REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service, chaired the briefing which provided information on the statement of the Secretary-General on the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, the statement of the Secretary-General to the Munich conference on security policy, Geneva activities, the rains and snowfall in Pakistan, the fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the lack of funds and human rights crisis in Darfur, as well as other issues. Spokespersons for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Programme, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the Economic Commission for Europe, the Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration participated in the briefing.

Statement by the Secretary-General on the Assassination of the Former Lebanese Prime Minister

Mrs. Heuzé said that the Secretary-General said yesterday that he had learned with great sadness and shock of the brutal murder in the heart of Beirut of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon and a number of others. He said Mr. Hariri’s death was an immense loss to Lebanon, the region and the international community. He would always be remembered for his dedication to the people of Lebanon, for his success as a statesman and a businessman, for his great achievements in the reconstruction of Lebanon after a long and ugly conflict, and for his courage and directness in public and in private. The Secretary-General sent his deepest condolences to Mr. Hariri’s wife and family, as well as to all the other bereaved families.

The Secretary-General condemned in the strongest terms those who instigated, planned and executed this callous political assassination. He said such acts were a reversion to a chapter in Lebanon’s history that he had hoped was long past. It was imperative that the already fragile situation in the region should not be further destabilized. Meanwhile, the Secretary-General urged all Lebanese to exercise utmost restraint, and to use peaceful means in support of their national aspiration to full sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.

The text of the Secretary-General's statement was available in the press room.

Statement by the Secretary-General to Munich Conference on Security Policy

The Director said that the Secretary-General's statement delivered in Munich last Sunday to the forty-first Munich Conference on Security Policy had also warned States of terrorism threats. He said the global security environment had been transformed, and the global collective security system, including the United Nations, must be transformed too. He laid out a four-part formula to realize this vision: first, to strengthen collective defences; second, when prevention failed, to consider the use of force; third, to equip ourselves to build lasting peace in war-torn lands; and fourth, to take democratization, development and human rights seriously.

The Secretary-General's statement was available in the press room and it was also available on the UN website in all the official languages of the United Nations.

Geneva Activities

Mrs. Heuzé said the Conference on Disarmament was holding a public plenary this morning under the presidency of Ambassador Chris Sanders of the Netherlands. The only speakers on the list when the plenary opened were Norway and China. There would be a press release available shortly after the plenary.

The report by the Food and Agriculture Organization on "The State of Agricultural Commodity Markets 2004" would be launched simultaneously in Geneva and Rome at 11:30 a.m. today. Copies of the embargoed report and press releases in English and French were available in the press room. Alexander Sarris, the Director of Commodities and Trade Division at FAO, who was one of the main authors of the report, was coming from Rome to brief the press corps in Geneva.

The Director said there would be a press conference at 2:30 p.m. by Ernesto Rubio, Assistant Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, on international trademark system activity in 2004. The documents on this issue were in the press room.

The UN Working Group on Internet Governance (14 to 16 February) was continuing its meeting in Room XVIII in public. There was a background press release available in English and in French on what the Working Group would be doing. If journalists wanted an update on the work of the Working Group, they should call Preeta Bannerjee of the Information Service on 72317 as she was following the meeting.

The Director recalled that the second Preparatory Committee of the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society would be held from 17 to 25 February. There would be a press conference tomorrow by Mr. Y. Utsumi, ITU Secretary-General and Secretary-General of the Summit, and Mr. J. Karklins, Chairman of the PrepCom II.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would be starting its sixty-sixth session on Monday, 21 February. The Committee would be considering reports from the Lao People's Democratic Republic, France, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Australia, Ireland, Bahrain and Azerbaijan. The Committee would conclude its work on 11 March.

In conclusion, Mrs. Heuzé said that a press kit would be available later this week on the 10-year anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. The forty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women, which would be held at Headquarters from 28 February to 11 March, would focus on the review and appraisal of the Beijing declaration and platform of action and the outcome document of the twenty-third Special Session of the General Assembly.

The Director said she wished to add her voice to the protests made following the assassination of BBC reporter Kate Peyton in Somalia. A minute of silence was observed in honour of the memory of the journalist.

Pakistan Rains and Snowfall

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that copies of the latest OCHA situation report on the rains and snowfall in Pakistan were available, as were copies of the press release issued yesterday. Also at the back of the room were copies of a map of the affected areas. The northwest of the country was the worst affected by the rains and snowfall, which was also affecting Afghanistan. OCHA believed that more than 400 persons had been killed, and thousands remained missing. The floods had also badly damaged nearly 40 kilometres of the Mekran Coastal Highway and had partially damaged more than 250 kilometres at different points which had closed the highway for traffic. Many villages had not been reached yet, either by the local authorities or by UN aid. The UN Disaster Management Team in Pakistan would be deploying a team compromising of members from UNICEF, WHO, WFP and UNDP to the affected areas to assess the situation. There were more details in the documents available.

Ms. Byrs said that the priority needs were tents and heavy cover as many homes had been destroyed. Four thousand families were without shelter and up to 500,000 persons had been affected by the rains and snowfall. Medicines were also urgently needed. Pakistan had not made an official request for international aid but it welcomed all offers of help. So far, OCHA, WHO and UNHCR had provided around $ 75,000.

Damien Personnaz of the United Nations Children's Fund said that as many as 250 primary schools had been closed because of the rains and snowfall in Pakistan. UNICEF had sent two trucks from its base in Karachi carrying three tons of medicine, tents, soap etc. Boats carrying similar supplies would be sent on Thursday, 17 February.

Fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Damien Personnaz of the United Nations Children's Fund said that available at the back of the room was a media release in which UNICEF's Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, said that the rise in fighting in the Ituri district of the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a serious threat to the peace process and a lethal step backwards for Congo's children. The release recalled that over the past six years, 3.8 million persons were thought to have been killed in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the vast majority of them civilians, and the majority of those probably children. Many had been killed in fighting, but a far greater number had died of disease and starvation. Some 1.4 million children suffered from some form of malnutrition.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said WFP was also very worried about the situation in Ituri, especially concerning the safety of persons displaced by the fighting. The estimated 27,000 displaced persons lived in six "camps" in very difficult conditions with little shelter and food. WFP was only able to provide food aid daily to 500 families.

Lack of Funds and Human Rights Crisis in Darfur

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said that the lack of funds was limiting WFP's ability to provide a complete food basket to displaced families in Darfur and to preposition food stocks ahead of the rainy season in July and August. WFP had asked for $ 438 million to feed 2.8 million, and it had only received $ 240 million so far. The donations that WFP had received were mainly in the form of cereals, so it had a very low stock of other commodities. It was very important to pre-position the stock ahead of the rainy season. The situation was especially critical in west Darfur where there were large areas which would be cut off by the rains. The nutritional status of many of the displaced population and of residents of Darfur remained the cause of major concern. In January, WFP had reached 1.2 million persons with food aid. This was a decrease of 15 per cent compared to December and the main reason was the very bad insecurity in the region.

In response to a question, Ms. Berthiaume said that nobody could regret the tremendous and extraordinary mobilization from the public in general towards the victims of the tsunami. But it had unfortunately had a negative effect on Darfur and other places. For example, WFP had a decrease of 21 per cent in contributions for Africa in January compared to January 2004. There were 22 million people in need in Africa. This was a real concern to WFP because every eight days, there was a tsunami and 20,000 people died of hunger.

José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, said that Christiane had spoken of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur which was largely due to the human rights crisis in that region. He recalled that the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur had issued its report and given it to the Secretary-General, who in turn had passed it on to the Security Council. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour would be going to New York today, to make a presentation on the report of the Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the Security Council. The Council was going to study the report and decide what further measures could be taken to act on the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry to stop the human rights abuses being perpetrated in Darfur and to bring those responsible to justice.

Other

Jean-Michel Jakobowicz of the Economic Commission for Europe said that the ECE's sixtieth annual session would be starting on Tuesday, 22 February. There would be a press conference at 11:30 a.m. in Room III right after the briefing on the launch of the first 2005 Economic Survey of Europe. The report and the press release and the press conference were embargoed until Tuesday, 22 February at 00:01 gmt.

Mr. Jakobowicz said there would be the ECE's spring seminar on Monday, 21 February on the financing of development in the ECE region. It would be held in Room XX. At 6 p.m. on the same day, Pascal Lamy, former Trade Commissioner of the European Commission, would deliver the Myrdal lecture on "Global Governance: Lessons from Europe".

Brigitte Leoni of the Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction said there would be a press conference on Thursday, 17 February at 11:30 a.m. in press room 1 on the work of the Epidemiology Centre (CRED) of the University of Louvain, Belgium, and on latest statistics on natural disasters. The speakers would be Debarati Sapir, Director of CRED, and Harris Sanahuja, Programme Officer at ISDR.

Jennifer Pagonis of the High Commissioner for Refugees said that the Deputy High Commissioner Wendy Chamberlin was in the south of Sudan where she was looking at the UNHCR operations there and the enormous needs which had to be met if 500,000 Sudanese refugees were to be able to return home. Today she would go from southern Sudan to Uganda where there were 250,000 Sudanese refugees. UNHCR estimated that it would need $ 62 million to start to rehabilitate the region. So far, UNHCR had not received any contributions at all for this programme. This was a window of opportunity, but the refugees needed the infrastructure, and UNHCR needed the money for that. It was necessary to do this now before the rainy season started. Ms. Chamberlin would also go to Kenya before she returned to Geneva over the weekend.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said that in Ghana, IOM had rescued another 114 children trafficked for forced labour in fishing communities in Yeji on the northern shores of Ghana's Lake Volta. The children were today being taken to IOM's newly established rehabilitation centre.

In Kosovo, IOM's counter-trafficking unit had teamed up with a local non-governmental organization to raise awareness on human trafficking among women and children. Kosovo was a source, transit and destination point for human trafficking, particularly for women and children who were sexually exploited.

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