REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing, which was also attended by spokespersons of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Secretariat of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children's Fund and the International Organization for Migration.

Consolidated Appeal Resource Mobilization Conference

Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced that the Secretary-General would deliver opening remarks at the 2011 Consolidated Appeal Resource Mobilization Conference that would take place at 3.30 p.m. today in Room XVIII. The Secretary-General would draw the attention of donors and Member States to the humanitarian appeals launched last December.

Journalists could attend the first part of the conference, which included the speech by Mr. Ban, while the second part of the conference was closed to the public. An embargoed press release was at the back of the room and Mr. Ban’s remarks would be distributed by the Information Service upon delivery.

Agenda

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Conference on Disarmament had this morning opened the first public plenary of its 2011 session, chaired by Canada. The speakers currently inscribed on the list were representatives of Hungary, Sweden, Mexico and Zimbabwe. The Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, would address the conference tomorrow at 3 p.m. and Austria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs was scheduled to address the conference on Thursday morning.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child, for its part, would examine the reports of Belarus on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols today and tomorrow morning. On Thursday, the Committee would examine the report of the Lao People's Democratic Republic on the Convention before reviewing the reports of Ukraine on Friday.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women today examined the report of Bangladesh, tomorrow that of Sri Lanka and on Thursday that of Belarus.

The Universal Periodic Review would resume today with the review of Nepal in the morning and Saint Lucia in the afternoon. Today, the Human Rights Council would hear an address by the Secretary-General at 5.15 p.m. in Room XX.

Responding to a question, Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Secretary-General would deliver a press declaration on 26 January at Door 4 at 2.15 p.m. after meeting with the Turkish and the Greek Cypriot leaders. While Mr. Ban would probably not take any questions, the Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders may also address the press.

The United Nations Office at Geneva would host a ceremony to mark the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust on Thursday at 5 p.m. in the Assembly Hall. The ceremony, to which journalists were cordially invited, included musical interludes by the Germany Radio Orchestra, the Bayreuth Zamir Choir and the Jerusalem Oratorio Chamber Choir.

Accountability Commission for Women’s and Children’s Health

Fadéla Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) said there would be a photo opportunity tomorrow at 9 a.m. in Room X with the Prime Minister of Canada, the President of Tanzania (the Co-chairs of the Accountability Commission for Women’s and Children’s Health), WHO Director-General, Dr. Chan and the ITU Secretary-General, Mr. Touré (the Vice-Chairs of the Commission). The Secretary-General and the Vice-Chairs would deliver brief remarks on the Commission to the press at 9.15 a.m. in the Salle des Pas Perdus.

The Commission would then hold its first meeting from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the WHO's premises, said Ms. Chaib. This was possibly to be followed by a press conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in the afternoon, chaired by the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Tanzania. A fact-sheet on the Accountability Commission for Women’s and Children’s Health was available at the back of the room.

Ivorian Refugees in Liberia

Andrej Mahecic of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the first phase of work on the refugee camp in Bahn -- which had included identification, measurement and clearing of a camp site in a remote part of eastern Liberia -- had been completed this week. The initial phase of work had proved more than challenging. It had taken some 200 local men with machetes and machines over three weeks to clear some 80 hectares of jungle for the site. The arrival of heavy machinery from Sierra Leone had helped to pick up pace.

The construction of the camp’s main reception centre was starting this week. The centre would have 14 shelters with capacity of 500 refugees at a time. Other camp facilities would include latrines, showers, security, registration and distribution sites, kitchen, canteen, warehouse, medical screening clinic, water wells and offices. The capacity of the camp would be between 15,000 and 18,000 people. UNHCR had also contracted local builders to help construct facilities in the camp. The first Ivorian refugees would be settled as soon as the basic facilities and services were in place, said Mr. Mahecic.

It was estimated that Liberia now hosted more than 30,000 refugees who had fled post election violence and tensions in Cote d’Ivoire. Many crossed into Liberia through the forests avoiding busy roads and official border crossings. Ivorian refugees had been hosted in more than 20 villages scattered around the town of Saclepea in Nimba County. Their Liberian hosts shared with them houses and existing facilities, including schools and health centres.

Mr. Mahecic underlined that many Liberians still remembered their years as refugees in Cote d’Ivoire. Others shared the same culture, most of them spoke the same language or had the same beliefs. Though resources were scarce, people shared what they had with refugees, particularly when they considered them as "brothers" and "sisters".

UNHCR had also started distributions of food and relief items to refugees living in the local communities but these efforts were being hindered by the rainy season and extremely bad road conditions leading to the host communities.

Christopher Tidey of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) added that 85 per cent of the Ivorian refugees in Liberia were children and women. Sixty per cent were children, 25 per cent were women. The most urgent needs for children included shelter, safe water, sanitation, nutrition and safe places where they could play, learn and have a place where they could have a sense of normalcy. UNICEF was active in all those areas. It notably led the water and sanitation cluster to provide access to clean water and sanitation, setting up temporary classrooms in the refugee camps to get kids back to school.

Pakistan

Mr. Mahecic said six months after devastating floods had first hit Pakistan in July 2010, some 166,000 people were still displaced and living in over 240 camps and spontaneous settlements. This was substantially down from the peak levels in September and October when 3.278 million people had been living in camps, but it still represented a substantial population in need of help. In all, an estimated 20 million people were affected by the floods and 1.7 million houses had been damaged or destroyed.

Of today’s camp population, 128,000 people were spread across 188 locations in Sindh province. The rest were in Balochistan and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Many of these people had lost homes and lacked the means to rebuild them. Others were telling UNHCR that they had lost livelihoods and were without sufficient cash or transport to move on, Mr. Mahecic said.

UNHCR’s emergency response began in Balochistan on 22 July and later expanded into all four flood-hit provinces. Over the past six months UNHCR had provided emergency shelter to almost two million people as part of the joint humanitarian effort. In addition, transitional or more permanent shelters had been provided for 7,000 families. But the work was ongoing and UNHCR remained committed to helping some 665,000 people across Pakistan with such shelters, with priority being given to the most vulnerable. This winter, UNHCR had also been providing warm clothes, blankets and plastic sheeting to people living inside and outside of camps, said Mr. Mahecic.

Christopher Tidey added that United Nations Children's Fund would be recognizing the six-month mark since the flooding this Friday. The UNICEF country representative Pascal Villeneuve would be calling into the briefing.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Rupert Colville of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said two separate investigations by MONUSCO and the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office to villages in North Kivu and South Kivu had shed light on the extent of violations committed by FARDC soldiers over the new year period.

In Fizi in South Kivu, at least 35 women had been raped and 32 people wounded by soldiers of the fourty-third FARDC Sector on the night of 1 January. Eleven people had been arrested and 14 shops had been looted in Fizi centre, a small town in Fizi territory. Those arrested had since been released, said Mr. Colville.

Eleven soldiers of the fourty-third FARDC Sector, including a Lt. Col. Kibibi Mutware and three majors suspected of being among the alleged authors of the violations, were currently detained in Uvira. Trials were expected to take place shortly.

In North Kivu, in the village of Bushani in Masisi territory, on the night of 31 December, FARDC soldiers had reportedly perpetrated at least 32 rapes, including of two pregnant women and one 16-year-old girl. They had also arbitrarily arrested 12 people, looted about 50 houses and submitted many villagers to inhuman and degrading treatment.

The Bushani attack ended at 3 p.m. on 1 January when the soldiers had reportedly received a radio call asking them to move towards Kailenge. On their way to Kailenge, at around 5 p.m., the FARDC soldiers also attacked Kalambairo village and looted dozens of houses and the local healthcare centre.

The mission to the North Kivu localities took place from 17 to 19 January.

The High Commissioner welcomed the prompt efforts of the authorities, with the support of MONUSCO, to investigate these crimes and arrest the alleged perpetrators.

OHCHR remained extremely concerned with the fact that the Congolese army remained responsible for a significant number of human rights violations, including sexual violence, against their own population. In the face of these atrocities, the High Commissioner called on the Government to consider establishing a vetting mechanism in the context of the security sector reform.

Haiti / Dominican Republic

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that new funds for IOM's counter-trafficking work in Haiti would allow the organization to continue providing direct assistance to victims and to carry out new research into the trafficking of minors in the sex industry in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The funding, which came through UNICEF and the US Department of State, would support a programme focusing on children drawn into the restavèk system of domestic slavery in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. IOM and its partners would work to raise awareness of the problem which originated in the countries’ heartland, partly through a mass communications programme involving radio messages.

Women and girls abused and exploited in the sex industry in Haiti would also be assisted. A research element focusing on identifying the main drivers of the sex trade involving Haitian and Dominican minors would provide urgently needed insight into the issue which had been largely unexplored.

It was expected that about 500 victims of trafficking across Hispaniola would be given direct assistance through this new funding including medical care, as well as psychosocial, nutritional, and educational support. IOM helped reintegrate victims into society with micro grants to the parents of trafficked minors and adult victims to provide livelihood options that would help lessen the risks of re-trafficking.

IOM, Lao PDR Launch Programme to Combat Tuberculosis Among Migrants, Ethnic Minorities

Mr. Bloch said that IOM and the Lao Ministry of Health's National TB Centre had launched a one-year project to combat tuberculosis among ethnic minorities and migrants in Savannakhet and Champasak provinces.

The project, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency through WHO's Stop TB Partnership, would target the inhabitants of ten remote districts. These districts were marked by the fact that they both had large ethnic minority populations and were the provinces of origin for thousands of Lao labour migrants travelling to Thailand. The project would help the National TB Centre to actively identify tuberculosis cases, to improve tuberculosis diagnostic capacity, and to implement public health communication and education campaigns to help local people to identify the disease and prevent its transmission.

UNCTAD Agenda

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said the programme of the 2011 Global Commodities Forum was available at the back of the room. The programme of the Forum -- the only forum where all commodity market stakeholders debated in an informal and open way -- included details of both the plenary session and the series of side events. More information would follow shortly on a press conference with participants.

Ms. Sibut-Pinote also said that the UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics 2010 was available in Room 1 and online. It could also be sent to journalists upon request.

UNISDR Agenda

Brigitte Leoni of the Secretariat of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) invited journalists to attend a briefing on the Third Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Reduction. Speaking at the press conference to take place on Thursday 27 January at 11. a.m. in Press Room 1 would be Neil McFarlane, UNISDR's Global Platform Coordinator, and Christoph Pusch, Team Leader for the World Bank Reconstruction Conference.

The Third Session of the Global Platform for Disaster Reduction would be held from 8 to 13 May in Geneva, gathering leaders, experts and practitioners committed to reducing risks and building the resilience of communities and nations. The event, that was expected to gather more than 2,000 participants, was very important as there had been many disasasters over the past two years and because many Governments now engaged in risk reduction.

This year was especially important. Not only because the President of the United Nations General Assembly had organized a roundtable discussion on risk reduction for the first time, to take place on 9 February, but also because the mid-term review of the Hyogo Framework took place this year.

OHCHR

Mr. Colville said a huge HIV ribbon consisting of lights had been placed on the face of the Palais Wilson, and posters had been mounted in Geneva ahead of an initiative to be launched Thursday and continuing until Valentine’s Day. Every 30 Swiss Franc contribution by SMS would light up one of the 350 LED tubes forming the ribbon and a single donation of 10,000 Swiss Francs would light up the entire ribbon. The aim was that the ribbon lit up as many times as possible by 14 February.

The funds raised would be split between UNHCR and the non-profit organization “Groupe sida Genève”, which worked to support people affected by HIV/AIDS in the Geneva area. The project had been made possible thanks to the Services Industriels de Genève, which had generously funded the construction and operation of the lights.

A press conference and a photo opportunity were scheduled for Thursday at 4.30 p.m. outside Palais Wilson. Attending will be Baronesse Nadine de Rothschild, the Deputy High Commissioner and representatives of the Groupe sida Genève.

Mr. Colville also introduced a third member of the OHCHR communications section, Ms. Ravina Shamdasani.