REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was also attended by Spokespersons for the World Meteorological Organization, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Economic Commission for Europe and the International Organization for Migration.

Geneva Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that, as announced yesterday, the meeting of the Conference on Disarmament which was supposed to take place on Wednesday, 21 April at 3 p.m. had been cancelled because of the inability of the speakers to travel to Geneva because of the volcanic ash cloud.

This afternoon at 2 p.m., there would be a briefing by the World Meteorological Organization about the volcanic ash in Room III, immediately following a coordination teleconference of meteorologists who were monitoring the situation in Europe.

At 11:30 a.m., just after the briefing, there would be a press conference by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership: WHO/ UNICEF/ the Global Fund, on progress made in controlling and eliminating the disease.

Ms. Momal-Vanian said Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had asked her to remind journalists about the launch of a publication on “environmental emergencies – learning from multilateral response to disasters” to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit. The launch and the roundtable discussion would be held at the International Conference Centre Geneva from 2 to 4 p.m. on Thursday, 22 April, and there was a media note at the back of the room. Journalists who were interested in attending the event needed to register using the form which was attached to the media note.

Volcanic Ashes

Carine Van Maele of the World Meteorological Organization said WMO had issued a question and answer press release prepared by WMO experts in aeronautical meteorology related to the spread of the ash plume from the eruption of the volcano in Iceland. There were nine centres around the world which followed the movement of ash clouds after the eruption of a volcano. For the current situation, it was the London Meteorological Office which was following the events, working in cooperation with the centre in Toulouse. The concerned officials in these two centres held a teleconference daily at noon, in which WMO experts participated. Dr. Herbert Puempel, Chief Aeronautical Meteorology Division, World Meteorological Organization, would brief journalists at 2 p.m. today about the volcanic ash, immediately following a coordination teleconference of meteorologists who were monitoring the situation in Europe.

Carlos Dora, a doctor and environmental epidemiologist at WHO, who said he was in contact with WHO’s European regional office in Copenhagen and a network of health and environmental experts who had formed a working group to track the effects on health of volcano ash, noted that at the moment, there were no effects on health, except for those in the vicinity of the volcano in Iceland. There, the very coarse particles caused a lot of irritation and people had to take precautions including using goggles and masks and remaining indoors as much as possible. In the rest of Europe, the pollution had not arrived at ground level. There was a very good network of air quality monitoring at the ground level in European cities, and so far the range of variation of their quality had been within the normal. So this plume which was very high up had not come down to ground level. So far there was no concern for health in European countries. WHO was in touch with people who were monitoring the air quality and it had also set up an international global effect scientific advisory group. It was very possible that this plume would just disseminate in the air and disperse, and they would not see any concentration of particles at the ground level.


International Committee of the Red Cross and Nuclear Weapons

Florian Westphal of the International Committee of the Red Cross said ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger had this morning addressed diplomats in Geneva on the issue of nuclear weapons. He said that recent positive developments signaled an unprecedented opportunity to reduce and eventually eliminate the threat posed by nuclear weapons. States had an historic opportunity to bring the era of nuclear weapons to an end once and for all, Mr. Kellenberger said, adding that the ICRC supported efforts to negotiate an international agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons. ICRC was specifically asking for concrete steps to advance negotiations towards a legally binding international agreement that would prohibit and completely eliminate nuclear weapons. He said ICRC’s stance was based on its understanding of the suffering caused by war. He also underscored the importance of next month’s Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Available at the back of the room was a news release on this subject as well as the full text of Mr. Kellenberger’s statement.

Haiti

Emilia Casella of the World Food Programme said a briefing note was available at the back of the room updating journalists about the situation in Haiti, given that the attention was now on the rainy season and the upcoming hurricanes. The briefing note outlined some of the work that WFP was doing, including prepositioning 2 million humanitarian daily rations and 1,000 metric tones of high energy biscuits in 31 locations around the country. WFP was also distributing 20,000 metric tones of food into 14 field and sub-offices around Haiti. That would be enough to feed 1.3 million people for up to six weeks. In addition, WFP was supporting the re-location of internally displaced persons from some of the camps in vulnerable areas in and around Port-au-Prince with seven days of ready to eat meals and 15 days of general food rations to assist them while they were relocating to areas that were distant from water flows. WFP was also increasing its work-for-food programme to hopefully reach 70,000 workers in the coming months. School meals which were now reaching 550,000 children would be increased to 800,000 children over the coming week. There was more information in the briefing notes.

China and Somalia

Christiane Berthiaume of the United Nations Children’s Fund said that the organization is sending today 150 tents for classrooms at the request of the education authorities. The affected area was very large and dispersed, with most of the inhabitants living as nomads. UNICEF is ready to provide warm covering and warm clothes for the victims of the earthquake to help protect them from the low weather temperatures. During the day, the temperature went up to 7 and 8 centigrade but at night, it was sub-zero.

Ms. Berthiaume said she also wanted to speak about the situation in Somalia. Despite security conditions, UNICEF and WHO have done something to help relieve the suffering of the people. In a vaccination campaign which started at the beginning of 2009, UNICEF and WHO had succeeded in reaching 1.2 children under the age of five and one million women of child-bearing age within the framework of a campaign entitled Child Health Days. The aim of the campaign is to reach 1.7 million children and 1.8 million women of child-bearing age. In south central Somalia, one the most dangerous region in the country, the immunization coverage has improved from 30 to 90 per cent. UNICEF needs $ 1.6 million to continue the third part of the campaign.

Other

Jean Rodriguez of the Economic Commission for Europe said today, UNECE was celebrating the tenth anniversary of its Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents, which entered into force on 19 April 2000. The Convention aimed at preventing industrial accidents as well as preparing and responding to them should an accident occur. In its first 10 years, the Convention has contributed to enhance safety culture at industrial plants. It also facilitated the cooperation between different public authorities to work together in a coordinated way on industrial safety. Over the years, many countries had improved their mechanisms to identify hazardous plants in accordance with the Convention. As a result of this work national experts were using the same criteria for the classification of chemicals and location criteria across the UNECE region. Countries had also improved notification to their neighbours on the identified hazardous plants. A press release with more details was available.

Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Organization said in preparation for the G20 summit in June, G20 Labour and Employment Ministers were meeting in Washington today and tomorrow. At the request of the United States Department of Labour, ILO had prepared a report which would be presented by the Director-General today in Washington. The report and a press release were available. The report addressed the issue of accelerating a job-rich recovery in G20 countries.

Carine Van Maele of the World Meteorological Organization said a Ministerial Conference in Nairobi was held last week and adopted a text which would reinforce the meteorological services in Africa. The Ministers had agreed to set up a Ministerial high-level mechanism to meet every two years to further study and improve the meteorological services. A press release was available on the WMO website.

Jared Bloch of the International Organization for Migration said IOM had launched with the Arab Labour Organization yesterday a report on inter-regional labour mobility in the Arab world. According to the report, 5.8 of 13 million Arab migrants in the world resided in the region. The report showed that Arab countries received an estimated $ 35.1 billion in remittance inflows, marking a 6.6 per cent decline from 2008, mostly due to the effect of the financial crisis.

Mr. Bloch said IOM Ecuador was this week hosting a three-day training session for 20 representatives from the public and private sectors involved in labour migration management. In conclusion, Mr. Bloch said IOM, the National Department of Health, the Forced Migration Studies Programme, University of Witwatersrand, and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, were hosting in Pretoria a two-day national consultation on "Realising Migrants' Right to Health in South Africa.". There were more details in the briefing notes.