THE FOOD SYSTEMS SUMMIT 23 SEPTEMBER 2021

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23 September 2021

09:00 to 18:00 EDT

New York - Virtual

Under the leadership of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the UN Food Systems Summit will take place on Thursday, 23 September 2021. It will be a completely virtual event during the UN General Assembly High-level Week.

The UN Food Systems Summit will serve as a historic opportunity to empower all people to leverage the power of food systems to drive our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and get us back on track to achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Over the past 18 months, the Summit has brought together all UN Member States and constituencies around the world – including thousands of youth, food producers, Indigenous Peoples, civil society, researchers, private sector, and the UN system – to bring about tangible, positive changes to the world’s food systems. As a people’s summit and a solutions summit, it has recognized that everyone, everywhere must take action and work together to transform the way the world produces, consumes, and thinks about food.

The Summit will culminate this inclusive global process, offering a catalytic moment for public mobilization and actionable commitments by heads of state and government and other constituency leaders to take this agenda forward. 

Through this people’s summit, the UN will reaffirm its commitment to promote human rights for all and ensure everyone, everywhere has the opportunity to participate. The event is open to all through its virtual programme and platform.

Register today!

Join us at this event alongside leaders, experts and stakeholders from around the world. Together we can and must leverage the power of our food systems to achieve all of our shared goals for people, planet, and prosperity.

Note: Participants who registered for the Pre-Summit virtual platform in July do not need to register again for the Summit, as their existing profile will enable them continued access to the platform. If you have forgotten your login details or need to reset your password please visit our password reset page.

Join the #FoodSystems4SDGs countdown to the Summit

ANGOLA’S SOUTHERN REGION TO BENEFIT FROM SOLAR ENERGY, WATER

 Washington - Angola’s southern region will soon have solar and water supply systems, as part of USD 1.5 billion project to be implemented by US company “ Sun Africa”.

The project is expected to cover the southern provinces of Cunene, Namibe, Cuando Cubango and Huíla.

For the execution of the project, Angolan government and “Sun Africa” signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Monday, in Washington.

The Memorandum consists of the electrification of all Municipal headquarters and the main communes in the country.

The minister of Energy and Water, João Baptista Borges, signed the document for Angolan side, in the presence of the President, João Lourenço, as part of visit to the north American country.

João Baptista Borges said that the objective is to supply the electricity and water to the population and promote the emergence of economic ventures.

"The electrification will be done either through conventional solutions, with the extension of lines and the construction of substations, or using solar energy. The US is one of the leading countries in the installation of these systems, mainly in the remote regions, where this solution is the most available and accessible”, he stated.

The project features the installation of water supply systems, said the minister, stating that “Sun Africa” will mobilise financial resources from the US EximBank to cover the needs of the project.

He said that as soon as the contracts are signed, the execution period will be defined, predicting that the present project could be implemented in two years.

According to the official, the Memorandum is a reflection of the importance the US attaches to cooperation with Angola, the credibility the country currently deserves with US financial institutions and an evidence of the priority the Angolan Executive gives to expanding access to electricity and to water.

The memorandum was signed on the sidelines of a roundtable on investments in Angola, an initiative of the United States-Angola Chamber of Commerce.

The president of the US-Angola Chamber of Commerce, Pedro Godinho, praised the round table  and added that the turnout at this event spiked among many American companies which did not participate in the previous events.

He said the increase in participation in the Angolan event owed to the reforms underway in Angola, with stress to crack down on corruption, as well as the credibility the country began to gain with institutions such as the International Mine Fund and the World Bank.

COVID-19: ANGOLA REPORTS 324 FRESH CASES, 76 RECOVERIES

 

Luanda – Angolan health authorities announced Tuesday 324 new cases, 5 deaths and 76 recoveries in the latest 24 hours.

As many as 178 new infections were detected in Luanda, followed by Huambo province, with 69.

The daily bulletin also announced 17 new cases in Cabinda, 15 in Huíla, 15 in Uíge, 10 in Namibe, 7 in Zaire, 4 in Cuando Cubango, 3 in Malanje, 3 in Moxico, 2 in Bié and 1 in Cunene.

 The new cases involve 188 men and 136 women, with ages ranging from 1 month to 93 years old.

The fatalities were reported in the provinces of Namibe with 3, while Huambo and Uíge with one each.

Among the recovered patients, 24 are residing in Luanda, 23 in Bié, 18 in Huíla, 6 in Namibe, 3 in Moxico, 1 in Benguela and 1 in Lunda Sul.

So far, Angola has totaled 52,968 positive cases, 1,414 deaths, 46,182 recoveries and 5,372 active patients.

Boris Johnson tells Macron: Donnez-moi un break over new pact

 Boris Johnson has told the French president to “donnez-moi un break” and get over his anger about a new military pact between the UK, US and Australia.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, he said it was time for “some of our dearest friends” to “prenez un grip”.

Paris is angry after Australia signed the Aukus pact to build nuclear-powered submarines, pulling out of a major contract with France in the process.

Mr Johnson insisted they were “not trying to shoulder anybody out”.

The Aukus agreement brokered last week, widely seen as an effort to counter China’s influence in the contested South China Sea, ended a deal worth $37bn (£27bn) signed by Australia in 2016 for France to build 12 conventional submarines.

• Aukus pact could signal power shift in Asia-Pacific
• Aukus pact delivers France some hard truths

In the following days, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the move as a “stab in the back”.

France’s defence minister then called off talks with her UK counterpart, Ben Wallace, who tried to reassure France saying that there had been no intent to “upset or drive a wedge between us and France”.

And in a rare step among allies, French President Emmanuel Macron ordered the recall of the French ambassadors to Washington and Canberra.

On his visit to the US this week, Mr Johnson said: “This is fundamentally a great step forward for global security. It’s three very like-minded allies standing shoulder to shoulder creating a new partnership for the sharing of technology.

“It’s not exclusive. It’s not trying to shoulder anybody out,” he added.

Analysts have described the Aukus alliance as probably the most significant security arrangement between the three nations since World War Two.

The pact will focus on military capability, separating it from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance which also includes New Zealand and Canada.

While Australia’s submarines is the big-ticket item, Aukus will also involve the sharing of cyber capabilities and other undersea technologies.

Mr Johnson is understood to have learned French while attending school in Brussels and, during his time as foreign secretary, he was known to venture into French during press conferences.

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Angry scenes at Haiti airport as deported migrants arrive

 Angry scenes broke out at Haiti’s main airport after migrants were deported to the country from the US.

On Tuesday, migrants at the airport in Port-au-Prince rushed back towards the plane they had arrived on, while others threw shoes at the jet.

Last weekend, the US started flying out migrants from a Texas border town which has seen an influx in recent weeks.

About 13,000 would-be immigrants have gathered under a bridge connecting Del Rio in Texas to Ciudad Acuña in Mexico.

Chaos unfolded at Toussaint Louverture airport as one man attempted to re-board the aircraft. The plane’s crew rushed to close the jet’s doors in time, Reuters news agency reports.

Video footage taken a the airport shows people scrambling for their personal belongings after their bags were dumped out of the plane.

There are reports that some migrants were not told they would be returning to Haiti.

According to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there were two separate incidents at the airport on Tuesday.

A source told NBC News that the pilots on board one of the flights was assaulted on arrival in Haiti and three US immigration officers were also injured.

In a separate incident in Texas, a group of Haitians reportedly fought Border Patrol agents and attempted to escape after realising they were being deported.

At the time, the migrants were being transported on a bus from the town of Brownsville to Del Rio.

“When the migrants found out they were going to be sent back to Haiti, they took the bus over and they fled,” Brandon Judd, the president of the National Border Patrol Council, said at a news conference late on Tuesday.

The removal of migrants has been criticised by Partners In Health, an NGO that has been working in the country.

“During a challenging and dangerous period for Haiti, it is unthinkably cruel to send men, women and children back to what many of them do not even call ‘home’ anymore.”

About 4,000 people have either been deported or moved to other processing centres, according to DHS.

IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS

image caption People were forced to look for their belongings on the ground after arriving in Haiti

From Thursday, flights could be ramped up to as many as seven a day, according to the Washington Post.

Quoting an unnamed US official, the Associated Press also reported on Tuesday that authorities are also releasing Haitian migrants into the US “on a very, very large scale”.

The official added that many of the migrants have been given notices to appear at immigration offices within 60 days. The official said this approach requires less processing time than having them appear before an immigration court.

The migrants have been waiting in a makeshift camp in temperatures of 37C (99F).

Local officials have struggled to provide them with food and adequate sanitation.

Most of those at the camp are Haitians, but there are also Cubans, Peruvians, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans present.

Many Haitians left the country after a devastating earthquake in 2010, and a large number of those in the camp had been living in Brazil or other South American countries and travelled north after being unable to secure jobs or legal status.

This year has brought further hardship for the impoverished country. In July, Haiti’s president was assassinated – and in August it suffered another deadly earthquake.

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Lithuania urges people to throw away Chinese phones

 Consumers should throw away their Chinese phones and avoid buying new ones, Lithuania’s Defence Ministry has warned.

A report by its National Cyber Security Centre tested 5G mobiles from Chinese manufacturers.

It claimed that one Xiaomi phone had built-in censorship tools while another Huawei model had security flaws.

Huawei said no user data is sent externally and Xiaomi said it does not censor communications.

“Our recommendation is to not buy new Chinese phones, and to get rid of those already purchased as fast as reasonably possible,” said Defence Deputy Minister Margiris Abukevicius.

Censorship

Xiaomi’s flagship Mi 10T 5G phone was found to have software that could detect and censor terms including “Free Tibet”, “Long live Taiwan independence” or “democracy movement”, the report said.

It highlighted more than 449 terms that could be censored by the Xiaomi phone’s system apps, including the default internet browser.

In Europe, this capability had been switched off on these models, but the report argued it could be remotely activated at any time.

“Xiaomi devices do not censor communications to or from its users,” a spokeswoman told the BBC. “Xiaomi has never and will never restrict or block any personal behaviours of our smartphone users, such as searching, calling, web browsing or the use of third-party communication software.”

The firm is fully GDPR compliant, she added.

The research also found the Xiaomi device was transferring encrypted phone usage data to a server in Singapore.

“This is important not only to Lithuania but to all countries which use Xiaomi equipment,” the Centre said.

The smartphone maker has soared in popularity with affordable models, seeing a 64% rise in revenue in its second quarter compared to a year earlier.

Huawei P40

The report also highlighted a flaw in Huawei’s P40 5G phone, which put users at risk of cyber-security breaches.

“The official Huawei application store App Gallery directs users to third-party e-stores where some of the applications have been assessed by anti-virus programs as malicious or infected with viruses,” a joint statement by the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence and its National Cyber Security Centre said.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

A Huawei spokesman told the BBC it abides by the laws and regulations of the countries where it operates, and prioritises cyber-security and privacy.

“Data is never processed outside the Huawei device,” he added.

“AppGallery only collects and processes the data necessary to allow its customers to search, install and manage third-party apps, in the same way as other app stores.”

Huawei also performs security checks to ensure the user only downloads “apps which are safe,” he said.

A further 5G model by OnePlus was also examined by the team, but was found to have no issues.

The report comes as tensions between Lithuania and China are rising.

Last month, China demanded that Lithuania remove its ambassador from Beijing and said it would withdraw its envoy from Vilnius.

The row began when Taiwan announced its missions in Lithuania would be called the Taiwanese Representative Office.

Other Taiwanese embassies in Europe and the United States use the name of the country’s capital city, Taipei, to avoid a reference to the island itself, which China claims as its own territory.

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Afghanistan: Second email data breach by MoD uncovered

 A second data breach by the Ministry of Defence, potentially compromising the safety of Afghans who may be eligible to relocate to the UK, has been uncovered by the BBC.

Dozens of people were mistakenly copied in to an email earlier this month, with their email addresses visible to all recipients.

It is the second such breach to come to light. An investigation is under way.

The MoD has apologised and said extra support was being offered to them.

In the latest data breach to be uncovered, defence officials sent an email that had the email addresses and some names of 55 people which could be seen by everyone who was sent the message.

The recipients – at least one of whom is from the Afghan National Army – were told UK relocation officials had been unable to contact them and they were asked to update their details.

An MoD spokeswoman said: “We have been made aware of a data breach that occurred earlier this month by the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (Arap) team.

“This week, the defence secretary instigated an investigation into data handling within that team.

“Steps have now been taken to ensure this does not happen in the future.”

• Defence secretary angered over Afghan data breach
• MoD shared 250 Afghan interpreters’ details on email

It comes just a day after the defence secretary apologised for a separate breach involving the email addresses of dozens of Afghan interpreters who worked for British forces.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said it had been “an unacceptable level of service” that had let down thousands of members of the armed forces and veterans.

More than 250 people seeking relocation to the UK – many of whom are in hiding – were mistakenly copied into the email.

Their email addresses could be seen by all recipients, showing people’s names and some associated profile pictures.

Mr Wallace said an investigation had been launched and one official suspended.

Defence sources told the BBC that Mr Wallace did not know about this second breach when he spoke in the Commons on Tuesday.

Former Conservative defence minister Johnny Mercer, who served in Afghanistan, said he feared there may be more to come.

“I’ve been concerned from the start as to how these individuals have been treated – the whole thing was such a rush to the door when Kabul fell that these mistakes were inevitable,” he said.

“I personally think we’ve taken out people we really shouldn’t have, and failed to bring out the majority of those we should – I think we are only beginning to learn the scale of what has gone on here.”

On Tuesday, Labour shadow defence secretary John Healey welcomed the defence secretary’s apology but told the Commons that action now mattered most.

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