Combatting anti-semitism & other topics - Daily Briefing (26 June 2019)

Noon briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.
Highlights:
- Secretary-General Travels to Japan
- Anti-Semitism
- Yemen
- Security Council
- Syria
- Mali
- Human Rights Treaty Bodies
- International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
- U.N. Charter Day
Secretary-General Travels to Japan
Just as a reminder, the Secretary-General is off to Osaka, Japan, where he will attend the G20 Summit.
The Secretary-General will speak at a session on climate change, environment and energy, and will participate in sessions on topics including the global economy, innovation and inequalities. He will also take part in a leaders’ side event on women’s empowerment.
While at the Summit, the Secretary-General will hold bilateral meetings with world leaders in attendance.
In a letter to G20 leaders ahead of the Summit, the Secretary-General said that, four years after the landmark agreement on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we have to accelerate efforts towards the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and address our changing climate.
The Secretary-General called on leaders to exercise their leadership in three areas: first, he encouraged G20 members to take the lead in implementing policies that promote not only rapid and robust growth, but also equitable growth; second, he stressed the need to increase the flow of public and private finance towards investments aligned with the SDGs, in part by shaping incentives so that private capital flows towards sustainable development; and third, he emphasized the need to seize the opportunities of the rapidly advancing digital revolution, while cautioning that digital divides can also grow rapidly.  We will share the full letter with you shortly in a note to correspondents.
On Sunday, the Secretary-General will be in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to attend the Climate Preparatory Meeting, which seeks to galvanize momentum and support for the solutions needed to tackle the climate emergency, ahead of his Climate Action Summit that he is convening in September in New York.

Anti-Semitism
Before heading off to Japan, the Secretary-General spoke at an informal meeting of the General Assembly on combatting anti-Semitism and other forms of racism and hate.
He said that anti-Semitism has not been extinguished, far from it. In the United States, Europe and elsewhere, attacks on synagogues, graveyards and individuals continue to make many Jews feel unsafe. This intolerance is also being directed at other faiths as well as migrants and refugees he said, with social media accelerating the rapid spread of bigotry.
The Secretary-General stressed that we need to treat hate speech as we treat every malicious act: by condemning it and refusing to amplify it. The Secretaty-General added that we also need to invest in social cohesion so that all members of society can feel that their identities are respected.  He pointed to the recently launched UN strategy to combat hate speech and the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation as examples of the UN combatting intolerance online and offline.
“I guarantee you that I will continue to call out anti-Semitism, racism and all forms of hatred – loudly and unapologetically,” he said.
His full remarks are online.
Highlights: