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 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme and the United Nations Refugee Agency.

Human Rights Council

Ms. Heuzé said the Human Rights Council yesterday held a special meeting in honour of the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet. Copies of all the statements delivered at the meeting had been made available to journalists. Following the special meeting, the Council held informal consultations during which the President of the Council, Ambassador Louis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico, distributed a working document on the status of the negotiations and discussions on the institution building in the Council, which would be further discussed during the fifth session of the Council which would be held from 11 to 18 June. The working document dealt with issues like the Universal Periodic Review and the review of mandates, which includes segments on the Complaints Procedure, the Expert Advice Body and the Special Procedures. The working document had also been made available to journalists but it was not an official document. It would help journalists prepare for the briefing with Ambassador de Alba on Thursday, 7 June at 10:30 a.m. in press room 1. Also available were two information notes, the first which reviewed the work of the Council during its first year and the second about the Council and the role of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Geneva Meetings and New Documents

Ms. Heuzé said the Conference on Disarmament met briefly this morning, hearing from the Representative of Iran and from Ambassador Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier of Sweden in her capacity as President of the Conference. Both statements were available in the press room.

On Wednesday, 6 June, an interesting document analysing progress made on fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals in Africa would be available. The “Africa and the Millennium Development Goals, 2007 Update” would be under embargo until 6 p.m. Geneva time on Wednesday.

A number of new statements by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon were available, including a statement in which he condemned the brutal killings of two workers of the Sri Lankan Red Cross, and offered his condolences to their families. The Secretary-General said he was deeply concerned about the security of civilians and aid workers in Sri Lanka and reminded all parties in the country that aid workers had a right to protection at all times.

Occupied Palestinian Territories

José Luis Díaz of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the situation in Gaza and Lebanon were part of the legacy of the occupation of the Palestinian territories that began 40 years ago with the six-day war. High Commissioner Louise Arbour issued a statement today in which she said that the 40 years of occupation of the Palestinian territory had led to wide-ranging and serious violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people, first and foremost among them the right to self-determination. She said the occupation must give way to a lasting political solution allowing both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples to live in peace within secure and internationally recognized borders.

The High Commissioner made an appeal for reframing the discussion of the conflict in human rights terms, adding that, in the long-standing search for this solution, however, human rights had for too long taken a back seat. It need not and must not be so. In fact, the protection afforded by international law was most vital in situations of conflict and volatility. The statement was available.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said UNICEF needed $ 25.8 million to meet immediate needs of children and women in the occupied Palestinian territory. In a Donor Update, copies of which were available, UNICEF noted that only 30 per cent of this amount had been covered. As the Palestinian Authority was struggling to survive under financial sanctions, this had impacted negatively on its ability to deliver social services in the occupied territories, and the ongoing public sector strike was hurting critical services like immunization and education. In Gaza, 8 out of 10 families could not meet their daily food needs without help. Across the occupied territories, 66 per cent of households now fell below the poverty threshold. Available was the Donor Update with more details.

Climate change

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said journalists should have received this morning a statement by Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization on the occasion of World Environment Day. In her statement, the Director-General spoke about the close and complex relationship between health, health security and the changing environment. She said that many of the most important global killers like malaria, diarrhoea and malnutrition were highly sensitive to climatic conditions. In order to respond to the challenge of climate change and global warming, there was a need to strengthen public health systems, and it was important to remember that prevention was just as important as cure.

Ms. Heuzé said that during Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s first visit to Latin America as Secretary-General, he participated in the opening session of the Organization of American States General Assembly, stressing the need for partnerships to combat the global threats posed by climate change, with adverse effects already felt in many areas, including energy, food security, as well as human health. The Secretary-General’s statement was available, as was a text which he wrote on the same subject which appeared in today’s Herald Tribune, on the eve of the G8 Summit in Germany.

Other

Ms. Chaib said that an update on the situation of avian influenza in China had been issued yesterday after the Ministry of Health in China had informed WHO of the country’s 16th death from H5N1 avian influenza. The 19-year-old male soldier serving in Fujian province died on 3 June. Of the 25 laboratory-confirmed cases in China, 16 had been fatal.

Hans Von Rohland of the International Labour Organization apologized for making available at a late hour yesterday the statement delivered in the morning by the President of Chile to the International Labour Conference. The Mission did not provide the final text of the statement until late during the day. The daily bulletin of the Conference was available in the press room. The exact date during which the situation in Myanmar would be taken up by the Conference had not yet been set.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the press conference of John Holmes, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, which had been scheduled today for 1:15 p.m., was now expected to start at 1 p.m. sharp. The press conference would be held in the International Geneva Conference Centre as part of the first session of the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (5 to 7 June), which Mr. Holmes was chairing.
The opening statement delivered by Mr. Holmes this morning would be sent to journalists shortly and would also be available on the website of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said a report was available
on the Annual Special Issue of the Food Aid Monitor on the global food aid flows which was published by the International Food Aid Information System. It was available on www.wfp.org/interfais. It was an interesting report. For example, it showed that the part of food aid which was bought from farmers in developing countries in 2006 had increased, and was the highest yet in the history of food aid. This was important because it showed that WFP and other humanitarian organizations were increasingly buying food from small farms which supported the markets in developing countries.

Ms. Berthiaume said in Somalia, pirate attacks on ships carrying food aid to the country continued. Eighty per cent of WFP’s food aid to Somalia was transported by ship. Transporting the food by road was difficult because the food came from Kenya and the border between Kenya and Somalia was closed. It was also the rainy season. Most of the food aid continued to be transported by sea, but it was not easy. The third possibility for transportation was by plane. WFP had just received a contribution of $3 million from the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund which would allow the transfer of food by plane for two months.

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said as fighting continued in the Nahr El Bared Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli in north Lebanon, eight schools buses were bringing some normality into the disrupted lives of youth affected by the conflict. Supported by UNICEF and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the near East, the buses were transporting approximately 1,000 Palestinian youth and teachers living in the nearby Beddawi refugee camp to UNRWA schools in the Tripoli area in three shifts each day. Classes stopped in the Beddawi camp so that the schools could be converted to shelters for thousands of refugees fleeing the violence in the Nahr el Bared camp. Available was a press release with more details.

Ms. Taveau said available was a new press release on the Junior 8 Summit, which would be meeting in parallel with the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm in Germany. Today, the young people from the Group of 8 industralized nations and from the developing world were meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. They would also hold a press conference with UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Sir Roger Moore in Berlin. Available was a press release with more details.

Ms. Taveau said yesterday in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of Hilde Johnson of Norway and Omar Abdi, born in Somalia and currently a Canadian citizen, as Deputy Executive Directors of UNICEF. Their biographies were available.

Jennifer Pagonis of the UN Refugee Agency said the situation in Iraq continued to worsen, with more than 2 million Iraqis now believed to be displaced inside Iraq and another 2.2 million sheltering in neighbouring States. Calls for increased international support for governments in the region had so far brought few results, and access to social services for Iraqis remained limited. Most of the burden was being carried by Jordan and Syria. UNHCR was rapidly expanding its operations and presence in the region, but the magnitude of the crisis was staggering.

In southern Chad, Ms. Pagonis said 277 refugees from the Central African Republic who crossed the border last week fleeing attacks on the north-western town of Ngaoundaye by what they described as a rebel group and government forces, had been transferred to Dosseye refugee camp near Gore, the main town in south Chad. In the Central African Republic, according to estimates by humanitarian workers, up to 20,000 people might be displaced in the area following the attacks. UNHCR was planning to provide 500 bundles of plastic sheeting for the thousands of displaced who lost their homes.

Ms. Pagonis said UNHCR officially closed last Saturday its programme for the organised repatriation of Sudanese refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo after the successful return of more than 8,000 Sudanese refugees. And in Liberia, with today’s arrival of a repatriation convoy from Sierra Leone, the number of UNHCR-assisted returns to Liberia would pass the 100,000 mark. The Liberian repatriation had been one of the largest UNHCR operations in Africa for the past two and a half years, and it was scheduled to end on 30 June.