REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the International Telecommunication Union, the World Meteorological Organization, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Conference on Armed Violence

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that on Wednesday, 12 May, Ministers and high-level dignitaries from more than 50 States would participate in a conference at the Hotel Intercontinental. Called Tackling Armed Violence to Accelerate Progress on the Millennium Development Goals, this conference would address the achievement of the commitments that were taken last month during the Oslo Conference on Armed Violence: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The conference would be hosted by the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Støre, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. It was aimed at ensuring that the issue of armed violence was high on the global development agenda, especially in the run-up to the High-Level Summit on the Millennium Development Goals which would take place this September in New York.

Miguel Bermeo, Senior Deputy Director, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, United Nations Development Programme and Annette Abelsen, Director, Humanitarian Disarmament, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway, would address the press on that matter next Tuesday during the press briefing, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Poverty / UNRIC Competition

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the United Nations Regional Information Center in Brussels, together with the Spanish European Union presidency, was organizing a European-wide advertisement competition called “Unleash your creativity against poverty”. The competition was part of a Europe-wide campaign to promote the Millennium Development Goals. Press releases on the competition were available in English and French. The winner of the competition would receive a cash prize of € 5,000 from the Spanish Government.

More information can be found under: www.wecanendpoverty.eu

Committee Against Torture

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Committee Against Torture was hearing this morning the responses of Cameroon to the questions that were put by Experts on Wednesday, 28 April. The Committee would thus have finished with the consideration of all country reports that were planned for the current session.

Next week, the Committee would mainly hold meetings in private in order for it to adopt its concluding observations and recommendations on the country reports it had examined during the session. Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the concluding observations would be made public by the end of the session, on Friday, 14 May. The countries that were examined at the current session were: Austria, Cameroon, France, Jordan, Liechtenstein Switzerland, Syria and Yemen.

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was concluding today its first week of work of its forty-fourth session, by considering the report of Mauritius which would last until Monday morning. Next week, the Committee would consider the reports of Kazakhstan and Afghanistan, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.


Universal Periodic Review

Claire Kaplun of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the Universal Periodic Review Working Group was reviewing this morning the human rights situation in Guinea-Bissau and would turn to the situation in Sweden this afternoon. Five additional States would be reviewed next week. The session would end on Friday, 14 May.

Human Rights Council

Claire Kaplun of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the draft programme of work for the fourteenth session of the Human Rights Council session was now available. The session would be held from 31 May to 18 June.

Also next week, on Thursday, 13 May, the new members of the Human Rights Council would be elected in New York by the United Nations General Assembly. A webcast of the proceedings would be made available, said Ms. Kaplun.

Situation in Haiti

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that they had completed the initial phase of priority relocations of Haitians displaced by the January 12 earthquake, helping to move more than 7,300 people from dangerous areas in Port-au-Prince's Petionville Club golf course, and the Vallée de Bourdon.

Movement to new sites had been and continued to be a last resort option for Haiti's displaced population, on offer to populations deemed to be in priority areas at risk of flooding, mudslides or other immediate hazards, said Mr. Chauzy.

More than 4,900 people from almost 1,300 families had chosen to move from the golf course to a new site at Corail Cesselesse, said Mr. Chauzy. Meanwhile, almost 2,400 people from more than 500 families had moved from the isolated Vallée de Bourdon to the new site at Tabarre Issa.

Mr. Chauzy said that IOM and partners were now in the process of identifying new priority sites for potential relocations and infrastructural needs in existing sites.

This work came alongside IOM's continued registration exercise, which had now covered more than 450,000 people and provided crucial information to actors across the humanitarian community, said Mr. Chauzy.

Sudan / Assistance to the Displaced

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that more than 4 million non-food items had been delivered to conflict and disaster affected populations in the three states of Darfur over the past year by IOM Sudan.

Following the March 2009 expulsion of 13 international and local non-governmental organizations from Sudan, IOM had stepped-in to help fill the humanitarian gap, with partnering United Nations agencies, by providing transportation services. More than 3 million people had benefited from these deliveries of non food items, said Mr. Chauzy.

Chad/Central African Republic Refugees

Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that UNHCR had begun this week, in a remote southern part of Chad, the transfer of some 1,100 newly arrived Central African refugees from the border area to a camp where UNHCR could assist them. These refugees had crossed into southern Chad’s Moyen Chari province two weeks ago, after violence
had forced them from villages in northern Central African Republic (CAR).

The refugees had fled clashes between the CAR Army and rebels in Sido area, from where they had walked some 60 km before reaching Chad, said Mr. Mahecic. UNHCR was relocating them to the Moula camp some 180 km further southwest. UNHCR had moved the first group of 204 refugees on Wednesday and planned to complete the transfer by early next week. Because of poor road conditions, it took convoys an entire day to reach Moula, which currently held more than 4,000 Central Africans refugees.

Mr. Mahecic said that most of the newly arrived refugees were women, children and young men. They had reported to UNHCR staff that the fighters were looting, stealing animals and abusing civilians. Two refugee men had showed to UNHCR staff rope burns on their elbows. Some among the group were traumatized and said that they were not ready to return to the CAR. They had also reported that their villages had been virtually empty by the time they had fled.

The ongoing army offensive in the Sido area has been under way since mid-April, said Mr. Mahecic. UNHCR did not have comprehensive figures of the total number of people displaced, but in the last few days they had had reports of new displacement of around 2,500 civilians. About 1,000 of these had reached a site for internally displaced persons in the town of Kabo, Central African Republic, 400 km north of the CAR capital, Bangui. They lacked water, food and
shelter, although some were living with relatives. Others were hiding in the bush and more could try to cross into southern Chad.

Mr. Mahecic said that at the moment there were 71,000 Central African refugees in Chad, of which 66,000 were in 11 camps run by UNHCR.

Children / Nepal Strikes

Christian Berthiaume of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that UNICEF was concerned about the use of children by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal in the ongoing demonstrations. This placed children at risk of violence and exposed them to potential danger. There were alarming and confirmed reports of large numbers of children present in demonstrations and in some cases actively participating in the enforcement of the ongoing general strike.

Young people under eighteen must not be forced, coerced or bribed into participating in political activities and children should not carry weapons that could inflict bodily harm under any circumstances. Further, the forced closure of schools during the strike was a violation of children’s rights to education, said Ms. Berthiaume.

UNICEF urged all parties to respect the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Nepal was a signatory, and to take all necessary measures to avoid exposing all boys and girls under the age of eighteen to risk of harm.

UNCTAD Public Symposium

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said that UNCTAD’s 2010 Public Symposium would take place from 10 to 11 May. The Symposium would be opened by Supachai Panitchpakdi, UNCTAD Secretary-General at 10 a.m. on Monday. Ms. Mary Robinson would address the closing session on 11 May in the afternoon. The Symposium was an opportunity for UNCTAD to have a dialogue with the civil society, trade unions, citizen groups, academics, researchers, business people and other stakeholders.

This year, the Symposium would look at the causes and the impacts of the global crises that affected the world since 2008, said Ms. Sibut-Pinote. Its objectives were to look at new development paths, rethink global economic governance and find alternative development strategies.

2010 Asia Pacific Economic Report

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific had published yesterday its Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2010 report. According to it, the Asia-Pacific region, where 62 per cent of the world’s population lived, would witness an economic growth of seven per cent in 2010. China would be ahead of the pack with 9.5 per cent growth followed by India with 8.3 per cent.

The survey, however, also noted that 1 billion people lived in poverty in the region and that only 30 per cent of its inhabitants had a pension scheme and only 20 per cent had a health insurance, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

The report is available under: http://www.unescap.org/survey2010/

World Health Statistics

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said that on Monday, 10 May the 2010 World Health Statistics report would be launched during a press conference at 11 a.m. in Press Room I. The report also looked at where the world was standing with regard to the Millennium Development Goals’ health targets.

Child Labour

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that today at 11:30 a.m., the International Labour Organization would hold a press conference to present its new report on Child Labour entitled “Accelerating Actions Against Child Labour”. Present would be Constance Thomas, Director, International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, International Labour Organization and Frank Hagemann, Chief, Policy and Research, International Programme on the Elimination of Child, International Labour Organization.

ITU Agenda

Sanjay Acharya of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said that ITU would host the World Summit on the Information Society Forum from 10 to 14 May at the Centre International de Conférence de Genève (CICG). The Forum was the annual follow-up to the World Summit, which had been held in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005. Over 600 delegates were expected to attend, including participants from United Nations agencies, civil society, non-governmental organizations and the private sector.

An opening press conference with ITU’s Secretary-General, Hamadoun Toure and United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Director-General, Irina Bokova, would be held at 1:15 p.m. in Room L in ITU’s Montbrillant Building, said Mr. Acharya. During the press conference, an announcement would be made on a new commission to promote broadband. This Broadband Commission would be co-chaired by Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Carlos Salinas of Mexico. The Commission would deliver its report to the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon on 19 September, a day before the start of the Millennium Development Goals Review Summit. Mr. Toure and Ms. Bokova would serve as Co-vice Chairs of the Commission.

Further, the 2010 World Telecommunication and Information Society Day celebrations would be held in Shanghai, China at the World Expo on 17 May, during which the ITU Awards would also be presented, said Mr. Acharya.

The World Telecommunication Development Conference would open in Hyderabad, India on 24 May. The conference would focus on development priorities in information and communication technologies and promote international cooperation, regional initiatives and partnerships to sustain and strengthen telecommunication infrastructures and institutions, particularly in developing countries. Press conferences would be held in Hyderabad and dial-in facilities would be set up for the Geneva press corps.

UNECE Agenda

Jean Rodriguez of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) said that UNECE’s Executive Secretary, Jan Kubis, would be in New York from 11 to 14 May to participate in his capacity as coordinator of the five United Nations Regional Commissions to the Eighteenth Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development.

Next week at the Palais des Nations, on 10 and 11 May, there would be a Workshop on Water Management and Climate Change. Mr. Rodriguez said that the workshop was aimed at promoting exchange of experience with adaptation of water management to climate change.

Mr. Rodriguez also announced that a movie that they produced together with UNTV on UNECE’s Action plan for Energy Efficient Housing was now available on the UNECE’s Youtube Channel in five languages under: http://www.youtube.com/user/UNECE.


WMO / Shangai World Expo 2010

Gaelle Sevenier of the World Meteorological Organization said that WMO and the Chinese Meteorological Service had teemed-up to create “MeteoWorld”, the first-ever Pavilion on Meteorology present at a World Exposition. The Pavilion would be opened during a ceremony on Sunday, 9 May.