REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the meeting which was also attended by Spokespersons for the Human Rights Council, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the International Organization for Migration, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the Representative of the Secretary-General for Food Security and Nutrition.

Syria

Rupert Colville for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said the OHCHR was alarmed at reports starting to come out of the Baba Amro district of Homs after it was taken over by Government forces yesterday. Although he was not, at this point, in a position to confirm any of those reports, his office would like to remind the authorities of their responsibilities under international law.

It was essential that there be no unlawful reprisals, no summary executions, no torture, no arbitrary detention, he added, and that the rights of those who were detained be respected. Enough crimes had already been committed in Syria over the past year, he noted, and urged the authorities to take immediate steps to ensure no more were committed now that they had taken control of Baba Amro.

Answering questions he clarified that the reports he referred to included unconfirmed allegations of 17 summary executions.

Answering questions Elizabeth Byrs for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the first Syria Humanitarian Forum would take place in Geneva on March 8. Co-led by OCHA, the Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department of the European Commission (ECHO), the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); the Forum was at both technical and director-level, she said.

Member States, regional organizations, international non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies were to attend the meeting, which was intended as a platform to share information and mobilize support for humanitarian access.

Human Rights Council

Rolando Gomez for the Human Rights Council said the Council began this morning with the adoption of the work programme for the current session, followed by an address from the Under-Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights of the United States. After this, the presentation of the annual report by the High Commissioner, followed by an interactive dialogue with states, observers and NGOs, he explained.

Later in the day came a presentation by the Deputy High Commissioner, who would brief the Council on 20 thematic reports around issues such as violence again women, extreme poverty, human rights and the environment, rights of the children, the right to development as well as the rights of persons with disabilities. An easy to read version for persons with intellectual disabilities had been produced, he said. Next week was mostly dedicated to reports and discussions on reports from independent experts, with over a dozen to be presented.

Indonesia

Andrej Mahecic for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said UNHCR was deeply saddened by the reported death of an Afghan asylum seeker following a failed escape attempt from a detention facility in Indonesia. According to initial reports, six Afghan asylum seekers attempted an escape from the immigration detention centre in Pontianak (Kalimantan) on 26 February. The Indonesian authorities apprehended all six either during or immediately after the escape.

The UNHCR was seriously troubled by the unclear turn of events that followed, he explained, as when staff visited the local hospital on Tuesday (28 February) they were informed that the 28 year old Afghan asylum seeker was declared dead on arrival that morning after his body was brought to the hospital by unknown individuals. The cause of death had not been established yet and police said they will conduct an autopsy. Additional staff had been deployed from Jakarta, who would meet the five Afghans to ensure their wellbeing as well as authorities at the detention centre.

In light of this he called on the Indonesian authorities to conduct a swift and thorough investigation that will shed light on this incident though mentioned UNHCR was encouraged by the decision of the Indonesian Immigration Headquarters to dispatch its team to Pontianak to investigate.

Answering questions he said about 1,000 people were currently recognized as refugees in Indonesia, and 3,275 were listed as asylum seekers.

Mali

Andrej Mahecic for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said Mauritania and Burkina Faso continued to receive large numbers of Malian refugees who were fleeing insecurity in their hometowns in northern Mali and the risk of further fighting between rebel Tuaregs and the Malian army.

According to Mauritanian government estimates, there were now over 31,000 Malian refugees in Mauritania, he said, the majority of whom arrived in the past six weeks with some 1,500 estimated to arrive daily. In Burkina Faso, where 18,326 refugees had already been recorded by the authorities, an average of 500 Malians were crossing daily, meanwhile the number of people fleeing into Niger had subsided over the past week.

The overall number of people who had crossed from Mali into neighboring countries now stood at close to 80,000, according to government tallies, he said. In addition, the number of internally displaced people within Mali had been revised upward to roughly the same amount, some 81,000, according to government officials and humanitarian organizations operating in northern Mali.

UNHCR had started to register refugees in all three asylum countries and this was to provide a more detailed picture of the refugees and their needs, he said.

Answering questions he explained that there were plans to move refugee camps on the border of Mauritania further away from unstable areas to improve security. Emergency teams were on the ground in all three countries, he explained, and further developments could not be predicted as they depended on events in Mali itself.

South Sudan

Jean-Philippe Chauzy for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said
an IOM-assisted 60-carriage train carrying 1,400 South Sudanese returnees left Khartoum yesterday (1 March), on a 10-day journey to Aweil and Wan in the Republic of South Sudan.

This was the first train to leave Khartoum since the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan had signed a memorandum of understanding in early February, he said. En route, 500 South Sudanese would be picked up from Kosti railway station, where they had been living in the open for the past six months.

The IOM was working to a deadline, he explained, as there were more than half a million South Sudanese residing in the Republic of Sudan required to leave the country by 8 April or seeking to regularize their residence status. Most of the 1,400 passengers on the train had been living in open areas across Khartoum for more than a year, waiting for government-assisted transportation to South Sudan.

IOM had been supporting both governments by facilitating the voluntary movement of stranded and vulnerable South Sudanese and in 2011, it helped some 23,000 South Sudanese residing in Sudan to return home by barge, train and air, he highlighted. The Organization had also assisted 16,500 other returnees reach their final destinations after being stranded inside South Sudan.

In the face of the huge logistical operations needed, IOM was also working with the two governments and partners on an operational plan to manage the large-scale returns and was advocating for the extension of the April 8th deadline which was rapidly approaching, he said. As a means of speeding up voluntary returns movement, IOM was suggesting the opening up of secure corridors between the two countries to enable spontaneous individual returns, and was calling for a documentation process to be started, to regularize the residency of those wishing to remain in the Republic of Sudan.

Meanwhile, in another part of the country IOM was scaling up its community assistance to the disputed region of Abyei through the distribution of hygiene kits, awareness raising campaigns and rehabilitation of water sources, he said. An initial 200 hygiene kits were distributed to beneficiaries in the villages of Diffra and Goli in late February to help prevent an outbreak of water borne diseases such as diarrhea, one of the most common health hazards in rural Sudan.

The affected area north of Abyei had not been accessible to international aid organizations since violence broke out in the region in May 2011.

Food security

David Nabarro, Representative of the Secretary-General for Food Security and
Nutrition, said rises in food prices in 2007 and 2008 had exposed fundamental defects in food systems, and triggered a crisis which saw riots in more than 35 countries as prices soared by as much as 30 to 50 per cent and 700 million people suffered from hunger.

The United Nations response to this was the creation of the High-Level Task Force (HLTF) on the Global Food Security Crisis, for which he served as Coordinator. The HLTF brought together 24 organizations, funds, programmes and other entities within the United Nations system.

The situation of rising food prices had not been consistent since then, he said, and there had been unprecedented volatility in food prices, to some extent connected to the overall economic situation, as well as changes in demand, shortages of supplies and other similar problems. One of the first tasks of the HLTF was therefore to encourage actions that could respond to the immediate food and nutritional needs of those at risk. It was also to attempt to look at solving the structural problems in food systems by increasing investment in production and creating social safety nets for those that were food insecure.

This was not an easy task, he noted, as the world’s food systems were independently run of each other, with a large amount of activity by business. In addition, it had to be recognized, in Africa at least, that the vast majority of food was produced by smallholder farmers, who were responsible for the well being of up to two billion people. Other issues included assistance and recognition for the needs of women farmers, he said.

Moving forward the Task Force’s priorities were investment in food security and getting governments to prioritize agriculture and food security as a primary means of reducing poverty and improving people’s wellbeing, he said. And this was a topic on the agenda of both the G8 and the G20, as well as the General Assembly and regional organizations. It was hard to get an overall picture on this but it seemed that the numbers of hungry were reducing, he explained, and the focus on smallholder agriculture had increased, particularly in Africa.

The challenge now was to continue to sustain the effort, to concentrate on the 22 countries affected by recurrent food crises, such as those of the Sahel, and to work on how the capacity of the world to produce food for nine billion people by 2050, could be ensured, he said. And crucial to this was ensuring there would be sufficient water, soil, environmental services, energy and land for that food to be produced. Another point of interest was doing more for undernourished children, which required a multi-sectoral approach reaching far beyond simple health services.

Some areas were affected by recurring and protracted food crises, such as in the Horn of Africa. 2011 had seen a drought that affected large areas of the region, particularly Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, parts of Uganda and northern Tanzania. Explaining the situation across the region he said long-term investment in Ethiopia meant it had been successful in providing a safety net to its citizens, which was to be commended, while in Kenya poor infrastructure had hindered ability to move food from plentiful to drought-hit areas. In Somalia a general lack of access led to famine being declared, and communities were still trying to recover.

However, the international community now recognized that in these situations repeated bursts of humanitarian aid were not the answer, he said, and funding was increasing for programmes to increase resilience which would decrease the stresses on that part of the world.

Looking back to the Sahel region he said early warnings of trouble had been heard since late last year, as communities were weakened by poverty, recurring harvest failure and drought, plus the additional impact of insecurity from the north and south which had closed trade routes. To the benefit of those in the region, local politicians, such as the President of Niger were engaged on the issue, he explained, and he would be continuing discussions on how to help, though funding was still tight.

To conclude he said the work of the HLTF was far from over, with major efforts to be completed, though he remained optimistic due to the level of political interest in the issue and the number of people saying they were determined to act.

Answering questions he said it was a fact of life that some countries had to import food and some would always be exporters, but the main objective was to maximize internal production and, if imports were needed, that they would be available at a reasonable price. Paying attention to trading systems was important, he added, as was cutting down on the practice of sudden export bans which were one of the biggest triggers of price spikes.

Climate change was also to be considered, he said. Work would need to be done with communities on building resilience, as was the way in which trading on derivative markets which could drive up prices. Greater involvement of farmers and smallholders in markets was another interesting area for his work, he explained, and it was an area being worked on by many of the agencies involved in the HLTF.

Guatemala

Rupert Colville for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said the OHCHR welcomed the news that a Guatemalan judge had rejected former dictator Efrain Rios Montt's claim that a 1986 amnesty law protects him against being tried on genocide charges. Judge Miguel Angel Galvez said the amnesty law was invalid because of a 1949 international treaty against genocide that Guatemala signed long before the amnesty was declared. Thursday's ruling appeared to open the door to striking down amnesty for anyone accused of genocide related to the country's 36-year civil war, in which around 200,000 people were believed to have been killed, he explained. The firm position of OHCHR was that amnesties should never be granted for serious international crimes.

International Women’s Day

Jemini Pandya for the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) said an IPU study showed that despite a dramatic year marked by significant political change and democratic transformation in parts of the world, 2011 was again marked by too little progress on women's political participation and a continued global lack of political will to change the status quo.

In its annual study on women members of parliament IPU had found the global average of female parliamentary representation stood at 19.5 per cent in 2011, up from 19 per cent in 2010, she said. This 0.5 percentage point increase had followed similar patterns over the past decade and underscored the minimal progress in attempts to reach gender parity in parliamentary representation across the globe this century. It meant that less than one in five parliamentarians across the world were women.

The study took note of several successes such as the dramatic improvement in women's political representation in many countries through elections last year, including Nicaragua, Seychelles, Slovenia, Andorra, Saint Lucia and Uganda, she said. In addition, the number of lower houses hosting more than 30 per cent women rose from 25 to 30 with a similar trend being witnessed among upper houses. The number of chambers without any women at all also dropped to seven.



She also mentioned new research carried out by IPU and UN Women which revealed progress at the executive level, where the number of countries with women as head of government, head of state or both had more than doubled since 2005 to 17 in total. The percentage of women ministers had also modestly increased from 14.2 per cent in 2005 to 16.7 per cent in 2012.

The IPU believed that a solution existed to improve the status of women in politics, she said, but the political will needed to be there first. In particular, quota systems had been the most successful in bringing women into politics.

Answering questions she said the Nordic countries continued to be exemplary in terms of female representation.

Ms. Momal-Vanian added that as part of events for International Women’s Day, a round table on “Communicating to women on global issues”, would be held in Room XII of the Palais des Nations on Tuesday (6 March) at 16.00, with the participation of several leading journalists.

Pakistan

Jean-Philippe Chauzy for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the IOM-led Pakistan Shelter Cluster had published new data showing that over 13,000 people did not expect to be able to return home to villages inundated by the 2011 Sindh floods for several months.

The greatest concentration of displaced people remained in Umerkot, Mirpur Khas and Sangar districts, according to the survey by the IOM Temporary Settlement Support Unit (TSSU.) The main reasons families gave for being unable to return home were standing water preventing access to their village and lack of support to rebuild their homes or restart their livelihoods. Financing was urgently needed to meet early recovery needs for these people such as shelter and health services, he said.

Geneva activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women would meet at 16:00 for its closing session when it should make public its concluding observations on all the reports examined during three weeks of work. This included Congo, Grenada, Norway, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Algeria and Jordan.

Meanwhile the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination finished reviewing the report of Jordan this morning. The last report on the agenda of the session would be that of Italy, to be discussed on Monday.

The Conference on Disarmament would hold a public meeting on Tuesday

She added that this afternoon (2 March) at 13:00 in Press Room 1 the World Health Organization was to hold a press conference on how to protect people living with HIV from tuberculosis and what interventions were needed. Speakers included the Director of the Stop TB Department and the Director of the HIV/ AIDS Department, both of the World Health Organization.

Samar Shamoon for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced a press conference on Monday (5 March) at 11:00 in Room III about the International Patent System and Cybersquatting Trends in 2011. Speakers included the WIPO Director General.

Also on Monday (5 March) at 12:30 in Press Room 1 Ms. Momal-Vanian said there would be an OHCHR press conference with the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment on the scope and role of commissions of inquiry in the international human rights context.


Finally Ms. Momal-Vanian announced that to mark World Water Day (22 March) the Water Development Report, entitled Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk, which was issued every three years to provide an overall picture of the state of the world's freshwater resources was now available from UNESCO. The link and password for the report were available from the Information Service for those interested.