REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by spokespersons and representatives of Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Meteorological Organization, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the World Economic Forum, the International Organization for Migration and the World Health Organization.

Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme and the United Nations Children’s Fund were also present, but had no announcements to make.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that, in Geneva, the Conference on Disarmament was holding a plenary meeting this morning. This was the last week of the First Part of the Conference’s 2010 session. On this morning’s speakers’ list were the United States and Canada.

Claire Kaplun of Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that this morning the Council would conclude its general debate on the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories, following which, it would hold a general debate on follow-up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. After that, in about an hour’s time, the Council would turn to consideration of issues related to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance. Tomorrow morning the Council would hear a presentation and hold an interactive dialogue with the Independent Expert on the human rights situation in Somalia, and on the joint report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The 30 draft resolutions before the Conference at this session were now available on the Council’s Extranet site and would be discussed and voted on this Thursday and Friday.

Ms. Momal-Vanian also announced a series of press conferences. This afternoon, at 2:30 p.m. in room III, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, was holding a press conference with the Chief Executive of the London Metal Exchange and a Professor from the University of London on the subject of the Global Commodities Forum and the “commodity price yo-yo”.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs would hold a press conference on the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories with Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the OCHA office in Jerusalem, at 12:15 p.m. in room 1.

Finally, on Thursday, the World Food Programme (WFP) was holding a breakfast briefing and round table on the global challenges of hunger in 2010 with the Director-General of WFP, Josette Sheeran, from 9 to 9:50 a. m. in press room 1, Ms. Momal-Vanian said.

Regarding the celebration of international days, available in the back of the room was the Secretary-General’s message on the occasion of the International Day of Remembrance of Victims of Slavery and Transatlantic Slave Trade. In his statement, the Secretary-General recalled that slavery and slavery-like practices continued in many parts of the world. Slavery was mutating and re-emerging in modern forms, including debt bondage, the sale of children, and the trafficking of women and girls for sex. “Its roots lie in ignorance, intolerance and greed”, the Secretary-General observed. Copies of the statement were available in English and French at the back of the room, and the message was also available in the other official languages upon request.

Ms. Momal-Vanian also highlighted that tomorrow the United Nations Office at Geneva was organizing a roundtable discussion with representatives of numerous international organizations in Geneva to discuss how they implemented multilingualism in their organizations. The roundtable would be held in Room XII from 4 to 5:30 p.m.

World Meteorology Day

Gaëlle Sévenier of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said “60 years of service for your safety and well-being” was the theme of this year’s World Meteorology Day, which was being celebrated today by national meteorology and hydrology services of the 189 countries and territories members of the WMO. “Our growing ability to predict the weather and climate saved millions of lives”, observed WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud in his message, adding that, “in the coming decades, WMO’s observations, forecasts and services will be a critical tool in ensuring food security, adapting to climate change, and contribute to sustainable development”. Available at the back of the room was a press release in all the official languages, summarizing the achievements of the WMO over the past 60 years. All were invited to the official ceremony at 3:30 p.m. and the reception at 5:30 p.m. at WMO headquarters.

Ms. Sévenier also noted that WMO had now finalized its statement on the status of the Global Climate 2009, which was available at the back of the room. In it, WMO confirmed that 2009 was the fifth hottest year since 1850. It also confirmed that the decade 2000-2009 was hotter than the two decades preceding it.

World Tuberculosis Day (24 March)

Veronique Taveau of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said that World Tuberculosis Day, which was tomorrow, sought to raise awareness about the global TB epidemic and efforts undertaken to eliminate it. The Stop TB Partnership, in which the Global Fund was a participant, was organizing the celebrations. Available at the back of the room was the statement of the Executive Director Michel Kazatchkine on the occasion of the World Day. This year would be particularly important for the fight against tuberculosis. They would know if they were on track to meet the related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. If they continued to advance at the same rate as in previous years, they could close in on the MDGs on health, achieve them or even surpass them, Mr. Kazatchkine declared in his statement. Since its creation in 2002, the Global Fund had approved projects totalling $3.2 billion in 112 countries to combat TB and, by the end of 2009, some 6 million TB patients had been treated by Global-Fund-financed programmes.

Asylum Trends 2009

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said available was a press release detailing some UNHCR provisional statistics on asylum applications in 2009. It was part of an annual report on statistics on asylum-seekers in 44 industrialized countries. Those figures did point to some interesting trends, particularly that the number of Afghan claims were on the rise, and that there had been no overall increase in the numbers of those seeking asylum. What they did not have at this point was how many of those requests for asylum were successful. She hoped to have those figures later this year.

Asked what the trends showed, Ms. Fleming said the populist claim was that asylum seekers were flooding into Europe but the statistics showed that that was not true – the numbers of asylum-seekers had remained stable over the past three years. Moreover, it should be remembered that developing countries hosted the vast majority of the world’s refugees. For example, Afghans topped the list of asylum-seekers. But there were 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and 1 million in Iran, as compared with the 26,800 requesting refugee status in industrialized countries. As the High Commissioner for Refugees had said, the notion that there was a flood of asylum-seekers into richer countries was a myth.

Republic of Korea / UNHCR

Ms. Fleming said that, for the first time since the Republic of Korea had adopted the 1951 Refugee Convention in 1992, a recognized refugee had been granted South Korean citizenship. The new citizen was a 38-year-old Ethiopian man who had arrived in South Korea in 2001. That was a highly significant milestone in Asia, where few countries had signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, and even fewer had extended citizenship to refugees. UNHCR was grateful to the Republic of Korea for its leadership in local integration, one of the three durable solutions available to refugees, and one that was rarely used in Asia. Citizenship was, of course, the most comprehensive form of local integration. It was hoped that other Asian countries would take inspiration from South Korea’s example.

Other

Thierry Geiger, an economist at the World Economic Forum, announced that the Forum would be launching its Global Information Technology Report 2009-2010 on Thursday at 9 a.m. Geneva time. Until then all materials and information – including the press releases at the back of the room – was strictly embargoed. The overarching theme this year was information and communication technology and sustainability, looking at how information and communication technology could contribute to creating a more sustainable world.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said in the back of the room was a migration profile on Senegal. The report showed that while Senegal continued to be a transit country for migration, it was also a destination country and a sending country. It also showed that Senegal was suffering from a brain drain of its professionals and skilled workers, mostly to francophone countries. The report also looked at the impact of the world financial crisis on remittances of the Senegalese Diaspora to family back in the country, and analysed how those remittances were used.

Mr. Chauzy also announced an IOM programme in partnership with the Authorities of Sierra Leone to compensate victims of sexual violence committed during the brutal 1991-2002 conflict. The programme aimed to assist some 650 vulnerable and needy women who had suffered rape and other forms of sexual violence by providing them with six-month vocational training and a cash allowance of up to $500 to help them set up an income generating activity of their choice or seek additional education.