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 Spokesperson for and representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Refugee Agency, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the World Health Organization.

Human Rights Committee

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Human Rights Committee was wrapping up its session today by issuing its concluding observation on the four country reports it had examined at its current session: Estonia, Colombia, Israel and Cameroon. A roundup release would be issued during the day.

The Human Rights Committee would also hold a press conference today at 11:30 a.m. in Press Room III, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Ms. Momal-Vanian said the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination would open a four-week long session on Monday, during which it would consider the reports of 11 countries: Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Iran, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Romania and Slovenia. A backgrounder was issued yesterday.

Human Rights Council Advisory Committee

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee would hold its fifth session next week in Room XX during which it would consider requests addressed to it by the Human Rights Council, such as the right to food, the issue of missing persons, persons with disabilities and persons affected by leprosy. A backgrounder was also issued this morning.

Situation in Pakistan

Ms. Momal-Vanian said that the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that, in Pakistan, heavy rains in the past few days had triggered floods in several parts of the country, resulting in a loss of life and widespread displacement. Thousands of people had lost their homes and livelihoods.

The humanitarian community was working on getting assessment missions to the affected areas. However, continued rains and damaged infrastructure made the roads impassable and complicated the task of assessing damage, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province, was experiencing its worst flooding since 1929, with at least 400,000 people affected, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. Swat, Charsadda and 23 other badly-hit districts had received up to 29 centimetres of rain in the past 24 hours, the highest recorded rainfall in the region in the past 35 years.

Road links to the city of Peshawar in the province had been cut off, while the Swat River had broken its banks and there was a fear that the Indus River would soon overflow, said Ms. Momal-Vanian. Government-led relief efforts were under way in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, with authorities having provided food, tents and other supplies, while in some areas the army was evacuating people from their villages.

In Baluchistan province, flooding had reached seven districts, affecting some 150,000 people, said Ms. Momal-Vanian.

Marco Jimenez of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that UNICEF had received about 50 per cent of its projected 2010 Pakistan budget. Operations were at risk because of the lack of funding. UNICEF activities in Pakistan included health activities such as immunization, medicines and anaemia prevention for nearly 500,000 people and nutrition activities related to the prevention of acute malnutrition for about 150,000 persons.

Unless funding was provided, 100,000 persons were at risk of loosing access to safe drinking water in the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa Province, said Mr. Jimenez.

The remaining 50 per cent of the budget were thus urgently needed for the 750,000 persons benefiting from UNICEF activities in the country, said Mr. Jimenez. This went as well for the new needs that would arise from people affected by the upcoming monsoon floods in the Baluchistan area.

Situation in Somalia

Melissa Fleming of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that dozens of Somali civilians had been killed and scores wounded in this week’s escalation of fighting in Mogadishu. Many more had been driven out of their homes by the continuing violence.

UNHCR deplored the continuation of indiscriminate fighting in Somalia where, very often, civilian facilities and homes in heavily populated areas of the capital became targets, said Ms. Fleming.

This week’s events underlined the seriousness of UNHCR’s repeated calls on governments to assess asylum claims from people originating from central and southern Somalia in the broadest possible way. Where refugee status was not granted, UNHCR was advising governments to extend complementary forms of international protection, which meant allowing Somalis legal residence until conditions improved for their safe return, said Ms. Fleming.

UNHCR was deeply troubled by reports of continuing deportations of Somali refugees and asylum seekers from Saudi Arabia to the conflict-stricken Somali capital. According to UNHCR local partners in Mogadishu some 1,000 Somalis had been deported from Saudi Arabia in June alone, said Ms. Fleming. For July, the total so far of reported forced returns from Saudi Arabia was already estimated to be close to 1,000 people as well.

According to monitoring reports and interviews that UNHCR had received from non-governmental organizations partners in Mogadishu, the majority of these deportees had said they had fled Somalia originally due to conflict, indiscriminate violence and human rights abuses, said Ms. Fleming. They also said that they originated from southern and central Somalia, including Mogadishu.

The majority of deportees were women, including some extremely vulnerable cases, such as that of a split refugee family - a young woman who had fled the violence in Somalia in 2007, had been detained on her way to the market in Saudi Arabia and was deported back to Mogadishu with her two infants. Ms. Fleming said a number of interviewed deportees had claimed to have initially fled to neighbouring countries, including Yemen, to seek asylum. Many said they had approached the UNHCR office there and had registered as refugees.

The majority of the deportees interviewed said they had worked in Saudi Arabia for some time but that they had however not been in contact with the UNHCR office in Riyadh, said Ms. Fleming. Prior to their deportation, they reported being held in detention facilities for as long as several weeks under conditions which many had described as appalling.

UNHCR considered such deportations to be incompatible with its guidelines on international protection needs of Somali refugees and asylum seekers, especially given the deadly violence in Mogadishu, said Ms. Fleming. UNHCR was urging the Saudi authorities to refrain from future deportations on humanitarian grounds.

Ms. Fleming said UNHCR was in dialogue with the Saudi authorities on introducing a joint screening procedure before decisions on deportations to Mogadishu were taken. This would be an encouraging measure.

UNHCR was also calling on all governments to provide protection to Somali civilians fleeing the conflict, violence and grave human rights abuses in their homeland, said Ms. Fleming.

Horn of Africa/Polio

Marco Rodriguez of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said that UNICEF and its partners had declared Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda polio-free. The outbreak had begun in 2008 and had affected of 100 children in those four countries. However, the reinforcement campaign still needed funding.

World Breastfeeding Week

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization said that World Breastfeeding Week 2010 would be celebrated from 1 to 7 August.

Doctor Bernadette Daelmans, Medical Officer, Newborn and Child Health and Development, Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development, World Health Organization said that World Breastfeeding Week was organized by the World Alliance of Breastfeeding Action and non-governmental organizations. This year’s theme was “Just Ten Steps: The Baby Friendly Way”.

Breastfeeding was a very important intervention for promoting child health, development and survival, said Mr. Daelmans. It had many benefits, not only in the short-term, but also in the long-term for children’s health.

Ms. Daelmans said the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund estimated that if children were exclusively breastfed for six months and continued to be breastfed from six months onwards up to two years of age, with appropriate additional food, 1.5 million children under five years of age could be saved out of the 8.8 million estimated to be dying every year.

Currently, an estimated third of infants aged between zero and six months were exclusively being breastfed. It was evident that mothers and families did need support in order to implement this practice. The baby friendly hospital initiative, with its ten steps, was a first starting point for making this happen. When mothers were supported with good surroundings in the hospitals and were getting assisted to get breastfeeding started, the likelihood that they continued to continue breastfeeding exclusively for longer period increased, said Ms. Daelmans.

Iron Ore Market 2009-2011

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said that a report on the Iron Ore Market 2009-2011, which looked at the world production and trade of iron ore.

Alexei Mojarov, Economic Affairs Officer, UNCTAD said that the Iron Ore Market report was one of three which the UNCTAD Trust Fund on Iron Ore Information published annually. The publication had started in 1989 to continue the collection and dissemination of information on iron ore, which had formally been carried out by the Association of Iron Ore Exporting Countries. The Trust Fund was administered by the UNCTAD Secretariat and was financed by income from the selling of its publications and by contributions from several governments.

The current report contained the state of the iron ore and steel markets of 2009, country-by-country information on iron ore, information on companies of the global iron ore industry, project reviews and an outlook for 2010 and 2011, said Mr. Mojarov.

Answering a journalist’s question on the projections for the iron ore market for 2010 and 2011, Mr. Mojarov said the iron ore market was much connected to the state of the steel market. World crude production of steel had decreased between 2008 and 2009, together with iron ore production.

Turning to the projection for the next years, Mr. Mojarov said that the world iron ore market would be characterized in 2010 and 2011 by tight conditions and that the next few years would be characterized by a gradual adaptation of supplies, by way of addition of new capacity, to the continuously growing demand. Demand had recovered and would be growing, as well as the demand for steel. Supplies would gradually catch-up and prices would decline from the present extreme levels but would remain at higher level than in 2008.

Agenda

Catherine Sibut-Pinote of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said that UNCTAD would issue on 31 August its 2010 report on Assistance to the Palestinian People. A press conference would be held in Press Room III on that occasion.

Also, on 14 September, UNCTAD would release its 2010 Trade and Development Report which this year would look at how employment can be raised in developing countries as a means for poverty reduction and for increasing the participation of the majority of the population in economic growth, said Ms. Sibut-Pinote.