REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which provided information about the Secretary-General’s upcoming visit to Niger, the investigation of the death of Sudanese Vice-President John Garang, in which the United Nations would participate, and human rights in Afghanistan. Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Meteorological Organization, UNICEF, the Office of the Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, the International Organization for Migration and the World Bank also spoke.

Secretary-General

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that Secretary-General Kofi Annan would begin today a 2-day visit to Niger, which was struck by a grave food crisis in order to express his solidarity to the Government of the country and to draw the attention of the international community to the challenges that the countries of the Sahel faced with regards to development. The Secretary-General was working to raise awareness among the international community of the need to fulfill the appeal for funding that had been launched. Niger, she said, was the second poorest country in the world, and the late response of the donors to the request for funds to remedy the crisis had only made it worse and caused a spectacular growth in costs.

Sudan

The Government of Sudan had asked the United Nations to help with the investigation into the helicopter crash in which the Sudanese Vice-President John Garang met his death on 30 July 2005. The United Nations Mission in Sudan will provide transportation and other logistical support for the investigation, to which the International Organization of Civil Aviation would also contribute.

Afghanistan

A report, jointly established by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, notes positive recent developments in the political process in that country, including inscriptions on voter lists. The report also underlines the alarming increase in violent attacks against candidates, election staff, civic educators and community leaders which seriously endangered the peace process.

Activities in New York

On 25 August 2005, the “Report on the World Social Situation 2005: The Inequality Predicament” would be launched. This report was embargoed until that date, 5 p.m. Geneva time. The report was very long, containing 172 pages, and was available on www.un.org/esa/soc, said Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier.

Activities in Geneva

In Geneva, on 25 August 2005, there would be a plenary session of the Conference on Disarmament, although there were currently no speakers on the list.

Questions
Responding to a question on how the late response could cause an increase in costs, the case of Niger was typical. The United Nations had launched a preventive appeal at the beginning of the year for over 4 million USD in order to provide aid to 460,000 people. International opinion and donor countries had been warned in November 2004 of the situation regarding the drought and the invasion of locusts, and the probable results, with the hope of preventing the situation from getting worse and becoming a crisis. However, the first contributions, which were somewhat timid, had arrived in May. The result today was that the situation had got much worse with 2.6 million people needing help, and the United Nations had had to launch an appeal for 53.7 million USD. When a crisis situation had got worse, of course the cost to remedy it increased, and the current situation was such that food aid, in particular a corn-soya blend, was being flown in to Niger from an emergency warehouse centre in Brindisi, which was very expensive, but in the context, which was a fight against time, this was the only solution.

Human Rights

Jose-Luis Diaz, Spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the Special Rapporteur on torture, Manfred Novak had issued a statement today that the plan of the United Kingdom Government to seek assurances from a number of countries that people deported or returned by the United Kingdom to those countries would not be tortured were inadequate. Mr. Novak said that he feared that the plans of the United Kingdom to request the so-called diplomatic assurances for the purpose of expelling persons in spite of the risk of torture reflected a tendency in Europe to circumvent the international obligations not to deport anybody if there was a serious risk that he or she might be subjected to torture. The Special Rapporteur called upon Governments to observe the principle of non-refoulement scrupulously and not to expel any persons to frontiers or territories where they ran a serious risk of torture and ill-treatment. These were the famous, or now infamous, diplomatic assurances that the Committee against Torture had condemned a few weeks ago in a case which it had adjudicated, namely that of Agiza v. Sweden.

Mr. Novak would be visiting China from 21 November to 2 December 2005, Mr. Diaz said. The dates for this visit had finally been decided, and a statement would be issued. Also regarding China, he recalled that the High Commissioner, Louise Arbour, would be going to Beijing from 29 August to 2 September 2005, and a detailed note would be available shortly on that visit.

In response to a question, Mr. Diaz confirmed that these two visits were not directly related. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had a program of technical cooperation with the Government of China which had been ongoing for a few years and had been renewed periodically. One of the objectives of the High Commissioner's visit was to renew this agreement. In response to another question on whether Mr. Novak had been given guarantees as to whether he would be able to visit places of detention, Mr. Diaz responded that it was part of the standard request of Special Rapporteurs when they visited countries. It did not say so specifically in Mr. Novak’s statement, but Mr. Diaz assumed that it had been guaranteed to him. He also noted in response to a further question that this was Ms. Arbour’s first visit to China.

Rupert Collville, of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in response to a question on the Special Rapporteur and whether he was concerned regarding the United Kingdom’s policies regarding deportations, said it depended on who was being deported. If it was a failed asylum-seeker, then it fell squarely into the High Commissioner’s for Human Rights bailiwick, and not UNHCR. If it was somebody who was still within the asylum system, or a recognized refugee, then it was a different matter and was within UNHCR’s concern. On whether there were any particular concerns regarding these policies, he repeated that there was concern if the people involved were refugees.

Other

Carine Richard Van Maele of the World Meteorological Organisation presented G. Braathen of Norway, who was going to present a bi-monthly briefing on the situation of the ozone hole above the Antarctic, the first of which was held today, with documentation available in the press room. The current estimate of the situation of the ozone hole, Mr. Braathen said, was expected to be about average over the season, but it was too early to say definitely. He also pointed out, in response to a question, that there was no immediate link between the Antarctic ozone hole and extreme weather events.

Ms. Richard Van Maele also noted that 16 December was to be Ozone Day, and 21 September was the twenty-first anniversary of the Vienna Convention for the protection of the ozone layer, and a press conference would be organised in that regard. A new Press Officer from the WMO, Marc Oliver, was also introduced at the briefing.

Speaking for UNICEF, Angela Hawke, Communications Officer for UNICEF’s Central and Eastern Europe Commonwealth of Independent States, said that as part of the first anniversary of the Beslan siege, an exhibition was going to open at the Beslan Cultural Centre on Friday of photos taken by a group of children and young people. A media package was available.

Elizabeth Byrs, Office of the Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, said regarding the flooding in Sierra Leone on 13-14 August 2005, an inter-agency evaluation mission had been sent to assess the situation, but it had not been able to visit every area as roads were cut off and some villages completely isolated. The flooding had taken place mostly in the south of the country, 300 kilometres south from Freetown. There were no current mortality figures, nor any figures for how many people were affected. The evaluation mission had noted at least 3,000 people had been affected in the zone that it had been able to visit, but figures would not be available for a while.

Current concerns, Ms. Byrs said, were for sicknesses linked to the lack of drinking water, and a potential cholera epidemic. It was therefore urgent for action to be taken with regards to water and sewage. There were also food and shelter needs. The World Food Program, UNICEF, WHO and UNHCR were currently distributing primary aid. The Sierra Leone Red Cross had limited reserves, and there was concern that they might be exhausted, and therefore it was urgent to restock these reserves.

There had also been flooding in Europe, and OCHA was keeping an eye on the situation, as it was in the Central African Republic, where there had also been flooding. More information would be available tomorrow.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy, for the International Organization for Migration, said a new report was being launched today in Bangkok jointly between the United Nations and the OIM on migration dynamics in Thailand. The report was the first to present a full panorama of migrations both from and towards Thailand. The Thai economy had largely contributed towards making the country attractive to migrants from the sub-region, and had made it a significant destination country. The report made several recommendations, including a cheaper and simpler way to issue work permits, better information about their rights which were regularly violated; improved application of legislative measures to fight trafficking in persons; and HIV/AIDS awareness programs.

Regarding Central America, Mr. Chauzy said that an IOM-administered fund was helping an increasing number of irregular migrants, mainly from Honduras and El Salvador, traveling north through Mexico, and who were in great distress. The fund, which was a pilot project, had already helped about 60 migrants who had been victims of violence or accidents. A considerable number of migrants transited through Mexico and were the victims of gangs, or were seriously hurt whilst transiting through Mexico. An International Conference on Preventing Human Trafficking was also taking place in Colombia and, in Georgia, the IOM had launched a website to provide information to people planning to migrate and who could be potential trafficking victims.

Patrick Reichenmiller, a Policy Officer with the World Bank in Geneva, said the World Bank was today releasing a report on pensions in North Africa and the Middle East. The report was based on a comprehensive assessment of pension systems in thirteen countries, and one of the key findings was that it dispelled the myth that pension systems that were in crisis were linked to ageing populations, and took an in-depth look at the structural problems that a lot of the pension systems faced, and called upon countries in the region to reform their system in order to be sustainable for longer. A press release was available.

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier also made an announcement on behalf of UNCTAD, which will be holding a conference on 25 August 2005 at the Palais des Nations on its assistance to Palestine. That same day, a report would be published on UNCTAD’s assistance to the Palestinian people, which recommends the creation of institutions that would answer to the needs of a future Palestinian state, rather than searching to reform the transition Government. The report also indicated that the revival of the Palestinian economy necessitated not only the reinforcement of production and exchange, but also the fight against poverty. It recommends that the Palestinian Authority should follow an approach to trade that should be angled towards development, rather than an approach to development that was angled towards trade, and this via staggered and progressive liberalization measures.

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