Cuba

The Special Representative on Violence against Children presented her annual report to the Human Rights Council earlier today, highlighting the alarming trends in cyberbullying and the urgent need for the entire online ecosystem to act faster and together to protect children.

In Madagascar, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that another cyclone is expected to make landfall tomorrow. This comes on the heels of Tropical Cyclone Fytia, which touched down on 31 January. The Central Emergency Response Fund has released $3 million to help pre-position staff and supplies.

The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, Julien Harneis, said today that the Houthi de facto authorities approved flights from the UN Humanitarian Air Service for February allowing non-governmental organization staff to enter and exit Sana’a, the country’s capital, facilitating aid delivery for millions in need.

The General Assembly today adopted — by an overwhelming majority, though short of the near-unanimous support seen in previous years — a resolution calling for an end to the decades-old United States embargo against Cuba, before turning its attention to the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the complex challenges it faces in an increasingly divided world.

As the Caribbean region prepares for the devastation that will be caused by Hurricane Melissa, speakers at the General Assembly’s annual meeting about the embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba highlighted its impact on ordinary citizens’ lives in that country.

In Haiti, as the security situation deteriorates, essential UN personnel from agencies and its political mission remain in Port-au-Prince, ensuring continued delivery of critical humanitarian programmes and assistance and political support to assist Haitian-led efforts to successfully carry out the political transition.

The just released UN Environment Programme’s Adaptation Gap Report says that nations must dramatically increase climate adaptation efforts and urgently close the $187-359 billion per year gap that exists between adaptation finance needs and current international public adaptation finance flows.

In Lebanon, the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Public Health opened a new Trauma and Burn Management Unit at the Turkish Trauma and Emergency Hospital in Sidon and a humanitarian convoy successfully delivered one month of medical supplies, medicine and hygiene kits to the Primary Healthcare Centre in Labweh.

Following Hurricane Oscar that hit Cuba, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has released $3.5 million from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund to address urgent needs for shelter, health, food and water and a $33 million Action Plan will launched tomorrow.

The General Assembly today reiterated its call on the United States to end its economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba, as Cuba’s Minister for Foreign Affairs called the blockade against his Government “commercial warfare” and “a crime of genocide”.