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Die diplomatischen Spannungen zwischen Paris und Tel Aviv nehmen zu: Israels Premier Benjamin Netanjahu wirft Frankreich vor, mit der geplanten Anerkennung Palästinas Antisemitismus zu schüren – der Élysée reagiert mit scharfer Zurückweisung.

La Republika Srpska n'a plus de président ni de Premier ministre. Destitué, Milorad Dodik annonce un référendum, tandis que la Commission électorale de Bosnie-Herzégovine prépare une présidentielle anticipée. L'analyse de Tanja Topić.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Bosnie-Herzégovine, RS sécession, Politique, Une - Diaporama

The European Court of Justice struck the legislation down in 2019, leaving German taxpayers with a bill of over €240 million

La Grèce n’envisage pas de déployer de soldats en Ukraine une fois la paix revenue, dans le cadre des garanties de sécurité actuellement discutées par Bruxelles. C’est ce qu’a confirmé mercredi 20 août un porte-parole du gouvernement.

The post La Grèce exclut l’envoi de troupes en Ukraine après la guerre appeared first on Euractiv FR.

The case comes as Sánchez's administration is currently under fire for several corruption scandals

Zimbabwe experienced a drought in 2019 and livestock farmers were hit hard. Cattle crossing a dry river in Nkayi District, Nov. 2019. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Aug 20 2025 (IPS)

My family lost six herds of cattle during the devastating El Niño-driven drought that swept Zimbabwe in 2024. The loss was as emotional as it was financial. Guilt gnawed at me.

Drought was nothing new—the past three years had made it painfully clear that I needed to supplement the cows’ feed and ferry water from kilometers away just to keep them alive. But I was fighting a losing battle, desperately trying to sustain emaciated, skeletal animals. Eventually, I had to accept the inevitable: climate change had killed our cattle, and I had been complicit in their suffering.

Have I moved on? Not really. At first, I told myself my distress was an overreaction. After all, countless farmers lost hundreds of livestock and watched their crops wither to nothing. They had suffered more and lost more than I was crying over. Stress, I reasoned, was simply part of the job.

Journalists report on climate change without being personally affected—or so I thought. I was wrong.

Climate change doesn’t just destroy landscapes and livelihoods; it takes a psychological toll on journalists who highlight its horrors.

A groundbreaking study by Dr. Antony Feinstein, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, reveals a hidden crisis: journalists covering the climate crisis are suffering profound emotional and mental health consequences. The research presented during a discussion organized by the Oxford Climate Journalists Network (OCJN) surveyed 268 journalists across 90 countries, spanning Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

The findings are staggering and spoke to me. Forty percent of journalists reported experiencing depression, while one in five exhibited symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), often linked to the “moral injury” of bearing witness to environmental destruction. More than half (55 percent) of the journalists said they lacked access to psychological support, and 16 percent had taken time off work for mental health reasons as a result of covering climate change stories.

The numbers grow even grimmer: nearly half of the journalists surveyed reported moderate to severe anxiety (48%) and depression (42%). Around 22% showed prominent PTSD symptoms. Worse still, 30% had been directly impacted by climate change—losing family, friends, or homes to the crisis. I counted myself in that statistic. I may not have lost a family member, a friend or a home but if cattle count as part of my life, I was affected.

As a journalist reporting on climate change in Zimbabwe—one of the world’s most vulnerable nations—these findings hit close to home. They exposed a fragility I had long dismissed as just part of the job.

Journalists need psychological support. Stigma about mental health runs deep and how do I tell friends and family that I am not okay reporting a story on the impacts of droughts, worse that I have witnessed the loss of six cattle because I could not save them when the drought decimated pastures and dried water supplies? So what? negative events are normal and feeling bad is, I guess, normal too? I have had a lingering question. Surely I can be unsettled by the deaths of cattle and listening to the desperate narratives of farmers about how climate change has upended their lives?

I was depressed, sad, and guilty. I could not do anything to stop cattle dying nor could I pacify farmers in pain. The trauma in covering catastrophe after catastrophe is numbing. Journalists who report on climate change are witnessing a global crisis of our time, and they need support to deliver the news without sacrificing their mental health.

Witnessing tragic events carries a heavy burden for journalists who report on them. I recall covering a story about the impact of drought on livestock farmers in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe’s northern province, where farmers were sharing their staple maize with their cows to keep them alive. Many lost more, some three, five and six cattle between them, but they did give up, though despair was scrawled on their faces. I was shocked and numbed by listening to their sad narrations, but I had to get the story out. I felt hopeless.

Getting a “good” story out of bad experiences means I have to make a tough choice of putting my feelings aside and getting the job done. I have not acknowledged the mental load of witnessing the trauma of covering disasters, yet journalists are supposedly resilient to disturbing news and they soldier on. But no. I have experienced depression at the thought of how people bounce back from personal loss when climate change hits. It is a horror movie that continuously plays in my mind as I go about reporting.

Journalists would benefit from a comprehensive support programme to help them step away from the pressure of being witnesses to catastrophic events. The trauma is beyond comprehension; there is no justification to suffer in silence, especially when mental stress is not talked about in public but endured in private. As a journalist, I have been a victim.

How do I separate myself, my mind and my emotions from the sad stories I cover? I do not have an answer. I am convinced that journalists should tell climate change stories but not be forced to live the reality, although that is almost impossible. Many like me are living the stories they tell with deep scars of mental fatigue and regret.

I believe that newsrooms can offer support in terms of preparing journalists to have the mental agility to report on crises without taking strain from reporting them. Moreover, the impacts of climate change, which is a defining story of the century, affect everyone. Those who say so are at the forefront of agitation, anguish, and hopelessness.

The climate crisis is breaking more than just ecosystems—it’s breaking the journalists who tell its story.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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IPS UN Bureau Report

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Ces derniers mois, le projet européen d’avion de combat de nouvelle génération Future Combat Air System (FCAS) met la relation franco-allemande à rude épreuve — entre rivalités industrielles, tensions sur la direction du programme et enjeux financiers colossaux.

The post Défense aérienne : la France et l’Allemagne au point mort dans le programme FCAS appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Mit steigenden Temperaturen werden Küstenabschnitte regelmäßig von tonnenweise stinkenden Algen überzogen. Beim Zersetzen setzen sie Schwefelwasserstoff frei – ein hochgiftiges Gas.

France, Israel trade barbs as Paris eyes Palestinian state recognition

Rescuers carry children away from their flood-devastated village in the Buner region in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. The region Credit: Al Khidmat Foundation

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Aug 20 2025 (IPS)

Intense rainfall over small areas in Pakistan’s mountainous regions caused massive destruction, sweeping away entire villages.

On August 15, the district of Buner in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province experienced a weather anomaly in which glacier melt and intense monsoon rains caused floods that buried villages under mud and rock.

“I’ll never forget what we saw as we crested the last hill—no life, no homes, no trees—just grey sludge and massive boulders,” recalled Amjad Ali, a 31-year-old rescuer from Al-Khidmat Foundation, the charitable arm of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami, and the first to reach the village of Bishonai, 90 percent of which had been washed away.

It took Ali and his team of 15 volunteers, including two paramedics, four hours to reach the once-forested village—now buried under mud and rock.

Since June, northern valleys across Gilgit-Baltistan, Kashmir, and KP have faced repeated climate disasters. Between June 26 and August 19, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) reported over 695 deaths—53 percent from flash floods, 31 percent from house collapses, and nearly 8 percent from drowning.

Villagers, including women and children, led to safety. Credit: Al Khidmat Foundation

More Extreme Weather is Expected

“The weather is on a rampage—it’s not going to improve,” warned Sahibzad Khan, Director General of the Pakistan Meteorological Department.

He explained that delayed and reduced snowfall until March left little time for accumulation of snow.

“Temperatures rose steadily from April, with northern regions seeing a 7°–9°C spike in August,” he said.

Khan cautioned against labeling the recent events as “cloudbursts,” noting that these typically involve over 100 mm of rain in an hour. For him, what stood out in Buner was the unusual collapse of massive boulders—a sign of glacial disintegration.

“This was inevitable,” said Khan. “Rising temperatures are wreaking havoc on glaciers. Huge boulders falling from the mountains suggest ancient glaciers are breaking apart.”

He warned that warming of the Third Pole (mountainous region located in the west and south of the Tibetan Plateau) could lead to loss of the ice towers—the lifeline of the Indus Basin.

As scientists warned of long-term consequences, communities on the ground are grappling with the immediate aftermath.

Rescue workers pray during evacuation and rescue operations in the district of Buner, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Pakistan. Al Khidmat Foundation

 

Rescue trucks line up to enter the district of Buner, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Pakistan devastated by floods. Al Khidmat Foundation

Rescuer’s Tale

“People were in a state of shock but from what little we learned, it had been raining gently all through Thursday night (Aug 14). Then around 8:30 am on Friday (Aug 15), a ferocious torrent swept through, destroying everything in its path,” said rescuer Ali, speaking from Sawari Bazar, 30-minutes from Bishonai village.

Every survivor shared the same story—it struck suddenly, leaving no time to save anyone.

“I pulled a man from the sludge with a broken leg and one eye missing,” said Ali. “He was the sole survivor of 14 family members. Their three storey home was gone.”

He adds, “Everyone who survived had a dozen or so family members missing that day.”

Though he had led rescue teams for five years, Ali said he had never witnessed such horror. It wasn’t the eight-hour trek to and from Bishonai that drained them, but the emotional toll of retrieving bodies and injured survivors buried in the sludge.

With help from over 100 volunteers, they were able to bury over 200 men, women and children – some headless, others with limbs missing. Over 470 missing villagers were presumed dead. They returned home at 2 am, but the work was far from over.

The official death toll across Pakistan stands at 695: 425 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 164 in Punjab, 32 in G-B, 29 in Sindh, 22 in Balochistan, 15 in Kashmir and 8 in Islamabad—and the number continues to rise.

Nearly 958 injuries have been recorded until Aug 19 by the NDMA with 582 in Punjab, 267 in KP, 40 in Sindh, 37 in Gilgit-Baltistan, 24 in Kashmir, 5 in Balochistan and 3 in Islamabad.

Official figures report 17,917 people rescued—over 14,000 from KP alone.

The floods damaged 451 km of roads, 152 bridges, and 2,707 homes—833 completely destroyed—mostly in KP and G-B. Floods also claimed 1,023 livestock, with KP the worst hit.

The KP government has released PKR 800 million in relief funds for the affected districts and an additional PKR 500 million for Buner, the worst-hit area.

Gilgit-Baltistan in Ruins

Gilgit-Baltistan, like KP, is reeling from similar climate disaster of flash floods

“Not a single part of G-B has been spared,” said Khadim Hussain, head of the region’s Environmental Protection Agency. He reported widespread destruction of farmland, homes, hotels, restaurants, and entire riverbank hamlets. Several villages remain cut off due to collapsed bridges and face critical drinking water shortages.

The situation turns critical when the Karakoram Highway—G-B’s link to the rest of the country—is blocked. “It’s been flooded multiple times in just 10 days,” he said. Glacier collapse and district-wide floods submerged sections, stranding travelers for up to 12 hours.

Essential services have also collapsed. Gilgit, the region’s capital, has had no electricity for three days. “The main hydropower station is severely damaged; smaller micro-hydro units were washed away,” added Hussain. Communication networks are also down.

Rescue workers in a house wrecked by floods in the district of Buner, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Pakistan. The water rages below them. Credit: Al Khidmat Foundation

Cloudburst Crises

Hamid Mir, coordinator with WWF Pakistan, who has been studying weather patterns for over a decade, explained that warmer air holds more moisture.

“With every 1°C rise in temperature, air holds 7 percent more water vapor, increasing rainfall intensity.”

Rapid glacier melt adds humidity to local microclimates, feeding convective clouds, which are responsible for short, intense rainfall events, including cloudbursts, he said.

“What we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg!” warned Mir, explaining that G-B’s steep terrain accelerates condensation and torrential downpours

A weather map for August 15 shows the cloud cover. Credit: National Emergency Operation Centre

Pakistan’s Climate Wake-Up Call

Mir also pointed to deforestation as a major factor. Native pine and oak trees at high altitudes have been replaced with moisture-releasing broadleaf species, altering weather patterns. Northern Pakistan holds 45 percent of the country’s forests and 60 percent of its coniferous cover, but deforestation has reduced natural carbon and moisture sinks.

“If we can put an end to the timber mafia stripping our mountain slopes, there’s still hope,” said PMD’s Khan.

Babajan, president of the Awami Workers Party’s G-B chapter, said illegal timber trade continued with “tacit support from government and security agencies.” He urged regional climate action: promoting electric vehicles, reducing fossil fuel use, and rethinking environmentally harmful construction practices.

He also blamed excessive mining and mountain blasting for resource depletion. “These are finite resources—we must take only what we truly need.”

Mir supported Babajan’s concerns, citing Buner’s transformation: once known for its stream fish, it now lacks clean drinking water due to marble industry expansion. “It’s a stark example of how ruthless development and unchecked industrialization can destroy once-pristine landscapes,” he said.

Absence of Local Leadership

Dr. Ghulam Rasul, former Director General of the PMD, emphasized the urgent need for improved early warning systems, stronger district-level disaster management, and greater community awareness around climate disasters, drawing on not just regional but global best practices.

“We urgently need an elected and functioning local government in place, which was dismantled two decades ago,” said 60-year-old Safiullah Baig, a member of the Progressive Gilgit Baltistan, a popular progressive social media page on G-B, which raises common people’s issues, human rights violations, and gender discrimination, as well as matters related to colonial governance, climate change and land capture.

“The bureaucrats ruling us are not from here, don’t understand our geography or culture, and have no empathy,” he said.

“As always, the floods will once again give them a perfect opportunity to profit—appealing for funds locally and internationally by showcasing our suffering,” he said. “The aid rarely reaches those who need it the most.”

With events such as cloudbursts and their increased intensities, Sobia Kapadia, a climate resilience expert, said it was unfair to put the blame on climate alone.

“From siloed development strategies to weak management, lapses in governance, myopic vision, and persistent corruption are intensifying the fragility,” she said, speaking to IPS over the phone from London.

Kapadia, who has worked extensively in Pakistan post-2010 ‘super’ floods, said the land-use management plans were ignoring the health of ecosystems, and large-scale infrastructure projects were leaving the most at-risk vulnerable communities dangerously exposed.

These events highlight an urgent opportunity to transform crisis into resilience, she said, giving “us a chance to safeguard our future” against increasingly intense climate shocks.

Endorsing Kapadia, EPA-GB’s Hussain said the toughest yet most crucial decision for the provincial governments is to remove encroachments along the rivers. “Illegally built structures must be dismantled to allow floodwaters a natural path and protect lives and property,” he said, stressing the need for coordinated multi-agency action and, above all, a strong political will.

“The solution goes beyond technical fixes; Pakistan needs deep systemic change and transformative adaptation to effectively confront these growing climate crises and termed it a whole-of-society approach integrating policy reforms, cross-sectoral collaboration and locally led adaptation, rooted in the context of indigenous knowledge,” agreed Kapdia.

Babajan agreed the crisis is man-made and fixable. “We must focus on prevention—finding local solutions before the damage occurs. We must draw on the wisdom and technologies of our elders to build resilience.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Les Européens se rapprochent peu à peu d’un cadre de garanties de sécurité pour l’Ukraine après que Donald Trump a laissé entendre que les États-Unis pourraient maintenir une « présence » en Ukraine après la guerre, même si les détails restent flous.

The post Garanties de sécurité pour l’Ukraine : les Européens avancent sur une proposition appeared first on Euractiv FR.

In Gaza, the civil defence agency reported Israeli strikes and fire killed 48 people across the territory on Tuesday

La Cour constitutionnelle a fixé un délai impératif de trente jours pour l'élection du président du Parlement. Les députés sont donc convoqués ce 20 août pour tenter de trouver une issue à la crise parlementaire qui dure depuis le 15 avril.

- Le fil de l'Info / Courrier des Balkans, Kosovo, Politique, Kosovo Vetëvendosje

La Cour constitutionnelle a fixé un délai impératif de trente jours pour l'élection du président du Parlement. Les députés sont donc convoqués ce 20 août pour tenter de trouver une issue à la crise parlementaire qui dure depuis le 15 avril.

- Le fil de l'Info / Courrier des Balkans, Kosovo, Politique, Kosovo Vetëvendosje

The Trusteeship Council Chamber at UN Headquarters. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Ingeborg Breines
OSLO, Norway, Aug 20 2025 (IPS)

Many feel desperation and anger that the genocide of the Palestinians is not being stopped. How can the US, Germany and others continue to pour funds and weapons into Israel despite decisions in the UN’s highest bodies indicating complicity in accordance with the Convention against Genocide?

How can countries maintain trade agreements with Israel and allow big funds to continue investing in a country that violates all international law and normal decency? How can the countries of the world accept giving the great powers, in this case the US, so much power also in the UN that UN decisions are blocked by veto?

Could the solution be to revitalize the UN Trusteeship Council, with a mandate to help former colonies or trust territories achieve independence and thereby also contribute to peace and security?

The Trusteeship Council is one of the central organs of the UN, with a mandate and representation enshrined in Chapter 13 of the UN Charter. The Council has been inactive since 1994 when the last trust territory, Palau, became a member of the UN.

The Council has accumulated many years of experience in helping colonies/trustees to function independently after that the colonial powers have had to let go of them. The Council can and should use expertise and experience from the rest of UN system in its work, not least from the specialized agencies. In this case, it will also be necessary to involve a larger contingent of the UN peacekeeping forces.

The situation in Palestine is different from that in the old colonies, but not so different. When the UN in 1947, after strong pressure from England and under doubt, decided to divide Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state (resolution 181), the Trusteeship Council was given responsibility for dealing with the difficult questions surrounding Jerusalem, which was seen as a corpus separatum.

The Trusteeship Council was to ensure that the situation was reassessed after a 10-year trial period and the people were to be allowed to express their views via referendum.

The current and intolerable situation in the area, the many wars that followed the decision in the UN, the brutal displacement of Palestinians and the violations of a number of agreements have fully demonstrated that the partition of the old Palestine was an untenable decision.

The so-called two-state solution is also no longer a possible solution to the problem, given the overall situation on the ground. Could the Trusteeship Council be The Body, that last hope to help end the atrocities and the genocide and also contribute to creating peace and security in the area?

The most effective would be to establish a UN protectorate for the entire area, with both Israel and Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem, for example for a 10-year period. If the experiences after the trial period will result in a new Palestine with equal democratic rights for Jews, Muslims, Christians and others, only time will tell.

Israel will of course protest being placed under UN control and will be supported by the USA and probably some US allies. However, the decision to establish a protectorate/trusteeship area does not necessarily have to be taken by the Security Council where a US veto must be expected, but by the General Assembly.

People around the world cannot bear to see more suffering and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank. To get out of this terrible situation and avoid someone choosing to use military force to stop the madness, it is worth trying such a drastic diplomatic solution as soon as possible.

The UN is the only body that can end this situation. The intelligent and far-sighted people who established the UN Charter 80 years ago have given us the tools we need. It is up to the international community to use them.

Ingeborg Breines is a former director UNESCO, and a former president of the International Peace Bureau.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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