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 attended by spokespersons for and representatives of the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the World Food Programme, the World Trade Organization and the International Organization for Migration.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that this morning the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would conclude the work of its seventy-fifth session, presenting its concluding observations on the reports of Peru, the United Arab Emirates, Poland, China, Greece, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Chile, the Philippines, Ethiopia and Chad, which it had reviewed over the course of its four-week session. Copies of the concluding observations and roundup press releases would be issued in English and French this afternoon.

Turning to disarmament activities, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier noted that yesterday the Conference on Disarmament had held a public plenary, during which it had continued its efforts to find consensus on the implementation of its programme of work. The next public meeting would be held on Monday, 31 August. There would also be a plenary meeting on Wednesday, 2 September, when the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Austria, Michael Spindelegger, would address the Conference at 10 a.m.

The Third Meeting of Experts from States Parties to the Biological Weapons Convention was also concluding the work of its weeklong session today. A roundup press release would be issued today.

World Climate Change Conference

Carine Van Maele of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that the Third World Climate Change Conference would open on Monday at 9 a.m. at the Geneva International Conference Centre, with an opening address by WMO Chief, Michel Jarraud, followed by a number of high-level dignitaries, including the President of the Swiss Federal Council, Hans-Rudolf Merz, and Kofi Annan, the President of the Global Humanitarian Forum. The Expert Segment would start at 9:50 a.m. and would run to 11:20 a.m., and would be led by the President of the WMO. There would then be statements by a number of heads of United Nations agencies. A programme of the round tables and expert discussions was available at the back of the room.

Ms. Van Maele also drew attention to the opening press conference on Monday to be given by the Secretary-General Jarraud, WMO President Alexander Bedritsky, and Bruno Oberle, Director of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, at 11:45 a.m.

On Thursday, there would be the principal press conference on the launching of the United Nations World Economic and Social Survey. Electronic copies of the report would be sent to journalists now, along with policy briefs and a press release in all official United Nations languages. All those materials were under embargo until 1 September at 4 p.m. GMT.

At the back of the room were a programme for the Conference, a provisional media agenda, a media advisory on practical matters, and a list of ministers attending.

Trade and Development Report 2009

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) noted that the press conference to present the Trade and Development Report 2009, had been pushed back to Monday, 31 August 2009 at 2:30 p.m. (room III). The report, which focused this year on the theme “Responding to the global crisis- Climate change mitigation and development”, analysed the causes of the current economic crisis and proposed solutions to prevent such a phenomenon from reoccurring. It noted that the profound reforms to the global financial and monetary system had not yet been undertaken and called for that to be done as soon as possible. A chapter was also devoted to climate change and the growth and development opportunities that could present for developing countries. The principal launch for the report was being held in Geneva, and presenting the report at the press conference would be UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi and Heiner Flassbeck, the Director of the UNCTAD Division for Globalization and Development Strategies. A press kit and a press release in all official languages were available in the press room. The report and press materials were under embargo until 7 September at 5 p.m. GMT.

H1N1 Flu Pandemic

Gregg Hartl of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that two Web updates would be going up today. One should be up now – the weekly numbers disease outbreak news – and sometime this afternoon there should be an update on more general issues connected with the pandemic. The number of deaths was continuing to rise. According to the figures to be posted today, there were 2,185 deaths, “but that understated the number, as the figures are not completely up to date” Mr. Hartl cautioned.

Responding to a question on procedures to be followed for vaccines delivered to European countries already, Mr. Hartl noted that the vaccines had still not been approved yet. Manufacturers had gone ahead with production of vaccines because the approval process for vaccines produced using cell culture in previously approved manufacturing facilities was normally quite straightforward. In Europe, approval should take a relatively short amount of time, all that was needed was a quite small clinical dossier. That was not even needed in the United States for vaccines produced according to that method. So, the approvals should be occurring in September.

Asked to respond to an article alleging mortality rates of up to 100 times greater for H1N1 virus as compared with seasonal flu, Mr. Hartl said he had not seen the article, but he “highly doubted” that that would even be possible. Normally, even at this stage of the pandemic, it would be really unwise to try and estimate fatality rates. They had only seen the pandemic so far during the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere. They had some indications of what might be in store in the winter by looking at countries like Chile, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, but “there is no way that one could produce even halfway accurate estimates until after the pandemic is over”, he underscored.

On a question about patents for H1N1 vaccine, Mr. Hartl, although not a patent expert, noted that vaccine virus was not subject to patent. WHO collaborating centres produced vaccine virus and then distributed it to any vaccine manufacturer that asked for it free. He believed that it was when vaccine manufacturers used special production processes that they could then patent those processes. WHO did not get involved at all in patents, he stressed.

Situation in Yemen

Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that the situation in Sa’ada city remained “dramatic”. Owing to fighting both inside the city and its surroundings, the town had been practically cut off from the rest of the world for about a week now. Yesterday, there had been reports of continuous fighting between Al Houthi rebels and government forces, with both parties rejecting a ceasefire. The High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, had called for the opening of humanitarian corridors in northern Yemen to allow civilians to leave and much-needed aid to be delivered. Currently, residents, as well as those displaced in Sa’ada City, were unable to leave. The state of emergency was still in force, the markets were closed in the city, and there was an extreme shortage of food and other commodities. The Al Anad camp in Sa’ada was off limits, while the three other sites for internally displaced persons were becoming overcrowded. Together with the authorities, UNHCR had registered 700 families in Sa’ada city and if the security situation permitted, it would distribute initial aid to some 370 families tomorrow.

In the neighbouring Amran province, about 40 per cent of the displaced were occupying schools, clinics, hangars and barns. Most had left behind all their personal belongings. The authorities had told UNHCR that a new camp for internally displaced persons would be constructed in Khaywan, despite concerns of the humanitarian community that the site might be too close to the conflict zone. A number of interagency field assessment missions had been carried out in Amran, and in order to beef up its existing capacities in Yemen, UNHCR was also deploying a three-member emergency team that included protection, logistics and site-planning experts.

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme (WFP) added that, as the security situation in Sa’ada City was quite volatile, WFP’s biggest concern was access to those who needed help. On Wednesday, during a lull in the fighting, WFP had managed to give a full-month’s ration to 2,513 the hungry and dehydrated persons in two of the camps for the displaced in the town. In Hajjah, as of yesterday, WFP had provided 75 metric tons of general food assistance to 7,500 internally displaced persons in the newly established camp.

Shocking Conditions in Detention Centre on Greek Island of Lesbos

Earlier this week, UNHCR staff had visited the detention centre at Pagani, on the Greek Island of Lesbos, Mr. Mahecic said. They had been shocked at the conditions in the facility, where more than 850 people were held, including 200 unaccompanied children, mostly from Afghanistan. The centre had a capacity of 250 to 300, and UNHCR staff described the condition there has “unacceptable”. One room housed over 150 women and 50 babies, many suffering from illness related to the cramped and unsanitary conditions in the centre. The Deputy Minister of Health and Social Solidarity of Greece had given UNHCR assurances that all the unaccompanied children at Pagani would be transferred to special reception facilities by the end of the month.

Displacement in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Mr. Mahecic said that the Ugandan rebel group, the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), continued to cause large-scale destruction and displacement in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. At least 125,000 people had been driven out of their villages in Haut Uele district of Orientale Province by the LRA in the last three weeks along. A staggering 540,000 Congolese had been uprooted in Orientale Province by deadly LRA assaults since September 2008. UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies had distributed aid kits, consisting of blankets, kitchen sets, jerry cans, mosquito nets, sleeping mats and soap to 11,000 internally displaced persons in villages north-west of Dungu, the district capital. However, insecurity and impassable roads continued to hamper access to the vast majority of the displaced.

Other

Mr. Mahecic said that UNHCR was concerned about reports that as many as 30,000 people might have fled fighting Myanmar’s Shan state since 8 August to take shelter in China’s Yunnan province. UNHCR had been informed that local authorities in China had already provided emergency shelter, food and medical care to the refugees. UNHCR was currently liaising with the authorities to investigate what their needs were.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced the opening today of an IOM-managed Labour Migration Centre in South Africa, in the border town of Beitbridge, which would facilitate the flow of seasonal migrant workers to South Africa and reduce the risks associated with irregular migration. The new Labour Migration Centre, in partnership with the Zimbabwean Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and the South African Department of Labour, was part of a pilot project which would match an estimated 5,000 Zimbabwean job seekers with the labour needs of five commercial farms in South Africa. Once selected, labour migrants would receive passports and work permits allowing them to travel and reside in South Africa for the duration of their contracts.

Ms. Casella of the WFP, in an update on the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service’s precarious situation, said that the West African Service (for Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea), which had been slated for closure as of this coming Monday, would be able to continue through September thanks to a donation from the European Union for 100,000 euros. Meanwhile, no additional funders had come forward for the Humanitarian Air Service to Chad, which was slated to begin cutting its service in half by 15 September, and would close entirely if no new funds were received soon.

Janaina Borges of the World Trade Organization (WTO) announcing the schedule for next week. On Monday, there was a meeting of the dispute settlement body at 3 p.m. with a briefing to follow at the end of the day. They would also issue the report on the level of retaliation on the cotton case, Brazil’s complaint against the United States. It was due on Monday and the precise release time would be announced by e-mail.

Announcing the appointments of WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, Ms. Borges said that on Monday, the Director-General was opening a joint WTO-International Labour Organization economic research seminar to take stock of current research on global trade and employment. That was, however, closed to the press. On Thursday and Friday, Mr. Lamy would be in New Delhi for a meeting of trade ministers.

On Sunday, 6 September, WTO was holding its first-ever Open-Door Day (Journée des Portes Ouvertes), to introduce the building and the work of the WTO to the public.