sleeping mats and cooking sets. Insecurity was preventing larger scale deliveries of humanitarian aid. Ongoing insecurity and poor, impassable roads remained the main obstacles to UNHCR’s work, said Mr. Mahecic. Some of these areas where the internally displaced persons had gathered were accessible only by air.

Meanwhile, the LRA attacks in the DRC had a spillover effect on the neighbouring countries. Out of 21,000 refugees in South Sudan at the moment, 16,500 had arrived since last November from the Province Orientale in the DRC, most of them fleeing LRA attacks in Faradje territory. Mr. Mahecic said that some 2,000 new arrivals had been registered in the last three months at the Lasu registration centre. There, upon arrival in South Sudan, Congolese refugees were registered by UNHCR and given food and basic aid items such as plastic sheeting for shelter, blankets, jerry cans, kitchen sets and sanitary material for women.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme (WFP), updating on the food assistance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said that of the 2 million people that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had listed as having been displaced in the Eastern part of the country in the past year, more than 1 million of them were receiving food aid every month from WFP.

In Dungu, Haut Uele, WFP had been conducting airdrop operations to feed more than a 130,000 internally displaced persons, who had fled the Lord Resistance Army’s attacks, and also to host families, said Ms. Casella.

Food Assistance in Southern Sudan

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme (WFP) said that WFP condemned the attack on 2 August 2009 that had killed at least 161 people, mostly women and children, in Jonglei State of Southern Sudan. WFP was concerned that the attack could cause retaliatory attacks and lead to more deaths and displacement of people in the area. In March and April, inter-tribal fighting had killed more than 700 people and displaced 19,000 in Akobo and Pibor counties.

WFP was joining other UN agencies to urge the Government of Southern Sudan and the authorities in Jonglei State to stop inter-tribal fighting which had increased in recent months and was affecting delivery of humanitarian services in the area, said Ms. Casella.

In June there had been an attack along the Sobat river, which had effectively prevented food assistance from being delivered by river. Since then, WFP had conducted 80 airlifts to provide food for 18,000 people, out of a total of about 29,000 people that were receiving food assistance in that area. Ms. Casella said that just this month alone WFP was expecting to deliver about 435 metric tons of food to that area, which was cut-off due to security reasons and also due to impassable roads due to rainy conditions.

Since the Sobat river incident, WFP had also been working with other UN Agencies, the Government of Southern Sudan and the Akobo and Nassir and Commissioners to ensure safe passage of food convoys along the Sobat river. The United Nations Mission in Sudan had formed a “riverine unit” to try to recover food that sank with some of the boats that had been attacked in June, added Ms. Casella.

UN Humanitarian Air Service Funding

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme (WFP) said that the UN Humanitarian Air Service, which is operated by WFP, had received no new funds for Chad. It was almost inevitable that there would be some levels of cuts in air service in Chad as of this mid-month and further in the month in West Africa’s coastal region, unless funds were received by then.

Burundian Refugees in Tanzania

Andre Mahecic of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that this week the Tanzanian Government had granted citizenship to 3,568 of some 162,000 Burundians who had applied for citizenship after having lived over three decades as refugees in Tanzanian settlements. The decision marked a major milestone in a programme that would bring to a close one of the world’s most protracted refugee situations. It also represented the first time that any country in Africa had naturalised refugees on such a scale.

In early 2008, the Tanzanian government had given a choice to some 218,000 Burundians who had fled violence in their country in 1972 either to return home or to apply for Tanzanian citizenship. Building on this momentum, UNHCR had advocated on behalf of the refugees with the governments of Tanzania and Burundi to facilitate the decision-making and had provided tangible assistance both to those who had decided to go and those who had opted to stay, said Mr. Mahecic. Some 162,000 of the original caseload had decided to stay and had applied for
naturalisation.

The final breakthrough came this Tuesday when the Tanzanian Minister of Home Affairs had granted citizenship to the first group of applicants. Out of 3,570 individuals, only two had been rejected, said Mr. Mahecic. At the same time, the Tanzanian government had reaffirmed its commitment to finalize the processing of the remaining population before the end of the year.

Effects of the Economic Crisis on AIDS Response

Mahesh Mahalingam, of UNAIDS said that UNAIDS had put up, together with WHO and the World Bank, a system to monitor the effects of the economic crisis on AIDS response since the beginning of the crisis. UNAIDS was particularly concerned at how the economic crisis was affecting treatment and prevention programmes. They had conducted a series of surveys in the last few months and the first results they were getting showed that many countries, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, were facing critical stock-outs for anti-retroviral drugs. Nearly 4 million people were in treatment and they had to take them for life. UNAIDS was particularly concerned that the people on treatment continued to access to treatment.

As a result of the early warning system, countries such Uganda and South Africa, which were facing critical stock-outs had now stepped in. The Government of South Africa was this week releasing money from its own domestic resources to fill the gap of drug needs. Organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the Global Fund and UNITAID had promised emergency funding available if critical stock-outs took place. Malawi had recently averted a very narrow stock-out. These stock-outs were not necessary happening as a result of the economic crisis but also because of systems and procurement issues. UNAIDS, together with WHO and the World Bank, had been working with the governments to make sure that people on treatment would get access to life-saving medicines, said Mr. Mahalingam.

UNAIDS had also put out a statement yesterday to welcome the Clinton Foundation’s agreement with Pfizer and Matrix Laboratories to reduce the prices of critical second-line drugs. UNAIDS believed that this price reduction was one of many that was needed in order to get life saving medicines for those in need, said Mr. Mahalingam.

Humanitarian Situation in Afghanistan

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that today at 12:30 p.m. Robert Watkins, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and UN Resident Coordinator and UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Afghanistan would give a press conference on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

New UNEP Spokesperson

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier introduced the new Spokesperson for the United Nations Environment Programme’s Regional Office for Europe, Isabelle Valentiny.
She can be reached under: +41.(0)79.251.82.36