REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the Economic Commission for Europe, and the World Meteorological Organization.

Secretary-General’s Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was in Seattle yesterday, where he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws and delivered a lecture on the renewed multilateralism that the world was seeing today. The Secretary-General said the United States was central to the renewed multilateralism, and he would discuss President Obama’s vigorous engagement within the framework of the United Nations. A major test of the new cooperation was just around the corner, when nations met six weeks from now at the Copenhagen climate change conference, Mr. Ban said. Copenhagen did not need to resolve all the details, but countries must agree to a deal that established an ambitious framework for progress on fundamental issues.

The Secretary-General also attended an event hosted by the City of Seattle dubbed the “Shrinking Bigfoot”, a programme raising awareness among local students about climate change, conservation, and the responsibility to protect the planet. He spoke to children between the ages of 5 and 16 and called on all people, young and old, from around the world to consider the well-being of Mother Earth by conserving and changing daily lifestyles and living habits toward a more energy and resource frugal way.

The Secretary-General was back in New York.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Human Rights Committee would be concluding its ninety-seventh session on Friday, 30 October when it would issue its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports submitted by the Governments of Switzerland, Moldova, Croatia, the Russian Federation and Ecuador on measures taken to implement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This morning at 11:30, the Committee would continue its discussion on a draft General Comment on Article 19 of the Covenant on freedom of expression. The roundup press release would be issued on Friday.

Internally Displaced Persons in Central and Eastern Africa

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said OCHA was launching its latest Displaced Populations Report online on displacement in central and eastern Africa. As of the end of September 2009, there were a total of 10,188,709 internally displaced persons in 10 out of 18 countries in the eastern and central African region. This represented a net increase of 1,084,383 internally displaced persons within the past six months. Countries with ongoing massive internal displacements included the Democratic Republic of the Congo with 2.12 million, Sudan with 4 million, and Somalia with 1.55 million. The Democratic Republic of Congo had recorded a net increase of over 779,000 new internally displaced persons in the last six months as a result of renewed violence, especially in North and South Kivu provinces. There were more details in the briefing notes.

WFP Launches Mobile Phone-Based Food Voucher Pilot

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said WFP has launched an electronic food voucher project, the first of its kind in the world to use mobile phone technology, to aid 1,000 Iraqi refugee families in Syria. Iraqi refugees living in Damascus would receive a text message on their mobiles providing a code enabling them to cash in all or part of the “virtual voucher” at selected government shops. Each family would receive one voucher per family member, worth $ 22 every two months. These were supplementary rations. At the moment, WFP was providing food assistance to 130,000 Iraqi refugees in Syria, out of the 1.2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria. All of the refugees needing food aid had mobile phones and WFP was currently providing information about distributions on mobile phone messages to them. There were more details in the briefing notes. These people had come to Syria in 2006, many of them with their life savings and some of their possessions, including their mobile phones. Since then, many had used up their life savings and now needed food assistance.

Eastern Chad

Andrej Mahecic of the UN Refugee Agency said UNHCR was deeply shocked and saddened by the killing in eastern Chad in an ambush of a Chadian colleague working for UNHCR’s government counterpart. Michel Mitna was head of the Chadian refugee body CNAR in Guereda and worked daily with UNHCR to protect and assist refugees and internally displaced persons in this volatile region. He was attacked and killed by armed bandits. His driver was wounded. The bandits escaped. This was the fifty-first armed attack on a humanitarian vehicle in eastern Chad this year alone, 31 of which belonged to UNHCR and its partners.

World Health Organization

Gregory Hartl of the World Health Organization said this week, their virtual briefing on H1N1 would be on adverse events and safety and it would take place at 1 p.m. on Friday, 30 October. Next week the briefing would be on the outcomes of the SAGE meeting (the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization). The SAGE meeting would be held from 27 to 29 October, but after it made its recommendations, they had to go to the Director-General who had to accept them before they became official. The SAGE briefing would probably be on Wednesday, 4 November.

Fadela Chaib of WHO said there would be a joint press briefing with UNICEF on Friday, 30 October, right after the briefing, on the Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia, which was the number one cause of death among children under the age of five. A media advisory was available, and included information on how to download an advance copy of the report online. The report and the briefing were embargoed until 2 November.

As promised, Ms. Chaib said she had put at the back of the room a list of the main events which were expected at WHO from now until the end of the year. In addition to the SAGE meeting this week, there would be an important one-day meeting on 29 October on the food-borne burden of disease and estimates on global burden of food-borne diseases. On 9 November, WHO would launch the Women and Health Report and there would be a press conference to launch it, probably by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan.

Other

Jean Rodriguez of the Economic Commission for Europe said available was a press release in which UNECE announced that the seventh “Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference, to be held in Astana, Kazakhstan in autumn 2011, would address two main themes: the sustainable management of water and water-related ecosystems; and greening the economy: mainstreaming the environment into economic development. The decision was taken on 23 October by the Committee on Environmental Policy of the UNECE and reflected the current priority issues on the region’s environmental agenda. There were more details in the press release.

Ms. Byrs of OCHA said according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, ground control operations were in progress against an infestation of desert locusts in Mauritania. As long as there were no heavy rains the infestations should be eliminated by early December, FAO hoped. There were more details in the briefing notes.

Ms. Byrs reminded journalists that at noon, OCHA’s representative in Pakistan would speak to journalists by teleconference on the latest developments concerning the humanitarian situation there.

Ms. Casella of WFP, asked about the status of WFP in Pakistan, said WFP was still ready to provide food assistance when it was asked.

Gaelle Sevenier of the World Meteorological Organization said this evening at 6:30 p.m., WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud would speak at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva on: the global framework for climate services, supporting the Copenhagen objectives and much more.