REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which also heard from Spokespersons for the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration, the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization.

Conference on Disarmament

Mrs. Heuzé said the Conference on Disarmament yesterday held a plenary in which Ambassador Zdzislaw Rapacki of Poland, President of the Conference, announced the appointment of Sarala Fernando of Sri Lanka; Idriss Jazairy of Algeria; Petko Draganov of Bulgaria; Juan Martabit of Chile; Carlo Trezza of Italy; and Yoshiki Mine of Japan as Friends of Presidents. Ambassador Rapacki said the main task of the Friends of Presidents would be to assist the Presidents of the 2006 session in discharging their responsibilities.

Available were copies of the press release on the meeting which carried summaries of all the speeches in English and in French.

Security Council

Mrs. Heuzé said the Security Council was this month presided over by the United States. Security Council President, Ambassador John Bolton of the United States, had presided over consultations yesterday on the programme of work for the month of February. Ambassador Bolton also spoke to journalists.

Human Rights

Mrs. Heuzé said that, in New York, a draft resolution concerning the new Human Rights Council had been circulated yesterday by the two co-chairs, Ambassador Kumalo of South Africa and Ambassador Arias of Panama. Informal consultations on the text continued and there would be discussions held next week. She recalled that when the President of the General Assembly, Jan Eliasson, had last been in Geneva, he had said that they hoped that the text of the resolution would be ready around mid-February. She could not be more specific now as the consultations were informal and the text was not official.

Mrs. Heuzé said she would now give the floor to UNICEF to talk about an issue concerning children’s human rights.

Female Genital Mutilation

Damien Personnaz of the United Nations Children’s Fund said that available was a press release which stated that 6 February was the International Day of Zero Tolerance of Female Genital Mutilation. UNICEF was applauding the women and men, as well as national and international non-governmental organizations, who were working together to end the practice of female genital mutilation and cutting. Throughout sub-Saharan Africa and in Egypt and Sudan, a social movement was unfolding to end female genital mutilation. Every year, 3 million girls in 28 countries in Africa were subjected to the practise. UNICEF was supporting programmes to end female genital mutilation and cutting in 18 countries.

Bolivia Floods

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said this was the rainy season in Bolivia and in January, total rainfall was 169 per cent above the historical average. The floods had started on 30 January and were expected to get worse as more rain was predicted for the weeks to come. OCHA had six needs assessment working groups and according to the results of their work this afternoon, the decision would be taken on whether or not to send United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) teams to the country. OCHA had extended an emergency cash grant of $ 30,000 for the purchase of urgent relief supplies as part of the international response to the severe flooding which had affected around 175,000 people across the country. There were at least 15 confirmed deaths and more than 500 homes had been damaged or destroyed. In La Paz alone, 1,400 kilometres of roads had been destroyed. The Government of Bolivia had requested international help. Food, tents and medication were among the most urgent needs.

Burundi

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said in Burundi, WFP estimated that 2.2 million persons needed urgent help because of a combination of weak rains, a disease which destroyed the harvest, and extreme poverty. The northern regions of Burundi were the worst affected. The people of Burundi were already suffering from years of war. WFP needed 712,000 tons of food from now until July to feed the more than 2 million persons at the cost of $ 26 million. There were ongoing consultations with donor countries.

Central African Republic

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said after almost two decades in exile, a group of 49 Sudanese refugees flew home yesterday from the Central African Republic, the first of thousands which UNHCR expected to help repatriate from the Central African Republic in 2006 and 2007. UNHCR and IOM eventually planned to fly three or four days a week, with up to 600 returnees going home weekly.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said this flight, which was the first of many to be organized by IOM, was the first official return of Sudanese refugees by UNHCR following the signing on 1 February of a tripartite agreement governing the return of the Sudanese from the Central African Republic. The returnees were jubilant to be going home.

Other

Iain Simpson of the World Health Organization reminded journalists that a briefing would be given at 1 p.m. today on the current assessment of H5N1 outbreaks and response by Dr. Margaret Chan, Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases and the WHO Director-General’s Special Representative on Pandemic Influenza, and Dr. Keiji Fukuda, Acting Coordinator for the Global Influenza Programme.

Mr. Simpson said 4 February was World Cancer Day and available was a press release which set out WHO’s strategy which it believed could save as many as eight million lives over the next 10 years. That strategy was to attack the main risks of cancer, which included tobacco. He also recalled that Monday, 6 February was the formal opening of the conference of the parties of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Aurelia Blin of the World Trade Organization said on 7 February, the Trade Negotiations Committee would meet and the Director-General of WTO, Pascal Lamy, would give a press conference afterwards. The General Council would meet on 8 February, and Amina Mohamed, the General Council Chair, would speak to the press afterwards. As for Mr. Lamy, he would be in Johannesburg from 9 to 12 February where he would meet with the President and Trade Minister of South Africa.

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller, was in Latin America this week on her first mission since being appointed to the newly-created post in January. The visit had already taken her to Colombia and Ecuador. There were more than 2 million internally displaced persons in Colombia. In Ecuador, an estimated 250,000 Colombian refugees were of concern to UNHCR.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said a first group of 400 vulnerable Dinkas would tomorrow begin the final leg of their long journey home from Juba in Sudan’s Central Equatoria province to Bor, in Jonglei province. The group would travel in an IOM-chartered ferry for the journey along the White Nile. They were part of a much larger group of some 12,000 Dinkas who decided to return on foot to Bor, via Juba, with up to half a million cattle.

In Pakistan, IOM was still working at full-speed to deliver shelter material to the people of North West Frontier Province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but plans and pilot projects were also underway for the reconstruction effort that would be gearing up in the spring.