REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Alessandra Vellucci, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Human Rights Council, the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development, the UN Refugee Agency, the World Meteorological Organization, and the World Health Organization.

Sudan

Adrian Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency said that UNHCR condemned the deportation yesterday of over 300 Eritrean asylum-seekers and refugees by Sudan. The asylum-seekers and refugees were convicted on charges of illegal entry and movement within Sudan under national immigration laws. The group had been detained for several weeks in Dongola. The deportation took place despite an agreement between UNHCR and the Sudanese Commissioner for Refugees that the Eritreans would be transferred to Khartoum for joint screening. Such deportations of refugees and asylum-seekers amounted to refoulement.

Responding to a question, Mr. Edwards said that at the moment, an average 2,000 Eritreans entered Sudan every month. In May, over 30 Eritreans were deported and another group of 4 was forced back in July. UNHCR was concerned that these deportations were continuing.

Yemen

Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said OHCHR condemned in the strongest terms the reported killing of a number of largely peaceful protestors in Sana’a and Taiz in Yemen as a result of the indiscriminate use of force by Yemeni security forces since Saturday, 15 October. Hundreds were reportedly injured by this disproportionate use of force against unarmed protestors. OHCHR was extremely concerned that security forces continued to use excessive force in a climate of complete impunity for crimes resulting in heavy loss of life and injury, despite repeated pledges by the Government to the contrary. They reiterated their call for an international, independent and transparent investigation, for accountability and for justice. Those responsible for the hundreds of killings since the protest movement began in Yemen more than 8 months ago had to be prosecuted, regardless of rank or title. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Asked about the GCC proposal on granting amnesty to President Saleh if he stepped down, Mr. Colville said that OHCHR had not seen the proposal but that international law was pretty clear on this issue. It prohibited the use of amnesties that prevented the prosecution of individuals for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity or gross violations of human rights.


Southeast Asia Floods

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the situation remained critical as heavy monsoonal rains were affecting the relief efforts in Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam and preventing aid from reaching tens of thousands of people in the affected countries. More than 700 people had been killed because of the floods and 8 million people were affected. Governments were organizing responses at the national level, and the United Nations was also ready to help if requested. A United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team was on standby. A CERF request for Cambodia had been submitted. Bilateral aid was being organized and non-governmental organizations and the national Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations were providing relief assistance. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Horn of Africa

Elizabeth Byrs of OCHA also said that in the Horn of Africa, the October to December rains had started in the region and would provide much needed relief for many areas affected by dryness. However, the rainfall might not be well-distributed. The south of Somalia had seen little to no rainfall which was expected to exacerbate the drought, result in unfavourable conditions for upcoming cropping activities and further deplete water resources. At the same time, torrential rain had hit drought displaced families living in camps in Mogadishu. In Somalia, 4 million people remained in crisis, including 1.8 million in humanitarian emergency and 830,000 in an acute food and livelihood crisis.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Asked about the visit by Valerie Amos, United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator and Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Ms. Byrs said that she started her mission on 17 October and would remain there until 21 October. Ms Byrs would inform journalists when she had more details, and she would send journalists the media advisory.

Report on Asylum Trends

Adrian Edwards of the UN Refugee Agency said that UNHCR was today releasing a new report on asylum trends in industrialized countries during the first half of this year. The report said that industrialized countries saw a 17 per cent increase in asylum claims in the first half of this year, with Afghans continuing to be the largest group by country of origin. The report noted relatively modest numbers of people fleeing Africa to Europe despite the succession of displacement crisis seen in west, north and east Africa this year. The report was available online and there was a press release at the back of the room.

Joint Statement on Scaling-up the Community-based Health Workforce for Emergencies

Tarik Jasarevic of the World Health Organization said that the Organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Global Health Workforce Alliance, the United Nations Refugee Agency and the United Nations Children’s Fund were making a joint statement on scaling-up the community-based health workforce for emergencies. The statement was available at the back of the room as well as an invitation to an event on Thursday, 20 October at 3 p.m. at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies where high-level representatives of these agencies would talk about this issue. The community-based health workforce played a vital role in building local resilience to disasters and should be scaled-up to protect public health from the increasing number of emergencies around the world. This statement highlighted the vital role of community health workers and called on Governments and all partners to invest in strengthening their capacity.

UNCTAD

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development said that at noon today, UNCTAD would be holding a press conference in press room I for the main launch of the Information Economy Report 2011- ICTs as an Enabler for Private Sector Development. Presenting the report would be Petko Draganov, UNCTAD’s Deputy Secretary-General and press kits would be available. There would be 13 other press launches around the world. The report was available online and was embargoed until 19/10/2011 at 5 p.m. GMT.

Ms. Sibut-Pinote said journalists had received yesterday the figures on UNCTAD's seventh Global Investment Trend Monitor. It was under embargo until this evening.

Human Rights Council

Rolando Gomez of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that as mentioned by his predecessor Cedric Sapey last week, the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review Working Group had concluded the last review and adopted the batch of reports for the last session with the adoption of the report of Haiti yesterday. The Working Group had thus completed the first four-year cycle of reviews during which the 193 Member States had been reviewed by the UPR mechanism. These 193 States included South Sudan, which became a member during the cycle. At the close of the session, the President of the Council, Laura Dupuy Lasserre, remarked that from the point of view of the UN membership, the UPR review process was now truly universal. She said the challenge of the second UPR cycle would be to uphold the expectations raised by the UPR in terms of improvement of the human rights situation on the ground. The second cycle of the UPR would begin with the next session of the UPR Working Group, its thirteenth, scheduled to take place from 21 May to 4 June next year.

Mr. Gomez said the Council would briefly open and close its suspended eighteenth regular session, which closed on 30 September, to hold a short meeting on Friday 21 October to appoint the new Special Rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance; the new Special Rapporteur would replace Githu Muigai of Kenya who recently stepped down from the position, having served as Rapporteur since August 2008. The President would make the appointment choosing from a list of three candidates.

World Meteorological Organization

Claire Nullis of the World Meteorological Organization said the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification was currently holding its tenth conference of the parties in the Republic of Korea. WMO’s Secretary-General Michel Jarraud was giving an address there, probably now as they spoke, outlining the need to do more on drought management and against desertification. There was a press release at the back of the room. Many nations had effective disaster reduction strategies for floods and tropical cyclones, but this did not apply to droughts, which continued to be dealt with in a reactive crisis driven way. In order to prevent repeat occurrences of the humanitarian tragedy such as those afflicting the Horn of Africa, there really was a need for integrated drought policies. WMO was doing a lot of this subject and drought was one of the focal areas of the global framework on climate services that they were currently working on.

Ms. Nullis said that next week there would be a big conference in Denver with 1,600 of the world’s leading climate scientists, which would focus on extreme events and improving forecasting methods. At 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 19 October in press room 1, the Director of the World Climate Research Programme - which was convening this conference - would brief journalists about some of the themes that would be discussed in Denver.

Press conferences

Ms. Vellucci said that a number of interesting press conferences would be held this week, including one by the International Labour Organization at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 19 October in Salle III on Global Employment Trends for Youth (GET Youth) - An update. Speaking would be José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Director of the Employment Sector and a number of other employment experts. Another press conference would be given by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at 12:30 p.m. on 19 October in Salle III on the situation in Côte d’Ivoire. Speaking would be Ndolamb Ngokwey, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Côte d'Ivoire, Gilbert Kafana Koné, Minister of Employment, Social Affairs and Solidarity of Cote d’Ivoire, and other experts.

Other

Alessandra Vellucci, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the Information Service in Geneva, said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was still in Geneva this morning. He was at this moment addressing the Executive Committee of the Economic Commission for Europe at the Palais des Nations, and he would be leaving Geneva at the end of the morning.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was meeting in private this week until their closing meeting on Friday, 21 October in the afternoon.
The Committee’s concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Oman, Paraguay, Montenegro, Mauritius, Lesotho, Chad, Kuwait and Côte d’Ivoire, which it had reviewed during the session, were usually made available the week after the closing of the session.

The Human Rights Committee opened its one hundred and third session yesterday morning and in the afternoon it started its review of the periodic report of Iran at the Palais des Nations. It would be concluding its review of Iran at 1 p.m. today, and would then move back to the Palais Wilson where it would review the reports of Jamaica, Kuwait and Norway and the situation of human rights in Malawi in the absence of a report. [Journalists were later informed that the review of the report of Iran had been extended from 3 to 5 p.m. this afternoon.]

Addressing a remark from one of the journalists about the participation of Geneva-based spokespersons in the bi-weekly press briefings, Ms. Vellucci confirmed that every effort was made by the agencies to participate.