REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which also heard from Spokespersons for the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme and the UN Refugee Agency.

Next Secretary-General of the United Nations

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that today at 3 p.m. New York time, 9 p.m. Geneva time, the General Assembly will consider the Security Council’s recommendation on the next Secretary-General of the United Nations. The scenario will be as follows: first, the President of the General Assembly, Sheikha Haya Al Khalifa of Bahrain, will invite the Security Council President for October, Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, to report on the Council’s recommendation. On Monday, 9 October, the Security Council chose Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon of the Republic of Korea as its nominee for the post, but the formal appointment rests with the 192-member Assembly. The Assembly will either take action by acclamation, as is usually the practise, or by vote if a Member State asks for one. Once the decision is taken, statements will be heard from Secretary-General Kofi Annan, representatives of the regional groups, a representative of the host country, and the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.

It will be possible to follow the meeting in New York on the UN webcast starting 9 p.m. tonight.

New Report

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said a new report by the Secretary-General on multilingualism is available in the Documentation Centre in all the official languages of the United Nations. The report states that human resources remain the key to the success of effective multilingualism within the Secretariat and makes recommendations in order to increase the balance among the official languages within the Secretariat.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Human Rights Committee will hold its eighty-eighth session at the Palais Wilson from 16 October to 3 November, during which it will review reports of Honduras, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine and the Republic of Korea on the measures they have taken to implement the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee is scheduled to examine the initial report of Honduras on Monday, 16 and Tuesday, 17 October; the initial report of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday, 18 and Thursday, 19 October; the sixth periodic report of Ukraine on Monday, 23 October; and the third periodic report of the Republic of Korea on Wednesday, 25 and Thursday, 26 October. The Committee will present its concluding observations on the country reports at the end of its three-week session on 3 November.

Background press releases on the work of the Committee are available in English and in French.

To mark this year’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, an event will be held at the Palais des Nations on Tuesday, 17 October in Hall 14 at the Palais des Nations from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. The event will be opened by a representative of the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva who will deliver the message of the Secretary-General for the Day. The President of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador Luis Alfonso De Alba of Mexico, will also make an address. As part of the ceremony, families living under conditions of poverty will deliver personal testimonies and messages about their own personal struggles and efforts to overcome social attitudes towards those living under those conditions. A note to correspondents on the ceremony will be available shortly.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said yesterday, the United States tabled at the Security Council an amended version of a draft resolution calling for action against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea after last Sunday’s reported nuclear test. The United States hopes the Council will take action on the draft resolution today. The new draft is co-sponsored by France, the United Kingdom, Japan and Slovakia.

Michael Bociurkiw of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF has received phone calls on its position on sanctions with regards to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and he will read out a brief statement “UNICEF as a member of the UN family recognizes that sanctions are an instrument used by the international community to promote peace and security. However, UNICEF’s concern is that whenever sanctions are imposed, they should be designed and imposed in such way to avoid a negative impact on children. UNICEF believes there must be a child impact assessment at the point of which any set of sections are applied, and most importantly, constant monitoring thereafter to gage the humanitarian impact”.

Mr. Bociurkiw said UNICEF has been working with WHO and WFP in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for some time and they felt that they have achieved significant gains over the last decade in terms of improving the well being of women and children. Any serious interruptions in their interventions can risk compromising the gains of the last 10 years. UNICEF has 10 international staffers and 21 national staffers in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said WHO has five international staffers and five national staffers in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It was helping with many projects, the most important one being surveillance of infectious diseases. WHO was also helping the country update its health system.

Other

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization reminded journalists of the invitation to a breakfast briefing at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, 17 October, to meet Sally Stansfield, the newly appointed Executive Secretary of the Health Metrics Network. The Health Metrics Network is a global partnership working to improve health and save lives through stronger health information systems. The briefing will be held in Room X at the Palais des Nations.

Catherine Sibut-Pinot of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development reminded journalists that UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2006 will be launched on Monday 16 October at 11 a.m. And on Tuesday, 17 October, at 11:45 a.m., she invited journalists to a press conference to be held by the Deputy Economy Minister of the Palestinian Authority.

Michael Bociurkiw of the United Nations Children’s Fund said public schools in Lebanon will be opening on Monday, 16 October, after a delay of a little over one month. This was due to damage to schools and the need for a lot of rehabilitation work. Also, there was a need to wait for displaced persons to return to their homes, and there was the ongoing problem of clearing up unexploded ordnance. UNICEF has provided up to 400,000 kits of supplies for schools. The priority areas are the southern areas of Lebanon most affected by the conflict. Beirut and the north of Lebanon will be receiving their school supplies by the end of October.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, responding to a question on how Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator minimized the report in The Lancet about the death toll in Iraq being as high as 600,000, said at the press conference on Tuesday, Mr. Egeland had not had the chance to read the report beforehand. He had spontaneously raised the issue of Iraq at the press conference, talking about how the violence was spiralling out of control. If he had aimed to minimize the situation, he would not have raised the issued himself. It was not possible to say he wanted to minimize the impact of the report or its findings.

Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said in Angola, WFP was having to progressively halt its food aid in the country because of the lack of funds. WFP had asked for $ 90 million to help 700,000 persons, but it lacked 78 per cent of the funds for the operation. By the end of the year, WFP will have to conclude its food aid to Angolan people unless more funds are received.

Mr. Pluess said in Kenya, the flow of Somali refugees into the country was growing. Today, around 1,000 persons were arriving in camps in Kenya, joining the 240,000 registered refugees. If this continued, it was of great concern for WFP. WFP yesterday started for the first time to distribute food aid to the arriving refugees, helping 2,377 new refugees. The food aid, which should last the new refugees for three weeks, should help them integrate into the camps. WFP needed more funds for this operation. WFP had feared it might have to cut down on its food aid in Kenya, but thanks to a donation from the United States, this was not necessary.

Mr. Pluess said World Food Day is commemorated on 16 October. Famine is the worst enemy of humans. In the past 50 years, 400 million persons have died of hunger, more than those killed in all the wars of the twentieth century. There are still 400 million hungry children in the world, many of whose lives are still blighted by malnutrition in the first few months after being born. The impact of hunger and malnutrition is often severe for children because new research has shown yet again that the rapid development of the brain during the early months and years of life is crucial and influences learning, behaviour and health throughout the life cycle. Hunger negatively affects the brain development of children, setting back their chances of success later on in life. But it is possible to help these children because there is more than enough food in the world. For example in Italy, once the population's nutritional requirements are met, there would be sufficient food left over for all the under-nourished people in Ethiopia; while in the United States it could cover all the hungry in Africa,” Morris said.

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR briefed government donors in Amman, Jordan this week on UNHCR’s growing concerns over the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation facing hundreds of thousands of displaced Iraqis, both within and outside their country. The donors were told that displacement caused by continuing sectarian violence in Iraq has necessitated a reassessment of their work and priorities through the region, shifting from assisting returns and aiding some 50,000 non-Iraqi refugees in Iraq to providing more help to some of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who were now fleeing their homes every month. Many of them were moving on to other countries in what could be termed a steady, silent exodus. It was estimated that there were now more than 1.5 million people displaced within Iraq itself.

Mr. Redmond said in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UNHCR today launched the final phase of its repatriation operation for Angolan refugees in the country. UNHCR started to return home more than 20,0000 vulnerable Angolan refugees and their dependants. And in Pakistan, the Government this weekend will start the first-ever registration of Afghan citizens in Pakistan. Pakistan hosts one of the largest groups of refugees in the world, with 1 million Afghans living in camps and more than 1.4 million in urban areas. This registration will be the biggest ever of its kind involving UNHCR.