Press Conferences

Briefing by Spokesperson for Secretary-General

Briefing by Stephane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General.
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The Deputy Secretary-General will leave for Addis Ababa to meet with senior Government officials attending the African Union Summit, in advance of the Conference of Parties (COP 24) meeting that is scheduled for Poland from the 3 to 14 December. This is part of efforts to build momentum for climate action. She will also meet with the President, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the UN Country team during her visit.

She will then proceed to Germany, France, China from 19 to 22 November, to engage with senior Government officials on supporting positive outcomes in Katowice as well as to talk about the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit in 2019. She will be back in New York on 22 November.

The head of Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, will be in Cairo to take part in a regional conference on enhancing the performance of peacekeeping operations. He will give the keynote speech at this two-day high-level event and, while in Cairo, he will also meet with government officials. Then, from 20 to 23 November, he will be in Tokyo, to exchange views with senior government officials on developments related to UN peacekeeping. He will also give a speech on 22 November on the challenges and achievements of UN peacekeeping at the Sophia Institute of International Relations.

Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, is returning to New York after a short visit to Moscow. While there, she met with senior Russian officials and discussed issues such as the reform of the UN’s peace and security architecture; cooperation between Russia and the Department of Political Affairs as well as the situations in Syria, Libya, Ukraine and the Caucasus. She also held talks with the leadership of the Collective Security Treaty Organization known as CSTO. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Central Asia, Natalia Gherman, and the Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Miroslav Jenča, took part in the eighth annual Meeting of the Deputy Foreign Ministers of Central Asia earlier today in Bishkek, in Kyrgyzstan.

A new report by the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict that has found that boys and girls in Myanmar have suffered patterns of grave violations following the start of the crisis in northern Rakhine in August of last year.

These findings are in line with what other UN bodies have found, confirming killing, maiming, and rape, for which Myanmar’s armed forces have already been listed on the Secretary-General’s Annual Report from last year.

During the 14-month reporting period of the latest report released today, 669 children were reported killed, 39 maimed, and a large majority of whom were Rohingyas.

This morning the head of Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, joined by the Executive Director of UN Women and the African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security, briefed the Security Council on their joint visit to South Sudan in October. This afternoon, there will be an open meeting on Yemen, where Council Members will be briefed by Martin Griffiths, the Special Envoy for Yemen, the Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock; as well as David Beasley, World Food Programme Director.

Today is the International Day of Tolerance. As mentioned yesterday, this morning there was a screening of short films from YouTube’s 2018 Creators for Change and today, UNESCO awarded its UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence. This prize is awarded every two years, and the winners were social [entrepreneur and filmmaker] Manon Barbeau of Canada and the Coexist Initiative, a non-profit organization working to end violence against women in Kenya.

Lebanon paid its budget dues in full. There are only 45 members who are left to pay their full dues.

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