REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by Spokespersons for and Representatives of the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the Global Fund, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the International Organization for Migration and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Conference on Disarmament

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Conference on Disarmament was meeting this morning. The new representative of Colombia was scheduled to take the floor, as was India on behalf of the Group of 21 to talk about the arms race in outer space.

Director-General’s Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said Sergei Ordzhonikidze, the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, was this morning meeting with the Mayor of Geneva, Sandrine Salerno, at her request, to discuss relations between the host city and the United Nations.

On Thursday, 8 July, the Director-General would be attending a lunch-time seminar from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). The theme of the seminar was “Ideas for disarmament and security thinking: why research matters”. The seminar would be addressed by the Director-General, who would be highlighting the importance of research and expert discussions for promoting multilateral disarmament in general and the work of the Conference on Disarmament in particular; the Director of UNIDIR; the Director of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy; the Director of the Geneva Office of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs and others. At the First Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly Devoted to Disarmament in 1978, the Government of France proposed the creation of a United Nations institute for sustained, forward-looking research and study activity in the field of disarmament to promote informed participation by all states in arms control and reduction. In 1980, UNIDIR started its work, and for three decades, it had produced relevant, policy-oriented research on topics as diverse as nuclear materials, confidence-building measures, control of small arms, disarmament as humanitarian action, peace-keeping, outer space and cyber security, to name a few. The seminar was open to journalists.

New York Activities

Ms. Momal-Vanian said yesterday had been a day off at Headquarters, so there was not much news out of New York. She reminded journalists that Queen Elizabeth II would today be visiting Headquarters and addressing the General Assembly for the first time in 52 years. Her address would be webcast and would take place at 8:45 p.m. Geneva time.

World Health Organization

Nyka Alexander of the World Health Organization said there was a virtual press conference at noon today on the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the commission on food safety standards, which was meeting this week until Thursday. A press release would be issued as well.

Ms. Alexander said last week, a journalist asked for a briefing on the health situation in Haiti. They would be working on that. The Review Committee of the International Health Regulations would meet again from 27 to 30 September. On Friday, 9 July, an Expert from WHO would brief journalists following the briefing on new guidelines which would help countries keep their health workers in rural areas.



World Meteorological Organization

Carine Van Maele of the World Meteorological Organization said yesterday and today, WMO’s Secretary-General was in Mexico where he met with representatives of all the national weather services to discuss the issue of weather forecasts. His statement would be placed on the WMO website today. From 12 to 14 July in Brazil, there would be a meeting between meteorologists and agricultural workers to discuss the loss of revenue of agricultural workers because of climate change. And the El Nino/La Nina update was available today. Both the update and the press release were available.

Rupa Kumar Kolli of the World Meteorological Organization said the previous WMO El Nino/La Nina update, which was issued in March 2010, noted an El Nino event prevailing at that time. The most likely outcome was considered to be the dissipation of the El Nino event and the re-establishment of neutral conditions. At that time, it was also noted that the period from March to June was difficult to reliably forecast developments in the tropical Pacific basin and that the forecasters could not rule out the persistence of an El Nino or possible early stages of La Nina by mid year. They now had a further update on the situation. This concluded that the 2009/2010 El Nino had rapidly dissipated in early May 2010. It was followed by a brief period of neutral conditions leading to the current state of borderline La Nina conditions. These borderline conditions were considered more likely than not to strengthen to become a basin-wide La Nina episode during the second half of 2010. It was also possible but less likely that neutral conditions would prevail during the remainder of 2010. A redevelopment of El Nino during the period was considered very unlikely.

Global Fund and Born HIV Free

Veronique Taveau of the Global Fund said available at the back of the room were press releases and press kits on the Global Fund’s Born HIV Free campaign. This campaign was launched in France about a month ago for the Global Fund by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Global Ambassador for the protection of mothers and children against AIDS. Her support for the BORN HIV FREE campaign followed a call in 2009 from UNAIDS head Michel Sidibé to virtually eliminate mother-to-child transmission by 2015. HIV-positive mothers can pass on HIV to their babies during pregnancy, child labor, delivery or by breast-feeding. The risk of transmission can be significantly reduced if they get access to prevention and treatment services.
“We can win this battle against AIDS if we get the funding we require,” says Professor Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of The Global Fund. “This campaign is intended to encourage people to sign up in support of The Global Fund and to show their leaders that there is strong public support to continue and increase funding for its mission.” The campaign was launched on the social networks Facebook, YouTube and Google, a first for the Global Fund. Viewers of the campaign were invited to show their support by signing their name of the campaign’s virtual wall of support on www.bornhivfree.org website. The Campaign would continue until 5 October when UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would chair a meeting of donor countries in New York. A majority of The Global Fund’s resources come from donor governments. This year countries will pledge funding for the next three years (2011-2013) to fight the three diseases: AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. There were three scenarios: 13, 17 and 20 billion dollars.

Other

Jean Rodriguez of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe said that the Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment to the UNECE Espoo Convention would be entering into force on 11 July. This followed Estonia’s ratification, which was deposited with the UN Secretary-General on 12 April. In becoming a Party to the Protocol, Estonia joined 11 other European Union Member States, as well as the European Union as an organization, plus Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and Norway. Slovenia has since ratified the protocol too. Jan Kubic, UNECE Executive Secretary, described this new international law as “making environmental protection an integral part of the development process”. There were more details in the press release at the back of the room.

Nick Bonvoisin, Secretary to the Espoo Convention, said this was a protocol to an existing convention, but they were quite distinct in their coverage. For 20 or 30 years, whenever there was a major development project, it became subject to a procedure called “environmental impact assessment”. When Governments got planning permissions for power stations, for instance, they were presented with a planning request for a power station and they could only say yes or no. What this protocol was about was to look at things much earlier in the planning process, it looked at Government plans and programmes in all sectors. Instead of looking just as a power station, therefore, they would look at an energy plan for a part of a country or a whole country, and the options then were much broader. Therefore the potential to influence development directions was much more profound. There was also a new element in the protocol to make sure that the health sector was involved. For the moment, the existing convention was restricted to Member States of the UNECE. The protocol, when it entered into force next Sunday, would automatically open up to all UN Member States.

Luisa Ballin of the Inter-Parliamentary Union reminded journalists that IPU was having a press conference tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. at the Swiss Press Club on the third World Conference of Speakers of Parliament, which would be held at the Palais des Nations from 19 to 21 July. This was the first time this conference would be held in Geneva, as the first two times it was held in New York. This conference was held every five years.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said IOM had increased its role in the field of emergency and post-crisis assistance in northern Yemen following the cessation of hostilities in the Sa'ada province, which over the past six years had pitted armed Al Houthi insurgents from the northern governorates against Government of Yemen forces. IOM was providing assistance to the internally displaced persons in the conflict affected region, which according to government estimates totalled some 350,000 people. In Haiti, IOM was rolling out a large scale programme to place information kiosks in as many camps and communities as possible to bridge the information gap with beneficiaries.

In response to a question about the human rights defender, Guillermo Farinas, who was on a hunger strike in Cuba, Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said OHCHR was watching the situation very closely. OHCHR had had a number of contacts with the Cuban authorities about him and other hunger strikers. The High Commissioner had sent a letter to Cuba in April, and they subsequently had a number of contacts with members of the Cuban Administration on this issue. OHCHR was obviously very concerned about Mr. Farinas himself, but a hunger strike was a personal decision, so it was very difficult to express a human rights comment directly on the hunger strike. However, the underlying issue which he was trying to highlight - the situation of political prisoners - is of concern and OHCHR had been raising it with the Cuban authorities and would continue to do so. OHCHR's concerns in Cuba include freedom of expression and assembly and freedom of movement in particular.