REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Refugee Agency and the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development.

Secretary-General’s Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was flying back to New York at noon today. A timetable of his meetings in Geneva this morning was available in the press room.

The Secretary-General would be travelling to Mexico City next week, from 8 to 9 September. The primary purpose of this trip was to open the sixty-second Annual Department of Public Information-Non-Governmental Organizations Conference. The theme of this year’s Conference was “For Peace and Development: Disarm Now!” It was expected that more than 1,000 representatives of non-governmental organizations from around the world would be gathering to discuss how they could contribute to disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and to reducing conventional arms while advancing peace and development. On the margins of the Conference, the Secretary-General planned to attend a number of side events, which would allow him to interact with members of civil society, including youth delegates.

While in Mexico, the Secretary-General would also meet with President Felipe Calderón to discuss issues of mutual interest ahead of the upcoming General Assembly. Those issues would include climate change, the Millennium Development Goals, and human rights. The Secretary-General would also hold additional meetings with the Foreign Secretary and Ministers of Health, Social Development, Environment and Education of Mexico.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said available were the Secretary-General’s latest report to the Security Council on Haiti, and his latest report on the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone. The reports could be found on the UN website.

Director-General’s Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that Sergei Ordzhonikidze, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, was today meeting with the President of Slovenia, Danilo Turk.

Mr. Ordzhonikidze would also be meeting later today with Mr. Pushkar Shah, a Nepali national and world cyclist, who had recently completed an 11-year journey visiting 150 countries around the world on his bicycle to spread the message of peace and hope. On behalf of the Secretary-General, Mr. Ordzhonikidze would present a United Nations flag to Mr. Shah, who was planning an expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 2010 entitled “Peace Expedition 2010”, with a view to symbolically carry to the summit the flags of all the countries that he has cycled to. According to Mr. Shah, the United Nations flag not only embodied in the fullest possible way the values and principles, which he had strived to put at the centre of his expedition, but also represented all Member States, including those that he had not been able to travel to. The Director-General would express his sincere congratulations on Mr. Shah’s remarkable journey and would commend the strong symbolic message carried by Mr. Shah to the top of the world’s highest peak at a time when scientists had warned of the devastating effects of climate change on glaciers around the world.

World Health Organization and the Philippines, Southern Sudan

Paul Garwood of the World Health Organization said available at the back of the room was a press release and a funding request with regards to the situation in the Philippines. WHO and other humanitarian partners were extremely concerned about the continuing conflict and displacement of upwards of 400,000 people in the southern island of Mindanao. WHO was requesting $ 914,000 to help ensure the continued provision of health services to the internally displaced people living inside and outside temporary settlements in the conflict-affected regions. Since mid-August 2008, there had been a huge increase in the displacement of people in this already troubled region. There was increased threat of communicable diseases outbreak such as diarrhoea and dysentery. They were also seeing reported cases of Influenza H1N1 amongst the community of internally displaced persons. The funding request sought to further strengthen the coordination of health activities among the multiple health providers in Mindanao, and by doing so, establishing a field office for WHO activities in that conflict affected area. Further activities also included to control communicable disease outbreaks by supplying medicines and other emergency health provisions to local health providers; and to recruit new health staff to strengthen the capacity of existing staff to provide basic health service. WHO and humanitarian partners had been providing health services in this area for a long time now, but the continuing conflict and recent monsoon rains which caused intense flooding and increasing health threats had put the internally displaced people at great risk and they required emergency assistance.

Mr. Garwood said there was also an information note available on the ongoing conflict in southern Sudan. In southern Sudan’s Western Equatorial state, violence and attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army had caused great humanitarian suffering for many of the local people, and for people who had fled from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo seeking refuge in southern Sudan. There had been intensified violence last month. Just yesterday, one of the first assessment missions to the affected areas was completed. It had been delayed because of the incessant violence in the area. There was an information note on the health impact of that crisis.

World Health Organization and Influenza H1N1

Gregory Hartl of the World Health Organization said that shortly, the weekly update on the situation of Influenza H1N1 would be posted. The main figure to note from the update was that there were now at least 2,837 deaths attributable to pandemic H1N1.

Asked if there was a sense that the virus was becoming more serious, or changing in any ways, Mr. Hartl said there was no sense that the virus had mutated or changed in any sense. In fact, the gene sequencing of the virus had shown so far that the virus was still quite homogeneous. It was not causing more severe illness than before, so there had been no changes in the behaviour of the virus. They continued to see increased numbers of deaths because they were seeing many more cases. In the same update, it was said that there were at least 254,000 cases which had been laboratory confirmed. But again this number of cases far understated the actual number of cases. With the virus circulating so widely around the world, it was unfortunately to be expected that there would be deaths as the volume of cases and deaths was increasing.

World Climate Conference – 3

Carine Van Maele of the World Meteorological Organization said the World Climate Conference – 3 yesterday established a Global Framework for Climate Services “to strengthen production, availability, delivery and application of science-based climate prediction and services.” Available was the Declaration establishing the Global Framework and an annex about the Global Framework, as well as the results of the experts meeting which was held on the first three days of the World Climate Conference – 3. The Conference was concluding this afternoon around 4 p.m. This morning it was listening to statements from Ministers and other dignitaries in the high-level segment.

Floods in West Africa

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said available at the back of the room were briefing notes and maps about the floods affecting West Africa. Since June, the rainy season in West Africa had been heavier than normal. Like in 2007, when there was serious flooding that affected 800,000 persons, it was believed that this year, the torrential rains were affecting an estimated 350,000 persons. Burkina Faso was the latest country to suffer from the impact of the rains and floods. Since the beginning of September, the capital Ouagadougou had been affected by torrential rains which had caused flooding, killing five persons and affecting 150,000 persons. The main university hospital had been flooded and patients had had to be evacuated. The United Nations had sent a seven-person Coordination and Assessment (UNDAC) team, which would be arriving today. In July, the UN had sent an UNDAC team to Benin to assess the effects of the floods.

Niger was also affected, with 3,500 buildings partially destroyed. OCHA was assessing the needs in the affected Agadez region in Niger. Ghana was also affected, including the capital Accra. To date, the rains and floods were blamed for 25 deaths.
Floods in Guinea had affected 10,000 persons. In Senegal, they hoped that the mobilization of pumps would allow them to remove water that had flooded up to 30,000 households. And in Benin, flooding had affected up to 20,000 persons.

West Java Earthquake

Ms. Byrs said as of 3 September, Indonesia had reported that the earthquake of 2 September in West Java Province had left 57 persons dead, 3,118 persons displaced, and 23,852 houses damaged. A 10-person UN team was conducting an assessment of the affected districts.

Yemen

Andrej Mahecic of the UN Refugee Agency said heavy fighting between Al Houti forces and government troops continued in the Sa’ada governorate in northern Yemen, entering the fourth week of conflict. The situation was most critical in the city of Sa’ada. The road to Sa’ada was extremely dangerous as clashes continued. Numerous checkpoints and roadblocks had been erected. A state of emergency and a 12-hour curfew were still in place, further isolating the area. Civilians, including some 35,000 internally displaced people, in and around Sa’ada remained trapped by the fighting and were unable to reach safer parts of the country. UNHCR staff evacuated from Sa’ada reported that in addition to air strikes and mortar attacks around the city, street fighting had erupted in the old city and other areas. There had been no water or electricity in Sa’ada since 12 August. Food reserves were running low. High temperatures during the day and heavy rains at night had left stranded civilians, most of them observing the Ramadan fasting period, in dire need of food and clear water. Clashes had spread outside of the Sa’ada governorate into neighbouring Amran province. UNHCR estimated that 150,000 people had been affected by the conflict.

Other

Mr. Mahecic said following reports of refugees fleeing fighting in Myanmar in recent weeks, UNHCR had called on the Chinese authorities to allow UNHCR access to the border area and had proposed a joint needs assessment so as to offer support for any possible unmet needs.

Mr. Mahecic said UNHCR welcomed the resumption of Belgium’s resettlement programme. On 2 September, 36 Iraqi refugees were resettled to Belgium from Syria and Jordan.

Catherine Sibut Pinote of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development said available in press room 1 was the press kit for the 2009 Report on UNCTAD's assistance to the Palestinian people. A press conference would be held on Monday, 7 September at 2:30 p.m. in Room III. The report was embargoed until Tuesday, 8 September at 5 p.m. GMT. Every year, UNCTAD had been producing a report on the economic situation in the occupied territories for the past 25 years, and this year’s report said the situation was one of the most serious since the beginning of the reporting process. The report was available in the six languages of the UN.

Ms. Pinote said the Secretary-General of UNCTAD had invited all journalists to a working breakfast on Tuesday, 8 September at 9:15. She hoped journalists who would be attending could confirm their participation by noon today. The Secretary-General would be talking about the fifty-sixth session of the UNCTAD Trade and Development Board, which would be meeting from 14 to 25 September.