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Norway, western Europe's biggest oil and gas producer, is regularly criticised for its oil and gas production

This year’s blazes have already set a record for land burnt in Spain, with firefighters warning the peak wildfire season is still ahead

Le sommet de vendredi dernier en Alaska entre Donald Trump et Vladimir Poutine a suscité de vives critiques en Europe, où les dirigeants tentent désormais de peser sur la suite des négociations.

The post Paix en Ukraine : les Européens veulent rester impliqués appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Des chercheurs européens mettent en garde contre les failles des méthodes actuelles d’évaluation de l’intelligence artificielle et appellent les régulateurs à s’assurer que les éléments avancés par les entreprises du secteur reflètent bien la réalité.

The post Une étude européenne alerte sur les limites des tests de performance de l’IA appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Der Europäische Gerichtshof hat der EU-Kommission eine Niederlage zugefügt: Brüssel habe eine Beschwerde der französischen NGO BLOOM nicht ausreichend geprüft. Nun steht der Thunfisch erneut im Zentrum des Streits um seine Fangmethoden.

An NGO has reopened the battle over controversial tuna fishing devices in the Indian Ocean

Retour sur la dernière campagne publicitaire du poids lourd de l'industrie pharmaceutique Novo Nordisk en Espagne qui a créé la polémique, posant la question de la frontière entre messages de santé publique et publicité illégale.

The post Sensibilisation à l’obésité ou publicité illégale ? Une campagne de Novo Nordisk en Espagne fait polémique appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Abortion is illegal in Uganda. Girls who get pregnant resort to deadly backstreet abortion providers. However, it is also criminal to provide safe abortion services. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Aug 18 2025 (IPS)

Sarah Namukisa nearly missed her final year exams earlier this year. She was subjected to a mandatory pregnancy test—the 25-year-old student at the Medical Laboratory Training School in Jinja was then expelled because she was pregnant.

While Namukisa’s case sparked public criticism, activists say it was by no means an isolated incident.

Across Uganda and other East African countries, pregnant students continue to face expulsion, forced school dropout, and stigma in both public and private educational institutions.

Labila Sumaya Musoke, from the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER), told IPS that the widespread practice reflects deep-seated systemic discrimination and patriarchal control over young women’s bodies and futures

She said the expulsion mirrors systemic and institutional discrimination that international and regional human rights bodies have explicitly deemed unlawful and incompatible with human rights standards.

Namukisa was lucky that her case attracted the attention of the civil society and Uganda’s Equal Opportunities Commission. The commission ordered her school to rescind the expulsion. Many young women resort to deadly “backstreet” abortions in an effort to find ways to return to school or higher learning institutes. Abortion is still outlawed in Uganda and its neighbors—Kenya and Tanzania.

The most recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) datasets of the 12 East African countries found that the overall prevalence of adolescent pregnancy in East Africa was 54.6 percent. The survey concluded that it is vital to design public health interventions targeting higher-risk adolescent girls, particularly those from the poorest households, by enhancing maternal education and empowerment to reduce adolescent pregnancy and its complications.

Teenage pregnancy and motherhood rate in Kenya stands at 18 percent. This implies that about one in every five teenage girls between the ages of 15-19 years has either had a live birth or is pregnant with their first child.

The rate of teenage pregnancy has stagnated for over a decade in Uganda; it stood at 25 percent in 2006, at 24 percent in 2011 and now shows trends of rising at 25 percent. Teenage pregnancy in Tanzania is a significant public health issue, with 22 percent of women aged 15-19 having been pregnant, according to a 2022 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey.

Rosemary Kirui, the Legal Advisor at the Center for Reproductive Rights—which works in seven countries, including Uganda—said the enjoyment of the Sexual Reproductive Health rights has been limited by barriers related to the legal and policy framework.

“We have a legal environment that has restrictive laws that criminalize some SHRH services. Most of the laws were adopted or inherited from the colonialists. And most of the countries have not changed the laws. So you will find that the penal code is similar, giving a blanket criminalization of abortion. So you will find this is being interpreted narrowly in many African countries,” said Kirui.

She told IPS that the other aspect of restrictive laws is the age of consent, where there is a mandatory third-party requirement for adolescents seeking information and sexual reproduction health services.

Primer Kwagala, a Ugandan Lawyer whose organization, Women Pro Bono Initiative (WPI), has been litigating for access to SHR services, told IPS that the country maintains restrictions on abortion.

“We are saying that 16 women are dying each day due to lack of services in public health facilities. And there are those who are dying in communities due to unsafe abortion. We have on our law books outdated colonial policies preventing health workers from providing life-saving services.”

Uganda’s constitution says that no one can take the life of an unborn child except in exceptional circumstances.

“For many women to exercise autonomy over their bodies and to say, ‘I cannot carry this pregnancy; I need an abortion,’ they cannot go ahead and have that discussion. The first thing the health worker will say is, ‘I don’t want to go to prison,’” said Kwagala.

The Ministry of Health in Uganda has issued guidelines allowing safe abortions in cases of defilement, rape, and incest. But the guidelines, according to Kwagala, are more on paper than in practice.

In 2020, a ruling by the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC) against the Republic of Tanzania found that Tanzania’s policy of expelling pregnant schoolgirls constituted a violation of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, particularly the rights to education, health, dignity, and non-discrimination.

Six girls who were pregnant were expelled from the school. The committee urged Tanzania to reform its education policies.

Dr. Godfrey Kangaude, an expert on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights based in Malawi, said there is a tussle between the gatekeepers who think the SHR issues are for the civil society to handle.

“But I think this is closest to us. Sex and reproduction are relevant to everyone,” said Kangaude while speaking to the East Africa Law Society on litigating for sexual health rights.

He said sexual and reproductive justice is closely interrelated with finance and labor justice and generally the overall well-being of humans.

Kagaunde explained that in Malawi and other countries in the region, there are anomalies when it comes to the age of consent.

“In Malawi, the law says an adult cannot have sex with a child. Okay, we want to protect children. Isn’t it? But the line has been so rigid that an 18-year-old boy can’t have sex with a 17-year-old girl, because a 17-year-old is a minor and an 18-year-old is an adult. We understand that we want to protect people from harmful sexual conduct, especially children, but the law shouldn’t just be arbitrary. It should take into account that the 17-year-old and 18-year-old are peers.”

Criminalization of Consensual Sex 

Kangaunde and others argue that rights-based reform is needed. Laws should be gender-neutral, orientation-neutral, and distinguish exploitative adult–child sex from non-exploitative peer sex. Kangaude points to alternatives like multi-stage consent and close-in-age (“Romeo & Juliet”) exemptions.

Kangaunde and others have been criticized over their stance on the age of consent to sex and access for individuals younger than 18 to access contraceptives and safe abortion services.

“But look, there is a 19-year-old boy who is being charged with the offense of having sex with a girlfriend of 17. I mean, for him, life just went crazy. He is at school, and he had to stop schooling,” said Kangaude, the director at Nyale Institute. His institute provides legal support and engages in strategic litigation to protect and promote sexual and reproductive health rights.

Activists have since 2017 been pushing for a regional Sexual Reproductive Health Rights law. They contend that across East Africa, sexual and reproductive health rights have been narrowly defined as standalone rights.

If enacted, it would require the EAC member states to harmonize provisions on sexual and reproductive health services and information.

The bill has, however, faced significant resistance based especially on social and cultural barriers. The resistance has focused on aspects of comprehensive sex education for teenagers and provisions regarding legal abortion.

Dr. Tom Mulisa, a human rights and constitutional law researcher based at the University of Rwanda, told IPS that sexual and reproductive health rights are broad.

“Constitutions have those rights, and national health laws and policies have those rights, we are talking about the right to health, which most constitutions have, and we are talking about the right to privacy, the right to information, and sexual and reproductive health rights,” he said.

The partner states have ratified the Maputo protocol, which allows for the termination of pregnancy. The protocol is the main regional instrument that advances women’s rights especially sexual and reproductive health rights. The protocol also provides for elimination of discrimination and prohibition of harmful practices, such as female genital cutting.

Within the region, some countries have ratified the protocol, others have not and others have ratified it with reservations. Enforcement of the protocol has been split, making it difficult for all to enjoy the broader rights therein.

Kenya made reservations about Article (14), which provides for safe and legal abortion. Kenya’s constitution, on the other hand, provides for a right to legal and safe abortion when the life of the mother or fetus is at threat.

Learning From Advances in Rwanda

Rwanda has made significant progress in improving the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of its population, especially young individuals. Like many countries in the region, it had post-colonial laws. It embarked on reform since 2009. The reforms laid the groundwork for what many describe as a flexible system.

Earlier this month, Rwanda’s Parliament passed a new law granting adolescent girls the right to access Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services—particularly family planning—without requiring parental consent. It lowered the legal age to access contraceptives from 18-15.

Mulisa stated that the country modified its new penal code by eliminating the court’s requirement for an abortion. The penal code also included sexual reproductive health rights.

“Previously, the government held the right to health, while individuals were obligated to comply with it. But now the constitution has an explicit right to health,” revealed Mulisa, the founder of the Great Lakes Initiative For Human Rights and Development, which does public interest litigation in Rwanda.

It is now a crime under the penal code in Rwanda if a woman is denied access to contraceptives. And there are fewer restrictions on safe abortion following the removal of the court order requirement.

Rwanda’s ministerial order on abortion defines the right to health more broadly, incorporating the scope outlined by the WHO.

According to the WHO, the right to health includes four essential, interrelated elements: availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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En un an, le prix d'un appartement de 50 m² à Skopje a bondi de 20 000 euros. La hausse atteint +22,5 % au premier semestre 2025, tirée par une demande soutenue et un recours accru au crédit. Un rythme qui inquiète autorités et acteurs du secteur, alors que près d'un logement sur trois reste inoccupé dans le pays.

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The preambular words of the UN Charter displayed at the United Nations Headquarters, in New York. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 2025 (IPS)

When the 193-member General Assembly commemorates the UN’s 80th anniversary during a high-level meeting in mid-September, how many political leaders and delegates will be barred from entering the United States –despite the 1947 US-UN Host Country Agreement?

US President Donald Trump last June issued a Proclamation titled Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.

This White House proclamation –a virtual black List –restricts travel into the U.S. by nationals from 19 countries who will be refused US visas.

The list includes Afghanistan, Myanmar, Burundi, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, and Yemen. In addition, Egypt is under review.

But will this result in barring political leaders and UN delegates?

Any denial of visas will be a violation of Sections 11-14 of the Host Country agreement which ensures “that representatives of member states, UN officials, and others with legitimate business can access the headquarters district without significant impediments.”

But the agreement also stipulates the US will facilitate the issuance of visas for those with UN-related travel needs.

That Agreement, along with the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, outlines the legal framework for the UN’s presence and operations in the US. It covers aspects like the privileges and immunities of UN representatives, officials, and their families, as well as the handling of disputes and other practical matters.

So far, the US has imposed sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese because of her critical report on Israel.

Reacting to the announcement, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters last month the imposition of sanctions on UN Special Rapporteurs sets a “dangerous precedent.”

“The use of unilateral sanctions against Special Rapporteurs or any other UN expert or official is unacceptable,” he told journalists.

He also highlighted the independent mandate and role of the Special Rapporteurs, noting that Member States “are perfectly entitled to their views and to disagree with” the experts’ reports.

“But we encourage them to engage with the UN’s human rights architecture,” he added.

Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, urged the US to reverse the sanctions and said that the attacks and threats against Albanese and other Human Rights Council mandate-holders “must stop.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. has also imposed sanctions on officials of the Palestinian Authority and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) accusing them of undermining peace efforts with Israel —even as other Western powers moved toward recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Judging by the Trump administration’s track record, and its violations of federal rules and legislation, will the US adhere to the Host Country agreement or ignore it?

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), told IPS “knowing Trump’s track record, he will find any way to tamper with any system or law just so that people will talk about it—good, bad, or in between, as long as he is front and center of what’s happening around him.”

He doesn’t only want to assert authoritarian governance here in the United States; he is also trying to project himself as the leader of the whole world, wanting foreign leaders to bow to him, said Dr Ben-Meir.

“Many of his actions, including his deeply misguided tariffs, are his attempt to use his power to show that he is above all other leaders in the world. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to create problems for the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in September.”

Most likely, he will block any UNSC resolution critical of Israel and any resolution recognizing a Palestinian state.

Dr Ben-Meir also pointed out that Trump’s executive order, while reviving accusations of xenophobia and isolationism, provides exceptions for those traveling on diplomatic visas, which is intended for those traveling to and from the United Nations Headquarters District.

“Unless there is some sort of extraordinary interference from Trump, his travel ban on 19 countries should not impact those nations’ diplomats traveling to the United States for the General Assembly, or other United Nations business,” he pointed out.

Mandeep S. Tiwana, Secretary General, CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations (CSOs), told IPS the United States derives immense economic and political benefits from hosting the UN headquarters in New York. It would be highly unwise to restrict the entry of foreign government and civil society representatives to attend UN sessions and participate in UN related meetings.

“The United States Government has a legal responsibility to facilitate their entry to support the UN’s mission to secure peace, justice and sustainability in the world,” he said.

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction.org, told IPS contempt for the United Nations is nothing new coming from Washington, although it has varied in extent and candor over the decades.

“While U.S. administrations have always sought to bend the world body to its nationalistic will, some U.S. presidents have participated in the UN with an extent of good faith”.

The current Trump administration, he pointed out, is at the opposite end of the spectrum, making no effort to conceal its utter contempt for the precepts of the UN and making no effort to do anything but undermine it.

“Barring diplomats from entering the United States to participate in UN proceedings is beyond the pale – an expression of extreme arrogance that violates not only the basic principles of the UN but also conveys the global aspirations of U.S. foreign policy. The de facto approach is “Do as we say, not as we do.”

There is much to condemn in the human rights records of many of the governments that the Trump regime seeks to bar from entrance to the United States, he argued. At the same time, a country notably absent from the list is Israel, which is waging a genocidal war on Palestinian people made possible by massive nonstop arms shipments from the USA.

While the U.S. exercises veto power and leverage within the Security Council, the General Assembly is a venue where justified distrust and anger toward the United States can only grow, given the policies of the U.S government, declared Solomon, author, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.”

Meanwhile, the United States has, in the past. been accused of imposing unfair travel restrictions on U.N. diplomats in the country.

Back in August 2000, the Russian Federation, Iraq and Cuba protested the “discriminatory” treatment, which they say targets countries that displease the U.S.

Pleading national security concerns, Washington has long placed tight restrictions, in a bygone era, on diplomats from several “unfriendly” nations, including those deemed “terrorist states,” particularly Cuba, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria and Libya.

U.N. diplomats from these countries, posted in New York, also have to obtain permission from the U.S. State Department to travel outside a 25-mile radius from New York City.

When former Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused of war crimes, was refused a US visa to attend the high-level segment of the General Assembly sessions in September 2013, Hassan Ali, a senior Sudanese diplomat, registered a strong protest with the UN’s Legal Committee.

“The democratically-elected president of Sudan had been deprived of the opportunity to participate in the General Assembly because the host country, the United States, had denied him a visa, in violation of the U.N.-U.S. Headquarters Agreement. It was a great and deliberate violation of the Headquarters Agreement,” he said.

The refusal of a visa for the Sudanese president was also a political landmine because al-Bashir had been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

But one question remained unanswered: Does the United States have a right to implicitly act on an ICC ruling when Washington is not a party to the Rome Statute that created the ICC?

When Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva-– perhaps for the first time in UN history–- providing a less-hostile political environment for the PLO leader.

Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement by saying “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honorable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.

This article contains excerpts from a book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That,” available on Amazon. The book is authored by Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at the UN Bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, who is also an ex-UN staffer and a former member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the General Assembly sessions. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Plastic waste washes ashore in the Maldives archipelago. Credit: UNDP
 
"The vast majority of governments want a strong agreement, yet a handful of bad actors were allowed to use process to drive such ambition into the ground," said one environmentalist.

By Jake Johnson
NEW YORK, Aug 18 2025 (IPS)

Negotiators in Geneva adjourned what was expected to be the final round of plastics treaty negotiations on Friday without reaching an agreement, a failure that environmentalists blamed on the Trump-led United States, Saudi Arabia, and other powerful nations that opposed any effort to curb plastic production—the primary driver of a worsening global pollution crisis.

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution agreed after 10 days of talks to resume negotiations at a yet-to-be-announced future date. Lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry swarmed the negotiations, working successfully to prevent a binding deal to slash plastic production. More than 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuel chemicals.

“The inability to reach an agreement in Geneva must be a wake-up call for the world: ending plastic pollution means confronting fossil fuel interests head-on,” said Graham Forbes, Greenpeace USA’s Global Plastics Campaign lead.

“The vast majority of governments want a strong agreement, yet a handful of bad actors were allowed to use process to drive such ambition into the ground. We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect a different result. The time for hesitation is over.”

The high-stakes talks marked the sixth time international negotiators have convened in an effort to craft a plastics treaty as production continues to grow and toxic pollution damages oceans, waterways, and communities across the globe. Talks in December similarly concluded without a deal.

The latest round of negotiations faltered after nations refused to rally around a pair of draft treaty documents—but for different reasons.

Supporters of a strong agreement—including Fiji, France, and Panama—objected to the exclusion of any binding plastic production cuts in the drafts, while the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and others balked at the scope of the proposals and argued any treaty should focus primarily on waste management.

The proposal unveiled Friday in a last-ditch attempt to reach consensus acknowledged that “current levels of production and consumption of plastics are unsustainable” but did not include any binding limits.

Under the current process, every nation must agree on a proposal’s inclusion in treaty text.

Countries that want a treaty must now leave this process and form a treaty of the willing. And that process must include options for voting that deny the tyranny of consensus we have watched play out here.

Agnès Pannier-Runacher, France’s minister of ecological transition, didn’t attempt to hide her fury at the outcome of the latest round of talks, calling out the “handful of countries” that “blocked the adoption of an ambitious treaty against plastic pollution” because they were “guided by short-term financial interests rather than the health of their populations and the sustainability of their economies.”

“The scientific and medical evidence is overwhelming: plastic kills. It poisons our oceans, our soils, and ultimately, it contaminates our bodies,” said Pannier-Runacher. “I am angry because France, together with the European Union and a coalition of more than 100 countries from every continent—developed and developing, determined and ambitious—did everything possible to obtain an agreement that meets the urgency of the moment: to reduce plastic production, ban the most dangerous products, and finally protect the health of our populations.”

David Azoulay, who led the delegation for the Center for International Environmental Law in Geneva, called the talks “an abject failure” and warned that any future negotiations will end similarly “if the process does not change.”

“We need a restart, not a repeat performance,” said Azoulay. “Countries that want a treaty must now leave this process and form a treaty of the willing. And that process must include options for voting that deny the tyranny of consensus we have watched play out here.”

Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

Source: Common Dreams

IPS UN Bureau

 

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From jollof rice in St Lucia to Afrobeats in Jamaica, islanders find new ways to embrace Africa.

Aux côtés de Jean-Luc Soulé, président fondateur du Festival, une équipe de bénévoles et de salariés, efficaces et passionnés, s'engage toute l'année pour porter et développer le Festival et ses activités artistiques ou solidaires. Cette mobilisation est soutenue par de fidèles mécènes et partenaires publics et privés depuis trente-cinq ans.
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European leaders will join Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on a Monday visit to Washington to see President Trump in a collective bid to find a way to end Moscow's invasion

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The Ukrainian president stressed that “so far, Russia has given no sign that such a trilateral meeting will happen"

The meeting is expected to shape the future of the war in Ukraine

European leaders will need to address pressing issues like territory and security guarantees

L'Église orthodoxe serbe a convoqué deux théologiens devant le tribunal ecclésiastique. Leur crime ? Critiquer le patriarche Porfirije et les dirigeants de l'Église pour leur soutien aveugle et militant au régime d'Aleksandar Vučić.

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By publicly decrying abuses in some quarters while quietly engaging in others, European capitals have empowered human traffickers to leverage migration. Nowhere is this dynamic clearer than along Libya’s coast.