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 was also addressed by 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 and the Universal Postal Union.

Secretary-General in Sudan

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had arrived yesterday in Sudan where he met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir as well as other senior dignitaries, including the Vice President and members of the opposition. Speaking in Khartoum, the Secretary-General stressed that any real solution to Darfur's troubles required sustained economic development and solutions that went to the root causes of the conflict. But he said it was not possible to effectively address development issues until there was a peaceful environment in Darfur and a political solution to the conflict. Last night, the Secretary-General addressed the UN Association in Sudan and copies of his full statement were available in the press room.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier recalled that the Secretary-General would also be visiting neighbouring Chad and Libya after Sudan.

Geneva Activities

The Conference on Disarmament was this morning holding a public plenary during which the President, Ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui of Syria, was presenting the draft annual report of the Conference to the General Assembly on its 2007 session. [After the public plenary, in which representatives of Algeria, China, Pakistan, New Zealand, Italy, the United Kingdom, Iran and Turkey took the floor, the Conference met in private to discuss the draft report further]. Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier recalled that the Conference on Disarmament would end the third and last part of its 2007 session on Friday, 14 September.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Director-General of the United Nations Office in Geneva, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, would on 6 September be addressing the opening of a colloquium on the theme of “The topicality of the 1907 Hague Conference, the Second Peace Conference”, which was being organized by the Hague Academy of International Law to mark the 100th anniversary of the Conference. Other speakers at the two-day event included Maxine Verhagen, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former Secretary-General of the United Nations and currently President of the Curatorium of the Hague Academy, and Dame Rosalyn Higgins, President of the International Court of Justice.

At the request of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Information Service had put in the press room a press release in English and in French on the First International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources which was meeting in Interlaken from 1 to 7 September. Copies of the opening statement by Alexander Muller, the FAO Assistant Director-General, had also been placed in the press room. At noon today, Mr. Muller and Ms. Doris Leuthard, the Swiss Federal Councillor, would hold a press conference in Interlaken and journalists wishing to listen in or to ask questions could do so through a connection which had been set up in press room 1.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier reminded journalists that there would be a press conference at 11:30 a.m. today in Room III by the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development to launch the Trade and Development Report 2007 on regional cooperation for development.

Hurricane Felix

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said the inhabitants of the Caribbean coast of Honduras and Nicaragua were today waiting with fear for Cyclone Felix to hit. In addition to the north of Honduras, the northeast of Nicaragua and to a lesser degree Guatemala, Felix and its 200 kilometre per hour winds threatened to hit Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico tomorrow. Warnings and evacuations had been announced in all these countries and the UN system was mobilized and had already pre-positioned water, shelter, water treatment stations and first aid kits. In Honduras, UNICEF had in place 1,500 hygiene kits, water purification systems and educational materials for 100 schools.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said concerning Hurricane Felix, the UN Resident Coordinator in Honduras had requested the deployment of a UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination team to the country to evaluate the situation after the Hurricane hit. Six experts had departed for the region.

Displaced Iraqis

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said concerning displaced Iraqis in Syria, WFP had distributed food aid jointly with partners to 33,000 Iraqi refugees in Syria. The operation to distribute 3,245 tons of food cost $ 2.2 million.

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Erika Feller was on the third day of a mission to Syria, where she had discussed the situation of Iraqi refugees with several senior officials in Damascus. She was also seeing first-hand the impact of the crisis, including meetings with Iraqi refugees in their homes, at UNHCR's registration facility in Damascus, and in community centres. In her discussions with Syrian officials, Ms. Feller was seeking to clarify recent reports that visa requirements for Iraqis entering the country would soon change. According to government sources, all Iraqis wishing to enter Syria would have to apply for a visa from the Syrian Embassy in Baghdad. Syria was the only country not to have imposed strict regulations on the entry of Iraqi refugees. UNHCR had so far registered a total of 118,000 Iraqis in Syria and expected that figure to reach 200,000 by the end of the year.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said a press release was available on the visit of the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Mr. Holmes had arrived in Kinshasa yesterday and would conclude his visit on 8 September. More details were available in the press release.

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said WFP was making plans to airlift urgent food aid to the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially the Masisi district, where there had been heavy fighting in recent days, causing the displacement of thousands of persons. WFP estimated that since December, at least 200,000 persons had been displaced in the east of the country, and new fighting had caused new displacements. The food would be airlifted because stocks on the ground were low and sending food by truck was not possible because of the security situation. Around one ton of food aid would be sent by helicopter and would be distributed to children suffering from malnutrition, their mothers, and injured persons in the Masisi hospital. The security situation had deteriorated so much in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo this year that WFP had only been able to distribute a half ration of food to 334,000 persons.

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said thousands of Congolese civilians were on the move in the Masisi and Rutshuru districts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's strife-torn North Kivu province. They were fleeing their homes amid reports of renewed fighting and rising tensions between government forces, renegade troops and rebel groups. With the continuing displacement, UNHCR yesterday discussed the possibility of a new displacement site near Mugunga, which currently had as many as 18,000 people. UNHCR feared that the pursuit of a military solution to the problems in North Kivu would further worsen the province's humanitarian crisis through the potential displacement of hundreds of thousands of additional Congolese civilians. In a related development, an estimated 10,000 Congolese crossed into Uganda's Kisoro district yesterday evening. People entering Uganda said they were fleeing fighting between the Democratic Repubic of the Congo military and renegade troops. By this morning, the majority of them had already begun returning across the border to their homes. UNHCR called on all parties to the conflict in North Kivu to refrain from direct attacks and atrocities against the civilian population, and displaced people in particular. Such acts constituted a breach of international humanitarian law.

Other

Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund said in Iraq, the objective of the vaccination campaign which UNICEF and WHO were supporting was to vaccinate 4.8 million Iraqi children under five, including in areas which were difficult to reach. Some 20,000 health workers would be participating in the massive campaign which started yesterday. UNICEF and WHO had helped the Iraqi Government plan and organize the campaign and were providing methods of transportation for the health workers as well as vaccination stocks. The European Commission had provided a contribution of $ 4.25 million which had contributed to make the campaign possible. A press release with more details was available.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said following heavy rainfall in Ethiopia, particularly in the western part of the country, the risk of further flooding remained high. Approximately 138,000 people were currently affected by the flooding, of which 36,000 were displaced. In Amhara Region, the displaced population was increasing, and this had increased pressure in the temporary shelters with high congestion creating a serious threat for communicable diseases, including acute watery diarrhoea. There were around 2,000 cases of acute watery diarrhoea in Tigray and Amhara regions to date. Further details were available in the press release. A contingency plan was being finalized to distribute aid to 78,000 persons. So far, the Government had dispatched 1,194 tons of food for more than 65,000 flood-affected people. A map of Ethiopia showing the worst affected areas was available at the back of the room.

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was very concerned about a lack of funding which could bring a halt to confidence-building measures connecting Sahrawi refugees in the Tindouf camps in Algeria and their relatives in the Western Sahara Territory.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy said IOM teams were continuing to provide support to an on-going Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration programme for former combatants in Eastern Sudan. The programme had over the past month registered a total of 1,332 former combatants, including 284 elderly and 153 disabled persons. A further 224 minors had been registered by UNICEF. In Nepal, IOM had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Nepal to implement migration programmes in the Himalayan state and open an office in Kathmandu. Concerning Colombia, in order to help more internally displaced persons become self-sufficient, Colombia's Presidential Commission for Social Action and International Cooperation had announced the allocation of $ 28.7 million to help 23,300 displaced families create income-generating projects. With regards to Ukraine, since its launch in April 2007, IOM's national toll-free counter-trafficking hotline "527" had received a total of 1,697 calls. In Italy, a workshop on the role of women in the promotion of multicultural identities would be opening tomorrow in Rome.

Laurent Widmer of the Universal Postal Union said in July, UPU had announced that Liberia had started to reconstruct a postal system. During the war, the postal service in the country had not been functioning. On 25 July, the Liberian President had inaugurated the first new post office, and since the end of August, 17 other post offices had opened. The Liberian authorities hoped the postal service would support the revival of the economy in the country.

Mr. Widmer said since 1972, UPU had been organizing an international letter-writing contest and the aim was for children under the age of 15 to write letters on a given subject. The thirty-sixth contest had been won by a 14-year-old Malaysian student. In conclusion, Mr. Widmer said UPU would be launching at its headquarters in Bern on 6 September four UN stamps on humanitarian mail.