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tv   Antonio Guterres  Al Jazeera  April 5, 2020 10:32pm-11:01pm +03

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more than 9100 people have been killed nationwide the country's top doctor says americans must brace for the hardest and saddest weeks off their lives comparing the crisis to 911 on the bombing off pearl harbor but death rates are falling and the world's total worst hit nations italy has recorded $525.00 deaths in the last 24 hours that's its lowest toll in more than 2 weeks and spain has reported 674 new fates the 1st time that number has dropped below 800 in a week. a 2nd migrant camp in greece has been placed under quarantine after an afghan man tested positive for the corona virus the 53 year old has been taken to hospital while all thor days are now tracing how the virus entered the camp you're up to date with the headlines on al-jazeera the united nations tells us about global efforts to stop the virus next on talk to al-jazeera.
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to see. how low the. u.n. headquarters in new york this is a building i would kid in most days and i have to tell you if he's very early now normally there's about 10 move some people come into this compound every single week day now at the moment there's only about 300 people accessing this building every day they all the skeleton staff most of the working trying to get the video conference and systems working to allow the rest of the u.n. to continue its vital functions those peacekeeping missions mainly in africa and
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the humanitarian agencies of the u.n. that are helping the most vulnerable people. it's worth telling you that the u.n. is most worried about those people. about the refugees and those living in conflict zones that's why one of those who has been coming to work here every single day the u.n. secretary general has ordered a $2000000000.00 appeal i asked him about it. you've launched this global humanitarian appeal tell us what is at stake here and how many lives could be lost if the world doesn't act to help the most vulnerable countries the refugee camps and the conflict zones but this is exactly an appeal for that it is a humanitarian appeal for those countries in conflict for those fragile states for refugee camps it's always placement camps. that emetic humanitarian needs that need
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to go on being met but on top of that now the surete of coffee at 19 and you need to do everything to prevent the disease to come to those areas to the extent possible and at the same time in those areas you have people sometimes in slums of big cities are in camps in which it's very difficult to have isolation there is no water in the household survey sometimes no soap else care facilities are extremely rugged mountain and so we need to boost to the response capacity in those areas that's why we have asked and we mobilized all u.n. agencies that have trust with present movement large number of n.g.o.s we mobilized all to work together and with those funds with those $2000000000.00 to make sure that we are able to ever strong push for prevention in those vulnerable areas and at the same time to bring the equipment to that is require the ventilator staffs
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suits or for the the staff to allow for contact with people impacted masks and then water and sanitation in key. he has to put people to wash their hands soap magazines and all the other aspects that are essential for else care systems to be boosted and to have a minimum capacity to respond to the needs of these peoples now if these won't happen if we allow the these to spread like wildfire in the developing world in general and in these parts in particular we left millions and millions of people infected we can have millions of people dying and. even for those that sometimes up to air go east and sink why to support of the philippine countries when we have so many problems at home you know what on rich countries i would remind them that if these spreads like wildfire in the sauce there will be
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a mess if there's missions that makes that mutation of the fighters even more easy and so that is a risk that the virus comes back to the philip world even after vaccines have been developed when the taliban seems that all is over and then every single start again circular general we're both in the same building right now but we are conducting this interview remotely for obvious reasons your living in new york it's eerie right now it's worrying yet this is one of the richest cities on earth with some of the most sophisticated medical care if they're worrying about how they can cope here what chalks to some other places stand in this i do believe that it depends on how all soon you attack the coffee's 19 and if you attack 1000 soon enough you will be much more able to respond effectively then when we are already in the epicenter of the pandemic and so our main concern in addition to
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those areas most of them out of remote areas many of them have not yet been touched is still put enormous pressure on prevention and on make sure that we control. well the beginning of a possible outbreak what we are witnessing now in many developed countries is that they started too late and now even relatively sophisticated l. systems. and able to respond to the very that emetic impact of the disease we need to act and we need to act immediately to be able to avoid the worst you've called for a global ceasefire are in conflict zones but let me give you a couple of examples in recent weeks things have been going in the opposite direction in some of those conflicts let me ask you how worried you are about the increase in hostilities in yemen well i am even if one of the most important movements in yemen has declared that they would accept this ceasefire or that the
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appeal of ceasefire and we have other arms movements in other parts of the world saying that they would be ready to abide by it all our special report are these and then voice everyone in the world are pushing to make sure that these it believes those lazy in the people at the action bringing together the parties to the conflict for the ceasefire to become of you know it it we have he should lives in syria and yemen in libya in very in many other parts of the world and i hope that these appeal will be heard then that people will understand that there is only one was that is necessary today it's a war against the vital you mention libya that there was already supposed to be a humanitarian poor in libya but one side has not been respecting it general half the in recent weeks seems to have intensified his campaign what's your message to him this is the moment to stop all military action this is the moment to concentrate on fighting 19 we're already seeing covert 1000 cases in garza you being there you know it's one of the most crowded places on earth how were you
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supposed to self isolate if you're someone living in a place like gaza well it is extremely difficult but the same applies to the slums of big cities. in different parts of the world to refugee camps it is much more difficult and that is the reason why we massively need support for those areas and we massive need to increase the capacity to respond and they all services that are so weak in those areas need to be very quickly pulls that and of course water and sanitation programs but grams of. all kinds of improvements that are very many ted and i mentioned absolutely crucial to minimize the negative impact many cities around the world are on lockdown in those places the medical advice is very consistent do you believe that citizens and for that matter political leaders who ignore that advice of being irresponsible i think we need to have
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a core of the in 18th action of all countries and i believe the g 20 will be an opportunity to do so all countries need to have a common strategy and that's that the g. is not a strategy in my opinion of mediation is a strategy of suppression of the vials now for that you can combine different ways you can if you have a huge testing capacity and if you have a very strong pricing capability and quite in tightening all the people detected like singapore has done that you need less restrictive. measures relation to movement and the nation to contact but if the testing capacity is limited then you really need to see here the limited movement of people you need to see if you limit the capacity of contact and not to recognize these is in my opinion putting the country is a risk of the disease spreading like wildfire and if the disease spread is like
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wildfire the consequences will be absolutely devastating we need to understand f. course we need to understand that people are concerned with the economic impact but that. it is why it is so important to have a massive mobilization of financial resources that is why it is so important to get n.t. there beyond maintaining liquidity in the financial systems that is a message support to households to keep them afloat to businesses to keep them afloat and a country like the united states for instance as you just mentioned is this cussing a package of 2 trillion dollars which comes close to the 2 digit percentage of the economy that i've been mentioning several times is needed to make sure that you can combine very thus the restrictions of movement we does the same time keeping the people the businesses afloat and allowing for when you are successful in
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suppressing the disease for the recovery and quick recovery of the economy you mention the u.s. and you mention the g 20 president both sonora of brazil is saying there he is there is hysteria president trump is talking about opening up the u.s. economy by easter when people are parsing the message doctors stay at home of these sort of messages from political leaders on helpful. i sink that it is very clear that we need to be able to suppress the disease and obviously the time framework to suppress these is might be different from country to country according to the measures that are putting into place but without suppression of the disease we risk the spread like wildfire and will have millions of cases and with millions of cases we can have millions of people dying and these is something that we absolutely need to avoid and so my message to all the those is concentrate our efforts are suppressing the disease and concentrate your efforts in rescuing the
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situation of people and businesses for your economy also to be able to survive and then to recover when the time comes well you heard the secretary general there talk about that $2000000000.00 fund for the most needy around the world the man who will administer that fund or behalf of the united nations is the emergency relief coordinator more local i've been speaking to him. well this is to get going with the response to cohabit 19 in about 40 of the countries which are going to be most vulnerable to it those which already have huge humanitarian challenges like syria yemen afghanistan somalia and so on we're going to do a bunch of things firstly we're going to scale up testing the provision of equipment other medical support secondly we're going to scale up water and sanitation and hygiene programs as we know that one of the ways people can protect themselves a bit from this is by having good personal hygiene way going to scale up information
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particularly on social distancing and all the things other things people can do to protect themselves getting the virus rather paper and then another really crucial thing so we're going to do is try to compensate for the declining availability of commercial airlines by scaling up the operation of the un zone humanitarian efforts there are thousands and thousands of aid workers who we can put to work on this problem in these vulnerable countries but we need to be able to get them and supplies and equipment in there now how difficult is it going to be for you to get the kit that you want because many governments of finding homes to find the mosques to find the globes to find the tests to carry out tests and also of course to find ventilators it's going to be a huge challenge they well health organization has already sent test kits and personal protection equipment to dozens and dozens of countries they are being
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resupplied by some of the producers and we're going to do everything we can but there's no getting away from the fact that if the countries with the world's best health systems are struggling with all those things it's going to be commensurately a much much bigger challenge for the countries we're talking about in this appeal how worried are you about the world's refugees while refugees are extremely vulnerable group of people our appeal covers. all of our refugee programs they are often in very densely populated places like cox's bizarre in bangladesh where all the ranger refugees are we had lots of new guidance to all the aid agencies on how to do the best they can to cope with dealing with the thinnest the threat covert 19 pages in refugee settings it could be a very very difficult challenge indeed how worried are you about conflict zones in places like syria like yemen like libya again that could be
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a huge problem said that's one of the reasons why we call for a global ceasefire every country in the world needs to fight the war against covert 19 to put down the guns and the bombs and deal with this big a deadly enemy it will be much much harder to mount a response if that doesn't happen people need to come to their senses in some places we are seeing a reduction in violence in northwestern syria over the last 2 or 3 weeks for example there has been reduction in violence but everybody else needs to get the message the virus is sending where when you talk about libya we're also very worried about the situation in yemen anybody with influence over any of the warring parties need steering harrison to understand what's going on and how what they're doing if they perpetuate the conflict is an enormous act of self harm going to be damaging themselves and their own interests if they don't gain volved in a proper ceasefire the u.n. is all about
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a multilateral response to things getting the ritsuko interest to help the poor ones but right now every country seems to be just focusing alone on their own problems because they are so severe. and it's right there every country focuses 1st on its own problems entirely right they do that but it's also right and actually that makes the charges not a strategy to do a little bit for those countries which are going to find it hardest to cope because it shows about this virus this disease is that nobody is going to be safe until everybody is safe as i continue to walk around this virtually empty u.n. compound only a skeleton staff working in this building in fact going through a security checkpoint at the moment with the automatic doors because there are no staff here it's worth reflecting on some of the most open book crowded places on earth where people are the most vulnerable and i'm talking about refugee camps in
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places where there are displaced people particularly conflict zones but man who's in charge of dealing with those problems is the u.n. high commissioner for refugees fully program day let's 1st talk about refugee camps and those refugee camps where your organization helps run things what are you changing in those camps in terms of social distancing and how do you achieve social distancing the marginal maneuver is relatively small these are very overcrowded area we've made a we like in many crowded cities in even in poorer countries in these situations social distancing will be a big challenge so what we're trying to do where we can where we have species which is not cool with gays is to build additional and structures safe for who aren't can
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park purposes or for screening purposes should an outbreak hits any of these situations i hasten to say so far we have not seen me gerard riggs thank god but we need to be. preparing for that and then of course we are multiplying other interventions we're trying to improve water supply sanitation systems and of course we need to also equip humanitarian workers to be protected. in that delivering their services you know we are used to working in difficult even secure dangerous situations and we've even been involved many of us in countering ebola and other it began ics but never on this global scale we have a financial appeal for additional resources which we hope will be met generously by dormer's. so what are your contingency plans if there was an outbreak in
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a refugee camp would you consider trying to evacuate everyone. in many cases this would be absolutely impossible and therefore we have to operate where the people are now the most important thing to say here is that of course this is the responsibility of the host governments and they have to make sure that refugees are included in their responses because by the way many many places it's not just about break through g.'s it's about the local population that lives in equally crowded spaces in the same areas so we're working with governments we're working with governments to strengthen their response to get ready for a possible outbreaks in this like a sense includes all aspects of the response many of the people you deal with the displaced people who aren't in formal camps and one thing that comes to mind is the advice you keep hearing from people the best way to protect yourself is washing
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your hands but one assumes many of these people don't even have access to clean water this is like it is so important to strengthen government systems you know of humanitarian assistance will be important crucial for the extra miles that we have to run in responding to possible outbreaks incredulously to actions but what is really important is the assistance that institutions like the world bank other financial institutions by lateral dollars are provided to governments to strengthen their response systems if i think of what they saw in their places like how you. and the incredible incredibly crowded parts of the city that they visited with women and children in particular camping out because there was simply no shanker i really campbell in. to think of what may happen if the virus creates havoc in this particular situation this type of situation and booking
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a hassle is by no means the only one we really become a liability for the people who live in there 1st and foremost for the horse communities for the entire countries but also regionally and grow but if you take libya not only libya syria yemen that. afghanistan parts of somalia where conflict traditionally has been an obstacle to the delivery of humanitarian assistance. then the situation becomes even more complicated this is not just a matter of having to help people that leaving crowded areas where this voice keep to social contact or where the weather or where water is scarce but in addition to that you have fighting preventing humanitarian aid to reach these people clearly
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in syria our health care facilities are being bombed and there's a real difficulty getting things across the border again in yemen very difficult to cross lines with vital supplies without suspicion of hostilities without at least the ceasefire that the secretary general is calling for in those situations it would be impossible to stop the pandemics in those countries you know one important point that we have trying to make to daughters is that as you hopefully under kate additional resources in these countries to help us counter the pandemics don't let go don't lower your guard. don't drop the ball our existing humanitarian and development programs and in particular who many parian programs i've had discussions with donors for example if you can. problems some don't or say when you can't really continue to do education we have today for all
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the resources to or and and sanitation and i would argue nor we need to keep those investments including in education how can you do proper health and you creation if you don't have it your kitchen structures and programs everything is interconnected so we need to sustain beyond going to humanitarian efforts and we need to add are additional resources i'm afraid to counter the specific threats caused by the pandemics you know once again it's the seen thing that we we we see all that we in the u.n. about the other group often are about climate emergency refugees and migration about poverty if we don't work together these problems we come back to haunt us over and over again in sometimes you know we may think that these problems are confined to certain areas they don't concern us when pandemics short this
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pandemic short that it concerns each one of us as we speak in our all see courts this is a very difficult time for the u.n. the world of diplomacy works face to face normally and it is clear that the institutions of global leadership and cooperation are somewhat paralyzed by all this partly because the u.n. is based here in new york and that's the epicenter of the virus in the united states it's worth now at the end of our program looking forward to beyond the time when we're fighting this virus and to look at the way the world of work will change here in the u.s. and this is the al-jazeera office i'm working on my own everyone else working from home i asked the secretary general how he. thought things would change in the future obviously we are currently looking hour by hour day by day fighting this
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disease but can i ask you to look at when this is over do you think it will change the way the world works i think that there will be enormous inevitable changes 1st of all there is is becoming largely a digital world with a digital economy and i believe that there will be a huge boost in all aspects related to cyberspace have sufficient intelligence to the all the virtual forms of transaction and all the virtual forms of contact and so the world it will inevitably change and i don't think we should fight climate change with a virus but i also believe that there will be an opportunity to. cover the economy with a much more sustainable and inclusive approach and that these will be an opportunity we should not miss of course the emissions are not going down but if we go on in the future repeating the same mistakes they will go up again and we'll be facing
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exactly the same the domestic situation of climate change so let us make sure that when we convert our economies we think profit of everything we learned with the crisis to make the global developments that the g. much more inclusive and much more sustainable and to make climate change the priority that has always been 2nd to general antonio good terrorists thank you for talking to al jazeera thank you very much it was a pleasure. before
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any official investigation into the tragedy of flight m h 17 is complete once again if it isn't journalists who used to have connected the dots in late density one of the names are viewed by the investigations team at delhi camp has identified the 2nd such and citizen journalism investigations trust is generated through transparent don't believe me here's the. better truth for an approach truth one coming soon on 00. join the global conversation off the bubble to the people that expand their brains and maybe have a different view this is a dialogue women in cambodia are in fact selling their hair we don't know how much they're getting paid for it it's hard to track it's hard to treat everyone has a voice tell us what you think and your conversation could be a lot right here in this case we need to step away from gaming people are not necessarily game perfect this is a journey of progress and not perfection amount is iraq. trying to add and covering
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all of that narrative for most of my career but no country has alike and it's my job to shed light on how and why. this is al-jazeera i'm with a check on your world headlines britain's queen elizabeth has paid tribute to the country's health service workers in a rare televised address but her words came as more than 600 further people died in the u.k. and the government pleaded for people to stay home so the whole report's 2 weeks into the u.k.'s lockdown and deserted city scenes a testament to a new way of life most people staying home for as long as science and the government decide they must also on lockdown.

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