is providing funding to unhcr and other agencies to address their needs and unhcr has appealed to egyptian authorities to protect all syrians seeking refuge. at this morning's state department staff meeting we were joined by assistant secretary patterson who until recently was our u.s. ambassador to egypt. so i know she's fully aware of this. and she was part of a conversation this morning about jis. ref >> -- refugees. >> there's a practical issue here on this no lost generation that gets down to something very basic and that is the fact that babies are being born in these refugee settings. recent unhcr survey on birth registration revealed 781 syrian newborns in lebanon. 77% of them had no official birth certificate. they are technically stateless at this point. these numbers are concerning because, as unhcr indicates, unregistered refugee children can face increased risk of exposure to violence, abuse and exploitation. the numbers may be low when you consider the universe of refugees, due in part to the barriers at birth registry that refugee families encounter at jordan and lebanon, in

as the syrian conflict grinds on, unhcr has done efforts to resettle, especially vulnerable refugees in third countries, including 30,000 this fiscal year, 2014. for decades the united states has received more refugees than any other country in the world. the american people have greeted these refugees in open arms and hearts. but the united states only accepted 31 syrian refugees in the last fiscal year. and the administration has said we are likely to accept a few hundred this fiscal year. two years ago i asked the administration to grant temporary protected status to syrians. as a result the united states is providing a safe haven to hundreds of syrian visitors who are in -- who were in this country on a temporary basis, but we also should accept more vulnerable syrian refugees who have no way of getting to the united states. one issue that needs to be addressed is the overly broad hint shun in our immigration -- prohibition in our immigration law that excludes any refugee who has provide any kind of support to an army rebel group, even a group we in the united states support. thi

with me to talk about this is nan et kelly, the unhcr representative in lebanon. thank you for talking to us today. firstly, my first question would be this conference is happening in geneva, it's a much-anticipated conference. what is your message to the people meeting there. you are someone that works with the refugees and knows the scope of the disaster. >> the message is to keep front and center in the room, and in the negotiations and be animated by the great extent of human tragedy that is playing outside inside syria. you see if in the faces of little children to the older people. great sadness and lose. futures destroyed. >> you mentioned you are starting the new year 6% funded. that is very little. can you tell us about the funding problems you are facing with the refugees. >> funding is a challenge. we are raising funding throughout the year, and what we have right now and i'm talking for unhcr is enough to keep the programs running and that means to provide basic food and necessities and through the registration exercise. the real challenge comes when y

government taken any steps with unhcr, n.g.o.'s and host governments to address the issue of statelessness among syrian refugee children? >> i'll take that and get back to you on that. i know statelessness is one of the unhcr's key mandates, fighting statelessness. and it's something we pay a lot of attention to globally. and i don't know the answer so i'll get back to you on that. thank you. >> so let's use this opportunity to give a shoutout if we've failed to to private sector efforts to try to help in this refugee situation. i understand ikea is trying to develop a new shelter, i don't know much more about it. >> they have developed it. it'seally as would you expect. but the ikea foundation helps refugee situations in more than other places, but their new shelter is something that can be folded up into a suitcase so that way it can -- the home can travel with the refugees wherever they are. >> it was reported recently, lebanon started to allow these ikea refugee housing units to be used to shelter syrians for fear that housing

absolutely essential that the organization's the unhcr has access to the displaced persons within the cia to the suffering tremendous steve it's very difficult for of organizations to meet at wimbledon in stations because of the conflict to reach all of these people. the land and sea carol and i humanitarian agencies are calling for more donations to fund their growing workloads. linda virus as a band aid will be meeting for years to come even if the warring factions strike up a retail deal during their peace talks genius not on nhk world. ted can. political and business leaders have gathered in countless switzerland to attend the world economic forum discussing a variety of issues including the crisis in syria and iran's nuclear program and that leaders from nearly thirty countries and more than fifteen hundred business people i've taken time to discussing voluntarily in emerging economies and youth unemployment. two major problems that are facing the global economy. iran's president has our own tiny and will give a speech later on thursday he will be followed by israeli prime minist

. >> our web team put together more about the plight of rohingya, and what the unhcr describes as a dire situation. go to the indepth question. >> the world's second largest forest of the juniper trees are being destroyed. we have this story. >> a meal on an open fire is ordinary. these people have to use juniper wood to survive. it's a slow growing try rising one foot every year. he would happily switch to another source of energy, if he had an alternative. >> translation: there is no electricity or gas. we had no choice. it snows every other day. you could see it's cold. we need to cut the trees to survive. the primitive forest is the second-large juniper area. some of the trees in this forest are more than 2500 years old. their survival is at stake due to illegal logging and rapid population growth. >> the forest spans 95,000 hectares. locals are cutting down centuries-old trees to grow produce. the first factor threatening the forest is land use. another reason for deforestation is livelihood. new trees cannot take root >> the forest ranges showed us 30 trees which they caught the ni

. >> unhcr has a large number of u.n. staff. we goddate to more than 3 million people. 8 million separate relief items were distributed in all 14 areas. sometimes we send convoys, they have to be recalled. we negotiate and send them back. ex-ly they get through. we have partners. they are dependable partners working with all parties on the ground. our agency partners. unicef, the iic, who are getting aid through. polio vaccinations. there is a good deal getting into syria. with a war going on we are seeing the country hem ridge people with 4,000 people crossing the border daily. >> there has been multiple reports that the assad regime is getting aid in rebel communities were there may be civilians starve. how do they make sure the aid was not used to prop of bashar al-assad during the war. >> well, we are monitoring where the aid is going, we are working with local partners monitoring how it's being used. there are, of course, a multitude of challenges on the ground. you have opposition fighters who, themselves may turn aid astr