REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service at Geneva, chaired the briefing which also heard from Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the International Organization for Migration, and the UN Refugee Agency.

Lebanon

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said available in the press room was the transcript of a briefing given yesterday at Headquarters by Maj.-Gen. Alain Pellegrini, the senior United Nations commander in Lebanon, who said considerable progress had been achieved in southern Lebanon since the Security Council resolution ending the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah, and that most of the expected force of blue helmets to monitor the cessation of hostilities had now been deployed. He said the near total withdrawal of Israeli Defence Forces from southern Lebanon had been the most significant event since the resolution was passed.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Human Rights Committee yesterday afternoon concluded its review of the initial report of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Available in the press room and on the UN website was the press release on the consideration of the report in English and in French. The final observations and recommendations on all the reports which the Committee would be considering this session would be released on Friday, 3 November. Today, the Committee was meeting in private to consider its methods of work as well as to look at communications. On Monday, 23 October, the Committee would be taking up the periodic report of Ukraine.

United Nations Day was commemorated on 24 October every year. This year, as was the tradition, the Conseil d’Etat of the Republic and Canton of Geneva, the City of Geneva and the Foundation of the Suisse Romande Orchestra were organizing a concert which would be held at 8 p.m. on 24 October at the Grand Theatre. The Director-General of UNOG, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, would be addressing the event. There were still a limited number of free invitations available for the concert.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said this year, 24 October also marked the Eid Al Fitr at the end of Ramadan and the United Nations Office at Geneva would be closed. The next briefing would be held on Friday, 27 October.

Human Rights

José Luis Díaz of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the Office along with the Human Rights Ombudsman of Colombia and the International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions were organizing next week in Santa Cruz, Bolivia the Eighth International Conference of National Human Rights Institutions. National human rights institutions were ideally independent of Governments in accordance with the Paris Principles. National human rights institutions from some 70 countries were expected to attend the conference from 24 to 26 October, and they would be focusing on the issue of migration. There were an estimated 200 million migrants around the world and the conference would be looking at issues like prevention of racism and xenophobia, prevention of abuses against irregular migrants, the issue of smuggling and trafficking in persons, human rights migration and development, and at the situation of such groups as internally displaced persons, unaccompanied children, indigenous people and minorities and how they were affected by migration. The conference was expected to come up with a common strategy to address migration, recognizing also the positive potential that migration had for development.


Other

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization reminded journalists of two press conferences which would be held next week. The first would be on Monday, 23 October from 2 to 3 p.m. in Room III on the global pandemic influenza action plan to increase vaccine supply. There would be another press conference on the launch of the Global Market Analysis Report on tuberculosis diagnostics on Wednesday, 25 October at 10 a.m. An executive summary on the report was available at the back of the room.

Hans von Rohland of the International Labour Organization said a tripartite meeting would be held next week from 23 to 26 October on international road transport. A report which was prepared for the meeting said excessive border delays, inefficient or corrupt border officials and drivers’ vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDAS put the international road transport sector at risk. This could also have negative economic impacts. A press release was available at the back of the room with more details. Also, another report would be launched on Friday, 27 October on working youth. There would be a press conference at 11:30 a.m. next Friday to launch this report.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwe’s most vulnerable people would be provided critical humanitarian assistance by IOM thanks to a donation of nearly $10 million from the British Government. In Georgia, a fourth IOM migration resource centre had opened which would provide potential migrants with crucial information on the realities of going abroad, on opportunities for legal migration and the risks of irregular migration.

In Viet Nam, border guards from the country’s land and sea border checkpoints were this week taking part in an intensive five-day IOM training programme designed to improve their ability to detect counterfeit travel documents. In Timor-Leste, IOM and its local NGO partner BELUN this week hosted a two-day forum for Timorese camp managers responsible for monitoring the provision of services to thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Dili.

Mr. Chauzy said in Italy, a three-day meeting of experts in Rome next week would bring together countries that had museums on the history of migration or planned to have them had been organized by the UN’s Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Italian National Commission for UNESCO and IOM as part of a joint effort to encourage the exchange of information and experiences on the history of migration and on migrants’ memories. And in Hungary, the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising next week marked a milestone both for refugee crises around the world and IOM.

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR had repeatedly expressed concern about the many threats faced by thousands of Palestinian refugees in Baghdad and along the borders with Syria and Jordan. There had been a mortar attack last night on Baghdad’s Palestinian neighbourhood of Al-Baladiya which left four Palestinians dead, a dozen wounded and many people displaced. Ambulances trying to reach the neighbourhood right after the attack were reportedly turned away by armed militias. There had been previous warnings by militias that Palestinians should leave the neighbourhood which once housed 8,000 Palestinians but now only 4,000 remained there. In 2003, UNHCR registered 23,000 of an estimated 34,000 Palestinians in Iraq. It believed around 20,000 of them remained in the country and was extremely concerned about the plight of those remaining and the ability to provide them with protection which should be guaranteed by the Iraqi Government and the Coalition Forces.

Mr. Redmond said despite a crackdown in some parts of Somalia's Puntland region, hundreds of Somalis, Ethiopians and Sudanese were still resorting to smugglers' boats to make the perilous journey across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen - and some were still dying. Since the onset of better sailing weather in early September, UNHCR staff in Yemen had recorded the arrival of more than 5,700 people in 56 boats. Based on reports from passengers and Yemen authorities, 64 people had died making the crossing and 62 were missing. Also, UNHCR today temporarily suspended return convoys from northern Uganda to South Sudan following reports yesterday that unknown gunmen killed at least 38 civilians in a string of attacks in Southern Sudan. There were more details in the briefing notes.