REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which provided information on the Secretary-General's activities prior to his attendance at the G8 Summit, Uzbek asylum seekers and a seized WFP ship off the coast of Somalia, among other things. Spokespersons of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Inter-Agency Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children's Fund the World Trade Organization and the International Organization for Migration, participated in the briefing. The Spokesperson of the Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs was present at the briefing but did not make an announcement.

Secretary-General

Mrs. Heuzé announced that Secretary-General Kofi Annan was in Edinburgh, Scotland yesterday where he delivered an address on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. In his address, he focused on, in particular, the health objectives outlined in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Mr. Annan said one million additional health workers would be needed in Africa alone in order for the MDGs to be met. The Secretary-General will be attending the G8 Summit at Gleneagles being held from 7 to 8 July. In that connection, copies of the letter addressed by the Secretary-General to the Heads of State and Government of the G8 were made available.

Director-General

The Director indicated that the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, will take part in a series of talks tomorrow in Lucerne, Switzerland, to mark the twentieth birthday of the perestroika.

Mrs. Heuzé also drew attention to the statement made yesterday by the Director-General in honor of former Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden marking the 100th year of his birth.

Activities in Geneva

Mrs. Heuzé announced that a press release on yesterday's plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in English and French was available.

Another press release was available on the conclusion of the 56th session of the Governing Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission.

The Director announced that the Second part of the International Law Commission will be meeting in Geneva from 11 July to 5 August.

The Director also announced that the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories today completed its mission to Egypt which began on 25 June. The Committee is now scheduled to visit Jordan from 1 to 5 July and Syria from 5 to 9 July. The Committee is composed of representatives from Sri Lanka, which takes the presidency, Malaysia and Senegal. A press release was made available on the subject.

Mrs. Heuzé announced that the United Nations Conference on Tropical Timber (UNCTAD), which began on Monday, ended today without results. The Conference was negotiating for an agreement intended to succeed the International Agreement of 1994 on Tropical Timber. Due to the lack of a new agreement, the 1994 International Agreement will remain in force until 2006. Correspondents were requested to contact Catherine Sibut-Pinote, of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, for further information.

Human Rights

José Luis Díaz of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights announced that the Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia, Doudou Diène, will visit Japan from 3 to 12 July 2005 at the invitation of the Government. He will visit Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo and the island of Hokkaido to look into, in particular, the situation of minority groups such as the Buraku, the Korean and Chinese communities and the Ainu indigenous people from Hokkaido.

Other

Ron Redmond of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced that the UNHCR was holding an urgent meeting today in Geneva in an attempt to find some emergency resettlement destinations for some 450 Uzbek asylum seekers in Kyrgyzstan. The meeting was called after Assistant High Commissioner Kamel Morjane, returning from a visit from Kyrgyzstan earlier this week, said that emergency resettlement was needed to protect the group. The Assistant High Commissioner said emergency resettlement was needed because it was not possible to guarantee the security of the asylum seekers in Kyrgyzstan, which was coming under pressure from its much larger neighbor, Uzbekistan, to return the group.

Concerning Colombia, Mr., Redmond said UNHCR was deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis currently unfolding on the border between Colombia and Ecuador, specifically in the municipality of Ricaurte in Nariño Province, where more than 1,200 indigenous people belonging to the Awá indigenous groups have been forced to leave their homes in recent days as a result of heavy fighting between irregular armed groups and the Colombian military. Today, about 29 Awá families (some 166 people) have crossed into Ecuadorian territory. UNHCR had offices on both sides of the border and was monitoring the situation closely.

In Pakistan, Mr. Redmond announced that on Thursday UNHCR completed registering Afghans who wished to repatriate because of the closure of refugee camps in the troubled North Waziristan region of Pakistan. At least 85 per cent of the camp population had chosen to return to Afghanistan rather than re-locate in other camps in Pakistan.

Christine Berthiaume of the World Food Programme recalled that a WFP boat, which departed from the Kenyan port of Mombassa on 23 June for Bossao in the Pundtland region of Somalia, was seized on Monday 27 June. It was intercepted between Haradhere and Hobyo, nearly 300 km northeast of Mogadishu. The boat had ten crewmembers on board and was transporting 850 tons of rice intended for some 28,000 Somali victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami for a one to two month period. The boat was seized some 60 km off the coast and was now approximately 5 km off the coast. The WFP has appealed to local authorities to help them impress upon the "pirates" that the food was intended for humanitarian purposes. The company hiring the boat - the MV Semlow - indicated that the "pirates" were asking for a ransom of 500,000 USD.

On Angola, Ms. Berthiaume said since April 2004 WFP has only been able to distribute 50 per cent of the corn rations intended for thousands of Angolan refugees and displaced persons. For July, WFP will only be able to assist some 800,000 people compared to the one million it assisted in Angola in June. According to estimates, this years' harvest will be 784,000 tons, that is to say an increase of 10 per cent compared to last year. Nevertheless, Angola will have to import nearly 800,000 tons of cereals. WFP needs 17 million USD to provide assistance to this population through the end of the year. Without new contributions, WFP will have to make additional cuts in food rations.

In response to a question about the nutritional status of children in Niger, Damien Personnaz of UNICEF said due to the drought and the invasion of locusts, nearly 300,000 children less than five years of age suffered from acute malnutrition. Before these new phenomena struck, nearly 150,000 children suffered from malnutrition. Overall, nearly 650,000 children lived with chronic malnutrition in Niger.

Brigitte Leone of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction announced that the Third International Conference on Early Warning will take place in Bonn form 27 to 29 March 2006. The Conference, hosted by the German Government and under the auspices of the ISDR, will bring together practitioners and experts in disaster risk reduction and early warning, and of the scientific community to discuss early warning and preparedness in preventing hazardous events from turning into disasters which was discussed at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan earlier this year. The first two early warning conferences took place in Potsdam (1998) and Bonn (2003).

Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Organization made mention of a report on the trafficking and exploitation of Chinese immigrants in France. The study was presented a week ago in Paris and was conducted in collaboration with the French authorities, including les services de renseignements français, the migrants themselves, as well as those currently in prison for carrying out acts of human trafficking.

Jemina Pandya of the International Organization for Migration drew attention to the new Global Survey of Data and Research on Human Trafficking prepared by the IOM. The report gives an overview of trafficking trends and root causes in all regions of the world. The research focuses particularly on the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation. The report also presents for the first time a regional overview of trafficking trends.

Ms. Pandya also announced that IOM had launched a web-based archive containing resources on migration related information in the Middle East. The purpose of this "e-library" on migration resources was to contribute to the overall understanding of migration in the Middle East and to improve access to migration resources. The e-library could be accessed online at www.egypt.iom.int/eLib.

Lucie Giraud of the World Trade organization announced the upcoming schedule of meetings taking place at the WTO next week, among them: Agricultural negotiations from Monday to Wednesday, 4 to 6 July; Trade, Debt and Finance Working Group on Monday, 4 July at 10 a.m.; and Trade and Environment negotiations on Thursday and Friday, 7 and 8 July. She also announced that the Director-General of the WTO, Supachai Panitchpakdi, will be attending the G8 Summit at Gleneagles on 7 July and will be speaking at a conference in Edinburgh the day before entitled "Raising Living Standards in Africa: A Role for the G8" organized by the German Marshall Fund and the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa.