REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Office at Geneva, chaired the briefing which also heard from spokespersons and representatives from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the International Organization for Migration.

Secretary-General on Myanmar

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that, following a closed meeting of the Group of Friends on Myanmar held on Friday at United Nations Headquarters in New York to discuss the evolution of the situation in the country and the mission of good offices led by the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser Ibrahim Gambari, it had now been confirmed that the Secretary-General would not visit the country as previously planned unless considerable progress were made.

Geneva Activities

Turning to events in Geneva, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that, as previously announced, on Wednesday, 10 December at 4.30 p.m. the United Nations Office at Geneva and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research were jointly organizing the second conference in the Geneva Lecture Series, which would consist of an open debate with the participation of the Nobel Prize winners Shirin Ebadi and Wole Soyinka on the topic, “Are Human Rights Universal?” Available was a note to correspondents with a programme for the debate.

The commemorative session of the Human Rights Council, celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on 10 December 1948 in Paris, would be held on Friday, 12 December, in the new Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room (Salle XX) at the Palais des Nations, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier announced. In the afternoon, a high-level segment would be held at which United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, and other dignitaries would participate. The list of participants would be circulated as soon as it was finalized.

During the morning meeting, a general segment would be held to hear presentations of national, regional and international initiatives launched on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration. At the start of the commemorative session –which would be opened with an address by the Council President, Ambassador Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi of Nigeria – children would read the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in different languages. A background release on the session would be sent out later this morning.

The same day, Friday, 12 December, at 1 p.m., a film depicting human rights stories from around the globe would be screened in the Cinema (Room XIV), Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier added.

Rupert Colville of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said available at the back of the room was a tentative schedule for Friday, as well as DVDs of the films, and an accompanying book. The 21 short, 3-minute films were in the six official United Nations languages and had been produced by over 21 directors from around the world. The book included background information on the films and the directors and texts by 12 very prominent authors, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Khaled Hosseini, Naghib Mafuz, Toni Morrison and others.

Situation in Zimbabwe

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) began by noting that the figures that the World Health Organization, OCHA and the United Nations Children’s Fund had were from 5 December. As of then, the total number of suspected cholera cases stood at 13,960, with 589 deaths, involving 9 out of the 10 provinces of Zimbabwe. In addition, the security situation in the country was becoming tenser, with numerous reports of looting by large crowds in cities, and rising crime rates, and humanitarian aid workers were frequently victims either of violence or theft.

The area in which international humanitarian resources were “ready to crack” was in logistics, Ms. Byrs affirmed. Capacities had been pushed to the limit, and more funds were urgently needed if they were to enhance the existing capabilities to deal with the crisis.

Giving an account of the degradation of social services, Ms. Byrs said three public hospitals had closed for lack of staff; obstetric clinics and services were closed; and schools were closed, owing to lack of both teachers and pupils.

Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that cholera epidemic was centred in three towns: Harare, with 7,563 cases and 189 deaths; Beitbridge 3,285 cases and 86 deaths; and Mudzi, with 1,234 cases and 57 deaths. It was important to remember that this cholera outbreak came on top of the long humanitarian crisis that Zimbabwe had been experiencing for some years now. A high-level delegation from WHO had arrived over the weekend in Harare, headed by Eric Laroche, Assistant Director-General for WHO's Health Action in Crises cluster. Mr. Laroche had met with the Zimbabwean Health Minister yesterday, and had offered WHO assistance to address the crisis, in response the Health Minister’s appeal last Wednesday.

On average, the case fatality rate was 4.5 per cent, but in some areas it had now reached 50 per cent. That was the red flag that let them know that people did not have access to the necessary heath care. “Cholera was only the visible manifestation of the health crisis in the country. There were many other health problems in the Zimbabwe, including Malaria and malnutrition”, Ms. Chaib said. While they had pretty good information about the cities, there was not enough information from remote villages, and the “true extent of the outbreak is not yet known”, she underscored.

Veronique Taveau of UNICEF said available at the back of the room was a situation report on the immediate needs of children and women affected by the cholera outbreak and on the collapse of the health and education systems, with a breakdown of UNICEF needs to address the situation. For the next 120 days, UNICEF needed $17.5 million, mostly for education but also for water sanitation. It was important to realize that 70 per cent of the districts in Zimbabwe had been affected by this humanitarian crisis and 80 per cent of those in the country did not have access to safe, clean water. Particularly worrisome was that there had been a serious deterioration in the water sanitation system throughout the whole country, which gave rise to fears that the cholera epidemic would get even worse. UNICEF workers were basically going door to door in Zimbabwe to educate people about safe health practices.

Marçal Izard of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that ICRC had two sent new experts in Zimbabwe who were helping the ICRC team to deploy the 13 tons of medical supplies shipped in last week. The supplies were cholera treatment kits, including 4,000 litres of intravenous rehydration fluids; antibiotics; other medicines; and protective gear. Those supplies were being distributed to 27 health facilities in Harare and three other districts. ICRC was also drilling for water at its Harare clinic and delivering clean water to other facilities via water truck.

Responding to a question about food security in Zimbabwe, Ms. Byrs said that, as of 21 November, nearly 5.7 million people were registered under the “Vulnerable Group Feeding Programme”. Moreover, the number of those confirmed to be in the worst food insecure category and eligible for assistance was much higher than initially anticipated from the crop and food supply assessment mission. Food insecurity was thus one of the major problems Zimbabwe would be facing in coming months.

For the health sector alone, a minimum of $2 million was required to cover the cost of health response activities for the next three months, including cholera and diarrhoeal disease kits, emergency health kits, water purification equipment, personnel, training and others, Ms. Byrs said.

In response to a question as to whether or not the current cholera epidemic was foreseeable, Ms. Chaib reiterated that cholera outbreaks were an annual event; but that this was the first time it had reached such proportions. The scale of the outbreak was “simply the sign that the health system is deteriorating rapidly and that the response to the outbreak is not adequate”, she underscored. “The outbreak was thus foreseeable, but the scale of it was not.” WHO and its partners were thus working on a scenario for this outbreak of 60,000 cases in order to ensure an adequate response. “If we’re wrong, so much the better. It’s better to be over-prepared than under-prepared”.

As to how medicines were being distributed given the reported closures of hospitals, Mr. Izard responded that ICRC was not working in the big hospitals; they were working in polyclinics in Harare and in the other districts ICRC was working in 19 health clinics and district hospitals that were still functional. In all those cases, ICRC was feeding the health workers, which helped to ensure that the health facilities stayed open.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Ms. Byrs said that, in North Kivu, humanitarian workers had been evacuated from Kishishe, following clashes between the forces of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (the “CNDP” or Laurent Nkunda's Rebels) and the Congolese Patriotic Resistance (PARECO – a group of Mai-Mai militias) on 3 December. Some 30,000 Congolese had now fled to Uganda since August. OCHA had heard reports of looting of houses in several villages last week, and a humanitarian partner in Kasugo reported that armed groups were forcing civilians to work or pay a $15 fine.

Mr. Izard said that ICRC would issue a press release later today about the new campaign ICRC had started this week in North Kivu, together with the Congolese Red Cross, to reunite separated children from their families. They were using four local radio stations to announce three times a day to announce a list of names of children looking for their parents. In the first week, they had already been able to reunite 15 children with their families. ICRC had 134 other cases remaining, but it was feared that that was not the total amount of unaccompanied children. The campaign also used posters with pictures of the children that were posted at schools and in public places.

Other

Ms. Taveau said that, as a companion to the World Report on Child Injury Prevention 2008, which would be jointly launched by UNICEF and WHO in Hanoi, Viet Nam, tomorrow, UNICEF was publishing the booklet “Have Fun, Be Safe”, to teach children 7 to 10 years old how to be safe through illustrations, quizzes and accessible language to explain how injuries happened and how to prevent them. Some 830,000 children every year died of preventable accidents, which were the leading cause of death for children over nine years old. A press release, the report and copies of the booklet were available at the back of the room under embargo until tomorrow morning.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) drew attention to the plight of some 100 migrant workers in Iraq who had been living for several months now in a desperate situation mostly in the vicinity of Baghdad. These were largely migrants from South Asia who had been lured to Iraq by the promise of a well-paid job and left stranded without work, money or documents in warehouses at Baghdad’s airport or camped out on roadsides. Today these migrants found themselves without money, without papers, and without hope for return. An IOM assessment last week of a group of Bangladeshi, Indian, Nepalese and Sri Lankan migrants camped out near roadsides close to the airport, found nearly 60 men. Starting next week IOM hoped to begin helping a first group of eight Nepalese migrants to voluntarily return. IOM was urgently seeking funds to help another 11 migrants. A reported 1,000 migrants of various nationalities were camping out in a hangar near the airport for about three months now, but it was supposed that there were many more cases that had not been identified yet.

Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced the WIPO Programme Budget Committee would be meeting on 10 and 11 December, to consider the Director-General’s revised programme and budget for 2009, to be followed by an extraordinary session of the General Assembly on Friday, 12 December. All documents related to those meetings, including the revised programme budget for 2008/09 were available on the WIPO website.