REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Alessandra Vellucci, Director, United Nations Information Service, chaired the briefing attended by the spokespersons for the United Nations Refugee Agency, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Organization for Migration and the International Labour Organization.

Iran

Rupert Colville, for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said that OHCHR welcomed reports that Iran had suspended the execution of a juvenile in the wake of recent appeals by the High Commissioner, the Secretary General and Special Rapporteurs. OHCHR also welcomed reports that this week Iran had commuted the death sentences against six juvenile offenders.

OHCHR nevertheless remained concerned regarding another juvenile, Hamid Ahmadi, 17 years old when he had been sentenced to death for the fatal stabbing in 2008 of a young man during a fight. The court had relied on confessions allegedly obtained under torture while Mr. Ahmadi had been at a police station and denied access to a lawyer and his family, in violation of international guarantees of fair trial and due process.

Mr. Ahmadi’s execution had been set for 11 February but OHCHR now had reports that it had been delayed for 10 days. That was the latest occasion that Mr. Ahmadi’s sentence had been postponed. A group of Special Rapporteurs and the Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child earlier this month had appealed to Iran to halt his execution, then scheduled for 4 February.

OHCHR renewed its call for Iran to halt the application of the death penalty to people who had committed crimes when they were children. The High Commissioner would be contacting the Iranian authorities regarding Mr. Ahmadi, who reportedly remained in solitary confinement.

OHCHR also once again urged Iran to immediately institute a moratorium on the death penalty, amid serious concerns about the high number of executions since the beginning of 2017.

Asked whether he had reason to believe that it was the High Commissioner’s appeal specifically which had stayed the execution, Mr. Colville said that it was hard to say for sure, as the High Commissioner was one of a number of voices including the Secretary-General and several Special Rapporteurs. However, the fact was that the execution had been scheduled in January, OHCHR had raised the issue at the press briefing at UN Geneva, and the execution had been suspended. He also said that Iran was one of very few countries that continued to execute juvenile offenders.

Asked whether the United States executed juvenile offenders, Mr. Colville said that he would check and get back to the press. He said that he rather recalled cases involving the US where foreign nationals had not received proper translation services in court.

Yemen

Mr. Colville said that extremely worrying reports suggested that civilians and civilian objects had been targeted, in violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, over the past two weeks, in the southwestern port of Al Mokha in Taizz Governorate in Yemen.
While the intense fighting – both ground fighting and airstrikes – had made it impossible for UN Human Rights Office field monitors to access the area and to verify the number of civilian casualties, credible reports indicated that civilians had been caught in an intolerable situation between warring parties giving them opposing instructions. The Popular Committees Affiliated with the Houthis and their allies had warned civilians not to leave their homes while pro-Government and Coalition forces had been demanding that they evacuate. Credible reports indicated that Houthi-affiliated snipers had shot at families attempting to flee their homes in Houthi-controlled areas – suggesting the use of civilians as human shields.

In at least one incident, on 22 January, 11 civilians had been reportedly killed and four injured inside a house that had been struck by an airstrike. According to reports, more than 200 houses had been either partially damaged or completely destroyed by airstrikes, which had also hit Al Mokha Port.

Reports indicated that pro-Government forces on 9 February had taken over the Al Maghini and Al Hali areas of Al Mokha city, placing the whole city and port under Government control. The last shelling incident had been recorded late in the night of 9 February.

“Civilians were trapped and targeted during the Al Mokha fighting. There are real fears that the situation will repeat itself in the port of Al Hudaidah, to the north of Al Mokha, where air strikes are already intensifying,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein had said. “The already catastrophic humanitarian situation in the country could spiral further downwards if Al Hudaidah port – a key entry point for imports into Yemen – is seriously damaged.”

The UN estimated that around 12 million people were facing famine in Yemen, with 3.3 million people - including 2.1 million children - already acutely malnourished.

“Yemenis have found themselves in a calamitous situation that was entirely man-made, living in constant fear of violence, death and destruction and reeling from hunger,” Zeid had said. “I once again appeal to the humanity of the parties to this conflict and I remind them of their obligation under international humanitarian law to take constant care to spare the civilian population. Any intentional, direct attack against civilians or civilian objects is considered a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

“Extremely serious violations of international law, including possible war crimes, have been documented with alarming frequency since the beginning of this armed conflict in Yemen almost two years ago. While my Office is currently implementing the Human Rights Council resolution requesting us to work with the national independent commission of inquiry, I call, again, for an independent international investigation to break the climate of impunity in Yemen, to give pause to those planning and carrying out these attacks. The international community needs to make it clear that there will be consequences for a failure to respect international law.”

In response to questions, Mr. Colville said that it was OHCHR’s understanding that the fighting was now over in Al Mokha as of 9 February at night, but it might not stay that way. Both sides had killed civilians repeatedly. From March 2015 until now, 4,634 civilians had been killed and 8,138 injured. Those were civilian casualties that OHCHR’s team in Yemen had managed to verify. Mr. Colville noted that those figures differed from those of the WHO for example, whose numbers came from medical facilities and included fighters as well as civilians, but would not include people buried on the spot or under rubble. He said that during the final phases of the heavy fighting in Al Mokha, there were no health facilities left functioning and there was a severe shortage of basic commodities, including drinking water. The virtually total lack of health facilities was catastrophic for the individuals injured in the fighting. The civilian casualties were both a result of airstrikes and of fighting on the ground. Throughout the conflict, airstrikes had been causing civilian casualties and OHCHR had reported on that repeatedly. However, the Al Houthis had also indiscriminately fired weapons into civilian areas, killing civilians. Mr. Colville also said that he would get back to the press on the proportion of civilian casualties caused by airstrikes and those caused by ground fighting, with an element of caution as it was not always possible to ascribe responsibility.

In response to another question, Mr. Colville said that he was not aware of any request for a special session of the Human Rights Council on the situation in Yemen, but that the press should check with the HRC’s Spokesperson Rolando Gomez. Asked whether third parties providing logistical or intelligence support to the warring parties in attacks against civilians could be investigated for war crimes in the future, Mr. Colville said that it would very much depend on the circumstances, but that the planning of operations was an important element, i.e., is due care taken in the planning to ensure the minimization of the possibilities of casualties.

In response to further questions, Mr. Colville reiterated that because of lack of access, it was not possible for OHCHR to verify reports and thus to give a total number of casualties for the fighting in Al Mokha on the basis of several reported incidents. He also said that he would check and get back to the press regarding the situation in Sana’a, and that it was important to flag what could happen in Al Hudaidah.

Asked about the number of children who had been killed in Yemen during the war, Christophe Boulierac, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said that according to the last verified numbers that had been provided ten days ago by the UNICEF representative in Yemen, 1,400 children had been killed and 2,140 children severely injured or maimed, as well as at least 1,400 children recruited since March 2015. Those were only the verified cases, so the numbers could be higher. Mr. Colville specified that none of those numbers included casualties as a result of the fighting in Al Mokha.

William Spindler, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said that in Yemen, fighting in coastal districts (Al Mokha and Dhubab) in the western governorate of Taizz was spreading inland (into the districts of Al Wazi’iyah and Mawza). A result was that more than 34,000 people had fled their homes. Some 28,000 had been displaced to other districts of Taizz, while another 2,600 individuals had fled to the neighboring governorate of Al Hudaydah. A few had also been displaced eastwards (to Lahj and Ibb governorates).

UNHCR had mobilized assessment teams across displacement sites in Hudaydah, Ibb and the district of Maqbanah in Taizz where recently-displaced people were being hosted and had begun deliveries of emergency assistance, including basic relief items and emergency shelter.

In Hudaydah, UNHCR distributions of relief items, including mattresses, sleeping mats, blankets, kitchen sets, buckets and emergency shelter were ongoing for 3,633 displaced individuals. Further distributions for newly-displaced people in other districts across Hudaydah governorate were also planned to cover the needs of 5,131 individuals, subject to access permits and security considerations. UNHCR was also delivering assistance to 301 individuals in Ibb, who had been displaced from Al Mokha and Dhubab.

UNHCR was also currently negotiating deliveries of emergency assistance to 6,342 individuals in Maqbanah in Taizz. Owing to ongoing military operations, humanitarian access remained a key challenge but UNHCR had been engaged in intense negotiations with relevant authorities to deliver assistance in hard-to-reach areas.

As hostilities intensified, the situation on the ground had also become increasingly hazardous for UNHCR field staff. On 7 February, two UNHCR staff members had narrowly escaped a missile that had fallen close to their vehicle in Az Zaydiyah, less than 60 kilometres away from Hudaydah city. They were unharmed, though badly shaken by the incident.

In addition to the situation in Taizz governorate, the conflict was resulting in a deterioration of conditions all across Yemen. Despite the fact that the country was on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, the necessary financial support to respond to the crisis in Yemen remained woefully inadequate.

UNHCR was appealing for urgent international support to respond to critical and prioritized needs as its operations in Yemen faced a critical shortfall in funding. Though already two months into the year, UNHCR had received less than one per cent of the resources needed for its operations in Yemen and the lack of support was severely restricting its capacity to respond.

As of 1 February 2017, UNHCR had received only USD 738,303 of the USD 99.6 million needed for its operational response in Yemen in 2017. That amount was part of the UN funding appeal which had been launched on 8 February in Geneva.

Mr. Spindler added that on top of the civilian casualties as a result of the fighting, there were also the effects of the fighting on the humanitarian situation, with infrastructure and ports being bombed and not operating, or operating under full capacity. Yemen imported 90 per cent of its food and almost all of its medicine and fuel from the outside, so the fact that for example the airport in Sana’a was closed to commercial flights meant that it was very difficult for supplies to come into the country.

Mr. Spindler also said that recently his UNHCR colleagues had been able to visit Taizz and UNHCR’s international presence in Yemen had been increased, hence more information on what was happening in Yemen. The new development was that the Government had recaptured Al-Mokha, but fighting had been ongoing in Yemen. All governorates, except for Socotra Island, had been affected by the conflict. Ms. Vellucci also added that there had been a worsening of the situation in regards to food in Yemen, as emphasized during the launch of the 2017 Humanitarian appeal on 8 February.

Fadela Chaib, for the World Health Organization (WHO), said that more than 14.8 million people were lacking access to basic health care in Yemen, and at least 274 facilities had been damaged or destroyed during the current conflict. Health workers had not received their salaries regularly for about six months. Ms. Chaib said that she would reach out to Tarik Jasarevic who was currently in Yemen, to ask about the number of health facilities in Al Mokha that had been operational before the fighting had started there, and how many had been destroyed as a result of the fighting. She also said that Yemenis were also dying because they were unable to reach a health facility, or of malnutrition and preventable diseases. There was a chronic shortage of health equipment and medicines to treat people suffering from cancer or diabetes. The situation from a health perspective was very challenging. WHO and other partners working in the health sector had been able to help 10 million people with life-saving health services in Yemen in 2016, and had been able to sustain the functionality of more than 4,000 health care facilities. WHO had been able to help some 400 health and nutrition mobile teams in several districts, but that was not enough in regards to the needs. Despite all the efforts, the situation was becoming more and more difficult for the health sector partners. Ms. Chaib would get back to the press with information on whether insulin supplies were stuck at Sana’a airport.

Syria

In response to questions regarding the recent Amnesty International report on crimes committed in Saidnaya prison in Syria, Mr. Colville said that both OHCHR and the Commission of Inquiry on Syria had repeatedly raised serious concerns about the conditions of detention in Saidnaya military prison, as well as in other Government-run detention facilities throughout the country. There had been numerous reports of torture and mistreatment, as well as denial of food, water, medicine and medical care. Many detainees had reportedly died as a result of untreated illnesses and injuries, in addition to the accusations of summary executions. OHCHR had also received numerous reports of deaths in custody. He could not comment on the figures presented in the Amnesty report as OHCHR had no means of verifying them. However, he reminded the press that the Commission of Inquiry, in its report on detention in Syria issued in February 2016, had found that the Government of Syria had committed the crime against humanity of extermination. The report stated that “It’s apparent that the Government authorities administrating prisons and detention centres were aware that deaths on a massive scale were occurring. The accumulated custodial deaths were brought about by inflicting life conditions in a calculated awareness that such conditions would cause mass deaths of detainees in the ordinary course of events, and occurred in the pursuance of a state policy to attack a civilian population. There are reasonable grounds to believe that the conduct described amounts to extermination as a crime against humanity.”

Mr. Colville quoted an example of a former detainee held at Saidnaya prison, who had told OHCHR staff that he and other detainees had been systematically ill-treated with cables, pipes and other tools while blindfolded, both at Saidnaya and at other facilities. He had stated that he had been first held at Saidnaya with 17 other detainees, all of them naked, in cells of about four square meters, which had been designed for solitary confinement and not for 17 people. In a larger cell, which had held 35 other detainees, also naked throughout the time they had been there, food had been scarce: one daily meal. The former detainee had claimed that he had witnessed the death of five other detainees either as a result of torture or the denial of medical care. On multiple occasions he had been tasked with removing dead bodies from the cell, and helping the guards transport them into pickup trucks to be taken to a military hospital. He had reported seeing several naked dead bodies himself in hospital when he had been there because of an illness, and those bodies had shown signs of torture. He had also reported that children, including boys as young as 12, had been held in a separate cell in the prison.

The findings of the Amnesty International report were extremely consistent with those of the Commission of Inquiry’s report from February 2016. Their report had been based on 621 interviews of victims who had been detained throughout the entire period of the conflict. Sources had also included people who had worked inside the detention machine or the administration.

In response to further questions about hangings in the prison, which were described in the Amnesty International report, Mr. Colville said that this was a question to be asked to the Commission of Inquiry, and referred the press to the Commission’s report. He also said that Amnesty International had given a broad estimate of the number of victims. For OHCHR and the Commission of Inquiry, it was not easy to obtain figures of this type without access to the facilities. Even if one was speaking to very credible witnesses, verifying the testimonies and putting numbers together was challenging. Mr. Colville also said that he could connect the press with a legal expert to speak about the precedents for the crime against humanity of extermination, and the supplementary legal elements necessary for the qualification of a crime as genocide versus extermination.

In response to questions, Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that up till now the UN had had two cross-line, inter-agency convoys in Syria in 2017 and the last one had been on 5 February. There was ongoing planning to send more but it had been a very bad start to the year in terms of convoy movements.

South Sudan

Mr. Spindler said that UNHCR was extremely alarmed at the ongoing pace of displacement in South Sudan, where more than 1.5 million people had been forced to leave the country and seek safety since conflict had erupted in December 2013. An additional 2.1 million people were displaced inside South Sudan.

UNHCR was appealing on all parties involved in the conflict for an urgent peaceful resolution of the crisis, without which, thousands continued to arrive in South Sudan’s neighbouring countries of Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the Central African Republic every day with the conflict now in its fourth year.

With this large scale displacement, South Sudan was now Africa’s largest refugee crisis and the world’s third after Syria and Afghanistan - with less attention and chronic levels of underfunding.

Intense fighting had broken out in South Sudan in July 2016 following the collapse of a peace deal between the Government and opposition forces. More than 760,000 refugees had fled the country in 2016, as the conflict had intensified in the second half of the year – on an average of 63,000 people had been forced to leave the country per month. Some half a million had had to flee in the last four months since September 2016. More than 60 per cent of the refugees are children, many arriving with alarming levels of malnutrition - enduring devastating impact of the brutalities of the ongoing conflict. Recent new arrivals reported suffering inside South Sudan with intense fighting, kidnappings, rape, fears of armed groups and threats to life, as well as acute food shortage.

As the global displacement trends reflected, those fleeing South Sudan were being hosted by the poorest communities in the neighbouring countries, under immense pressure with scarce resources. The majority of the refugees were being hosted by Uganda, where some 698,000 had arrived. Ethiopia was hosting some 342,000, while more than 305,000 were in Sudan and some 89,000 in Kenya, 68,000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 4,900 in the Central African Republic.

UNHCR was encouraged by the welcome South Sudan refugees had received in the neighbouring countries, but remained extremely worried by the lack of resources to handle one of the world’s largest refugee crisis.

UNHCR was working with authorities in South Sudan’s neighbouring countries to provide life-saving support and look after the basic needs of those arriving in desperate conditions. However, UNHCR’s relief efforts were being hampered by severe underfunding.

UNHCR was renewing its call on donor countries to step up support to the humanitarian efforts for the South Sudan crisis situation. Response capacities were over stretched in host countries and chronic underfunding is affecting life-saving efforts like the provision of clean drinking water, food, health facilities and sanitation. The 2016 UNHCR funding appeal of USD 649 million had been funded a merely 33 per cent. In 2017, UNHCR was seeking USD 782 million for regional operations inside South Sudan and the neighbouring host countries.

In response to questions, Mr. Spindler said that the impact on the neighbouring countries had been huge. There were refugees in camps, but many were also being hosted by local communities, which were some of the poorest in those countries. That was why it was crucial that those communities continued to receive assistance. The case of Uganda, which had received the most refugees from South Sudan, was very exemplary, as refugees were integrated into the community and were allowed to have access to farmland. UNHCR’s approach was to help not just the refugees but also the communities hosting them. Mr. Spindler also said that UNHCR was experiencing difficulties funding all of its operations, but those that were more in the news received more funding. UNHCR was very wary of making comparisons in terms of budgeting among refugees in different countries in the world, as conditions and the level of access to services in the host countries could be very different.

Asked about the number of new arrivals from South Sudan, Babar Baloch, for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that around 70,000 had arrived since the beginning of 2017. Some 50,000 had arrived in Uganda.

In response to further questions, Mr. Spindler said that fighting was not just confined to the north, as there was also fighting in the south around Yei. The security situation in all of South Sudan was extremely precarious. There were reports of many atrocities including massacres, rapes and kidnappings , as well as recruitment of children as child soldiers. Mr. Baloch added that the new arrivals in northern Uganda were saying that the conflict had spread to the states that had been safer earlier. Since July 2016, when the conflict had intensified in Juba, there had been an increase in the number of arrivals in neighbouring countries.

In response to a final question about the existence of any safe spaces in South Sudan, Mr. Spindler said that one had to be very cautious with that notion as, even if some areas were safer than others, it depended on the moment. Also, some areas could be safe for certain people but not others.

United Kingdom

Asked about the UK’s abandonment of the Dubs amendment, Mr. Spindler said that there were two different issues: one was the Dubs amendment and the other was resettlement of people in the UK, including children. Specifically on the transfer of children under the Dubs amendment, it was vital that children could find safe pathways to protection in the UK. Local communities and authorities across the UK had been very generous in welcoming refugees, including children, through this scheme, and as a result hundreds of refugee lives had been saved.

In 2016 over 30,000 unaccompanied children had arrived in Europe, many of them trying to reach their families in countries such as the UK and others. UNHCR would try to facilitate the movement of the unaccompanied children who were in Calais with the cooperation of the French and UK authorities.

Mr. Spindler also said that the argument of a “pull factor”, in general and not just specifically to this issue, had been shown to be false when confronted with reality. People who were fleeing situations of violence and persecution were not going to another country because of what they would find there but because of the dire situation behind them, and the push factors were much stronger than any pull factors. Conditions for reception of asylum seekers in most Western European countries were similar, and there was no reason for people to want to go to the UK from France other than the fact that people had relatives there, or some kind of link.

In response to a final question, Mr. Spindler said that in countries with a functioning asylum system, the authorities needed to be convinced that the person in question was in need of protection. Many European countries also applied the principle that if people had transited through other countries deemed safe, they should apply for asylum there. If someone had entered the territory of a country and was in need of protection, there was an obligation on the part of that country, but resettlement was not obligatory.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Jens Laerke, for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that today, the UN and humanitarian partners as well as the Congolese authorities were launching their humanitarian appeal for the DRC for 2017. It aimed to assist a total of 6.7 million people in 2017, and the amount requested was USD 748 million.

The families, communities, men, women and children in the Congo that the UN was trying to help had been in a very difficult humanitarian situation for the better part of the past two decades. They were facing acute vulnerabilities, caused by no or little access to basic goods and services. There was also a protection crisis related to the conflict and violence, particularly in the eastern part of the DRC. There were risks and threats from epidemics, acute malnutrition and lack of food.

The strategy had shifted to a three-year strategy but the UN was raising money year by year, so the USD 748 million was for 2017 alone. That was in recognition of two decades of recurring humanitarian crises, a much more integrated approach with the peacebuilding approaches in the DRC, and the developmental projects.

Among those whom the UN intended to help in 2017 were 2.1 million internally displaced people, half a million children of less than five years of age suffering from acute malnutrition, as well as the new refugees coming from South Sudan and the host communities receiving them.

In response to questions, Mr. Laerke said that in 2016 the humanitarian response plan for the DRC had asked for USD 690 million, so 2017 saw an 8 per cent increase. In the course of 2016 a deterioration of the situation had been seen, not least linked to conflict. In 2016, because of insecurity, 2,000 people were being displaced every day, many of them displaced multiple times over.

Mr. Laerke would check with UNHCR regarding the number of refugees from South Sudan who had come to the DRC. He also said that the humanitarian response plans and strategies were done to support the Government’s own response, as anywhere else in the world, strengthening the capacity to respond. Although the UN was supporting the Government’s response, humanitarian action and planning was being done independently of political processes and electoral cycles. The amount requested was a function of the assessed needs. A humanitarian needs overview was done and projects were being matched to meet those needs.

Worldwide migrant deaths

Joel Millman, for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said that although migration across the Mediterranean was down considerably from the same time in 2016, due to the fact that the Greece surge had ended in late March 2016, arrivals to Italy in 2017 had already surpassed the first two months of both 2015 and 2016. With 40 days into the year, almost 420 deaths of migrants worldwide had been recorded, or about 10 a day. This activity was coming during the very slow winter months and there were concerns that the death toll would rise with the warmer weather. The 2017 number of migrant deaths worldwide was behind the 2016 total for the same time period by about 300; however, data from some of the more lethal spots in the world had not come in yet, and at this point, IOM had no news from the Horn of Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, for example. In one county in Arizona, USA, 15 deaths had been reported for January 2017. In Latin America, about twice the level of mortality had been seen as last year at the same time.

In response to questions about the cause of death of those who had been found dead in Arizona, Mr. Millman said that it was hard to tell the causes of death as the remains found were skeletal, but it could have been either hypothermia or dehydration. It was also difficult to determine the time of death. IOM was just informed that bodies had been newly discovered. Drownings in the Rio Bravo, on the other side of the border, were occurring at a much faster pace than in 2016.

He also said that it was impossible to speculate about the motives of the migrants trying to cross the US border. Since economic conditions were very good in the US currently, it could be that the migration season was starting earlier than usual.

Also answering a question, regarding Mediterranean migration, almost all the migrants recorded were coming from Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria was the largest sender country. However, there were growing indications that deaths occurring on the central Mediterranean route connecting Africa to Italy were more likely to be Ethiopians and Eritreans than any other nationality. Many were also dying in the desert, en route. The number of Eritreans who had arrived in Italy in 2016, although still quite high at 19,000, had been half of what it had been in years past. Eritreans often had tattoos of a cross on their foreheads, which was always a source of great danger when crossing parts of North Africa. The conditions they were subjected to in some of the safe houses and detention centres were also quite lethal. The whole route was very dangerous.

In Libya, IOM was getting more and more access to detention centres, and would be organizing three to four repatriation flights per month now, indicating that it had increased its ability to get access, get documents, and find people who would agree to a voluntary return to their countries. Detention centres were all over the country and ran the gamut from Government-operated and supervised by international organizations or the Libyan Red Crescent ones, to those that were barely above the stage of a militia. There had been progress in the last 18 months in getting regular access to several detention centres, allowing IOM to monitor the condition of migrants inside.

Geneva Events and Announcements

Jean-Luc Martinage, for the International Labour Organization (ILO), announced the launch on 15 February of a new ILO report about teleworking. The report was titled “Working Anytime, Anywhere: the Effects on the World of Work”. It was a joint report with Eurofound, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, a tripartite European Union Agency based in Dublin. The report would highlight the advantages and the difficulties linked to the development of teleworking around the world, establishing differences among the categories of users of this form of work. The report summarized findings from research led in 15 countries. A press conference on 15 February at 10 a.m. in Press Room 1 would take place in presence of the two authors, and the report would be under embargo until noon GMT that day. The ILO would distribute the report to correspondents under embargo on 13 February.

Ms. Vellucci announced that today, from 1 to 2 p.m., Melissa Fleming, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General and former Head of Communications for UNHCR, would be in conversation with UNOG Director-General Michael Møller at the UN Library about refugee issues, on the occasion of the publication of her new book, “A Hope More Powerful than the Sea”, shining a spotlight on the story of a Syrian refugee.

Ms. Vellucci announced a press conference by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), on 14 February at 2 p.m. in Press Room 1. Neal Walker, UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, would provide an update on the situation in Ukraine.

Ms. Vellucci said that the Conference on Disarmament would hold its next public plenary on 14 February at 10 a.m.

Ms. Vellucci also announced that the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) would open on 13 February its sixty-sixth session, which would take place until 3 March in Room XVI at the Palais des Nations. During this session, the Committee would review the reports presented under the Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women by the following eight countries: Ukraine, Ireland, Jordan, El Salvador, Germany, Sri Lanka, Rwanda and Micronesia.

The webcast for this briefing is available here: http://bit.ly/unog100217