LONDON - United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Thursday said a new vaccine against the coronavirus had to be available to everyone across the world, as an international conference got under way to raise funds for new life-saving treatments.
The virtual meeting, hosted by Britain, aims to raise $7.4 billion for immunization programs stalled by the pandemic, and launch a new fundraising drive to support potential COVID-19 vaccines.
In a video message, Guterres said: "A vaccine must be seen as a global public good -- a people's vaccine, which a growing number of world leaders are calling for."
There needed to be "global solidarity to ensure that every person, everywhere, has access," he added.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for a "new era of global health cooperation" to "unite humanity in the fight against disease," particularly in the poorest countries.
More than 50 countries are taking part in the meeting, as well as individuals such as billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, to raise funds for Gavi, the vaccine alliance.
Over the next 5 years, it wants to reboot halted programs and provide vaccines at a much-reduced cost to some 300 million children worldwide.
Gavi and its partners will also launch a financing drive to purchase potential COVID-19 vaccines, scale-up their production and support delivery to developing nations.
The pandemic has exposed new ruptures in international cooperation, notably with US President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the World Health Organization (WHO).
But Johnson said helping developing countries would benefit places such as Britain, which has seen more than 39,000 deaths in the coronavirus outbreak -- the second-highest in the world behind the United States.
"This support for routine immunizations will shore up poorer countries' health care systems to deal with coronavirus -- and so help to stop the global spread," he told reporters on Wednesday.
"This virus has shown how connected we are. We're fighting an invisible enemy. And no one is safe frankly until we are all safe."
ALL AT RISK
Trump sent a recorded message to the conference, telling delegates: "As the coronavirus has shown, there are no borders. It doesn't discriminate.
"It's mean, it's nasty. But we can all take care of it together... we will work hard. We will work strong."
Microsoft founder Gates earlier said pharmaceutical companies had been working together to try to secure the required production capacity.
"It's been amazing, the pharmaceutical companies stepping up to say 'yes, even if our vaccine is not the best, we will make our factories available,'" he told BBC radio.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 380,000 people since it emerged in China last December, according to an AFP tally of official sources.
Stay-at-home orders were imposed across the world, causing huge economic disruption and the suspension of many routine immunisation services.
The WHO, UN children's agency UNICEF and Gavi warned last month that vaccine services were disrupted in nearly 70 countries, affecting some 80 million children under the age of 1.
Polio eradication drives were suspended in dozens of countries, while measles vaccination campaigns were also put on hold in 27 countries, UNICEF said.
Guterres urged the conference to commit to finding "safe ways to continue delivering vaccinations, even as COVID-19 spreads" and to make sure that any coronavirus vaccine "reaches everyone".
Recent Gavi-supported modelling from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimated that for every coronavirus death prevented by halting vaccination campaigns in Africa, up to 140 people could die from vaccine-preventable diseases.
"More children in more countries are now protected against more diseases than at any point in history," said Seth Berkley, chief executive of Gavi.
"However, these historic advances in global health are now at risk of unravelling as COVID-19 causes unprecedented disruption to vaccine programs worldwide.
"We face the very real prospect of a global resurgence of diseases like measles, polio and yellow fever, which would put us all at risk."
Agence France-Presse
Taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to erode human rights would be unacceptable, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Thursday, unveiling a new report on the issue.
As governments around the world implemented extraordinary measures to deal with the outbreak, activists have increasingly warned of strongmen regimes using the crisis to roll back rights.
Rights groups have called states out for everything from violence, threats to press freedom, arrests and smartphone surveillance implemented to fight the wave of infections.
"Against the background of rising ethno-nationalism, populism, authoritarianism and a pushback against human rights in some countries, the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic," Guterres said in a statement.
"This is unacceptable."
He called on governments to be transparent, responsive and accountable.
"Civic space and press freedom are critical. Civil society organizations and the private sector have essential roles to play. And in all we do, let's never forget: The threat is the virus, not people," Guterres said.
The UN report on human rights and COVID-19 suggested that governments think about the consequences of their actions, saying "for better or for worse it is critical to consider the long-term whilst planning our short-term responses."
Agence France-Presse
UNITED NATIONS, United States - A COVID-19 vaccine may be the only thing that can bring back "normalcy," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Wednesday, hoping for just that before the end of the year.
"A safe and effective vaccine may be the only tool that can return the world to a sense of 'normalcy,' saving millions of lives and countless trillions of dollars," he added during a video conference with the 50 or so African countries that are members of the United Nations.
He called for its accelerated development and accessibility to all, adding it must have a "universal global benefit" and "allow us to control the pandemic."
"We need an ambitious effort to ensure that international stakeholders operate through a harmonized, integrated and leveraged approach to maximize the speed and scale needed for the universal deployment of such a vaccine by the end of 2020," he insisted.
Guterres said his appeal on March 25 for $2 billion in donations for a comprehensive UN humanitarian response to the pandemic had so far raised about 20 percent of that amount.
Through the World Health Organization, the United Nations has been able to equip 47 African countries with COVID-19 tests, he said.
The UN chief also praised the efforts of several African governments to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic.
He cited Uganda, which has given businesses more time to file their tax returns; Namibia, which provides emergency income for workers who have lost their jobs; Cape Verde, which provides food aid; and Egypt, which has reduced taxation on industries.
Agence France-Presse
UNITED NATIONS, United States - The coronavirus pandemic is the worst global crisis since World War II, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday, expressing concern that it could trigger conflicts around the world.
Guterres said that the scale of the crisis was due to "a disease that represents a threat to everybody in the world and... an economic impact that will bring a recession that probably has no parallel in the recent past."
"The combination of the two facts and the risk that it contributes to enhanced instability, enhanced unrest, and enhanced conflict are things that make us believe that this is the most challenging crisis we have faced since the Second World War," he told reporters.
The New York-based United Nations was founded at the end of the war in 1945 and has 193 member states.
"A stronger and more effective response... is only possible in solidarity if everybody comes together and if we forget political games and understand that it is humankind that is at stake," Guterres added.
More than 40,000 people have been killed so far as the disease spreads across the world, and causes economic devastation.
"We are far from having a global package to help the developing world to create the conditions both to suppress the disease and to address the dramatic consequences," Guterres warned, pointing to unemployment, the collapse of small firms and vulnerable people in the informal economy.
"We are slowly moving in the right direction, but we need to speed up, and we need to do much more if we want to defeat the virus."
The UN on Tuesday created a new fund to help developing countries after last week appealing for donations for poor and conflict-hit nations.
Beyond traditional aid from rich countries "we need to have innovative financial instruments," so that developing nations are able to respond to the crisis, Guterres said.
He warned that the coronavirus outbreak could return from poorer countries, especially in Africa, to hit wealthy countries again, and that millions could die.
Agence France-Presse
UNITED NATIONS, United States - The United Nations is running a deficit of $230 million, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Monday, and may run out of money by the end of October.
In a letter intended for the 37,000 employees at the UN secretariat and obtained by AFP, Guterres said unspecified "additional stop-gap measures" would have to be taken to ensure salaries and entitlements are paid.
"Member States have paid only 70 per cent of the total amount needed for our regular budget operations in 2019. This translates into a cash shortage of $230 million at the end of September. We run the risk of depleting our backup liquidity reserves by the end of the month," he wrote.
To cut costs, Guterres mentioned postponing conferences and meetings and reducing services, while also restricting official travel to only essential activities and taking measures to save energy.
Guterres had asked member states earlier this year to up contributions to the world body to head off cash flow problems, but they refused, a UN official said on condition of anonymity.
"The ultimate responsibility for our financial health lies with Member States," Guterres said.
Not including what it pays for peacekeeping operations, the UN's operating budget for 2018-2019 is close to $5.4 billion, with the United States contributing 22 percent.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
UNITED NATIONS, United States - A damning new UN report published Sunday said the world is falling badly behind in the race to avert climate disaster because of runaway warming, with the five-year period ending 2019 set to be the hottest ever.
It comes ahead of a major UN climate summit Monday that will be attended by more than 60 world leaders, as Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pushes for countries to increase their greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The report "highlights the urgent need for the development of concrete actions that halt global warming and the worst effects of climate change," said its authors, the Science Advisory Group to the summit.
Average global temperature between 2015-2019 is on track to be the hottest of any five-year period on record, according to the report compiled by the World Meteorological Organization.
The period "is currently estimated to be 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial (1850-1900) times and 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer than 2011-2015," it said.
The past four years were already the hottest since record-keeping began in 1850.
Guterres said last week the world was "losing the race" on climate change, and the latest report spells out the extent to which the gap between what is required and what is happening is widening.
Rather than falling, carbon dioxide grew two percent in 2018, reaching a record high of 37 billion tonnes.
More importantly, there is also no sign yet of reaching what is known as "peak emissions," the point at which levels will start to fall, though these are not growing at the same rate as the global economy.
The 2015 Paris Agreement saw countries lay out national targets to reduce their emissions in order to limit long term temperature rise by under two degrees Celsius or ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
These are benchmarks that will limit in important ways the impact of warming on world weather systems.
But even if all countries meet the goals they set themselves, the world will warm by 2.9 degrees Celsius to 3.4 degrees Celsius, the report found.
The current levels of ambition would need to be tripled to meet the two degrees Celsius goal and increased five-fold to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal -- technically still possible.
"This reads like a credit card statement after a five-year long spending binge," said Dave Reay, a professor and chair in Carbon Management at the University of Edinburgh.
"Our global carbon credit is maxed out," he added. "If emissions don't start falling there will be hell to pay."
- Deadly Heatwaves -
In 2018, global carbon dioxide was 407.8 parts per million (ppm), 2.2 ppm higher than 2017 and set to reach or exceed 410 ppm by 2019.
"The last time Earth's atmosphere contained 400 parts per million CO 2 was about 3-5 million years ago," the report said.
At that time, global mean surface temperatures were two-to-three degrees Celsius warmer, ice sheets at both poles had melted, and seas were 10 to 20 meters higher.
Other major takeaways include that the extent of Arctic summer sea ice has declined at a rate of 12 percent per decade over the past 40 years, with the four lowest values between 2015 and 2019.
Overall, the amount of ice lost from the Antarctic ice sheet increased by a factor of six each year between 1979 and 2017, while glacier loss for 2015-19 is also the highest for any five-year period on record.
Sea-level rise is also accelerating as is the process of acidification.
The report also found that heatwaves were the deadliest weather hazard in the 2015-19 period, affecting all continents and setting new national temperature records.
The summer of 2019, which included the hottest ever month on record, July, saw unprecedented wildfires in the Arctic.
In June, these were responsible for emitting 50 megatons of carbon dioxide.
The report also comes at a time of increasing mobilization over the question of climate change, with millions taking part in a youth-led global strike Friday, before the first UN youth climate summit on Saturday.
On Sunday, 87 major companies with a combined market share of $2.3 trillion committed to set climate targets in line with the 1.5 C goal.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday the world was "losing the race" to avert climate disaster, but that greenhouse gas reduction targets were not out of reach yet.
He was speaking during an interview with the Covering Climate Now coalition of media, which includes AFP, days before a UN youth climate summit that will be followed by a meeting with world leaders, where he will urge countries to raise their commitments set under the Paris agreement.
The landmark accord saw countries pledge to limit the long-term rise in the average temperature of the Earth to two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, and if possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"What I want is to have the whole of society putting pressure on governments to make governments understand they need to run faster, because we are losing the race," he said, adding: "What the science tells us today is that these targets are still reachable."
Guterres said that inaction by some key countries, including the US, could be at least partly offset by action at the sub-national level, for example in the carbon neutral pledges made by the states of California and New York.
"I think one of the best things of the US society is the fact that it is a federal country... that decisions are decentralized, so I will be always very strongly in favor of keeping decisions on climate change as decentralized as possible," he said.
He noted that major cities, regions and businesses were taking over, and that banks and investment funds were pulling out of the coal and fossil fuel sectors.
Guterres also cited the example of the European Union, where only three countries now oppose the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, and said that he felt a "new wind" in the push for renewable energy, especially with the growth of solar in India and China.
Failure to meet the goals laid out under the Paris agreement could lead to the crossing of so-called "tipping points" such as the thawing of the Earth's permafrost that further accelerate warming, creating a situation where extreme weather events become the norm.
Guterres said he was heartened by growing societal awareness, which meant that hope was not yet lost, "but that requires profound changes in the way we produce food, in the way we power our economies, in the way we organize our cities, in the way we produce energy."
"I feel that more and more people, companies, cities, and governments, are understanding that needs to be done," he said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
UNITED NATIONS, United States—United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed a new HIV/AIDS chief on Wednesday after the previous incumbent left accused of serious mismanagement.
Oxfam International executive director Winnie Byanyima of Uganda will lead UNAIDS, a spokesperson for Guterres said in a statement.
She succeeds Michel Sidibe who stepped down in May after he was accused of creating "a patriarchal culture tolerating harassment and abuse of authority."
An Independent Expert Panel (IEP) report commissioned by UNAIDS's governing body said the agency's culture under Sidibe also failed "to uphold the United Nations' laws and values."
Sidibe left UNAIDS after a decade-long tenure to become Mali's health minister.
Guterres continued to praise Sidibe despite his being reprimanded for mishandling a sexual assault investigation involving one of his top deputies.
Sidibe's divisive era led AIDS experts to voice concern over the future of the UN body, which UNAIDS leads a global effort to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
In the statement announcing Byanyima's appointment, Guterres said she "brings a wealth of experience and commitment in harnessing the power of government, multilateral agencies, the private sector and civil society to end the HIV and AIDS crisis for communities around the world."
Byanyima, 60, said she was "honored" to be joining UNAIDS "at such a critical time in the response to HIV."
AIDS-related illnesses have killed 35 million people since the first cases were reported more than 35 years ago.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
NEW YORK - World stock markets slid Wednesday as worries about US-North Korea tensions sent traders fleeing to safe-haven investments.
Analysts pointed to the harsh threats and saber rattling from US President Donald Trump, including a message Wednesday on Twitter boasting that the US nuclear arsenal was now "more powerful than ever before."
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was deeply concerned about the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and was "troubled" by the increase in confrontational rhetoric.
In Europe, equities dived with London losing 0.6 percent, while Frankfurt shed 1.1 percent and Paris fell 1.4 percent.
The news was also greeted with dismay by traders in Asia, with Tokyo down 1.3 percent, Hong Kong losing 0.4 percent and Seoul registering a 1.1-percent decline.
US stocks also fell, lingering in negative territory the entire session, but notching smaller declines than in overseas markets. The Dow shed 0.2 percent.
"It is a market that is beginning to encounter some major threats and of course the threat is geopolitical," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial.
Uncertainty over North Korea also reverberated in the foreign exchange market, where safe-haven currencies such as the Japanese yen and Swiss franc rallied.
"Saber-rattling between two of the world's least predictable leaders caused a wave of risk aversion to wash over global markets, fueling demand for traditional safe harbors," said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst at Western Union Business Solutions.
Among other markets, oil prices advanced after a US Department of Energy report showed lower oil inventories.
Dow member Disney dropped 3.9 percent as it reported flat third-quarter revenues due in part to weakness in its cable subscription business.
Disney also announced it will launch two new streaming television services including one for its ESPN-branded sports channel, while ending its deal with Netflix as it shifts towards direct content distribution. Netflix lost 1.5 percent.
Charter Communications rose 2.9 percent on news Altice is exploring a bid for the cable giant. Altice USA, the subsidiary of the French company, added 0.1 percent.
KEY FIGURES AROUND 2050 (4:50 a.m. Thursday in Manila)
New York - Dow: DOWN 0.2 percent at 22,048.70 (close)
New York - S&P 500: DOWN less than 0.1 percent at 2,474.02 (close)
New York - Nasdaq: DOWN 0.3 percent at 6,352.33 (close)
London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.6 percent at 7,498.06 points (close)
Frankfurt - DAX 30: DOWN 1.1 percent at 12,154 (close)
Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 1.4 percent at 5,145.70 (close)
EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 1.4 percent at 3,467.43
Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.3 percent at 19,738.71 (close)
Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 0.4 percent at 27,757.09 (close)
Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 3,275.57 (close)
Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1758 from $1.1748 at 2100 GMT on Tuesday
Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3003 from $1.2989
Dollar/yen: DOWN at 110.02 yen from 110.36 yen
Oil - Brent North Sea: UP 56 cents at $52.70 per barrel
Oil - West Texas Intermediate: UP 39 cents at $49.56 per barrel
source: news.abs-cbn.com
