Noon Briefings

In a message to mark Human Rights Day today, the Secretary-General spoke of the millions of refugees and internally displaced people running from war, violence and injustice.  He urged the international community to not close, but open doors and guaranteed the right of all to seek asylum, without discrimination.

The Secretary-General spoke at the commemoration in Finland of the sixtieth anniversary of the country’s United Nations membership and welcomed its steps to prevent social exclusion, foster understanding across cultures and religions, and promote human rights.  He also visited an asylum seekers’ centre near the capital.

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Central Africa updated the Security Council, saying Boko Haram remained a critical threat to regional stability, peace and security, piracy cases in the Gulf of Guinea had increased and tensions were mounting as several countries entered electoral cycles.

The Secretary-General, opening the high-level session of the twenty-first Conference of the Parties (COP21) just outside of Paris, told ministers and negotiators representing 196 parties that their task was to translate this historic call for action into a durable, credible and fair climate agreement.

The UN refugee agency says that recent fighting in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria region between local groups and the army has displaced more than 4,000 people into a remote region of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.  UNHCR has registered almost 3,500 newly arrived refugees in areas near the border.

At the Paris Climate Change Conference, new international partnerships were unveiled.  They include early warning systems for more than 50 of the least developed countries and small island States, as well as access to insurance for more than 400 million people in the most vulnerable countries.

Welcoming an announcement by the Government of Thailand that it has granted statehood to more than 18,000 people in the last three years, the United Nations refugee agency says this marks an important further step in the global campaign to end statelessness by 2024.

This morning in Paris, the Secretary-General told leaders gathered for the twenty-first Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference that they were here to write the script for a new future.  He added that a political moment like this may not come again.

Marking International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and UN-Women’s launch of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, the Secretary-General said that ending violence against women and girls is a top priority of the United Nation’s mission of peace, development and human rights.

The Special Envoy for Syria met today with delegations from Syrian armed opposition groups.  He briefed the delegates on the outcomes reached by the International Syria Support Group, including the close linkage between a ceasefire and a parallel political process pursuant to the 2012 Geneva Communiqué.