UN DAILY NEWS from the
UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
28 November, 2014
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'THE WORLD IS ON THE SIDE OF THOSE WHO ARE INVOLVED IN THIS FIGHT' AGAINST EBOLA – UN ENVOY
The top United Nations officials leading the fight against Ebola have made an appeal for people who possess skills that are "quite rare" to join the global effort, such as those who can provide patient care, undertake contact tracing and analyze how the outbreak is evolving in remote areas of the virus-affected countries, saying that "deploying more people to the districts is our highest priority."
"These skills are quite rare in our world today because there are not thousands and thousands of people who are really experienced in Ebola and its management," Dr. David Nabarro, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Envoy on Ebola, said in an interview with the Department of Public Information at the headquarters of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) in Accra, Ghana.
"And so what we're doing is looking very hard for the best people in the world and encouraging them to come and work with the governments of the affected countries," Dr. Nabarro said.
Dr. Nabarro gave the interview together with UNMEER chief Anthony Banbury, in the lead-up to the 1 December target set by the mission, which aims to try to get 70 per cent of the cases isolated and treated, and 70 per cent of the deceased safely buried within 60 days from the beginning of October to 1 December.
According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), a total of 15,935 cases have been confirmed in Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Spain and the United States and two previously affected countries of Nigeria and Senegal as of 23 November, with 5,689 reported deaths.
Both Dr. Nabarro and Mr. Banbury said progress so far has been uneven but that they were very pleased by what has been achieved in some parts of the affected countries.
"Tremendous progress has been achieved in some areas," Mr. Banbury said. "That's thanks to the hard work of the communities themselves but also very much the responders, the national and international responders."
"Where we've been able to put the elements of the response in place, we've seen dramatic improvements in the situation," he said. "So we're very heartened by that. It shows the strategy works."
"Unfortunately," he went on to say, "We've not been able to put the elements of the response in place everywhere, and where it's lacking, we see the significant or very bad situation in many of these communities, and that's got to be the focus of our efforts going forward: spreading out our geographic response."
Specifically, Dr. Nabarro said: "We've seen these incredible and promising results from Liberia. We've seen very good results from parts of Sierra Leone. But there are other parts of Sierra Leone and parts of Guinea where the numbers of cases continue to accelerate day by day."
The envoy also noted the spread of the virus into Mali, saying that "the next few weeks are going to be really important."
Dr. Nabarro also drew attention to the fact that "the services in order to respond to Ebola in the affected countries are short of the people who will provide patient care and also who will undertake some of the contact tracing and analysis of how the outbreak is evolving."
And Mr. Banbury elaborated by saying: "Specifically, it means more field crisis managers for UNMEER on the ground, more WHO epidemiologists on the ground, more information management specialists on the ground but we critically need more trained medical teams operating effective Ebola treatment facilities in many places."
"And we need the laboratories to quickly test the samples, the blood samples, of possible Ebola patients, to quickly determine whether they are in fact sick with Ebola so that they can be treated accordingly," he said.
Another priority for UNMEER, he said, is to have more rapid deployment of teams out in the districts.
"If we are going to beat this disease out in the districts we need to be present out there," he said. "Deploying more people to the districts is our highest priority. We're working hard to make it happen."
Mr. Banbury, however, said "it's hard to attract the kinds of people that we need with the right skills who are willing to go out there and live in some austere environments particularly with the holidays coming up. So it's a challenge for us."
Dr. Nabarro said he was heartened by the fact that there was "no donor fatigue."
"The extraordinary thing about this is that the whole world is willing to have a quick and successful response to this outbreak," he said. "They want to see it treated at source; they want to see the countries being able to recover quickly; they want the world not to be threatened by a disease that causes a lot of fear and leads frequently to people to take extreme actions when they're nervous about getting Ebola."
"So I actually, think that the world is on the side of those who are involved in this fight," the UN envoy said.
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EBOLA: UN HEALTH AGENCY ADVISES MALE SURVIVORS TO ABSTAIN FROM SEX FOR 3 MONTHS
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today warned that it is possible for the Ebola virus to be present in semen for 3 months after recovery, as the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said it plans to have 2,700 teams operating throughout villages in the remote forest areas of Guinea to educate villagers and monitor the epidemic at the community level.
UNICEF spokesman Christophe Boulierac announced those plans at the Geneva press briefing by telephone from the village of Meliandou, in the forest area of southeastern Guinea, where epidemiologists believed that the Ebola outbreak began in December 2013.
"Today, the forest region is still the epicentre of Ebola in Guinea", Mr. Boulierac said.
The UNICEF spokesman noted that community mobilization is particularly complicated in the forest area because the resistance had been made worse by strong tensions between communities.
In order to strengthen community mobilization, teams from UNICEF along with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the organization PLAN GUINEA were currently implementing a network of "Community Watch Committees," Mr. Boulierac said.
"Each village had such a committee consisting of five residents, with the aim of educating villagers and monitoring the epidemic at the community level," he was quoted as saying. "To date 660 Community Watch Committees had been established in the forest area, and 2,700 committees should be operational throughout Guinea by the end of the year."
Mr. Boulierac also said children had been impacted by the virus indirectly, such as by disruption to routine vaccinations.
"Parents had refused to take their children to health centres because of fears of Ebola," according to the UNICEF spokesman. "Before the Ebola emergency, less than 40 per cent of Guinean children enjoyed full vaccination coverage. Since March 2014, the number of children covered by routine vaccinations had decreased by half."
WHO, meanwhile, said in a briefing note that "semen may be infectious with the Ebola virus for as long as 3 months after onset of symptoms."
"The Ebola virus is shed in bodily fluids such as blood, vomit, faeces, saliva, urine, tears, and vaginal and seminal fluids," WHO said. "There is evidence that seminal fluids of convalescing men can shed the Ebola virus for at least 82 days after onset of symptoms."
"Because of the potential to transmit the virus sexually during this time, they should maintain good personal hygiene after masturbation, and either abstain from sex (including oral sex) for three months after onset of symptoms, or use condoms if abstinence is not possible," according to the health agency.
WHO, however, said it does not recommend isolation of male convalescent patients whose blood has been tested negative for Ebola.
Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the World Food Programme (WFP), told journalists that WFP had distributed 21, 000 metric tons of food to 1.6 million people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since the end of August 2014 to date.
WFP and the Mali Red Cross were partnering to deliver food to 336 people currently under observation, known as contact cases, in Bamako, the Malian capital, said WFP spokeswoman said.
Ms. Byrs also said WFP had pre-positioned enough contingency stocks in Bamako to feed 10,000 people over a three-month period in case they were required to respond to the Ebola emergency.
WHO Spokeswoman Fadela Chaib in Geneva announced that a WHO press conference would take place on Monday, 1 December by Dr. Bruce Aylward, to give an update on the Ebola crisis in West Africa.
Ms. Chaib also said the total number of cases reported in Sierra Leone since the outbreak began would soon eclipse the number reported from Liberia.
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EMERGENCY DECLARED IN GAZA FOLLOWING SEVERE FLOODING – UN AGENCY
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, has declared an emergency in Gaza City, following extreme weather and severe flooding over the past 48 hours exacerbating the already poor humanitarian situation in the enclave, which is dealing with the aftermath of a last summer's conflict, and an acute fuel and energy crisis.
"We are particularly concerned for those families still seeking adequate shelter and preparing for the winter months, and for the impact the flooding is already having on children unable to attend school,"said UNRWA's Director of Operations Robert Turner in Gaza on Thursday.
No casualties or injuries have been reported, but hundreds of residents in the flooded areas around the Sheikh Radwan storm water lagoon have evacuated their homes. One UNRWA school and an UNRWA Collective Centre in Gaza City have been affected by the rising waters.
The Agency has established an Area Emergency Operations room in Gaza City following contingency planning undertaken last week.
As the largest UN agency in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA supplies emergency fuel to municipalities, water, sanitation and health facilities, partially through the WASH and Health clusters led by UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
On Thursday, UNRWA provided 60,000 litres emergency fuel supplies to run back-up generators of pumping stations and portable pumps. The Agency is also prepared to provide adequate shelter to internally displaced refugees and others should there be a need.
A coastal enclave, Gaza City is one of five areas in the Gaza Strip where UNRWA serves some 1.3 million Palestine refugees. Of the 18 UNRWA Collective Centres, 5 are in Gaza City and currently provide adequate shelter for some 7,000 people displaced by the recent conflict.
As a precautionary measure, many schools in Gaza City were closed on Thursday, affecting almost 65,000 students. Forty-three schools in the North Area of the Strip were also closed. Other UNRWA installations are being assessed, though no damage has yet been reported.
UNRWA is in close consultation with all of its partners, the Palestinian Government and the local municipality who are monitoring the level of rain across the Strip.
The devastation that extreme weather can cause is not new for Palestinian families in Gaza. In December 2013, the fiercest winter storm the region has seen for many years, Alexa, hit the Strip, and brought torrential rains and widespread flooding that displaced thousands.
Established by a General Assembly resolution in 1949, UNRWA is mandated to provide assistance and protection to a population of some 5 million registered Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The Agency's services include education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, and microfinance.
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UN OFFICIAL SEES UPCOMING LIMA CLIMATE TALKS AS 'STEPPING STONE' FOR UNIVERSAL TREATY
As Governments prepare to meet for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, starting on Monday, a top UN official has highlighted the session as an opportunity to raise immediate awareness on climate change and lay the foundation for a new universal agreement to be adopted in 2015.
"Never before have the risks of climate change been so obvious and the impacts so visible. Never before have we seen such a desire at all levels of society to take climate action. Never before has society had all the smart policy and technology resources to curb greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience," said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in a press release today.
"All of this means we can be confident we will have a productive meeting in Lima, which will lead to an effective outcome in Paris next year," she added, referring to the climate conference that will take place in December 2015 in Paris, France, where the new universal UN-backed treaty on climate change will be adopted.
The UNFCCC is an international treaty that considers what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable.
The 20th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP), being held in Lima through 12 December, brings together the 196 Parties to the UNFCCC, which is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Over the course of the next two weeks, delegates will attempt to hammer out the new universal treaty, which would enter force by 2020.
Ms. Figueres explained that Governments meeting in Lima under the Ad Hoc Work Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action need to define the scope and the type of contributions they will provide to the Paris agreement, along with clarity on how finance, technology and capacity-building will be handled.
Countries will put forward what they plan to contribute to the 2015 agreement in the form of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) by the first quarter of 2015, in advance of the Paris conference in December.
The Lima conference should provide final clarity on what the INDCs need to contain, including for developing countries that are likely to have a range of options from, for example, sector-wide emission curbs to energy intensity goals, she said.
Welcoming the leadership of the European Union, the United States and China, who have publically announced their post-2020 climate targets and visions, Ms. Figueres stressed that many countries are working hard to increase emission reductions before 2020, when the Paris agreement is set to enter into effect.
"It is hugely encouraging that well ahead of next year's first-quarter deadline, countries have already been outlining what they intend to contribute to the Paris agreement. This is also a clear sign that countries are determined to find common ground and maximize the potential of international cooperation," she said.
In particular, Ms. Figueres said that Governments should work towards streamlining elements of the draft agreement for Paris 2015 and explore common ground on unresolved issues in order to achieve a balanced, well-structured, coherent draft for the next round of work on the text in February next year.
In addition, she noted that the political will of countries to provide climate finance is increasingly coming to the fore.
At a recent pledging conference held in Berlin, Germany, countries made pledges towards the initial capitalization of the Green Climate Fund totalling nearly $9.3 billion. Subsequent pledges took this figure to $9.6 billion, so that the $10 billion milestone is within reach, Ms. Figueres said.
"This shows that countries are determined to build trust and to provide the finance that developing countries need to move forward towards decarbonizing their economies and building resilience," she noted.
During the course of 2014, Governments have been exploring how to raise immediate climate ambition in areas with the greatest potential to curb emissions, ranging from renewable energy to cities, she said.
As part of the "Lima Action Agenda," countries will decide how to maintain and accelerate cooperation on climate change by all actors, including those flowing from the Climate Summit in September, where many climate action pledges were made.
"We have seen an amazing groundswell of momentum building this year. One of the main deliverables of the Lima conference will be ways to build on this momentum and further mobilize action across all levels of society," Ms. Figueres said.
"Society-wide action in concert with Government contributions to the Paris agreement are crucial to meet the agreed goal of limiting global temperature rise to less than two degrees Celsius, and to safeguard this and future generations," she added.
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DEADLY BOKO HARAM ATTACK FORCES THOUSANDS TO FLEE NIGERIA FOR NIGER – UN
A Boko Haram attack earlier this week on the northern Nigerian town of Dammassak left 50 people dead and forced at least 3,000 to flee to neighbouring Niger's Diffa region, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) reported today.
"Our teams in Diffa say that people are still arriving in Niger from Nigeria as a result of the attack," said Adrian Edwards, a UNHCR spokesman based in Geneva.
The town of Dammasak, which lies just a few kilometres from the Niger border, was reportedly captured by Boko Haram on November 24.
UNHCR field staff has reported that while most refugees wait for boats to cross the Komadougou Yobé River separating the two countries, others have been trying to swim across to safety.
Locals in the area have said they have seen people drown while trying to cross the river. Other reports claim that people fleeing were shot by Boko Haram who chased as far as the river banks.
And those who have made it across the river to Niger are reporting there are still many displaced, mostly women, children, older people and some injured on the Nigerian side of the river waiting to cross over to Niger.
The new arrivals also reported that many civilians were killed during the attack on Damassak, especially young men, but that insurgents were also shooting at women and children.
Some said that they believed the attack was in reprisal for the enlistment of young men in self-defence groups, which have been formed to fight the insurgents. According to UNHCR staff on the ground, many children were separated from their parents during the attack and the escape to Niger. In the closest town, Chetimari, children and adults alike are wandering around the makeshift settlements, searching for relatives.
"Refugees said they had no time to collect any of their belongings and had to leave everything behind. With its partners and the local community, UNHCR has been providing plastic sheeting and blankets to help people put up temporary shelters and [as protection] against the night-time cold," Mr. Edwards said.
After an attack on the Nigerian village of Malan Fatori on 5 October, which prompted the flight of more than 1,000 people to Niger, Damassak is the second large attack occurring only a few kilometres away from the Nigerian-Niger border in less than two months.
The increasing presence of the insurgents in close proximity to the border with Niger is likely to lead to new displacements in the near future.
According to authorities, violence in Nigeria has pushed more than 39,000 Nigerians to flee to Cameroon and 2,800 to Chad. In Nigeria, some 700,000 people are internally displaced.
More than 100,000 people have fled to Niger since May 2013, when the Nigerian government declared a state of emergency in three north-eastern states following attacks from Boko Haram. Some 30,000 people have found refuge in the area in the past two months alone.
"While local inhabitants have shared their meagre resources with the Nigerian refugees, we fear that the already fragile economic structure could collapse under the strain," Mr. Edwards said.
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DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION IN MEDITERRANEAN CAN HELP STEM TIDE OF FORCED MIGRATION – UN AGENCY
If countries of the Mediterranean want to stem the tide on forced migration and human suffering, they must put agricultural, food and rural development, including youth-targeted incentives, at the core of regional cooperation, said the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today.
Speaking at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Agriculture in Palermo, Italy, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva stressed that increasing agro-entrepreneurship and employment opportunities for rural youth needs to be at the centre of strategies to combat poverty and boost development.
"We need to find alternatives to raise the incentives for the youth to engage in rural activities, such as farming, livestock production, fisheries and aquaculture in their own communities and countries," he explained.
Meaningful and inclusive opportunities for youth in agriculture and agribusinesses will not only impact their lives, but substantially improve livelihoods in rural communities, Mr. Graziano da Silva added.
However, migration of young people – particularly young men – away from rural areas has left behind lopsided community structures that have also placed a disproportionate burden on women who stay behind to take care of children and the elderly.
But forced migration is the "corollary of fear, despair and hunger," said Mr. Graziano da Silva, who also spoke of a worsening crisis amidst a doubling in the number of informal border crossings into Europe, 85 percent of which occur through the Mediterranean.
Referring to last year's shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa that cost the lives of several hundred migrants, Graziano da Silva echoed a recent call by the Pope to prevent the Mediterranean from becoming a vast cemetery.
Tackling mass migration requires addressing its root causes, including wars, ethnic conflicts and extreme poverty, he said, urging cooperation based on solidarity.
"Doors often close in times of crisis. Solidarity helps us open its locks and work together for inclusive and sustainable development," he said.
The FAO Director-General also highlighted three regional initiatives in which FAO participates to strengthen cooperation among Mediterranean countries including the Mediterranean Agricultural Markets Information Network, which provides better and updated information about prices and stock for the most important commodities.
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AHEAD OF WORLD AIDS DAY, UN CHILDREN'S AGENCY URGES MORE INVESTMENT, ACCESS TO TREATMENT
An estimated 1.1 million HIV infections among children under 15 have been averted, but disparity in access to treatment is hampering progress towards reaching a global goal of reducing new infections in children by 90 per cent, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said today ahead of World AIDS Day.
New cases of HIV infections declined by more than 50 per cent between 2005 and 2013, as a result of expanding the access of millions of pregnant women living with HIV to services for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, UNICEF said in a press release. These services include lifelong HIV treatment that markedly reduces the transmission of the virus to babies and keeps their mothers alive and well.
"If we can avert 1.1 million new HIV infections in children, we can protect every child from HIV – but only if we reach every child," UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said.
"We must close the gap, and invest more in reaching every mother, every newborn, every child and every adolescent with HIV prevention and treatment programmes that can save and improve their lives," he added.
The agency stressed that the global goal of reducing new HIV infections in children by 90 per cent between 2009 and 2015 is still out of reach. In fact, in 2013 only 67 per cent of pregnant women living with HIV in all low- and middle-income countries received the most effective antiretroviral medicines for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission.
Among people living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries, adults are much more likely than children to get antiretroviral therapy, UNICEF noted. In 2013, 37 per cent of adults aged 15 and older received treatment, compared with only 23 per cent of children aged 0 to 14 – or less than 1 in 4.
The sharpest declines in new HIV infections among children took place between 2009 and 2013 in eight African countries: Malawi (67 per cent); Ethiopia (57 per cent); Zimbabwe (57 per cent); Botswana (57 per cent); Namibia (57 per cent); Mozambique (57 per cent); South Africa (52 per cent); and Ghana (50 per cent), according to UNICEF.
In addition, the agency emphasized that AIDS mortality trends for adolescents are also of significant concern. While all other age groups have experienced a decline of nearly 40 per cent in AIDS-related deaths between 2005 and 2013, adolescents aged 10 to 19 are the only age group in which AIDS-related deaths are not decreasing.
UNICEF's Statistical Update on Children, Adolescents and AIDS provides the most recent analysis of global data on children and adolescents from birth to 19 years of age.
World AIDS Day, celebrated annually on 1 December, was launched in 1988 and was the first-ever global health day.
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UN REFUGEE AGENCY WELCOMES ADOPTION OF CIVIL REGISTRATION DECLARATION IN ASIA-PACIFIC
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) welcomed the adoption today of an Asia-Pacific ministerial declaration proclaiming a shared vision of civil registration for all people by 2024.
In a briefing to reporters earlier today in Geneva, Adrian Edwards, a spokesperson for the agency, said that the declaration also applies to refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless people.
The adoption of the declaration comes on the final day of a week-long ministerial conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia and the Pacific held in Bangkok. The conference was organized by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), UNHCR and other development partners.
The registration encompasses the recording of all vital events of people in the region, including births, deaths and marriages, Mr. Edwards noted. Among other things, the declaration recognizes the need to reduce barriers to civil registration faced by marginalized and hard-to-reach populations including refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless people, Mr. Edwards said. It marks the first time States in the region have reached consensus on including such populations in civil registration and vital records systems.
As of now, an estimated 135 million children under five years old across the region have not had their births registered, according to UNHCR.
Similarly, millions of other important life events are not registered, although birth registration is an important protection tool, particularly in situations of displacement, Mr. Edwards said. Indeed, birth registration establishes a child's legal identity and can help prevent statelessness, he emphasized.
In addition, Mr. Edwards noted that birth registration is also an element in UNHCR's Global Action Plan to End Statelessness. Earlier this month, the agency launched I Belong, a global campaign aimed at ending within a decade the problem of statelessness.
At the conference, ministers and senior officials from 44 countries also endorsed a Regional Action Framework with goals and time-bound targets to improve national systems to register and document births, deaths and other vital events and to improve civil registration coverage within 10 years, Mr. Edwards noted.
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AFGHANISTAN: SECURITY COUNCIL CONDEMNS ATTACK ON UK EMBASSY VEHICLE
The United Nations Security Council has condemned in the strongest terms the attack yesterday on a United Kingdom embassy vehicle in Kabul, Afghanistan, reiterating serious concern at the threats posed by the Taliban, Al-Qaida and other terrorist and extremist groups.
The attack – for which the Taliban has claimed responsibility – resulted in a number of deaths and injuries to civilians and security personnel.
In a press statement issued yesterday, the Council also reiterated that "no terrorist act can reverse the path towards Afghan-led peace, democracy and stability in Afghanistan, which is supported by the people and the Government of Afghanistan and by the international community."
In addition to the threats posed by the Taliban, Al-Qaida and other terrorist and extremist groups, the Council reiterated its serious concern at the threats posed by illegal armed groups to the local population, national security forces, international military, and international assistance efforts in Afghanistan, particularly in light of other terrorist attacks in the country.
Reaffirming that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations is "criminal and unjustifiable," and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group, the Council underlined the need to "bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice."
As such, the Council urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Council resolutions, to "cooperate actively" with the Afghan authorities in that regard.
The Council also reaffirmed the need and reiterated its determination to combat, by all means, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, in accordance with the UN Charter and all obligations under international law, in particular international human rights, refugee and international humanitarian law.
In the statement, the Council also expressed deep sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims – wishing the injured a speedy recovery – and to the people and Government of Afghanistan and the people and Government of the United Kingdom.
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