Welcome to this press briefing of the UN Information Service in Geneva of Tuesday, 1st of December 2020.
We have a long list of announcements and briefings, but I would like to start by giving the floor to Jennifer Fenton for the Office of the Special Envoy for Syria for an update on the Syrian Constitutional Committee meeting.
Jennifer, you have the floor.
Just a brief announcement.
The fourth session of the small body of the Constitutional Committee convened on Monday, on Monday and the committee convened again about 30 minutes ago.
The meetings will continue until Friday.
Of December, as agreed by the Syrian Co chairs, in line with the mandate, the terms of reference and the core rules of procedure.
The Constitutional Committee small body will continue in Session 4 to discuss the agenda of Session 3 on national foundations and principles.
And in Session 5, we'll discuss constitutional principles, basic principles of the Constitution.
As Mr Patterson noted on Sunday, Session 5 is to be convened in January 2021, COVID-19 permitting.
The UN Special Envoy, Mr Garrow Patterson, is hosting and facilitating the session.
And as you heard over the weekend, he has appealed for progress during this and the next session.
Mr Patterson noted that he hoped that with the relative calm in Syria, it should be possible to focus more deeply on the political process and all the elements of Security Council Resolution 2254.
The Constitutional Committee meets in closed session, but we're making every effort to inform you of developments.
And if there are further media opportunities, I'll be sure to inform you.
I'm having still a little problem with my computer.
I I'm told there are no questions for the moment for you here I am.
Peter, you have requested the floor for a question to Jennifer.
Thanks for taking my question.
Jennifer, is there no chance that the journalists are going to be able to speak to the delegates, the people who are there?
Are we going to have to wait until the end?
I mean, you said there's no media opportunities at the moment.
I had some trouble hearing, but I think you were asking about availability of committee members.
So as you know, the COVID concerns have been our greatest concerns.
I will look to availability for later in the week.
We also have pool material, UN and UN coordinated for arrivals and departures.
And of course, if committee members choose to speak during those times, we'll make sure to make that media available to you.
We bonjour Alexandra a concern only journalist I.
Misa, again, I believe you were asking about access to committee members near the door for arrival and departure.
And as we noted last week, the safety and the security of the staff and others at the United Nations and the committee members are our top priority and concern.
For those reasons, we have to take measures to ensure that everybody is safe during this.
And so we are pulling the material for arrivals and departures, and we'll make that material availability available to you should you choose to reach out to others by other means using, you know, technology or, of course, telephone, telephone, Those, of course, are measures that are available to you.
And I appreciate your understanding.
Thank you and in general OK so again if you see let do our just there are this information comes out the first one punctual I think the delicious 1 engaged in the negotiation.
Hello, by do questions you said you will share MSC Jennifer if there's no other.
Thank you guys very much and thank you for understanding.
Another word for Jennifer?
We are going to continue.
Good luck for the next days and let's go ahead with our briefing.
I would like to start by asking WHO and Unitaid to connect.
We have as you know today the World AIDS Day, the second.
Sorry, the the Secretary General has issued a message for for today for this commemoration that you have been, that you have received where he says that health is a human right.
Health must be a top investment priority to achieve universal health coverage.
On this World AIDS Day, let us recognise that to overcome COVID-19 and end AIDS, the world must stand in solidarity and share responsibility.
That is the conclusion of the message that you have received by e-mail.
And today to speak about this important anniversary, an important commemoration, we have Tariq Yasarevich for WHO with Doctor Meg Doherty, who's the Director of the Global HIV, Hepatitis and St is programmes of WHO and also Herve Verhoezel for Unitaid.
So I will start with you, Tariq, and with you Doctor Doherty, if you want to take the flow.
Mr Doherty, I think you are connected, Meg Taherty.
Yes, thank you very much and good morning and good afternoon.
We are very pleased to be with you today because today we are celebrating World AIDS Day.
And as you know this year's, the theme of World AIDS Day is global solidarity and resilient health services.
And for us, this is an opportunity for us to tackle four key messages around renewing our fight to end AIDS, using innovation in HIV services to ensure continued HIV care, to engage and protect nurses, midwives and healthcare workers, and to prioritise the vulnerable, including youth and key populations.
So I hope you can still hear me.
It is also that we have seen COVID-19 has had a profound effect on people living with HIV, as it has had for many diseases.
And there's some evidences that people living with HIV have had moderately increased the risk of severe disease or death from COVID.
And so that increase has prompted us and compounded with the fact that there may be disruptions to antiretroviral treatments for people living with HIV.
So on this World Aid State, WHO speaks about a survey of 127 countries that we did earlier and have updated.
And now we note that through the work of healthcare workers, community health workers, the number of countries that are currently reporting any disruptions in HIV services has declined to almost 75% since June.
So that means only nine countries surveyed are still reporting antiretroviral disruptions and only 12 from a previous 24 have critically low stocks of antiretroviral medicines.
So this is a plus and we've seen some amazing resiliency in the services that have been developed during the COVID-19 where we're seeing that countries are using what we call multi month prescription to deliver antiretroviral therapy and other medicines.
And we've seen many places around the world and many countries that are maintaining their services.
And as we build back better, we'd like to see that this becomes the new normal.
Now, new data shows that we have 26 million people on antiretroviral therapy.
Unfortunately, we will be.
We will not make our goals and targets for 2020.
So we need to get back on track to be able to end AIDS as a public health by 20-30.
And if anything from this pandemic has taught us is that we need to work together.
We need to work in new ways and we need to be able to defeat both COVID and integrate HIV into primary care and UHC as we move forward.
We know also today that WHO has pre qualified a new methodology called the depivirine ring for prevention.
So we are looking forward to being able to move forward prevention and some of the new paediatric regimens that you will hear about later today.
And if I have a moment, I'd like to pass to my colleague Andrew Seal, who can speak a bit about the the strength of the community lead and community based services during this time of COVID to on World AIDS Day.
Yes, we'll give the floor to Mr Seal, but very briefly, please.
We have many, many briefers.
Can you unmute Andy Seal, please?
Good morning, colleagues.
I hope you can hear me well and thank you for this opportunity.
COVID-19 and HIV are coming together to really challenge the communities of people living with HIV.
And WHO has worked very closely with a number of networks globally and at national level of the very diverse groups of people living with HIV, including through GNP, plus the international community of women living with HIV and Y plus the young.
I myself have been living with HIV for many years and I'm just recovering from a COVID infection.
And I'm testimony for the fact that on World AIDS Day, many communities share their stories, their real life stories.
This is our opportunity to bring the human aspect of, of what's happening around us to, to the fore.
And I would like to personally pay tribute to all of the people living with HIV who've been sharing their stories throughout this year and also today on World AIDS Day about their challenges of coping with HIV and, and COVID infection.
And as Meg said, much of the activism from the community level has really helped countries further roll out these innovative ways of getting treatment in, in, you know, three or six month packs to individuals so that they don't have to visit health facilities so often.
And this has has really helped in in the in in the struggle that this year to to make sure that we are.
I'll keep it brief because I know there are other issues to be discussed this morning, but I would be happy to take questions either during this session or afterwards about the community aspects of the response.
And finally, Herve Verhosen for unit aid.
First I want to mention that I'm not a medical doctor.
Then for any medical questions or technical questions on the following, I invite you to to contact WHO or we can also put you in contact with some of our partners.
United and the Clinton Health Initiatives are very happy today to speak about the long-awaited HIV treatment designed specifically for children who will not be available in law and middle income countries thanks to an agreement from United and Chai.
Try to imagine something like this, a big pill that you need to give to your four or five months old baby to treat him.
I mean, in the past it was very, very difficult to try to basically treat some of the kids with HIV in those countries.
1.7 million children around the world live with HIV, but only half of them receive any treatment and 100,000 die every year.
For many of those children, the HIV virus is not suppressed due in part to lack of availability of efficacy effective drugs that are palatable and properly adapted for them.
The new medicine will be very easy to use, will of course be used in combination with other one as usual and will be soluble in in water.
Other information was very important is the new pricing that new combination with that new medicine that has been developed will basically be much, much less expensive that what's available on the market today.
20 a third or fourth sorry of the of the price that what was available on the market today that's $120.00 to treat the kit for one year coming for $420.00 for the combination of all the necessary medicine in the year.
Many children are living with HIV have a poor response to treatment because they take antiretroviral medication that are not correctly dosed or bitter to test.
Basically, very often what the parents take is those scan of of pills and they try to scratch the pills to give a part of it a part of the the pills to the to the kid every day.
And that's of course very difficult.
They know with this new drug and that something is very important.
It will be much, much easier and much, much less expensive.
The first countries who will probably will receive the drugs on the first half of 2021 will be Benin, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
And I've sent to you much more information by e-mail this morning, including on the importance of the generic version.
Thank you very much, Chavez.
I will turn now to the journalist if there's any question and I see none.
So thank you very much for having briefed us on this important commemoration of World AIDS Day.
And I will go to our next guests who come to us from UNICEF and ITU.
Marixi Mercado is today with Garen Avanician, UNICEF Data Analyst.
And Ivana Miyochinovich has come to us today with Martin Sharper, ITU Senior ICT analyst, to present us a new report on Internet connectivity among children and young people.
Tomorrow, who would like to start?
Please raise your hands Marixi or Jovana or one of your guests.
Hello everybody, hope you hear me well.
So my name is Garena Vanessa and I work as a data analyst for Education in UNICEF Headquarters in New York.
I think that we will understand that this pandemic has made clear the importance of digital connectivity in the best circumstances.
Without Internet access, children run the risk of being left behind and missing out on learning foundational, transferable, digital job specific and entrepreneurial skills that are essentially needed to compete and succeed in today's digital economy.
Yet right now, we are pretty far from the best circumstances.
In our new report that is published just today, we show that only we show that 2/3 of the world children in the school age do not have Internet access at home and that is the first time that we carried out this kind of analysis looking at the Internet connection among school age children.
The report says that basically what we used to call digital gap in reality can be characterised as a digital Canyon.
And it was for these one in 3 billion children in school age who are unconnected in their homes.
It means far more than just an ability to surf Internet.
It means, first of all, missing out on preparing to compete in the modern economy.
It also means isolation from the world.
And it means losing out on their education almost entirely.
The report shows that this digital divide is exacerbating inequalities that already divide countries, communities and regions.
Children and young people in the poorest households of those who reside in rural areas or live in lower income states are at the biggest disadvantage in this area.
And without Internet access, they are falling even further behind their peers and needs to be added that they are also left with a very little opportunity to ever catch up their peers.
And instead this I would like to pass it to Mark, my colleague from ICU, Martin.
Yeah, Mr Sharper, please.
Indeed, the joint ITUUNICEF report complements the ITU report entitled Measuring Digital Development Effects and Figures 2020 that came out yesterday with a press release also available on our web page.
And this report shows that connecting rural populations remains a formidable challenge and large parts of rural areas are not covered with a mobile broadband network.
About 72% of households in urban areas has access to the Internet at home, but we heard that many children in.
Don't have access at home Almost twice as much as in rural areas, where only 38% has access at home.
And the gap in mobile broadband adoption and Internet use between developed and developing countries is especially large.
In LDCs, 70% of the rural population live in areas with no mobile coverage at all, and 90% of the rural population is covered only by a 2G network, so no mobile broadband.
As already mentioned by Garen from UNICEF, this puts almost 1.3 billion school age children, mostly from low income countries and rural regions, at risk of missing out on their education.
Because they lack access to the Internet at home and in the age of COVID-19 where so many are working and studying from home.
Both the joint ITU UNICEF report and ITU facts and figures send the clear message that achieving universal connectivity is one of the most urgent and defining issues of our time.
The alarming picture presented in the joint ITU UNICEF report is likely worse due to compounding factors such as affordability, safety and low level of digital skills with low district skills remain A barrier to meaningful participation, while mobile telephony and Internet access remain too expensive for many in the developing world.
And even when children have access at home to the Internet, they may not be able to.
Access it because of the pressure to do.
Lack of sufficient devices in the households, girls being permitted less or no Internet access, or a lack of understanding how to use the opportunities online.
There's also issues related to online safety since parents may be inactively prepared to keep their children safe.
UNICEF and ITU already cooperate to connect every school and its surrounding community to the Internet through our global initiative called GIGA.
We have mapped over 8800 thousand schools in 30 countries since last year.
With this data, GIGA worked with governments, industry, civil sector and private sector partners to craft compelling investment cases for blended public private funding to build the connectivity infrastructure needed to deploy digital learning.
Solutions and other services.
So unless Merrick, CN, Youvana wants to add anything, I will, in which case please raise your hand.
I will go to the journalist if there is any question, ITU and UNICEF on this report, Paula.
Thank you for taking my question.
I, I'm sorry, I I came into the presentation a bit late, but I was wondering if either of the two could present a little bit the situation in Latin America, whether there's specific concerns there that they can highlight.
Who would like to take this question, Karen or Martin?
Just raise your hand please.
So basically in Latin America situation is we could say that more than 50% of school age population in Latin America is connected to Internet, which which is and when it comes to the data and the divide in rural urban access is also one of the things that can be observed here in in the specific in in the light of this region I.
Have a lot of noise on the line.
I don't see any other question.
So thank you very much to both of you.
Thanks to Marxie and and and Giovanna and we have quite a couple of more announcements and then we will go to Babar for Ethiopia.
Edward, would you like to present the press conference quickly today for Waipu Edward Harris?
Oh, sorry, Edward, I'm sorry.
I guess these are for our previous speakers.
So maybe I'll give the floor now to Lisa and then to Nina, and then we will come to you for your announcement.
Yes, thank you and good morning to everybody.
I'd like to have you explore the situation a bit more regarding children in Africa with UNICEF education Can't Wait is affiliated with that and they do a lot of work I think in this area.
I'm wondering if you could be a little, I mean you're ringing a lot of alarm bells, but I'm wondering if what these solutions are and especially for children caught in conflict in the the Sahelian region, for instance, in other areas in Africa.
Could you elaborate upon that, please?
So I know Martin, would you like to or should I respond to that?
So I didn't hear a single word of the the question, the sound completely cut basically, yeah, basically what do we yeah.
Then the question what about was about situation in African countries and situation with children there.
So in in in this case, I would maybe I would like to respond and maybe you could add.
So our data shows that situation in Sub-saharan African countries is indeed very critical because in West and Central Africa is only 5% of school age population are connected to Internet and it's only 13% in Eastern and Southern Africa.
And when it comes to the initiatives, as Martin has already mentioned, UNICEF together with IT initiated a platform called Giga that aims to connect every school to Internet.
And basically it means that this the schools, they will provide Internet for community needs, not only for education needs.
So UNICEF and ITE you doing their best to increase the prevalence of digital access and to connect more and more children to Internet.
If you Martin has have anything to add, then go ahead, please.
Yes, I, I, I I may add that the situation in Africa indeed is is is not very good in terms of Internet access at.
It's 28% in urban areas, but only 6% in rural areas.
And and there's also big infrastructure, infrastructure gap in, in, in Africa as well with many parts of of especially rural Africa, but even urban area not connected to any kind of mobile broadband network.
And indeed, Giga is working very hard with many countries and in, in uploading in a number of countries in, in Africa and, and the most advanced at the moment we are with, with Rwanda, but we're working with many other countries in Africa as well.
Yes, thank you for taking my question.
I had a question on the situation for girls.
I was wondering, you mentioned that girls have less access often in the homes to Internet could do you have any break any.
The number, the access for girls and boys.
Thank you very much for this question.
So basically we looked in this report, we looked not at the Internet use, but at the availability of Internet connection at home.
So in this case, of course, household has Internet connection.
And basically every household, if the girl or a boy lives in household, it automatically means that this boy or a girl can access Internet.
So therefore, when we assessed, there is no statistically significant difference in access in terms of access between boys and girls, because we are talking about household access.
But as Martin rightly mentioned, availability of Internet access at home doesn't mean that that a child actually is using Internet and benefiting from using Internet.
And there are many, many other factors that might prevent and prevent a child of using Internet, even though there might be a connection at home.
And due to some centres that Martin outlined earlier, Of course we can say that girls might be more effective than boys, clarifies.
And maybe Martin would like to add something.
Numbers on Internet users and men and women, but.
We have found the the break.
But we could see the glow.
The line is very, very bad, I'm afraid.
Martin, we can't hear you anymore.
I that was the last question.
Maybe you maybe Martin Magixi or or Jovana can send more information to the journalist on this particular point of girls, the access of girls to Internet, other questions, I don't see any.
So thank you very much to our guests and Eduard to you.
I can see you, Ed, but I can't hear you.
You hear me now Alessandra?
Sorry, we had a bit of a back and forth mute issue.
I think it's resolved now.
Very quickly, I just wanted to remind you about our embargoed press conference coming on Friday, the 4th of December.
This is for our annual World Intellectual Property Indicators reports.
As many of you recall, this is our annual global overview of patents, trademarks, industrial designs, geographical indications, certain areas of the creative industries and other IP rights.
This is for the year 2019.
As we've seen over the years that these kind of assets are now a sort of a major and very dynamic growing area in the worldwide economy.
So it's worth keeping track of.
This report identifies some of the shorter as well as longer term trends in IP, US in countries as well across as well as industries.
There are over 150 national and regional authorities represented in the report.
So it's quite a rich trove of data and is basically the most comprehensive overview of this part of the global economy that you can find anywhere.
The speakers will be director, director general, Darren Tang.
Now, many of you were here at WAIPO in March when he was appointed by the Member States as Director General, so this will be your first chance to meet him as DG.
He took over on October 1st.
He'll be on the podium alongside Karsten Fink, whom is familiar to most of you.
He's our chief economist.
So that's at 4:00 PM on December 2nd, Friday.
I'll circulate all the embargoed material on Thursday afternoon, so you should have plenty of time to peruse it.
If you need anything else, interviews or more data, just let me know.
That's being held on Zoom by our friends here at Unis, so we thank them in advance for that.
Look forward to seeing you all.
And a reminder that the embargo is to expire at 9:00 AM on Monday, December 7th.
So you have the entire weekend to, to, to, to get up cosy with the material.
So, Alessandra, thank you very much.
Hope to see everybody on Friday.
And I didn't see any question for you adds, but I think you've been very clear.
So I'll go now to Sophie.
I think that you you also want to remind us about your press conference, right, Sophie?
For the Global Wage report?
Is my sound coming through OK?
OK, apologies people for not having the camera on, but the Internet connection here is too poor.
I just wanted to remind you that tomorrow, that's Wednesday the 2nd, the ILO will be publishing the latest edition of the Global Wage Report.
This report will look at trends in wages over the last four years.
Examine how wages have been affected by COVID-19.
It includes some regional and country data.
It also outlines a number of policy recommendations to reduce the impact of of COVID on wages.
There will be some data on minimum wages worldwide.
Also some analysis on the issue of inequality.
The press conference is virtual.
It will be given by the ILO Director General Guy Ryder, supported by one of the report's authors, Rosalia Vasquez Alvarez.
The press conference is at 11 Geneva time.
The embargo will lift at 1300 Geneva.
You should already have received links to the embargoed report, the executive summary and the press release.
After the briefing, audio and video will be available.
And of course, if you have any interview requests, we can provide you with experts in English, French or Spanish.
Thank you very much, Sophie.
Also very clear, I don't see any other any question for you from the journalist.
So thank you very much for reminding us this.
And now we have Babar for two breaking points and then we will go to Claire and we'll try to give you an overview of the various events of this week, which is focusing particularly on environment.
So I'll start with Babar now and bye bye.
You have an update on Ethiopia, on the situation in Ethiopia and Sudan?
Thank you very much, Alexandra, can you hear me?
Starting with Ethiopia, UNITIA, the UN Refugee agency, is today appealing to the federal authorities in Ethiopia for urgent access in order to reach Eritrean refugees in the thick Ray region who are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance and services.
Our concerns are growing by the hour.
The camps will now have run out of food supplies, making hunger and malnutrition a real danger, a warning we have been issuing since the conflict began nearly a month ago.
We are also alarmed at unconfirmed reports of attacks, abductions and forced recruitment at the refugee camps.
UNICIAR strongly reiterates its call for safety and security of refugees.
With the current difficulties in communications and security hampering access, it is not possible to verify current conditions in the camps.
No civilians should become a target and all possible measures must be taken by all parties to ensure that be the refugees, the internally displaced people, host communities or humanitarian workers are all kept out of the harm's way.
For almost 2 decades, Ethiopia has been a hospitable country for Eritrean refugees but now we fear they are caught in this conflict.
UNICEA appeals to the Government of Ethiopia to continue to fulfil its responsibility in hosting and protecting Eritrean refugees and allow humanitarians to access the people who are now desperately in need in Sudan.
Ethiopian refugees continue to arrive in the hundreds.
Nearly 46,000 refugees have now arrived since the start of the conflict in November.
More than 2500 were registered since Friday alone.
We reiterate the joint UN call that it is urgent for all parties to enable free and safe movement of affected people in search of safety and assistance, including across international borders and also within the country.
We call for the right to seek asylum to be fully respected.
Over the weekend, unit share with our partners launched a humanitarian response plan to assist the growing number of refugees in Eastern Eastern Sudan.
The plan brings together 30 humanitarian partners working together with the government in Sudan to provide urgent life saving assistance, including shelter, water, food at a cost of 147 million U.S.
dollars, which will meet the needs of up to 100 refugees for the next 6 months.
Any other question from Lisa?
First, are you saying that you have no access at all to the refugees?
I believe you have about 96,000 Eritreans there.
And do you have any information about their condition, how they are surviving essentially because you said that they were going to run out of food on Monday.
I believe that was what you have said.
And then do you have any, any information about casualties in Michele and whether any of the refugee camps were involved in that, you know, bombed or whatever?
And then going to let's see, what did I want to say?
Regarding the situation in in Sudan, are you continuing to move people away from the border?
The numbers crossing seem to have been seem to be less than they were before.
To what do you account that?
And and yeah, can you send us your notes, please?
Just on the final point, colleagues are in the process to send the text in, in terms of of the access, no access to us since the start of the conflict to the four refugee camps where there are 96,000 Eritrean refugees.
The camps have been there at least over a decade and when the conflict started, we lost our contact and is very hard to verify any information coming out of of the region itself.
That's why the call to access civilians and refugees as well.
By now our estimate was that by yesterday refugees have run out of of food supplies.
And we also have reports which mentioned that refugees may have moved internally inside Tigray.
And, and as I said, that lack of access means we cannot breach refugees and others in need wherever they may have found a shelter without concerns on the safety and security of refugees and the fact that the food has run out, as I mentioned, other supplies severely are curtailed and other refugees who are in the camps, they they may start moving away as well.
But in terms of attacks, abductions, forced recruitment, recruitments, that these are all worrying reports.
They have reached us till the time we don't get access, it's very hard to verify.
So the appeal and with the with our concerns growing by the hour, we are appealing to the federal authorities of Ethiopia that access should be urgently provided to us in, in the Tigray region to, to reach the desperate people.
And I think I covered the the food aspect as well.
And in Sudan, refugees are still arriving by by their hundreds.
We have seen the number going down.
But currently we have a 46,000 Ethiopian refugees who have arrived there since the start of of the conflict.
Those refugees who are arriving now, they do mention seeing more checkpoints on on, on on the on the roads which connect Ethiopia to Sudan.
So they mentioned their difficulty in terms of moving around.
So they have to take other ways to reach Sudan, but the number is arriving there.
**** Commissioner Grandi was there over the weekend.
In terms of looking at the humanitarian response, meeting refugees and also the authorities, the work to move them away from the border continues.
We have moved around 10,000 refugees.
The problem is some of the refugees hoping that they will be able to go home, want to stay closer to the border and many of them have come being separated from their family members.
So, so they want to see if, if, if they meet among the new arrivals, their own family members and loved ones as well.
I just wondered, could you confirm when did HCR last have access to the to the Eritrean campaign media?
And secondly, you say there are attacks, abduction, forced recruitment leader, what's the information you're getting on who is carrying out the attacks?
And when you say forced recruitment, this is forced recruitment to what?
Thank you very much, Nick.
Yes, the last access we had to the camp was before this of conflict started.
So this is end of October, early days of November.
But since then, no access to to the camp at at all, as as, as the conflict was preventing us to access these refugees.
All these reports we are getting are unverified.
So it's very hard to say who is doing what at this movement.
So that's why it's very important for us as humanitarians being worried about the civilians in Tigre and the refugee population to have that access right now to go and see what has happened and what is the impact of the conflict on on desperate civilians and refugees, including.
I mean, just to, to press on this a little bit, I mean, is the idea that they are being forcibly recruited to join the TPLF or they being essentially taken across the border and forced into a kind of military service back in Eritrea?
Nick, everything is, is like a rumour that we keep hearing and there's no way to verify what is being done and who is doing it till the time we were able to go and access them.
So that's why in in detailing what is going on with with our extreme worry is that we hear about attacks on, on, on with the fighting near the camps, on the camps, people being affected, we hear about abductions and forced recruitments.
So this is very important for us to have that access to go and see what has happened over there.
But these reports are really, really worrying.
So we, we will now go to the second point.
I just wanted to remind you that the Secretary General spoke on the 29th of December with Prime Minister Abbey of Ethiopia to update him on the situation in the country.
And the Secretary General once again underscored the need for the full respect for human rights as well As for humanitarian access for ourselves and our humanitarian partners.
So pressing the point that Babar was doing, I don't see any other questions.
So, Babar, you had a question, a briefing item on Iran.
Thank you very much, Alexandra Unitsia.
The UN Refugee Agency welcomes the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran's move to give nationality to thousands of children born to Iranian mothers and non Iranian fathers.
The first children out of some of the 10,000 whose citizenship applications have so far been accepted received their long-awaited Iranian identity documents known as Shanasana Mei last month.
According to the Government of Iran, nearly 75,000 children at risk of becoming statelessness are eligible for Iranian citizenship under a new nationality law, which was amended in 2019 to allow children under 18 years to apply for the identity documents.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran, UNICR has continued providing free remote legal advice and assistance to parents of these children, whose mothers are Iranian nationals and whose fathers are foreign nationals, to help them through the nationality application process.
By allowing Iranian mothers to pass their nationality to their children, the law also marks a groundbreaking step towards reducing the gender gap in Iran.
Their nationality used to be passed on mainly by fathers.
Although Iran is not a party to the UN Convention on Statelessness, the Government of Iran is taking steps towards the prevention and reduction of statelessness in the country.
While this law does not give mothers and fathers equal rights to confer nationality to their children, it represents a significant progress around the world.
Stateless people can face a lifetime of exclusion and discrimination and are often denied access to education, health care and job opportunities, making them vulnerable to exploitation and *****.
And 2nd, to see if there are questions, I don't see any.
So thank you very much for these briefings.
Claire, you have a briefing and then maybe we look at the events and press conferences of this week are quite numerous.
So first of all, I'll talk about the hurricane season.
It really has been exceptional, record-breaking.
The good news is that at least.
Sorry, Claire, before you start, I'm sorry, can you please put the camera at the at your eye level?
Television stuff is telling me they can't.
A little bit higher if possible.
So the record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season officially ended yesterday, the 30th of November.
I stress officially, you know, it's not excluded that we might get more tropical cyclones developing.
It has happened in the past.
But for now, you know, in theory at least, the hurricane season is over.
As the World Meteorological Organisation has stressed repeatedly in recent weeks, there were 30 named storms, including 1313 hurricanes and six major hurricanes.
So that's Category 3 or above.
There were 12 landfalling storms in the continental United States.
It's the this is the most storms on record.
The previous record we had was back in 2005 when we saw 28 storms and it's the 5th consecutive year with above average activity.
As as we've said before, it was so active that we exhausted the regular list of rotating names.
We worked our way through the Greek alphabet, got as far as Yota, which as we saw, unfortunately was very, very devastating, damaging, sorry, Category 4 hurricane which hit Nicaragua and Central America less than two weeks after the previous one.
And so once again, this, you know, this year, as we do every year, we've just seen the huge amount of damage, the destruction and the loss of life caused by these, caused by these events.
I'll send you a briefing note with all of these facts and figures.
And I will also send you a link to a very, very interesting interview with one of the world's foremost hurricane expert, whose name is, his name is Doctor Jim Cossen.
He's the lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He's been very involved with WMO working groups, and he's given an interview with one of the NOAA websites about the relationship between hurricanes and climate change.
And what Doctor Coston said, and I'll just read this bit very briefly, was that, you know, in addition to the record number of hurricanes, another noteworthy aspect of this season was we saw yet more examples of very rapid intensification of hurricanes and very slow moving hurricanes.
There's a lot of research being carried out into this, but you know, there is a growing body of opinion that this is in fact linked to to climate change With that, that's that's it for the for the Hurricanes.
As I said, we will send you the the briefing notes.
Let's see if there's any question on this before we go to the events.
Any question on Claire on the hurricane Susan?
So let me remind you of the event related to climate and environment for this weekend.
And then, Claire, maybe you can say something on your side too.
As you may remember, we've already announced that the Secretary General will be delivering a major address on the state of the planet at Columbia University in New York.
That's going to be on the 2nd of December.
The speech will look at the current crisis, come concerning climate change and biodiversity loss, and outline the steps we need to take to reverse course and take positive action.
The speech will be webcast on webtv.turn.org and it will be preceded by a Off the Record and Under Embargo background briefing by the Special Advisor of the UN Secretary General, Climate Action, Selwyn Hart.
This is going to be today at 2:00 PM.
You have received the information to register for this background briefing.
If any of you still want to participate and has not connected to our colleagues in New York, we can proper that help we can may have, may, may be able to help you.
These two events will be followed by several launches and press conferences for which I would turn to Claire for a brief recap of the press briefings and the report you of the reports you are launching.
Yes, the, the, the, the address by the UN Secretary General will be followed by a press conference by the World Meteorological Organisation Secretary General, Professor Professor Petri Tallas on the WM OS provisional statement on the state of the climate in 2020.
It has dated for the 1st 10 months of the year.
Obviously, we're not yet at the end of the year, but you know, we have a pretty good, you know, idea, you know, yet again that we are going to, you know, we're a very, very warm year as we've seen with the Hurricanes, great many extreme, extreme weather events.
I've sent you the information under embargo.
I know in the past a couple of you, you said you didn't receive it.
If you haven't received it, please let me know.
The press release, it's a quite a long press release.
It is being translated into all official languages.
We have the French so far.
And as soon as we get the additional languages, I, you know, I can make them, I can make them available.
That I think that's probably all from, you know, from, from, from our side.
Given that the press conference is quite late.
It's only at 3:30 tomorrow and it will be broadcast by by Web TV.
If you do need embargoed interviews, if you need interviews in Spanish or French or Arabic or Russian, don't think we can do Chinese, please, you know, please contact me, please let me know.
And also on the issue of climate, of course I would like to remind you that on the 12th of December we will hold the Climate Ambition Summit.
This is Co hosted by the UN, the UK, France in partnership with Chile and Italy and it will bring together global climate leaders to ramp up climate ambition and help deliver on the Paris Agreement.
UNAP is going to issue an emission gas report on the 9th of December.
Hopefully we'll tell you more about this on Friday.
And also I would like to remind you we have announced it that UNDP will hold a press conference on Tuesday, 8th of December at 2:30 PM general time to present to the latest figures from UNDP Climate Promise covering 114 countries, national determined contributions, what has been achieved since 2015 and how to keep up with climate ambitions.
This will be with Cassie Flynn, UNDP Climate Advisor, and Sarah Bell is available to give you more information on that if needed.
So before I go to my last announcements, do you have any question on this issue of climate events or reports, speeches?
Claire, thank you very much for your briefing.
Then I would just like to remind you that the Secretary General addressed this morning the Global Humanitarian Overview 2021 event.
You have received the speech, the pre recorded video message of the Secretary General, where he said in particular that together we must mobilise resources and stand in solidarity with people in their darkest hours of need.
And we also have today the launch of the Secretary General report on the Global Compact for Migration.
The Secretary General's first biannual report on this Compact is called From Promise to Action, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, Orderly and Regular Migration.
This will be launched in an event virtual event here in Geneva by the Director General of IOM.
The event will take place from 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM and it will be webcast, so you will be able to to follow it.
I think I have told you everything just to remind you that the 2nd of December, it suits the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery and the 3rd of December, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
And we've sent the Secretary General's message for both these commemorations.
So if there are no questions for me and I don't see any, thank you very much.
