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 report on the demolitions in Zimbabwe, human rights meetings in Geneva, activities of the Director-General, upcoming press conferences and other issues. Spokespersons for the World Health Organization, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Trade Organization, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme, and the World Intellectual Property Organization addressed the briefing.

Report on Demolitions in Zimbabwe

Mrs. Heuzé said that the report on the demolitions in Zimbabwe which was drafted by the Secretary-General's Special Envoy Anna Tibaijuka, the Executive Director of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), after a two-week fact-finding mission to that country, would be made public this afternoon. Ms. Tibaijuka would hold a press conference in New York today to speak about the report.

Human Rights Meetings in Geneva

Mrs. Heuzé said that there were a number of human rights meetings taking place in Geneva next week. The three-week fifty-seventh session of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights would be opening on Monday, 25 July, and would last until 12 August. Copies of the background press release were available in the press room in English and in French. She recalled that the Sub-Commission was the Commission on Human Rights' principal subsidiary organ. It was made up of 26 independent human rights Experts from five regional groups who were elected for four-year periods.

The Sub-Commission's Working Group on indigenous populations was concluding its one-week meeting today. Copies of the statement delivered by Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, at the cultural event held yesterday to mark the International Day of the World's Indigenous People were available in the press room. The theme of the Working Group this year was "Indigenous peoples and the international and domestic protection of traditional knowledge".

The Social Forum, one of the initiatives of the Sub-Commission, was meeting today in Salle XVII on its second and last day. The theme of this year's session was "Poverty and economic growth: challenges to human rights". The Social Forum was holding two round tables today, the first on methods and instruments of accountability and the second during which the Social Forum to present its conclusions and recommendations. A number of documents on the Social Forum were available.

The Human Rights Committee was continuing its three-week session. The Committee had already examined the reports of Yemen, Tajikistan, Slovenia, Syria and Thailand and it would issue its final conclusions on the reports towards the end of the session on 29 July. The Committee was meeting in private today and most of next week.

The second part of the fifty-seventh session of the International Law Seminar was continuing its meetings in private. The International Law Seminar was made up of 34 members who were elected by the General Assembly for five-year periods. The Director said that the list of names of the members was available and journalists who were interested in asking about a number of international law issues, including human rights and reform questions, could ask the Information Service to set up interviews with them.

Activities of the Director-General

Mrs. Heuzé said Sergei Ordzhinikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, would be going to New York next week to attend the Sixth High-Level Meeting with Regional and Other Intergovernmental Organizations. The meeting would be held at Headquarters and would be chaired by the Secretary-General. The theme of the meeting this year was "United Nations-Regional Organizations Partnership for a More Secure World".

Upcoming Press Conferences

Mrs. Heuzé said there were two interesting press conferences being held today. The first would be held at 11:30 a.m., immediately following the briefing, by Jan Egeland, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the Emergency Relief Coordinator. The second was a press conference organized by the World Health Organization at 2 p.m.

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said the speaker at the press conference would be Margaret Chan, Representative of the WHO Director-General for Pandemic Influenza, and the Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases, Alert and Action. It would be a good opportunity for the press to meet her and learn about her work.


Human Rights

David Chikvaidze, Media Liaison for the Commission on Human Rights and the Treaty Bodies, said the Human Rights Committee was in the process of adopting concluding observations. Yesterday afternoon, the concluding observations on Yemen were adopted, and this morning, the Committee would be adopting its concluding observations on Tajikistan.

On Monday, 25 July, High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour would address the opening of the fifty-seventh session of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. The Chair of the Commission on Human Rights would also speak at the opening of the Sub-Commission. On Tuesday, 26 July, the Expanded Bureau of the Commission would meet with the members of the Sub-Commission.

Asked when the concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee would be issued, Mr. Chikvaidze said that normally, all the concluding observations were bunched together for the final press conference and were normally first sent to the Member State in question and then released to the press. He would put the question to the Chairperson of the Committee, Ms. Chanet. He would get back to the journalist.

A journalist requested information about the statement by High Commissioner Arbour on the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler. He was not aware of a press release on this, and had heard about it from an NGO. Mr. Chikvaidze said that for two reasons, he preferred to hand over this question to his colleague Mr. Diaz: the first reason was that he was not aware of such a statement and, secondly, according to the division of labour between himself and Mr. Diaz, it was the latter who handled all issues having to do with the High Commissioner.

Mrs. Heuzé wondered if the High Commissioner had given this statement to a journalist, because she had neither heard nor seen anything about it. She noted afterwards that this was a letter addressed by the High Commissioner to a non-governmental organization.

José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, concerning the question on a press release by a non-governmental organization regarding comments made by Mr. Ziegler, that the High Commissioner had responded to the NGO in the form of a letter, not a statement. She had reaffirmed that the independence of the mandate holders such as the Special Rapporteurs and the different mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights was one of the most important features of the system of special procedures. The High Commissioner said Mr. Ziegler had informed her that when he had made his comments he was participating in a demonstration in his personal capacity. Nonetheless, the High Commissioner disassociated herself from any reference to concentration camps in such circumstances, as it was inevitably evocative of Nazi Germany and, in her view, inflammatory. That was the substance of her response to the NGO.

Continuing with the High Commissioner, Mr. Díaz said that next Tuesday, 26 July, at 11 a.m. during the regular press briefing, Ms. Arbour would speak to journalists. It was now one year since the High Commissioner had taken up her post in Geneva. She would speak about that and about her recent initiatives and travels.

A journalist asked for a copy of the letter of the High Commissioner to the NGO, UN Watch. Mr. Díaz said the Office was not releasing the letter, and that he had just spoken about the substance of the letter. If the NGO wished to release the letter, it was up to them.

Other

Lucie Giraud of the World Trade Organization said next week would be very busy at WTO as it was the last week before the summer break. The Committee on Commercial Negotiations had suspended its work yesterday and it would resume next week, although the exact timing had not been set.

On Monday, Ms. Giraud said, the rules (regional trade agreements) negotiating group was meeting, as was the Trade Facilitation Negotiating Group (also on Tuesday) and the Trade and development negotiations (committee "special session"). The Egypt: trade policy review would be held on Tuesday, 26 July (also on Thursday). The Regional Trade Agreements Committee and the Agriculture negotiations would also be held on Tuesday. On Wednesday, 27 July, the General Council would meet (also on Friday). This would be the last meeting of Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi as WTO's Director-General.

Ron Redmond of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said now that the school year had ended in refugee camps in western Tanzania, there was a dramatic increase in the number of Congolese refugees returning on their own, without the assistance of UNHCR, to the South Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Returning refugees said that they had waited for their children to finish the school year in the camps, and now they wanted to get home and register their children for schools in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They also said that now, during the dry season, was a good time to rebuild their homes, most of which were destroyed in fighting since 1996. There were 153,000 Congolese in refugee camps in Tanzania. UNHCR still did not view circumstances in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo as conducive to return, and would not encourage refugees to leave their countries of asylum. But it would help those who insisted on going back.

Mr. Redmond said that concerning UNHCR's relocation operation for 10,000 Central African Republic refugees in southern Chad, as of yesterday, 2,200 persons had been moved away from the border where UNHCR could better provide protection and assistance. The operation was continuing before seasonal rains cut the refugees off from help along the border. The rains were already slowing down the operation.

Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme said WFP was concerned about food shortages in Bahr el Ghazal in southern Sudan and across the central belt of Sudan. Assessments held in April across Bahr el Ghazal showed that the nutrition situation was worsening for different reasons, including a poor harvest in 2004; high prices for basic staples; and a great influx of returnees to this region. WFP had revised its operation and its requirements for Bahr el Ghazal by 36 per cent. Last month, WFP managed to distribute food to 274,000 people in Bahr el Ghazal, and this month, it was trying to reach 520,000. Overall, there would be 68,000 tons of food distributed this year in Bahr el Ghazal region. This of course included a contingency for continued returns of refugees to this region. The central belt of Sudan was another region of concern. WFP's work in Bahr el Ghazal had been hampered by funding shortages.

In Niger, which was going through its worst food crisis in 15 years, Mr. Pluess said that response was gradually building up. In the past 72 hours, Niger had received more requests from donors that in the past year or two. As it now stood, 32 per cent of WFP's urgently needed $ 16 million to help 1.2 million persons in Niger was ensured. The onset of the rainy season had made conditions deteriorate rapidly, with extreme food insecurity now widespread in the affected areas. In addition to the food shortage, there was also a critical lack of pasture and cattle that were dying away.

Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration said that a group of 5,000 internally displaced people trekking to their homes in southern Sudan were within 70 kilometres of their final destination but a lack of food was hampering their progress. The group had been on the road for three months, going through difficult terrain which had already delayed their progress by several weeks. WFP had been trying to organize an air food drop but had been unable to get its food monitors on the ground so far.

Ms. Pandya said a baseline research begun by IOM on human trafficking in East Africa was expected to help Governments in the region incorporate counter-trafficking policies into national legislation. The nine-month research programme would be carried out in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi, countries that were either not signatories to the 2003 UN Trafficking in Persons Protocol, or had not ratified it. There was little or no accurate data on human trafficking in East Africa.

Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization said the Intersessional Inter-governmental Meeting on the Development Agenda for WIPO was wrapping up its third and last meeting before the General Assembly. A briefing on the results would be held early next week

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