Noon briefing of 25 August 2016

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING BY STEPHANE DUJARRIC,

SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON

THURSDAY, 25 AUGUST 2016

SECRETARY-GENERAL EXPRESSES SOLIDARITY WITH ITALY AFTER EARTHQUAKE

• The Secretary-General spoke today with H.E. Mr. Sergio Mattarella, President of Italy.
• The Secretary-General expressed his deepest condolences to the President and to the people of Italy for the loss of life and destruction caused by the earthquake in the morning of 24 August, which made hundreds of victims.
• The Secretary-General commended the robust and timely efforts undertaken by the Italian Government to rescue and assist those affected by the earthquake.
• The Secretary-General expressed the United Nations’ solidarity with the Italian Government and people and assured him of the readiness of the United Nations to provide additional assistance, if requested.
• The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is in close touch with the Italian authorities and continues to monitor the situation, although at this time no international assistance has been requested.

SECRETARY-GENERAL TO TRAVEL TO ASIA

• The Secretary-General will leave New York on Saturday, 27 August, for Singapore, on the first leg of a trip that will take him to Myanmar and Sri Lanka for official visits, the People’s Republic of China for the G20 Summit, and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic for the ASEAN-UN Summit.
• In Singapore, the Secretary-General is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday, 30 August, as well as other Government officials. He will also be conferred an Honorary Doctorate by President Tony Tan Keng Yam at the National University of Singapore and will deliver the Ho Rih Hwa Leadership Lecture to students of the Singapore Management University.
• In the evening of that day, the Secretary-General will travel to Myanmar, where he will meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor and Foreign Minister, and hold a joint press conference with her. The Secretary-General will then attend the 21st-Century Panglong Peace Conference on 31 August.
• During his visit, the Secretary-General will also meet with President U Htin Kyaw and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar Armed Forces, as well as other political and civil society representatives.
• In the evening of August 31, the Secretary-General will travel to Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he will meet with President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, and other members of the Government and of the Parliament.
• He will also deliver a keynote speech at a public event on the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 16, dedicated to the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development.
• While in Sri Lanka, the Secretary-General will visit a resettlement site in Jaffna in the North, and participate in an event on the role of youth in reconciliation and coexistence in Galle, in the South of the island.
• On September 3, the Secretary-General will be in Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China, for the G20 Summit. He will participate in several working sessions around the general theme of the Summit, “Towards an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy”, in support of the G20 efforts to integrate the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development into their long terms actions and to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable global economic growth.
• While in China, the Secretary-General is scheduled to give a press conference at the G20 and to meet with several leaders attending the Summit.
• He will then travel to Vientiane, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, for the 8th ASEAN-UN Summit on Wednesday, 7 September, and the 11th East Asia Summit, the following day.
• On the margins of these events, the Secretary-General will also meet with several senior officials, including President Bounnhang Vorachith and Prime Minister Thongloun Sisolith of Lao PDR, Chairman of ASEAN 2016.
• The Secretary-General is expected back in New York late night on Thursday, 8 September.

KOSOVO: YOUNG GENERATION NEEDS BETTER OPPORTUNITIES, SAYS U.N. REPRESENTATIVE

• Zahir Tanin, the Special Representative of the Secretary General in Kosovo, today briefed the Security Council. He said that the situation in Kosovo over the past three months had been more stable than it was during preceding reporting periods but that the threat of security and political tensions remained beneath the surface.
• He emphasized that, throughout all of former Yugoslavia, the immediate post-conflict generation has now reached voting age, and many are graduating from tertiary education. If stability and prosperity are to be achieved, this generation is in need of clearer directions, and better opportunities, he said. A lack of promising trades and professions, public corruption, and extremes of economic inequality all fracture the communities far more than do the ethnic or religious nationalisms.

U.N. READY TO PROVIDE AID IN ALEPPO, SYRIA

• The Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, and Senior Advisor Jan Egeland spoke to the press today in Geneva. They reiterated the need for a 48-hour ceasefire and stressed that the UN is ready to provide assistance in Aleppo as soon as we get the greenlight from all actors.
• They outlined the Aleppo emergency response plan, which has three elements: first a lifeline to eastern Aleppo, going cross-border from Turkey. Initially we would be ready in the first 48-hour weekly pause to have two convoys of 20 trucks each that would carry enough food for 80,000 people in eastern Aleppo. Second, there would be simultaneous distributions with humanitarian response in western Aleppo where needs have also increased dramatically. And the third element would be to have a cross-line repair of the electricity plant which is stationed in the disputed southern part of Aleppo.
• And on the ground, OCHA reports that today the second part of a two-part inter-agency convoy is delivering life-saving humanitarian assistance, comprised of food, health, nutrition and non-food items, for 40,000 people in Al Waer in Homs. The delivery will complete assistance for 75,000 people in the besieged neighbourhood after the first half of the convoy – which reached 35,000 people in need in Al Waer – was completed on 23 August. This is the first full completed inter-agency cross line convoy via road to a besieged location in August. While we welcome today's convoy, the level of access to besieged areas this month is wholly unacceptable. Much more progress is required in reaching all besieged and hard-to-reach areas considering the very high level of needs. The United Nations continues to call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained access to the millions of people in besieged and hard-to-reach locations across Syria.

U.N. MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN CONDEMNS ATTACK IN KABUL

• The UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the attack in Kabul on the American University of Afghanistan on 24 August that killed 12 civilians and injured more than 50 others, mostly students.
• Pernille Kardel, the Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan and Acting Head of Mission, said that this attack deliberately targeting an educational facility, during evening classes for university students, was an atrocity and that those responsible must be held accountable.

U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF CALLS FOR INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATIONS IN YEMEN

• The High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein today called on the international community to establish an international, independent body to carry out comprehensive investigations in Yemen.
• In a report mandated by the Human Rights Council and released today, the Human Rights Office has laid out a number of serious allegations of violations and abuses committed by all sides to the conflict in Yemen, highlighting in particular their impact on civilian lives, health and infrastructure.
• Between March 2015 and 23 August 2016, an estimated 3,799 civilians have been killed and 6,711 injured as result of the war in Yemen. At least 7.6 million people, including three million women and children, are currently suffering from malnutrition and at least three million people have been forced to flee their homes.
• The High Commissioner said that civilians in Yemen have suffered unbearably over the years from the effects of a number of simultaneous and overlapping armed conflicts, without any form of accountability and justice, while those responsible for the violations and abuses against them enjoy impunity.
• Such a manifestly, protractedly unjust situation must no longer be tolerated by the international community, he said.

HEAD OF U.N. MISSION IN LEBANON CHAIRS MEETING WITH LEBANESE AND ISRAELI FORCES

• The Head of Mission and Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Major-General Michael Beary, chaired today his first tripartite meeting with senior officials from the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at the UN position at Ras Al Naqoura.
• Discussions focused on issues related to the implementation of UNIFIL’s mandate, air and ground violations, situation along the Blue Line and its ongoing visible marking, as well as the issue of withdrawal of Israeli forces from northern Ghajar.
• Tripartite meetings have been held regularly under the auspices of UNIFIL since the end of the 2006 war. They have become an essential conflict management and confidence-building mechanism between the parties.
• Such tripartite meetings are the only forum where Lebanese and Israeli representatives meet.

U.N. OFFICIAL CONCERNED AT INFLAMMATORY STATEMENTS BY OFFICIALS IN BURUNDI

• In a statement issued yesterday, Adama Dieng, the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, expressed concern at inflammatory statements by public officials that could constitute incitement to violence. This includes, most recently, statements by a senior official of the ruling CNDD-FDD political party where he suggested that the genocide in Rwanda was a fabrication of the international community to remove the Hutu government in place at the time.
• Mr. Dieng also raised concern that the youth wing of the CNDD-FDD party continues to be associated with human rights abuses and is reported to have threatened ethnic violence. He reminded the Government of Burundi of its obligation to protect its populations, regardless of their ethnicity or political affiliation, and to refrain from any action or discourse that could inflame ethnic tensions. He called on all parties to prioritize inclusive dialogue to bring about an end to the protracted crisis.

BOKO HARAM VIOLENCE GRAVELY IMPACTS CHILDREN IN LAKE CHAD BASIN: UNICEF

• The UN Children’s Fund today warned of the devastating consequences of the Boko Haram insurgency on children in Africa’s Lake Chad Basin. Years of violence by Boko Haram have led to a worsening humanitarian crisis that has displaced 1.4 million children and left at least one million still trapped in hard-to-reach areas. Almost half a million will suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year, up from 175,000 at the beginning of the year. An estimated 38 children have also been used to carry out suicide attacks in the region so far this year.
• UNICEF said that humanitarian needs were outpacing the response, especially now that new areas previously unreachable in north-east Nigeria have become accessible. UNICEF has received only 13 per cent of the US$ 308 million it needs to provide assistance to the families affected by Boko Haram violence across Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

SECRETARY-GENERAL CONGRATULATES COLOMBIAN ACTORS FOR CONCLUDING NEGOTIATIONS

• In a statement issued yesterday, the Secretary-General warmly congratulated President Juan Manuel Santos, FARC-EP leader Timoleón Jiménez and their negotiating teams in Havana for concluding their negotiations.
• He said that an equally determined and exemplary effort will be required to implement the agreements and called upon the international community to lend its full support to Colombia at this new and critical stage of the peace process.
• The United Nations will strive to continue and intensify the support it has given to peace efforts over the years through its agencies, funds, programmes, and the UN Mission in Colombia, which is mandated to verify the ceasefire and the laying down of arms.

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI FIRST TO BENEFIT FROM SATELLITE PROGRAMME

• The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have selected a team from the University of Nairobi to be the first to benefit from a programme called KiboCUBE.
• KiboCUBE is an initiative to offer educational and research institutions from developing countries the opportunity to deploy cube satellites (CubeSats) – meaning miniaturized satellite for space research - from the Kibo module of the International Space Station.
• The University of Nairobi team plans to use its KiboCUBE CubeSat to test technologies it has developed for the future launch of a larger earth observation satellite.

ACCREDITATION

• The deadline to apply for media accreditation for GA71 is 9 September. Those with a valid pass for the period do not need to apply.
• More info and the instructions to register can be found at www.un.org/malu.

HONOUR ROLL

• We thank the Republic of Moldova for its contribution and the full payment of its budget, bringing the total up to 104.