REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Yvette Morris, Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by spokespersons for and representatives of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the World Meteorological Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

High-Level Meetings at UNHQ in New York

Ms. Morris noted that the United Nations Summit on Climate Change would take place at Headquarters in New York today, where more than 100 world leaders were expected to gather. Speaking on the eve of the Summit, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon underscored the need for collective action to save the planet. The Secretary-General had convened the Summit to stimulate political impetus for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December, and would urge leaders to accelerate the pace of negotiations. Secretary-General Ban would deliver the opening statement at the Summit and UNIS would distribute his remarks this afternoon.

The sixty-fourth session of the General Assembly would begin its General Debate tomorrow, Ms. Morris continued. The Secretary-General would also address that opening session. President Lula of Brazil was scheduled to be the first Head of State to address the Assembly, to be followed by President Barack Obama of the United States.

For its part, the Security Council would hold a Summit meeting on Thursday on nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. The meeting would focus on arms control, nuclear disarmament and strengthening the treaty on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Also on Thursday in New York, a conference aimed at facilitating the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty would begin, Ms. Morris added.

As usual, there were also a number of meetings and activities taking place in New York this week in parallel with the General Assembly’s General Debate, Ms. Morris noted. On Thursday, there would be a ministerial meeting commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and the Middle East Quartet would meet as well. The schedule of those meetings was available on the United Nations website (www.un.org).

Geneva Activities

Turning to Geneva activities, Ms. Morris said the Committee on the Rights of the Child, continuing the work of its fifty-second session at Palais Wilson, was meeting today to consider the reports of Poland under the two Optional Protocols to the Convention – on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; and on the involvement of children in armed conflict.

Rolando Gomez of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights observed that the Human Rights Council had begun the second week of its twelfth session. Today, it would continue its general debate on the promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. That would be followed by a general debate on human rights situations that required the Council’s attention – otherwise known as “country situations” – which was expected to start just before 11 a.m. and which should last for most of the day.

Tomorrow onward through the rest of the week, the Council would consider the Universal Periodic Review reports adopted at the fifth session in May. That was standard procedure – whenever the Working Group on the UPR adopted its reports the next formality was for the Human Rights Council as a whole to officially adopt them. There were 16 new reports.

Drawing attention to the bulletin of informal meetings of the Council, available in the back of the room, and, in that connection, the deadline for submission of draft resolutions was this Friday, 25 September. No draft resolutions had been received as yet, and they would be shared with journalists as they were received. But just to give an indication of what was in the pipeline, the bulletin of informal meetings could shed some light on that. Mr. Gomez also noted that the Human Rights Council was catching up with the modern age: it now had a Twitter account, and HRC12 was the thread for those who were interested.

Ms. Morris had a couple of announcements to make on behalf of spokespersons that were unable to the briefing. The Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was opening today with a two-day high-level ministerial segment. The Assemblies were meeting from 22 September to 1 October. Journalists wishing to cover the Assemblies or to meet with participating ministers were requested to contact the WIPO press office. The press was also invited to the opening of a cultural event, organized jointly with the Government of Ecuador, which would feature a performance of traditional Ecuadorian music and dance, as well as an exhibition featuring a snapshot of Ecuador’s rich artistic and cultural heritage. The event would begin at 6 p.m. in the lobby of WIPO's main building.

The second announcement was that there would be an audio link with the United Nations Children’s Fund representative in Yemen before the briefing next Friday, 25 September at 10 a.m. in room III, Ms. Morris said.

Climate Change: Climate Neutral Cities

Jean Rodriguez of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) said that tomorrow (23 September) UNECE would host a seminar on Climate Neutral Cities, in order to focus on how urban planning and building could contribute to reducing greenhouse gases and enhance the overall sustainability of a city. It was a subject that had been given little attention within the whole climate change debate, and one which deserved more focus given the high concentration of populations in cities and the fact that cities made an enormous contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. An information note and provisional schedule were available at the back of the room.

International Maritime Day

Gaëlle Sévenier of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that tomorrow, 24 September, WMO was joining the International Maritime Organization in celebrating International Maritime Day, which this year would focus on related climate change challenges. To commemorate the event, WMO was issuing a new guide for the security and improvement of maritime navigation , which had been revised in light of the impact climate change had had in the area. For example, it provided advice on navigating newly opened Arctic sea lanes. A press release would be issued and WMO’s oceanographic expert, Edgard Cabrera, would hold a press conference tomorrow on the event at 11 a.m. in room 1.

Continuing on a maritime theme, Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said that, in the context of a symposium in Goa on maritime health, IOM and a group of international associations and organizations would be launching the Global Partnership on HIV and Mobile Workers in the Maritime Sector tomorrow. There were more than 1 million sea workers around the world – almost exclusively male of a sexually active age, who were away from their partners and spouses for long periods of time. One survey recorded that 53 per cent of seafarers had contact with sex workers, 73 per cent of whom did not use condoms. The Global Partnership would work to change HIV risk behaviour among seafarers, increase their access to health and HIV programmes and services during voyages, ensure that seafarers' rights were ensured especially with regard to voluntary HIV testing and counselling and to develop and implement sound workplace polices and programmes addressing the issue.

Revised Flash Appeal for Pakistan’s Displaced

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the Flash Appeal for Pakistan had had to be revised upwards from $542 million to $680 million, and that, as of today, they still needed $308 million to meet the requirements of the revised appeal. Those funds would go to assist the 56,000 to 84,000 persons that had been internally displaced as a result of military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Area. A briefing note was available.

HIV/AIDS Report on Treatment Access

Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a press conference would be held next week on the occasion of the launching of the third edition of a the report, “Towards Universal Access”, on Wednesday, 30 September, at 10 a.m. in room III. The report was a collaborative effort by WHO, UNICEF, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. It provided an analysis of the health sector treatment for HIV/AIDS, including how many had access to such treatment and in which countries, and what obstacles remained to ensuring universal access. It also had a chapter on mother-to-child transmission. The principal launch of the report was in Geneva, with the representatives of the four agencies involved. Copies of the report would be available at the press conference, and on a media-access-only website starting this weekend.

Radon Report

A journalist asked about a recent WHO radon report and why the acceptable rate of exposure had been lowered by a factor of 10. Responding, Ms. Chaib said that WHO had published a handbook on radon in the home, which was being discussed at a meeting being held in St. Louis, Missouri (United States), yesterday and today. The report, which was a fairly technical one, had been posted on the WHO website. Radon was a naturally occurring radioactive gas that was found in the atmosphere, but in particular inside people’s homes and had been classified some years ago as carcinogenic, in particular causing lung cancer. Indeed, radon gas was the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking. WHO had specifically issued the report because it felt that the acceptable tolerance levels were much too high, and the report explained why that was so. The report looked at new studies in a number of different countries, and explored what could be done to reduce the presence of radon gas in people’s homes, for example, through better ventilation.

H1N1 Influenza

Asked about a story in The Guardian on a newly issued WHO report on H1N1 that claimed that 900 million pounds was needed to prepare for the spread of the disease, and whether that report was available, Gregg Hartl of WHO clarified that the report in question was a fundraising document and had been distributed to missions but not publicly. It might have been given by one of the missions to a journalist, but WHO had not done so. The document had been distributed to missions in New York and Geneva and was the subject of a fundraising meeting in New York on Thursday, 24 September, which would be chaired by WHO director-General Margaret Chan. Following the meeting, the document would be made public.

A journalist recalled that ACANU journalists had consistently asked for information on the least developed countries and what vaccines would be available for them and what the shortfalls would be. They had been stonewalled for weeks and weeks. Were they to understand that WHO and the Secretary-General did not believe that it was in the public interest to release the information so that they could know what the shortfalls were in the poorest countries in the world?

Mr. Hartl responded by reiterating that the document would indeed be made public on Thursday. In terms of the briefings, WHO was working hard to restart the briefings on the topic and it was hoped to have a weekly briefing on either Thursday or Friday this week with Marie-Paule Kieny, the director of Vaccine Research, who would be able to give a quite thorough update on what was happening vaccine-wise – both with what was happening with clinical trials and the regulatory approvals. Most recently, as discussed last week, thanks to donations of their own vaccine stocks by nine countries, WHO now had a vaccine which would start coming to WHO at the end of October, beginning of November, which WHO would distribute to potentially 85 countries.

Mr. Hartl said he would look into organizing a background briefing on the report before its release.

Responding on the question of what the fundraising meeting was for, Mr. Hartl said it was to raise funds for what a country would need for a complete response to H1N1 –medical supplies, support and equipment, but also for capacity-strengthening, including such things as communications.

Asked about the H1N1 vaccination campaign which China had launched yesterday, Mr. Hartl was able to confirm that China was the first country to launch such a campaign.

Dire Humanitarian Situation in Yemen

Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said the situation in Yemen’s northern Sa’ada province remained volatile, despite an announced two-week suspension of military operations on the occasion of Eid al Fitr (marking the end of Ramadan) to allow humanitarian aid to reach displaced and stranded civilians. It was the second failed ceasefire in less than a month, with renewed clashes erupting over the weekend in several neighbourhoods in Sa’ada city. During the brief lull in the fighting some 1,600 people in the city had received assistance through UNHCR’s local NGO partner, but UNHCR stocks in Sa’ada were diminishing and establishment of humanitarian corridors remained a top priority for UNHCR.

In neighbouring provinces, UNHCR was assisting internally displaced persons both inside and outside the camps, Mr. Mahecic said. Every day new families arrived in the Al Mazraq camp in Hajjah province, which was now sheltering some 5,000. However, heavy rain had damaged more than 50 tents at the camp over the weekend, leaving hundreds of families without shelter, and a UNHCR team was rushing to repair or replace them. UNHCR was also distributing aid to some 2,100 registered displaced in the cities of Amran and Khamir.

Asked about casualty figures for the five-week hostilities and particularly with regard to the bombing of a makeshift camp by the Yemeni Air Force last week, Mr. Mahecic said there were still no figures for casualties at the makeshift site. For the moment, the site appeared to be under the control of the opposition forces and was inaccessible to UNHCR. Ms. Chaib also did not have any casualty figures in the conflict area. Most health facilities in the Sa’ada governorate remained inaccessible due to the continuing conflict. No disease outbreaks had been reported from the internally displaced person-hosting areas, but WHO had sent medicines and supplies to its offices in Yemen and it was hoped that they would be able to be transported to support the mobile medical teams and hospitals in the conflict-affected area. WHO was supporting six mobile health units managed by the Yemeni health ministry and which provided basic services.

Calais: Clearing of “the Jungle” / Situation of Irregular Refugees

Mr. Mahecic said that this morning the French authorities had started to dismantle the makeshift camp in the French city of Calais, where mainly Afghan individuals had stayed waiting to go to the United Kingdom. As far as UNHCR knew, only relatively few of them were still there this morning, most having moved to other locations. UNHCR recognized the need to combat smuggling and trafficking of persons. However, closing the so-called “jungle” camp did not address the phenomenon of mixed and irregular migration, nor does it solve the problems of the people concerned, many of whom might have protection needs. UNHCR appealed to the French authorities to look for the best solution in each individual case. In particular, UNHCR called on the French authorities to ensure that those who wished to apply for refugee protection were given access to a full and fair asylum procedure, as well as proper accommodation pending the determination of their claim. The situation in Calais underscores, once again, the need for governments in Europe to intensify efforts to arrive at a common European asylum system.

Asked whether UNHCR had heard anything about the procedures being used, Mr. Mahecic said that, according to the information received so far the French authorities were carrying out the procedure in accordance with what had been discussed by High Commissioner Guterres with French Minister Besson last week.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) added that IOM spokesperson Jean-Philippe Chauzy was in Calais for the week, and was contactable. IOM fully supported UNHCR’s call for humane treatment of the migrants. IOM had had a presence in Calais for some years now, and had been providing assistance to the irregular migrants and asylum-seekers who had been holding out there as they tried to make their way elsewhere.


Relocation of Sudanese Refugee Camp in Eastern Chad

Mr. Mahecic said UNHCR welcomed the decision by the Government of Chad to relocate the Oure Cassoni refugee camp away from the volatile border with Sudan. The camp currently accommodated some 28,000 refugees from Darfur. In addition to being in a location where protection and security could not be fully guaranteed by UNHCR, the camp’s residents suffered from severe water and firewood shortages. UNHCR’s key protection concern, however, had been the ongoing recruitment of child soldiers by armed Sudanese opposition groups and the mounting militarization of the camp.

Other

Ms. Pandya announced that a national referral system to identify, refer, protect and provide follow-up services to victims of human trafficking in Liberia would be set up by the Government with IOM support through a new one-year programme. The referral system would also offer voluntary return and reintegration options for both Liberian and internationals trafficked to the country assisted partly through the setting up of a pilot Return and Reintegration Fund. The fund would be able to assist 35 victims.

Ms. Morris announced a press briefing by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on Palestinian State-building efforts would be held today following the briefing at 11.45 a.m. in room III. Speaking would be the Minister of National Economy of the Palestinian Authority; the Permanent Observer of Palestine in Geneva; and the UNCTAD Coordinator of Assistance to the Palestinian People.