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 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the International Labour Organization, United Nations Development Programme, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration.

Director-General

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Sergei Ordzhonikidze had met yesterday with Jean-Pierre Raffarin, former French Prime Minister and current Personal Representative of the French President to La Francophonie. They discussed the necessity to promote multilingualism in international organizations.

Today, the Director-General would be present during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Rector of the University of Peace, John Maresca, and the Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, Theresa Hitchens. The Director-General welcomed this Memorandum of Understanding, which would promote research and training on disarmament and contribute to furthering the United Nations’ disarmament objectives, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that tomorrow, 28 May, would be the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. The commemoration would be held at the United Nations Office at Geneva on Monday afternoon and a ceremony would be held at 3 p.m. at the Palais des Nations. This year’s theme was “Haiti Standing”, to mark the loss of the 96 United Nations peacekeepers in the tragic earthquake of last January and to highlight the ongoing contributions by the United Nations Mission in Haiti to the country’s recovery. The Secretary-General’s message for the Day had been sent out this morning.

United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, had met yesterday in Rio de Janeiro the families of Brazilian United Nations Peacekeepers who were killed in the Haiti earthquake. He also unveiled a commemorative plaque for those peacekeepers, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Committee on the Rights of the Child

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which was concluding this morning the first week of its session, had considered the reports of Nigeria and Serbia and was concluding this morning its consideration of the reports of Japan and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Next week, the Committee would consider the reports of Grenada, Guatemala, Argentina, Belgium, Colombia and Tunisia, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Conference on Disarmament

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Conference on Disarmament would resume next week its 2010 Session. The day on which the first public plenary would be held would be communicated as soon as the information would be available. It should be either on Tuesday or Thursday.

Human Rights Council

Claire Kaplun of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the fourteenth Human Rights Council’s session would open on Monday at 10 a.m. in Room XX. The session would start with an update by the High Commissioner for Human Rights and a General Debate with her.

On Monday afternoon, at 3 p.m., the Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, would address the Council. Spain was one of the newly elected Council members, which would take their seats at the end of this session, said Ms. Kaplun.

During this session six panel discussions would be organized, said Ms. Kaplun. During the first week there would be two panel discussions. The first one on Wednesday afternoon would address trafficking under the theme of “Give Voice to Victims of Trafficking”. Four victims of trafficking would offer their testimonies to the Council. The second panel discussion next week would be on the protection of journalists in armed conflict; this would be held on Friday afternoon.

Ms. Kaplun said that 20 Special Rapporteurs and Independent Experts would present their reports during this session. The Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Sudan would however not be able to attend the session for health reasons but his report would still be presented and considered during the session.

The joint study on secret detentions, which had been postponed form the last session, would be presented on Wednesday, 2 June. The Independent Expert on Human Rights in Haiti would present the situation in Haiti since the earthquake, together with other thematic special procedures mandate holders, towards the end of the session, said Ms. Kaplun. Further, 16 Universal Periodic Review reports would be adopted during the session.

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that a press conference on the joint study on secret detentions would be held on Thursday 3 June at 4:00 pm.

International Labour Conference

Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Organisation said that the ninety-ninth International Labour Conference would open next week at the Palais des Nations and would be held from 2 to 18 June. The Conference would be opened by Juan Somavia, Director-General of the International Labour Organization on Wednesday, 2 June, at which he would present his report.

A press conference would be held on Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. in Press Room I with Kari Tapiola, Executive Director, Standards and Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work Sector to discuss the agenda of the Conference, said Ms. Perthuis.

Doris Leuthard, President of the Swiss Confederation, would also participate in the Conference on Wednesday and would hold a press conference at 11.45 a.m. in Press Room III, said Ms. Perthuis.

Journalists were also invited to a breakfast on Thursday at 9.15 a.m. at the Delegates’ Restaurant with representatives from the International Labour Organisation HIV/AIDS on the Workplace Programme, who would present a draft recommendation on HIV/AIDS on the workplace that would be voted on during the Conference, said Ms. Perthuis.

High Commissioner for Human Rights Agenda

Rupert Colville said that the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, would conduct country visits to Uganda next week from 2 to 5 June and to Kenya from 6 to 8 June. She would also attend the International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda, next week.

The High Commissioner had also just issued the Annual Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to the States Parties, said Mr. Colville. It also contained information on the funding of the Office.

Mr. Colville said that the Government of the Netherlands was hosting today a seminar on the issue of maternal mortality at which the High Commissioner would deliver a speech on the human rights aspect of maternal mortality. The issue would also be discussed during the upcoming Human Rights Council session at a panel discussion on 14 June. A study on the subject would also be presented to the Council.


Global Migration Group Meeting

Adam Rogers of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said that UNDP currently hold the rotating Chair of the Global Migration Group, which met for a symposium from 27 to 28 May in Geneva.

Mr. Rogers said the Global Migration Group consisted of 14 organizations, included the International Labour Organization, the International Organization for Migration, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, the six United Nations Regional Commissions and the World Bank.

This morning experts were discussing various migration issues of concern to all United Nations organizations and Government of destination and source countries, said Mr. Rogers.

Cecile Molinier, Director, United Nations Development Programme, Geneva Bureau, said that this symposium marked the first time that the Global Migration Group, a coordinating entity, had been able to bring together an impressive group of experts in migration issues, practitioners in Government - both from developing and developed countries - members from academia and representatives of United Nations agencies dealing with migration and development issues.

The topic of the Symposium was “Overcoming Barriers”, which was similar to UNDP's latest Human Development Report, said Ms. Molinier. This was no-coincidence because the key message of the Symposium was that there was a tremendous potential of mobility to human development, provided that the proper conditions were in place - which was not the case for the moment.

Three key messages rose from the Symposium’s deliberations. The first was that it was critical to protect the rights of migrants at all stages of a migration process. This was even more critical in a context of a severe global economic crisis that had brought anxiety to societies the world over. Leaving migrants unprotected undermined their ability to positively contribute to countries of origin and destination, as well as to their own well-being, said Ms. Molinier.

The second key message was that it was critical to raise awareness about the contributions of migrants to societies, regardless of their migration status. In a context of an increasing tendency to criminalize migrants, structural demographic imbalances, tremendous inequality of opportunities and the effects of climate change would suggest that closing opportunities for orderly migration and stigmatizing migrants was very much short-sighted, said Ms. Molinier. Migrants were called to fill critical labour-gaps in ageing societies and to contribute more broadly, with their talent and their skills, to international competitiveness in all countries.

The third key message was that it was fundamental to build capacities for managing migrations. Capacities should be built among different stakeholders and at all levels; not only at the national level, but also at the sub-national and at the local level. Not only among Government officials, but also civil society organizations, social partners and among United Nations agencies present on the ground. Ms. Molinier said that capacity building had to be made around a joint strategy on migration and development that was rooted in human rights and united all stakeholders.

The Global Migration Group would continue to work with governments and other stakeholders in this important area and the next stage would be the Global Forum on Migration and Development that would take place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico at the end of November.

Jean-Phillipe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that today’s IOM briefing notes on Brazil, Moldova and Bangladesh were linked to discussions that had taken place during the symposium.

Humanitarian Situation in Yemen

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that funding received through the Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan was not commensurate to the humanitarian challenges that the country was facing.

The 2010 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan requested US$ 177 million and the appeal was currently funded at 28 per cent, or US$ 49 million, said Ms. Byrs.

Five of the Yemeni Governorates were currently affected by the conflict, said Ms. Byrs. There were some 342,000 internally displaced persons, with an estimated 100,000 internally displaced persons in the Governorates of Sa’ada alone.

Underfunding was now forcing humanitarian agencies to significantly reduce their activities, or even to suspend their assistance, said Ms. Byrs.

One of the most hit sectors was nutrition support, said Ms. Byrs. Food rations for hungry and food insecure persons had been cut in half since the beginning of May, to avoid all assistance being suspended after June. Nutritional support to some 50,000 internally displaced children under five would be maintained only until the end of August. 30 per cent of severely malnourished children and pregnant women were no longer receiving nutritional assistance throughout Yemen.

Another sector with serious funding gaps was the water and sanitation sector. Ms. Byrs said that with the upcoming summer season and rising temperatures, there would be an increased risk of water-born diseases if clean water and hygiene kits were not provided regularly.

Niger/IDPs

Christiane Berthiaume of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that UNICEF was concerned with the situation of displaced women and children in urban and semi-urban areas in Niger. A migration flux has been observed from villages into cities due to the lack of food there. The displaced were arriving in a much weakened state and in poor health conditions into the cities. Many women were travelling alone with their children, who had also stopped attending schools.

The number of child beggars was increasing in all urban centers and particularly in Niamey. Due to the health conditions of these families, UNICEF feared an increase in the number of malnutrition cases in children under five and pregnant and breast-feeding women, said Ms. Berthiaume.

A survey by UNICEF showed that nine out of ten villages suffered from malnourishment. A rapid nutritional assessment survey would be conducted next week in several districts of Niamey, Maradi, Zinder and Agadez to assess the needs of the displaced, said Ms. Berthiaume.

Zimbabwe/Acute Emergencies

Christiane Berthiaume of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that Zimbabwe was currently facing acute emergencies, including ongoing measles, cholera and typhoid outbreaks. Five million children were at risk form the current measles outbreak, which had already brought 7,000 recorded cases and 400 registered deaths since September 2009.

UNICEF and the World Health Organization had jointly launched a major immunization campaign against measles on 24 May, which would end on 2 June. The objective was to vaccinate these five million children and to put a stop to the outbreak, said Ms. Berthiaume.

In addition to the measles vaccination, the intensive campaign would also provide children with vital immunization against polio, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus, said Ms. Berthiaume. The outbreak of measles occurred a year after the worst recorded cholera outbreak in the country. The cholera outbreak had been significantly limited this year but an outbreak in the last quarter of 2010 would pose a serious threat. Typhoid had also erupted due to the lack of access to clean water.

Zimbabwe still rank among the top highest HIV/AIDS prevalence countries in the world with a rate of 13 per cent. HIV/AIDS had left nearly one million children orphaned, which constituted 25 per cent of all children in the country, said Ms. Berthiaume.

The United Nations Children's Fund had thus far received only 10 per cent of the US$ 109 million it had appealed for to address all the needs in the country, said Ms. Berthiaume. The United Nations Children's Fund required urgently US$ 17 million over the next three months to respond to the most acute ongoing emergencies.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that last year at the same time the cholera figures in Zimbabwe had been of 97,000 case and 4,260 deaths. This year it was of 450 cases and 13 deaths. This drop in cases had been achieved thanks to the Cholera Control Center that had been put in place by the WHO, the United Nations Children's Fund and other United Nations water and sanitation partner agencies and non-governmental organisations.

Somalia/Displaced in Mogadishu

Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that more than 17,000 persons had been displaced from their homes in the Somali capital Mogadishu in May. Over 14,300 had fled in the past two weeks alone, following renewed, heavy fighting between the Transitional Federal Government troops, supported by the African Union Peace Keeping Force (AMISOM), and armed opposition groups.

UNHCR noted with grave concern that the rates of casualties and displacement had increased over the past 14 days. According to information UNHCR was seeing in field reports, at least 60 persons had been killed and more than 50 wounded and injured in street clashes, said Mr. Mahecic. An estimated 200,000 Somalis had been displaced since the beginning of the year.

The majority of Somalis who had been forced to flee from their homes in the past fortnight were displaced within the capital – an estimated 9,300 persons. Mogadishu already sheltered more than 350,000 internally displaced persons, said Mr. Mahecic. The number of displaced families, living in the streets of Mogadishu in extreme conditions was gradually increasing, according to reports received from UNHCR partners. Many families were in desperate situations, stuck in the embattled city. They could not afford transport to the makeshift camps in the Afgooye corridor, already hosting 366,000 internally displaced persons and just 15 kilometres west of Mogadishu.

The more fortunate families were being hosted by relatives or friends living in relatively safer neighbourhoods of the capital, said Mr. Mahecic. However, overcrowding meant that on average three families were having to share a single place of accommodation. According to UNHCR partners, many more were on their own in the streets of Mogadishu, settling under a plastic sheet or whatever material they could find to build a roof.

These were the most vulnerable and utterly dependent on scarce aid the humanitarian agencies managed to deliver or on the meagre remittances from relatives living abroad. Hundreds of children were forced to beg in the streets of the capital and many women beg in the main markets, said Mr. Mahecic.

UNHCR partners in the Somali capital reported that people were exhausted, tense and hungry, said Mr. Mahecic. An estimated 1.4 million Somalis were displaced within the country, while more than 580,000 lived as refugees in the neighbouring countries. Approximately 43 per cent of the Somali population lived below the extreme poverty line and one in seven Somali children died before the age of five.

Togo/Ghanaian Refugees

Andrej Mahecic of the UNHCR said that a violent dispute between two villages in northeastern Ghana had forced some 3,500 Ghanaians to flee their homes and cross into neighbouring Togo since 18 April. Ghanaian refugees, presently sheltering in four Togolese villages in Tanjouare district in Savane region, had told UNHCR their houses had been pillaged and destroyed, their belongings torched.

UNHCR welcomed the prompt reaction of the Togolese authorities which had provided Ghanaian refugees with immediate emergency assistance and food. According to findings of UNHCR assessment mission, the refugees were in need of water, food, shelter and medicines, said Mr. Mahecic. Most of these refugees belonged to vulnerable groups – there were many children, some of them suffering from diarrhea and malaria. There were also pregnant and lactating women, elderly and handicapped.

The refugees presently outnumbered the local population and shared their quickly diminishing resources, said Mr. Mahecic. Water was of particular concern and UNHCR, as part of its immediate response, had offered to rehabilitate several wells in the area.

A first UNHCR emergency aid convoy had left from Accra yesterday morning loaded with humanitarian assistance, said Mr. Mahecic. Another convoy would leave in the next few days with additional aid items including some 700 tents and other shelter materials. The trucks would need almost three days to reach their final destination in northern Togo. The assistance they carried would meet the needs of these refugees for the next three months. UNHCR hoped that the refugees would be able to return to their villages as soon as the conditions allow.

Meanwhile in Togo, together with the Togolese authorities UNHCR had identified a new site, further away from the border, where it planned to transfer the refugees, said Mr. Mahecic. This move would help to improve security and alleviate the pressure on the scarce resources of the host communities and free the public buildings presently used as shelter by refugees. Since the Ghanaian refugees come from both villages involved in the violent dispute, UNHCR was working with the local authorities in Togo to identify a second site that would allow the separation of the two opposing groups, which would also prevent the perpetuation of the conflict while in displacement.

This was not the first time the Ghanaian villagers crossed into neighbouring Togo seeking safety and shelter. In early March some 300 Ghanaians had fled to Togo due to the same land dispute, but had returned home within a few weeks, said Mr. Mahecic. This time however, refugees claimed they had lost everything and had expressed concern in returning for the moment.

Child Soldiers

Christiane Berthiaume of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that a regional conference on “Ending Recruitment and Use of Children in Armed Forces and Groups: Contributing to Peace, Justice and Development” would be held in N’Djamena, Chad from 7 to 9 June. The main participating countries in the conference were Chad, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Nigeria and Niger.

Search and Rescue Advisory Group

Elisabeth Byrs, of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the members of the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) - a global network of more that 80 countries and disaster response organisations under the umbrella of the United Nations and which deals with urban search and rescue – would hold a meeting at the Centre International de Conférence de Genève next week.

A press conference would be held on 3 June at noon in Press Room III on the lessons learned in Haiti, said Ms. Byrs. Present would be Swiss Ambassador Toni Frisch, Chairman, INSARAG, Rudolf Müller, Chief, Emergency Services Branch, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Geneva and a representative from Haiti.

Immunization

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said that the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), the principal advisory group to World Health Organisation for development of policy related to vaccines and immunization, had last met in April and would meet again in November. A press release had just been released with the conclusions of the last meeting, saying that recommendations on pandemic influenza were still valid.

UNECE Agenda

Jean Rodriguez of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) said that Jan Kubis, UNECE Executive Secretary, would be in Helsinki from 2 to 3 June for a series of meetings with ministers, including the Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade and Development and the Finnish Minister of the Environment.

In Helsinki, Mr. Kubis would also open on 2 June the UNECE International Conference on Policies to Address Financing and Entrepreneurial Challenges in High-growth Innovative Firms, said Mr. Rodriguez. On 3 June Mr. Kubis would participate in a High-level symposium organized by Finland on Coherent Development Cooperation: Maximizing Impact in a Changing Environment.

Among the UNECE meetings next week, Mr. Rodriguez said that there would be a meeting of the Working Party on Transport Statistics from 1 to 3 June in Room V.

A round table under the theme of “Forests are Vital” would take place next Saturday, 5 June from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., during the festivities marking World Environment Day at the Palais des Nations. Mr. Rodriguez said that several experts would explain why our forests are vital and the role forests can play to address climate change and preserve biodiversity.