I attended the noon briefing today, October 13th. I don’t know the normal duration, but it was pretty short, only about 20-25 minutes. The first section was led by the Spokesperson of the UN Secretary-General, Farhan Haq. He began by expressing condolences for Kuwait and the royal family after the country’s Emir passed away. He then explained a climate report by several countries that called for assessment of weather to evolve from, “what the weather will be to what the weather will do.” He then talked about a report of increasing conflict and climate problems in Africa’s Great Lakes region, which consists of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and others. He then moved on to a UN support mission in Libya that has pushed forward the appointment of 5 women judges. Next, he discussed issues in the Middle East. There is continued fighting in Afghanistan resulting in mass displacement, 208,000 this year, and about 200 deaths among those refugees. It is estimated that there are about a million refugees in Iran, many of whom are Afghan. Food prices have shot up creating a health and poverty crisis, which ties into a report by WHO and other agencies that the pandemic has caused an unprecedented risk of poverty across the world.
Haq answered a few questions. One was about a prisoner being held without charges who went on an 80-day-long hunger strike, to which Haq reiterated the UN’s stance that everyone deserves a speedy trial. Another question was about the UN’s preparedness against cyber attacks. The UN’s communications and technology department assures Haq that they are well-prepared and are able to deal with problems as they arise.
The floor was then turned over to Brenden Varma, the Spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly. He again began with remarks about Kuwait’s late Emir. He praised the leader’s history of humanitarian aid. Varma then named the open seats up for election in the 75th assembly and somewhat explained the process of election. He was then asked by Edith Lederer when the announcements of these elections would happen and he explained the election results would most likely be announced without warning. He then took a question about how seats were allocated to member states and more questions about the process of the election. He then signed off.
One question I found to be tough was the question directed at Mr. Haq about the prisoner on hunger strike. Haq condemned the matter but the topic was somewhat shuffled aside, and I wasn’t able to get any more information. However, I think the most interesting topic and hard-hitting question was directed at Mr. Varma. A journalist asked him about the discrepancies in how countries are selected for seats on the assembly. For example, why is a seat allocated to China or Russia, when they have been condemned for human rights violations. Varma explained that it was the Human Rights Council’s responsibility to assess member states and that oversight primarily fell on each country’s own leadership. In regards to how seats were chosen, his message seemed to boil down to, “we have to choose the lesser of evils.”