REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service at Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Meteorological Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the UN Refugee Agency and the World Food Programme.
Secretary-General in Washington
Mrs. Heuzé said Secretary-General Kofi Annan had visited Washington yesterday where he had a working lunch with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before meeting with United States President George Bush at the Oval Office in the White House. After the meeting, the Secretary-General and President Bush held a joint press conference. The Secretary-General also met with some members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before returning to headquarters. Available on the UN website was the statement made by the Secretary-General before his meeting with the American officials as well as the transcript of his joint press conference with President Bush.
Côte d’Ivoire
Mrs. Heuzé said Jan Egeland, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, was today flying to Côte d’Ivoire where he would stay until 17 February. The core objectives of the mission were to bring all relevant actors to commit themselves to respect the freedom of movement, protection of civilians, access to vulnerable populations, and the security of humanitarian workers; to meet with and take into consideration the concerns and priorities of humanitarian actors and of the populations affected by the crisis; and to assess, first-hand, the current socio-political situation and its implications for humanitarian activities. During his mission, Mr. Egeland would meet with relevant national and local authorities and members of the humanitarian community and their partners in Abidjan, Guiglo and Bouaké. He would also attend the forthcoming meeting of the International Working Group, on behalf of the humanitarian community.
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Mrs. Heuzé said the 2006 Democratic Republic of the Congo Humanitarian Action Plan was launched yesterday in Brussels in a conference convened by the European Commission and the United Nations. The Action Plan sought $ 681 million to meet the needs of at least 30 million vulnerable Congolese. The results of the conference would be available towards the end of the day. If it was successful, it was hoped that the Action Plan could help alleviate the suffering of the Congolese people.
Geneva Activities
Mrs. Heuzé said the Conference on Disarmament would hold its weekly plenary meeting at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 16 February. There were no speakers on the list so far.
The Commission on Human Rights Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries was meeting this week at the Palais Wilson. The effect of the use of mercenaries on human rights was an issue of concern to the international community. The Working Group was meeting in closed session, but available was a background note on its work.
Mrs. Heuzé said two interesting consultations were also being held this week in Geneva. Consultations on the convening of the Internet Governance Forum would be held on 16 and 17 February at the Palais des Nations. Participants would seek to develop a common understanding on the nature and character of the Forum. She had asked the Chairman of the consultation, Nitin Desai, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Adviser for the World Summit on the Information Society, to brief journalists following the consultation at 11:30 a.m. on Friday, 17 February, after the briefing. Another consultation involved the meetings of the President of the Economic and Social Council in Geneva yesterday and today to prepare for ECOSOC’s upcoming three-week session in July.
Questions
Asked about the status of the negotiations on the Human Rights Council, Mrs. Heuzé said she had nothing to add to what she had said last week when she announced that a draft text had been circulated. General Assembly President Jan Eliasson and the two co-chairs were continuing with their consultations. Apparently, since the furore over the caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed, a number of States had asked for a reference to be added to the resolution concerning the protection of values. According to Mr. Eliasson’s timetable, he had hoped to have the draft resolution ready by the end of this week, but maybe the deadline would be extended to next week.
In response to a question on a leak concerning the report of a number of Experts of the Commission on Human Rights on Guantanamo Bay, Mrs. Heuzé said she would leave the Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to respond to that question. She recalled that the Secretary-General was asked the same question yesterday and he had noted that he had not seen the report. She had not seen the report either but, like journalists, she had read about it in the media.
Human Rights
José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said media reports were based on a leaked, draft version of the document. The actual report was expected to be finalized this week and should be made public on Thursday or Friday. Some of the rapporteurs had indicated that they would be willing to present the report to journalists, so that would give the media an opportunity to speak directly to some of the authors of the report in Geneva.
Concerning the next session of the Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Díaz said consultations were ongoing in New York to see when to establish the successor body to the Commission on Human Rights, the Human Rights Council. The President of the General Assembly, Jan Eliasson, hoped to conclude these negotiations on the Council in New York by the end of this week or early next week. After that, once there was a draft text on the Council, it would take about one week for the draft to be submitted to the General Assembly for approval and establishment of the Council. It was hoped this could be done by the end of the month. It was expected that once the Council was established, the session of the Commission, which was set to begin on 13 March, would be shorter than the usual six weeks.
In response to a question about comments by the representative of a Swiss political party (the UDC) denigrating the work of Doudou Diène, special rapporteur of the Commission on contemporary forms of racism, based on the latter's nationality, Mr. Díaz said it was deplorable that the integrity and competence of a rapporteur could be brought into question solely based on his or her nationality. He recalled that the experts of the Commission were chosen for their expertise, experience, competence, integrity and impartiality. Comments such as those reported were to be condemned.
Drought in the Horn of Africa
Mark Oliver of the World Meteorological Organization said available was a seasonal report on the Greater Horn of Africa by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development’s Air Climate Prediction and Applications Centre, a partner of WMO. The report said that the drought conditions throughout the Greater Horn of Africa were likely to continue in most of the areas between February and the beginning of April. The report’s climate outlook indicated that much of Somalia, Kenya, eastern and southern Ethiopian, southern Sudan, northern Uganda, and north eastern areas of Tanzania, were all likely to experience below normal to near normal rainfall. At the same time, northern parts of these countries were all likely to remain extremely dry. The only areas that might benefit from random precipitation were those close to large bodies of water like southern and western and north western Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, southern Uganda, western Kenya and coastal parts of Somalia. The report had assessed impacts of this on various socio-economic sectors, saying that the ongoing drought would continue to have strong negative impacts until at least April, affecting live stock, livelihood, property, dwindling supplies of pasture, water and food. This would all lead to a heavy dependence on aid relief.
Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said
she would speak specifically about the drought in Somalia where today, OCHA was appealing to local communities, political and business leaders for a general mobilization to fight the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Somalia aggravated by the worst drought in a decade. Community leaders were urged to ensure unhindered access for the delivery of humanitarian assistance to populations in need, as well as to ensure the protection of all humanitarian workers in Somalia. Approximately 1.7 million people were in need of urgent assistance and protection in Somalia due to the drought that had been caused by the failure of a third consecutive rain season, generalised land degradation and on-going conflict. The United Nations and other humanitarian organizations were providing assistance in various sectors in the regions that they had been able to access.
Damien Personnaz of the United Nations Children’s Fund said the drought problem in southern Sudan was very serious and one of its direct results was an outbreak of diarrhoea in Central Equatoria where there had been 1,200 cases, including 26 deaths. UNICEF had sent a planeload of supplies to its camp in Lokichokio in Kenya including high nutrition biscuits and nutritional food for children, as well as medical supplies and other supplies. The population of southern Sudan’s towns was swelling due to the return of displaced people and refugees, and increased economic activity, and urgent infrastructure, battered by decades of war, was completely inadequate for the rocketing needs in health services, water supply and education.
Other
Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said that concerning avian influenza, she had nothing new to report. In Nigeria, the WHO team was helping the local authorities to detect any human cases. The samples from the cases in Iraq had been flown to Egypt and the United Kingdom and news on whether they were H5N1 viruses would be available in the next few days.
Brigitte Leoni of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction said the Third International Conference on Early Warning would be held from 27 to 29 March in Bonn, Germany. The Conference would be presided over by Jan Egeland, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, and the German Foreign Minister. Available was a press announcement with more details.
Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was preparing to rush relief supplies to three camps in western Algeria’s Tindouf region, where more than 50,000 Sahrawi refugees were left homeless when rare torrential rains caused severe flooding there late last week. An airlift was currently being arranged to deliver aid material to the Tindouf region to join the UNHCR team already on the ground. UNHCR was working closely with the World Food Programme which was planning an emergency food distribution to affected families.
Ms. Pagonis said a growing number of Burundians had been crossing the border to take refuge in neighbouring Tanzania in the past few weeks. Their living conditions at the Tanzanian way stations where they were staying were a cause of great concern to UNHCR. UNHCR had been negotiating with the Tanzanian authorities in order to be able to move these people who were granted asylum away from the border into already established camps. However, so far, only a small number of the more than 4,0000 Burundians had been granted asylum.
Jemeni Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said that in Ghana, 13 more children were rescued last week from forced labour at a fishing community near Yeji on the northern shores of Ghana's Lake Volta by IOM. The children, who were rescued from eight fishermen in Adakrom, were part of a larger group of 55 children registered by the Ghanaian non-governmental organization Friends for Human Development under the supervision of IOM. When all 55 children are rescued, it would bring the number of children freed and reunited with their families by a U.S. government funded IOM programme to 592.
Ms. Pandya said Sri Lanka had introduced amendments to counter-trafficking laws in a move to bring national legislation in line with international law. The amendment had changed the definition of trafficking in the Penal Code, as required by the UN protocol against trafficking in human beings. IOM provided technical advice to the Sri Lankan Government in the formulation of the new laws. In Argentina, IOM's new micro credit project to help migrant families in that country had granted its first two loans this week.
Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said WFP had started airlifting food on board helicopters from the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to assist tens of thousands of people who were fleeing fighting in Katanga province in the east of the country. The Katanga fighting had increased in recent weeks, which had resulted in the increase of displacement of people and humanitarian needs. Mai mai militias were attacking civilian settlements and Government troops. Last week, helicopters transported some 7 tonnes of fortified maize flour, oil and salt provided by WFP. Another 23 tonnes would follow. There were another 100 tonnes of maize flour on the road. The ongoing conflict in the eastern Congo was undermining peoples’ ability to care for themselves in terms of food. At the same time, WFP renewed its appeal to the international community for urgent contributions. In eastern Congo, WFP was now helping 800,000 displaced persons and refugees. WFP needed $ 20 million to continue to do so. A press release with more details would be sent to journalists shortly.