Let's start this brief briefing of the UN Information Service in Geneva, Tuesday 9th of February.
I will start by reading to you an announcement that has been the the Jennifer Phantom, the spokesperson of the Office for the Special Envoy in Syria, has asked me to read the UN Envoy for Syria.
We'll brief the Security Council in closed session today, Tuesday at 4:00 PM.
Jim, the time, 10 AM in New York.
When the briefing concludes, Mr Pedersen intends to give brief remarks to the media.
His remarks can be viewed on UNTV at the usual address with tv.and.org.
Mr Pedersen will also be able to answer a few questions.
A link will be circulated to accredited journalist later today by Eunice.
The Office of Special involved will provide advance notice of his remarks.
This is what I have received from Jennifer.
And also we have an announcement from Rolando.
Rolando, you are connected by the platform, so you have the floor now.
Thanks very much, Alessandra.
And it's nice to be joining you all here.
I have quite a number of items on behalf of the Human Rights Council.
So starting with the, per the announcement.
Rolando, I'm told you can be heard on the platform.
I I can't hear you, but apparently the sound is good on the platform so you can go ahead.
So as as always I have a bit of an echo here.
OK, so as I was saying, looking.
And again, good morning, everyone.
I will just refer to the message I sent to you last night by e-mail concerning the special session on Myanmar of the Human Rights Council.
This session will take place this Friday, the 12th of February.
The session is being convened following the request submitted late yesterday by the United Kingdom and the European Union in order to address the human rights implications of the crisis in Myanmar.
The meeting will begin at 10 AM in the Assembly Hall on Friday.
Although as as you gathered, due to the COVID measures of the vast majority of speakers will be participating virtually and the media is therefore strongly encouraged to follow the meeting on webcast, which thanks to Unis is being made available in six languages.
For the moment, I don't have any details on who will address the session.
Those details will be available following the preparation meeting taking place Thursday afternoon, 3:00 PM.
It's also public in case you wanted to tune in.
It's largely procedural, but those details will be announced at that point.
And of course, I will share those with you afterwards.
And we also expect to receive a draught resolution prior to Friday's session, which I'll also share with you as soon as possible.
And just to simply note that resolution would be acted on towards the end of the special session on Friday.
I should also add that the call for the special session was supported by 47 states thus far, 19 Council members and 28 observers, and these states are listed in the update I sent you last night.
Yet Please note that the states may still wish to support.
The states may still wish to support.
So the list remains open.
It's it for the Myanmar session.
I just want to announce something else that during the Council's organisational meeting yesterday, states announced a series of draught resolutions that they intend to submit for the Council's consideration during the upcoming 46 session of the Council.
And that session is scheduled to take place from 20 to February to 23 March.
In total, states announced 30 draught resolutions that will be considered during the upcoming session.
And then Please note that this list may very well expand during the course of that session.
And I'll share the list of resolutions announced yesterday with you after the today's briefing.
Two more very brief points.
And as many of you will have heard, yesterday the United States addressed the Council meeting announcing their intention to re engage in the Human Rights Council.
Now, this announcement was followed by a statement by the Secretary of State Blinken to this effect.
And this marks the first time the United States participated in a plenary meeting of the Human Rights Council since they relinquished their membership in June 2018.
Now, the PERV requests that I've received from the media for reactions to this announcement.
I have the following comment to be attributed to the president of the Human Rights Council, that's Ambassador Shamin Nazar Khan of Fiji.
And I quote, I welcome the announcement by the United States at the Council yesterday concerning their intention to re engage with the Human Rights Council.
Constructive engagement by all members of the international communities at the Human Rights Council on matters that affect us all is vital.
Such engagement greatly increases the Council's ability to deliver its mandate of promoting and protecting all human rights aimed at improving the lives of all people around the globe.
And just one final note simply to draw your attention to the statement I shared with you yesterday by Ambassador Khan, which served as her inaugural address to the Human Rights Council since she was appointed, appointed as its president on 15 January.
And she noted, and I quote the Council in the constructive and inclusive nature of the dialogue it is able to host is crucial to the building of societies which are fairer, resilient and built on human dignity and equality.
In doing so, she added, the Human Rights Council takes on a role which is capable of transforming social, national and global relationships.
So this statement was delivered at the organisational meeting yesterday.
And I should note that Ambassador Khan will hold a press briefing with all of you next Wednesday, this coming Wednesday, in fact, 17th February.
And this is the tetritional pre session breakfast briefing ahead of the 46 session.
Yet as this will be largely virtual, you'll need to provide your own breakfasts.
So we will send out an advisory in the coming days with details on that press briefing.
Thank you, Rolando, and indeed, as you said, the Secretary General also welcomed the decision of the USA to reengage with the Human Rights Council.
We have sent you his comments.
Question for Rolando Katrina.
Good morning, Hollando Holland.
Good morning, Alessandra.
In fact, no question for Orlando because it's as perfect as usual and complete as usual.
So nothing to to ask to Orlando.
Thank you Orlando for being always as perfect in delivering your your work.
It is a pleasure to work with you and I know that I'm I'm taking the that's quite a statement.
We, when it's good, I mean, and it's brilliant and perfect.
Regarding what you announced, Alessandra, regarding Syria, it is not really clear.
Could you please repeat Clearly if I understood well, the Mr Peterson is going to hold a hybrid the press conference after his delivery to the Security Council, is that right?
And, and, and yes, correct, that's the idea.
He will brief the Security Council in a closed session around 4:00 Geneva time and then he would like to make a sort of a statement and some give you some, some remarks afterwards.
There will also be a small a brief question and answer session and everything will be watchable on webtv.un.org.
But for the accredited journalist, you will receive a link to the platform so that if there is time for questions, you'll be able to ask questions.
Thank you Alison and I would like I would like also to add that it is a pity that who did send us yes, you know send us and a message to say that was a very important press conference taking place at 10 O clock just a moment of of your briefing.
It is a pity that that they're not taking into consideration that there is there are two weekly briefings.
OK, on this particular point, yes, Katrine, you are right.
Indeed the briefing, important briefing from the experts in mission in China is happening now.
But as you know, it was announced at 9:00.
That is something that we had looked at with the colleagues from WHO.
Unfortunately for reasons that don't belong and neither to WHO nor to us, the press conference was delayed.
But that was not possible to to be to be foreseen before.
So yes, we had coordinated so that the press conference would happen before the briefing, but but unfortunately things went in another way.
Sometimes that happens especially when it's on, it's a press conference from the field anyway.
I have just two very brief updates and then I'll turn to Claire.
You have been asking for an update of the cases of the UN Secretary of Staff, which has been tested positive for COVID-19, and the total number at the moment stands to 219.
This is the total number of cases since March 2020.
I will give you afterwards a brief update on the meetings at the pilot, but I will now turn to Claire for her briefing note.
Claire on La Nina, Yes, yes, morning everybody.
I can't match Rolando, but I'll this morning we've issued our latest La Nina update.
You should have received it via e-mail.
In it, we say that the La Nina event, which was a moderate strength one, has now passed its peak, but impacts on temperatures, on precipitation, so rainfall, snow and storm patterns are continuing.
In this update, we're saying there's a 65% likelihood that the La Nina event, although, you know, not quite as strong, will continue during February and April.
And then after that, there's a 70% chance that the tropical Pacific will return to neutral conditions.
So neither La Nina or El Nino.
La Nina and El Nino are major climate drivers.
They're not the only ones.
So now in addition to reporting on El Nino and La Nina, we're also issuing what we called global seasonal climate updates that takes into account other factors, which are probably a bit too complicated, complicated to mention here, but they do include the Indian Ocean Dipole, the what we call the Arctic Oscillation.
And this global seasonal climate update says that despite the general cooling influence of La Nina, we do expect land temperatures in most parts of the world, not everywhere, in most parts of the world to be above normal for February to April.
We've issued, you know, quite a long press release with the regional impacts that we've seen over the past few months.
I'm not going to go into details with that on that now, but if you've got any questions, please feel free to to ask.
And obviously I should add at the end that, you know, in addition to all these naturally occurring factors, we every so-called natural event now takes place against the backdrop of of climate change.
Thank you very much, Claire.
Let me see if there are questions for you.
So thank you very much, Claire, and I'm sure it's perfect.
OK, so that leaves me with a couple of further announcements.
The first one is about let me take off my mask.
The first one is on the Conference on Disarmament, which will have its next public plenary meeting on 10th of February at 10 AM.
Still under the Presidency of Belgium will not add anything to the Human Rights Council.
I've heard it from Rolando.
I just would like to let you know that on Thursday 11th of February, the international community commemorates the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
This year's team is a women scientist at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19.
The Secretary General, together with the President of the General Assembly, will participate in a virtual commemoration in title Beyond the Borders, Equality in Science for Society, hosted by the Royal Academy of Science International Trust and a number of permanent missions to the UN.
There will be also an Instagram Live conversation by UN Women with teenage scientists and inventors and Times 2020 Kid of the Year Jitanjali Rao and other events, including from UNESCO ITUUNOOSA, who was sent to the field, the full programme for the day.
So this is what I wanted to say.
There are a few colleagues connected also on the line.
So if there's any question either for me or for IUM Antag, UNHCR, United World Food Programme, please ask.
And I'm looking now at the platform, I don't see any.
So I thank you all very much and I'll see you on Friday.
