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The Secretary-General is in Rome, and in a few minutes, he will have a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, to be followed by a joint press stakeout.
Earlier in the day, at the Palazzo Madama, which houses the Italian Senate, the Secretary-General delivered remarks on multilateral solutions to global challenges, during a special session organized by the President of the Senate and the President of the Chamber of Deputies. He reiterated his disappointment with the outcome of COP25 and called for climate ambition to remain at the top of the international agenda in the crucial, next crucial 12 months.
On Libya, the Secretary-General expressed his frustration that the arms embargo is not respected and that a ceasefire and a political solution led by the Libyan themselves is needed, he said.
Turning to the issue of refugees and migrants, he called for more support and solidarity for the Mediterranean countries that receive them like Greece and Italy.
Following the session, the Secretary-General participated in an official lunch offered by Italian President Sergio Mattarella, with the participation of Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.
In the afternoon, the Secretary-General had an additional meeting with the leaders of the Rome-based food agencies and also met with leaders of the community of Sant’ Egidio, to discuss their work, notably their assistance programmes for refugees and migrants. He met some of the migrants who are being assisted by Sant’ Egidio.
Tomorrow, he will travel to Brindisi to mark the 25th anniversary of the UN Global Service Centre, the logistics base which provides support to peacekeeping and political missions around the world.

MIGRANTS
Today is International Migrants Day.
In a video message to mark the observance, the Secretary-General stressed that migrants are integral members of society, contributing to mutual understanding and sustainable development in communities of both origin and destination.
He also highlighted how a safe, orderly and regular migration is in the interest of all and that national priorities on migration are best achieved through international cooperation.
All migrants are entitled to equal protection of all their human rights, he added.
In the 2019 edition of the International Migrants Day focuses on the stories of social cohesion, which are as varied and unique as each of the 272 million migrants living new lives and building new communities in every corner of the globe.

MIDDLE EAST
Nickolay Mladenov, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, briefed the Security Council this morning and said that, unfortunately, violence has continued in the region. Meanwhile, inflammatory actions and rhetoric have also continued. He added that no steps were taken during the reporting period to “cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem” as demanded in resolution 2234.

SYRIA
Najat Rochdi, the Senior Humanitarian Adviser to the Special Envoy for Syria, today condemned the recent intensification of hostilities in northwest Syria, in particular aerial bombardments and the reported use of barrel bombs that killed civilians, including women and children.
Despite the repeated assurances that warring parties only strike legitimate military targets, attacks on healthcare and education facilities are continuing. Ms. Rochdi called for immediate de-escalation and urges all parties to respect their obligations under international law, including the obligation to ensure the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure.
Counter-terrorism operations cannot override responsibility to protect civilians. Ms. Rochdi emphasized that civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times and that sustained, unimpeded and safe humanitarian access to civilians in need must be guaranteed in order to allow the United Nations and its humanitarian partners to continue to carry out their critical work across Syria.

YEMEN
The members of the Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) concerning Hudaydah, will hold their seventh joint meeting today and tomorrow, aboard the UN-flagged vessel and that meeting will take place in international waters.
The Chair of the Coordination Committee, Lieutenant General Guha, will facilitate discussions on the implementation of the Hudaydah Agreement and further steps to enhance the ceasefire in Hudaydah. The meeting will also discuss improving humanitarian access throughout the Hudaydah governorate.
Meanwhile, Yemen remains the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, but one of the most effective despite the non-permissive operating environment. This year, the UN and other humanitarian organizations are reaching 12 million across the country making it the world’s largest aid operation.
Some 24.1 million people – that’s 80 per cent of the population of Yemen - need some form of humanitarian assistance. At least 5.1 million people in 75 hard-to-reach districts have been cut off from humanitarian assistance by restrictions imposed by authorities.
An estimated 3.3 million people remain internally displaced across the country. Nearly half a million have been displaced this year alone.
An estimated 7.4 million people need nutrition assistance, of whom 3.2 million people require treatment for acute malnutrition.

ASWAN FORUM
The Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez Taranco spoke on behalf of the Deputy Secretary-General at the Peacebuilding Commission this morning and discussed her participation in last week’s Aswan Forum which took place in Egypt. In the remarks he said that the Forum had served as a useful platform for addressing the root causes of crisis in Africa, recognizing the commitment of African States towards sustaining peace and development, and championing African-led solutions.
The outcomes of Aswan will feed into our thinking in New York Mr. Taranco has said as we pursue integrated responses on the ground, with sustainable development at the centre.

SUDAN
The World Food Programme (WFP) today announced what it calls a significant breakthrough in humanitarian access by providing 10,000 people with food in Yabus, in a town in Sudan’s southern Blue Nile State.
In Yabus, the WFP Executive Director David Beasley witnessed the first food distribution in nearly a decade.
Parts of southern Blue Nile State have been inaccessible to UN agencies and other groups since conflict began there and in South Kordofan in 2011.
Following months of negotiations, in October, Mr. Beasley supported a humanitarian confidence-building visit to Kauda in South Kordofan, the first visit by the UN to the area in nearly a decade. It was after this visit that commitments were made to allow for UN-interagency humanitarian access to the conflict affected areas of Blue Nile and South Kordofan.

UNICEF
UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said today that children and young people from around the world have taken to the streets recently to demand their rights, calling for a fairer world for everyone, everywhere.
She noted that it is therefore a heartbreaking irony that, in standing up for their fundamental rights, many children and adolescents are simultaneously having their rights taken away from them, with many young protestors being behind bars, injured or even killed.
Ms. Fore said that children’s rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, including in peaceful protest, are enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, calling on Member States to ensure that children can exercise this right in a safe and peaceful manner.

BREAST CANCER
Just a last note, earlier today, the World Health Organization (WHO) prequalified its first biosimilar medicine in a move that could make this expensive, life-saving treatment more affordable and available to women globally.
The medicine, called Trastuzumab, is a monoclonal antibody and was included in the WHO’s Essential Medicines List in 2015 as treatment for about 20 per cent of breast cancers.
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women. 2.1 million women contracted breast cancer in 2018. 630.000 of them died, many because of late diagnosis and lack of access to affordable treatment.