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 was also attended by Spokespersons for the Human Rights Council, the UN Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration, the World Health Organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization.

Secretary-General Condemns Attacks on Somali Government

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned the continuing armed attacks against Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government. This campaign of violence was aimed at the forceful overthrow of a legitimate government which had reached out to its opponents in a spirit of reconciliation, through an 'open door' policy and negotiations. The Secretary-General was deeply concerned about the growing numbers of civilians killed, wounded and displaced as a result of these attacks. A copy of the Secretary-General’s statement was available in the press room.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Conference on Disarmament was this morning holding a plenary, the last under the presidency of Algeria. The Conference had also met in plenary yesterday and heard more support for the latest draft programme of work presented by the President of the Conference. Later during the briefing, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier announced that the Conference had adopted document CD/1863 which included the draft programme of work for the Conference for 2009. A press release would be issued as soon as the meeting concluded.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child was continuing its work at the Palais Wilson. Today, it was reviewing the initial reports of Slovenia under the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on children and armed conflict, and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

Willi Lemke, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sports and Development, would embark on a 10-day Middle East tour on Monday, 1 June, where he would pursue his use of sports to promote development projects and peace, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said. His first stop would be Qatar, followed by Bahrain. He would conclude his visit in Jordan.

Eleventh Regular Session of Human Rights Council

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the eleventh regular session of the Human Rights Council will be held from 2 to 18 June in Room XX.

Rolando Gomez of the Human Rights Council said the eleventh regular session of the Human Rights Council will be held in the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room, Room XX, from 2 to 18 June. It has a very busy schedule, which was outlined in the background press release and the draft programme of work which had been sent to journalists, including the review of more than 13 reports from its Special Procedures. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay will present a progress report to the Council on Wednesday, 3 June in the afternoon.

Mr. Gomez said there will be three panel discussions, on women’s human rights, on the arrangements and modalities of panels organized by the Human Rights Council, and on human rights and climate change. The Council will also consider the final outcome of the Universal Periodic Review for Germany, Djibouti, Canada, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Russian Federation, Senegal, China, Nigeria, Mexico, Mauritius, Jordan and Malaysia.

Other issues to be discussed included follow-up to the Special Session held on the Gaza Strip in January and the report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan.

In conclusion, Mr. Gomez said the eleventh regular session will be immediately followed by an organizational meeting of the Human Rights Council on 19 June to mark the beginning of the fourth year of the Council. At this meeting, the new composition of the 47-member Council, following the General Assembly elections on 13 May, will assume its role. The Council will also elect its new Bureau members and consider its agenda, programme of work and calendar of regular sessions for the year.

At this point, only one press conference by a Special Procedure had been set up, at 11 a.m. on 3 June by the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers. But others were sure to follow.

Asked about the fact-finding mission to be going to Gaza, Mr. Gomez recalled that Justice Goldstone had chosen to handle his own communications on this point. The mission was leaving over the weekend and would be in the region next week. In response to another question, he said Justice Goldstone had said he had written repeatedly to the Israeli Government and he hoped to receive a positive response.

Pakistan

Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency said as the humanitarian situation continued in north-west Pakistan, UNHCR this week stepped up its assistance to displaced people living outside of camps with the local community, where the vast majority of the uprooted people were staying. In partnership with UNHCR’s sister agency UN-HABITAT, they were providing shelter supplies to some of the most vulnerable families in Mardan and Swabi districts of the North West Frontier Province. Distribution began this week of the first batch of 5,000 tents for the most vulnerable families identified by UN-HABITAT in the two districts. Many local families had seen their households double or triple overnight as they provided refuge to the displaced. Meanwhile, UN-HABITAT was also providing hygiene kits and latrines to households, supporting minor repairs to shelters and boundary walls, and helping with the emergency repair of community facilities such as hand pumps and sanitation in local mosques. At humanitarian hubs in Mardan and Swabi districts, UNHCR was also distributing other relief supplies such as plastic mats, buckets, jerry cans and kitchen sets to displaced people staying with host families through a local NGO partner. At the same time, people were receiving food rations from the World Food Programme. UNHCR was also providing assistance to displaced people staying in schools in the Mardan and Swabi districts.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said IOM was deploying two Rapid Response Teams to assess and respond to the needs of families displaced by military operations in Swat, Buner and Dir in Pakistan and who were living in out-of-camp settlements. According to authorities, only 20 per cent of displaced families were living in camps with the remaining 80 per cent living with relatives or friends, in public or private buildings, community guesthouses, rental accommodation or in spontaneous informal settlements. The teams, which would be deployed early next week, would carry out need assessments, provide technical assistance for shelter support, collect and coordinate information with humanitarian partners and help distribute relief goods to vulnerable displaced families. There were more details in the briefing notes about IOM’s distribution of aid to the displaced.

Paul Garwood of the World Health Organization said huge amounts of displaced people faced major health risks, including risk of communicable disease outbreaks due to inadequate shelter, physical and mental stress, inadequate water, sanitation and hygienic conditions, exposure to extreme weather, low vaccination coverage and inadequate provision of healthcare. If there was no proper and timely assistance provided, the morbidity and mortality rates would certainly increase. Among the main health indicators, they were seeing at present was acute upper respiratory track infections, accounting for 23 per cent of medical consultations; acute diarrhea, accounting for 12 per cent for consultations for all age groups, and for children under five, it accounted for 23 per cent of total consultations. More details were available.

Florian Westphal of the International Committee of the Red Cross said ICRC and the Pakistani Red Crescent Society had decided to step up their response to this crisis of internally displaced persons in North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. They were currently working on the plans of what exactly they would be doing, but the joint operation could reach possibly up to half a million internally displaced persons, both living in camps and those staying with host families or in other accommodation. Currently, ICRC and the Pakistan Red Crescent were supporting about 120,000 internally displaced persons, mainly in camps but also with host families. To do this, ICRC had activated its emergency response mechanism. This meant that as a first step, it would send additional international staff to Pakistan over the next few days to reinforce the team that was currently there of around 100 international staff and 700 Pakistani colleagues. ICRC was extremely concerned about those civilians who were left behind, or who remained in the areas worst affected by the fighting. From what they were hearing from there, there was no running water or electricity, and the district hospital had closed down which meant there was little healthcare available. ICRC was continuing its attempts to access that area as quickly as possible, security conditions permitting.

Somalia

Mr. Westphal of ICRC said an update on the sharp deterioration in the humanitarian situation in Somalia, particularly Mogadishu, had been put at the back of the room. There was one really striking indicator which indicated the scale of this crisis, which was that whereas the two hospitals in Mogadishu which ICRC supported, since the beginning of the year, had treated about 1,500 war wounded in total, of that figure, 650 were admitted and treated since 7 May. This was a pretty clear indication of how bad the situation had developed. The capacities of these hospitals were stretched, but for the time being, they were coping. Another clear concern was the thousands who had been forced to leave Mogadishu, to become displaced. The exact numbers were not known, but they involved people who had just recently returned to Mogadishu after having been displaced. Since January, ICRC had managed to assist around 230,000 internally displaced persons in central and southern Somalia with essential household items, and around 100,000 had also received food.

Mr. Redmond of UNHCR said one of the elements that UNHCR wanted the focus to be put on now was the return of the internally displaced. The work needed to begin now to prepare the areas of return. UNHCR hoped that people would be able to go home as soon as possible.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the Central Emergency Revolving Fund had made an allocation of $ 10.2 million to help nearly 200,000 in the remote Haut Uele and bas Uele regions o f the Democratic Republic of the Congo cope with the lingering humanitarian consequences of a series of attacks against them by the Lord’s Resistance Army. The majority of the grant, some $ 6.4 million, would help the World Food Programme provide food assistance to stabilize food security among some 160,000 people for the next three months, particularly children, pregnant and breastfeeding women. Another $ 1.1 million would go to the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Food and Agriculture Organization would get $ 1.1 million and the UN Refugee Agency would get
$ 190,000. This was CERF’s second allocation for dealing with the humanitarian impacts of attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army in 2009. OCHA administered the
Fund.

Influenza A H1N1

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said concerning Influenza A H1N1, there was a virtual press briefing every Tuesday at 5 p.m.

On the latest update on the statistics concerning the Influenza A H1M1, these would be provided three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays before noon. They would be posted on the Internet. As of 29 May, 53 countries had officially informed the World Health Organization of 15,510 cases of Influenza A H1N1, with 99 deaths. The details were available on the website.

World No Tobacco Day

Ms. Chaib of WHO said 31 May was World No Tobacco Day.

Douglas Bettcher, Director of the Tobacco Free Initiative at WHO, said WHO and its Member States had been celebrating World No Tobacco Day since 1988. On the eve of their global launch of World No Tobacco Day for this year, WHO’s call to action and all the other documents in the back, including press releases, posters and brochures were available. This year for World No Tobacco Day, WHO’s call to action came on the eve of World No Tobacco Day, Sunday, 31 May. This year’s campaign focused on decreasing tobacco use by increasing public awareness of its dangers. One of the briefing materials, a public service announcement, urged countries and people around the world to make every day World No Tobacco Day. Even in the nineteenth century, people knew intuitively, if not empirically, that smoking was bad for you and that one should quit if one could. Today, they could state unequivocally, with ironclad certainty that tobacco caused a host of fatal and debilitating diseases. Tobacco killed more than 5 million persons per year, most of them in the low and middle income countries and the poorest groups. Tobacco health warnings, with an emphasis of strong graphic warnings, were being promoted. Eight years ago, Canada became the first country to require graphic bold health warnings and pictures on cigarette packs. Today, more than 20 countries, with a combined population of nearly 700 million, required these picture health warnings. Four other countries would put them into place between now and next year. Yet only 10 per cent of the world’s population lived in countries where these effective warnings existed. WHO would like to see them globalized. The central message for the posters and the campaign this year was “show the truth, picture warnings save lives”. The tobacco industry spent a fortune dressing up its packages to ensnare and enslave new users and keep them using them. Requiring the use of pictures and words turns the tables on the tobacco industry. These posters did work.

Executive Council of World Meteorological Organization

Gaelle Sevenier of the World Meteorological Organization said next week, from 3 to 12 June, WMO’s annual Executive Council would be held at WMO Headquarters in Geneva. The Executive Council was made up of 37 elected members.