In April 2009, the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Manila, in partnership with the World Bank, Breaking Barriers for Young Adults with Disabilities and St. Paul University, Tuguegarao City, organized a forum entitled “Regional Educator’s Orientation – Workshop on Inclusive Education.”  The participants included educators, non-governmental (NGO) representatives and local government units (LGU) officials in the region. The event was held at St. Paul Univerity, Tuguegarao City, Cagayan Valley.

UNIC staff also visited the UN Corner inside the World Bank’s Knowledge for Development Centre (KDC) located at the Graduate Library at St. Paul University, Tuguegarao City.  The UN Corner serves as an information hub of UN information in the University and in the region.

On 30 April 2009, the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Yangon held a briefing for over 30 local and foreign journalists as well as Myanmar Radio and Television to update them on the international community's response regarding humanitarian efforts for the victims of Cyclone Nargis.  A minute's silence was observed to honour the victims of the cyclone, followed by a short video on the UN's humanitarian efforts during the past year for the survivors.  The Resident Coordinator and Director, Mr.
Bishow Parajuli, gave an overview of the international community's relief efforts and stressed that while much had been done for the survivors of the cyclone, much still needed to be done and called for the urgent and continued support of the international community. The experiences of the international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were shared by Mr. Guy Cave of Save the Children, who stressed that despite international concerns over the political situation in the country, humanitarian aid works in Myanmar and he stressed the urgent need for humanitarian support to be maintained.
 
On 2 and 3 May 2008, Cyclone Nargis struck the delta coastal region of Myanmar before moving inland across the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) and southern Yangon Divisions.  In the delta, windspeeds reached 240 km/h and the southern part of the delta experienced a 3-4 metre high storm surge. Cyclone Nargis caused extensive loss of life and physical damage: an estimated 84,537 people died, another 53,836 remain missing and 33,754 suffered injuries. 
 
With the upcoming one-year commemoration of Cyclone Nargis, the results on the ground show that the overall relief and recovery efforts over the last year have been effective. However, considerable needs remain. It is important that the international community continues its support in addressing remaining humanitarian needs as well as pushing forward recovery and reconstruction activities.

For more information about the commemoration, please visit UNIC Yangon's website.

On 29 April 2009, the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Moscow opened an exhibition of works by leading Russian cartoonists Mikhail Zlatkovsky and Sergei Tiunin to commemorate World Press Freedom Day. The artists have more than 300 international prizes and awards between them and have been published in such major periodicals as “Le Monde”, “La Depeche”, “The New York Times”, as well as in the Russian newspapers and magazines “Kommersant”, “Literaturnaya Gazeta”, “Izvestiya”, and “Novye Izvestiya.” Moreover, Mikhail Zlatkovsky is editor of a unique professional magazine “Witty World” dedicated to cartooning.

In his opening remarks, the Director of UNIC Moscow stressed that political cartooning is a genre of direct impact, is up-to-date and fits well in today's information technology era. It is very effective, yet sometimes dangerously explosive. Most of the works displayed at UNIC Moscow were directed against intolerance and xenophobia.

A representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) office in Moscow pointed out that World Press Freedom Day is a good opportunity to stress the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year UNESCO highlighted mass media as a means for dialogue, mutual understanding and reconciliation.
  
Mikhail Zlatkovsky praised UNIC Moscow’s initiative to celebrate the art of the political cartooning. Both Zlaktovsky and Tiunin were unanimous in their opinion that cartoons reflected the essence of real problems and served as an effective means to expose them.

The event was attended by approximately 40 people including cartoonists, journalists, artists, diplomats, representatives of civil society and representatives of UN agencies.

The current global economic crisis provides a good opportunity to address some long term issues, a high-level panel on the economic crisis agreed in discussions on 29 April 2009 in Bangkok.
 
The panel was part of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) annual meeting. It was moderated by Noeleen Heyzer, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP. The speakers included her counterparts for Africa, Abdoulie Janneh, and for Europe, Jan Kubis. Also speaking was Kim Jong-hoon, Minister of Trade, Republic of Korea; Ajay Chhibber, Director for Asia and the Pacific, UN Development Programme (UNDP); and Martin Khor, Executive
Director, South Centre – an intergovernmental organization of developing countries based in Geneva.
 
“The Asia-Pacific region has shown remarkable resilience to this crisis,” said Dr. Heyzer in her opening remarks.  “This is due, in large part, to the wide ranging regulatory reforms taken by countries in our region since the 1997 economic crisis.”  However, that resilience has been eroded under the strain, noted Dr. Heyzer, and there are some critical issues the region needs to address.
 
“One is to guard against trade protectionism. An early conclusion of the Doha round and more intraregional integration would provide new impetus to economic recovery,” Dr. Heyzer said. She also called for more stable currency exchange rates in the region to prevent competitive devaluation in the face of declining exports. It is important to intensify regional coordination and policy coherence, Dr. Heyzer pointed out, so that “economic recovery evolves in line with a more sustainable and inclusive process of economic growth.”
 
No region in the world is immune to the crisis, Mr. Kubis, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe, pointed out. “For the European region, extreme poverty had almost been eliminated by the end of 2007,” he said. “But with higher food prices, falling employment opportunities, reduced remittances and strained safety nets, it is estimated that another 10 million people in the region have been pushed back into poverty.”    
 
Mr. Janneh of the Economic Commission for Africa noted that the widely held view that Africa, because of its lack of integration into global finance, would shield itself from the crisis had turned out to be optimistic. “We are now experiencing a slowdown in growth, declining exports, reduced tourism, investment flows, remittances and weakening currencies”
 
A major source of financial instability is the world’s dependency on the currency of a single country – the United States – as international reserve currency, according to Martin Khor of the South Centre. “This causes instability as availability of reserves for the world economy depends on the United States having growing current account deficits.”  He called for an alternative reserve system based on the Special Drawing Rights of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).    
 
Mr. Kim in his remarks cautioned against sneaking in “grey” protectionist measures with economic stimulus packages. Such policies are short-sighted as they fail to consider the possible reactions of trading partners and may escalate into a vicious cycle of counter protectionist measures. “What we need is a New Green Deal,” said Mr. Kim. Investing in new green technologies will create high pay jobs while new green public works projects will increase demand for labour. Both will improve the
environment.  
 
Another long-term investment Asia-Pacific governments should make using their stimulus packages is creating social protection measures, according to Mr. Chhibber of UNDP.
 
“Asian savings rates are extraordinarily high,” Mr. Chhibber observed, “because the precautionary motive is so strong.” With little access to public health care and unemployment benefits, people resort to savings to protect themselves. “That is all money that does not go back into the economy,” he noted.
 
“The present crisis has provided us all with an important window of opportunity for addressing longer term issues,” Dr. Heyzer said, summarizing the panel’s discussions. “The challenge ahead is to lay the economic and social foundations for a more inclusive development model that is based upon environmentally sound principals.”