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Les habitants et commerçants de la commune de Mvuzi à Matadi, dans le Kongo-Central, dénoncent l’abandon des travaux de modernisation du Marché Sud. Lancé en 2022, le chantier est à l’arrêt depuis la même année, laissant le site inachevé et progressivement envahi par la végétation.

Les sénateurs ont rendez-vous le 15 septembre prochain pour une nouvelle séance de travail.

Au lendemain de l'élection du bureau du Sénat, tenue le 6 août dernier, le sénateur Robert Gbian a indiqué : « on s'est donné quelques jours de repos, on se verra le 15 septembre ».

La séance du 15 septembre 2026 aura un caractère préparatoire. Parmi les principaux dossiers annoncés figurent notamment le règlement administratif et le règlement financier du Sénat.

Les 25 sénateurs doivent également poursuivre les démarches nécessaires à l'organisation et au démarrage effectif des activités de la chambre haute.

Le 6 août, les sénateurs ont procédé à l'élection de son bureau. Patrice Talon, ancien président de la République a été élu président du Sénat pour un mandat de cinq ans.

Le Sénat, nouvelle chambre du Parlement béninois issue de la révision constitutionnelle de 2025, entre ainsi progressivement dans sa phase de fonctionnement.
M. M.

La Maison-Blanche a transmis au Sénat américain la candidature du diplomate de carrière Peter Lord pour prendre la tête de l'ambassade des États-Unis au Bénin. Sa nomination doit encore être soumise à la procédure de confirmation.

Un nouveau visage pourrait bientôt représenter les Etats-Unis à Cotonou. Peter Lord, diplomate de carrière du Senior Foreign Service au rang de ministre-conseiller, fait partie d'une série de candidats proposés par le président Donald Trump pour occuper plusieurs postes diplomatiques en Afrique.

La liste transmise au Sénat américain concerne notamment le Bénin, le Togo, le Tchad, Madagascar, les Comores, le Gabon, la Mauritanie, le Malawi et le Cabo Verde, selon l'Agence de presse africaine (APAnews).

Pour le Bénin, Peter Lord est appelé à succéder à Brian Shukan, dont la mission à Cotonou a pris fin en février 2026. Celui-ci dirigeait l'ambassade américaine depuis mai 2022.

Depuis son départ, la représentation diplomatique américaine est dirigée par intérim par la cheffe de mission adjointe, Brinille Eliane Ellis.

La candidature de Peter Lord ne vaut toutefois pas encore nomination. Comme le prévoit la procédure américaine, elle doit être examinée puis confirmée par le Sénat. En cas d'approbation, le diplomate prendra officiellement ses fonctions à Cotonou.
M. M.

LES RÉSULTATS LOTO FORTUNE DE 11 HEURES

Tirage N°127/26 du Lundi 10 août 2026 (11H) :

05- 57- 20- 13- 08

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Jouez avec modération et responsabilité. Le jeu doit rester un plaisir.

Benyamin Netanyahou vient de rejeter la deuxième phase du plan de paix présenté par Donald Trump dans le cadre du Conseil de la paix. Annoncé en octobre 2025, ce plan global prévoyait, dans un premier temps, un cessez-le-feu — mis en œuvre mais non respecté — ainsi que la libération des otages israéliens et de prisonniers palestiniens. La deuxième phase proposait quant à elle un retrait progressif de l’armée israélienne de Gaza et le désarmement du Hamas. Si le Hamas avait accepté cette nouvelle feuille de route, le Premier ministre israélien s’y est opposé.

Quels risques cette décision fait-elle peser sur la relation entre Israël et les États-Unis ? Comment Donald Trump est-il susceptible de réagir ? En quoi le contexte actuel rend-il de plus en plus difficile la possibilité de la création d’un État palestinien ? L’analyse de Pascal Boniface

L’article Netanyahou bloque le plan de paix de Trump sur Gaza est apparu en premier sur IRIS.

Punishing heat and wildfires have cost billions and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The Trump administration’s campaign against the court is transparently cynical.

Les opérations de recherche se poursuivent dans le territoire de Demba, au Kasaï-Central, après le renversement d'une pirogue sur la rivière Lulua. Le drame, survenu mercredi 5 aout dans le secteur de Tshibote, au village de Bakua Mulamba Nkanga, a coûté la vie à six enfants, selon des sources locales.

Le bruit médiatique baisse d'un ton. C'est le moment de sonder ce qui s'agite sous l'écume. Jusqu'au 15 août, profitez de notre offre d'été : « Le Monde diplomatique » sur écrans pour 3,90 € par mois. / Israël, Travail, Afrique du Sud, Apartheid, Culture, Néolibéralisme, Mondialisation, Palestine / Israël, Travail, Afrique du Sud, Apartheid, Culture, Néolibéralisme, Mondialisation, Palestine

Le ministre de la Santé, Roger Kamba, confirme la libération vendredi 7 août, du bateau isolé à environ 65 kilomètres de Kinshasa, sur le fleuve Congo, à la suite de suspicions liées à un décès. Les tests effectués sur sept passagers présentant des symptômes se sont révélés négatifs, a-t-il affirmé dans un entretien accordé dimanche 9 août à nos confrères de Actualite.Cd.

Invité sur la Radio nationale ce dimanche 9 août 2026, le ministre porte-parole du gouvernement, Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji, a apporté des clarifications sur le rôle du Sénat, nouvelle institution de la République dont les membres ont été officiellement installés le jeudi 30 juillet dernier.

Sur la Radio nationale ce dimanche 9 août, le ministre porte-parole du gouvernement, Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji, a assimilé le Sénat aux conseils de sages dans les villages ; des gens qui, forts de leurs expériences, peuvent faire asseoir les protagonistes, les écouter et trancher un litige. Leur décision selon ses explications, est assimilable à celle d'un tribunal de conciliation que personne ne peut remettre en cause.
« Le Sénat va fonctionner comme une instance de sages », a indiqué le ministre porte-parole du gouvernement.

Abordant la question de la sagesse, il estime qu'elle ne relève pas de l'accumulation des ans, mais plutôt du vécu, de l'expérience accumulée au cours de la vie. Raison pour laquelle le Sénat est composé d'anciens présidents de la République, d'anciens présidents de l'Assemblée nationale, d'anciens présidents de la Cour constitutionnelle. Ceci, au regard du nombre très minime qu'ils font, les rôles qu'ils ont joué à un moment donné de leur parcours au service du pays, les responsabilités, les expériences, et les dossiers qu'ils ont gérés.

Ce qui leur permet désormais de mieux appréhender certaines situations que le commun des Béninois. Selon Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji, les laisser partir avec leurs expériences, mourir dans l'oubli ou aller faire des consultations ailleurs en mettant leurs expériences au service d'autres pays plutôt que le Bénin, relèverait d'une perte. D'où l'option du Sénat pour « dire que quand vous avez servi le Bénin, et que vous avez certaines expériences de la vie, vous pouvez être utile au niveau du Sénat », attendu notamment d'après lui, pour réguler la vie politique, favoriser l'uni personnage, la cohésion, et faire en sorte qu'il n'y ait plus de conflits inutiles entre les acteurs politiques dans le pays.

Le ministre porte-parole a évoqué à titre illustratif, l'image que les deux anciens présidents de la République, Boni Yayi et Patrice Talon, avaient affichée lors de la cérémonie d'installation du Sénat ; assis côte à côte, échangeant et souriant ensemble. Une scène que nul ne pourrait imaginer par le passé.

Un arbitre
Le Sénat selon le ministre porte-parole, n'est pas une institution de contre-pouvoir, ni un instrument de soutien pour le gouvernement. « C'est un arbitre, et un arbitre doit être impartial », a-t-il souligné.
A l'en croire, le Sénat dans son fonctionnement peut être amené à rendre des décisions qui satisfassent soit l'Assemblée nationale, soit le président de la République. En cas de désaccord entre ces deux institutions qui toutes deux, ont l'initiative de la loi, le Sénat est désormais l'institution qui pourra trancher et départager les protagonistes. « Il n'est pour personne. Il est pour la République, il est au service de la République comme les autres institutions », a expliqué Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji mettant l'accent sur le caractère apolitique des sénateurs qui ne devront plus être membres, encore moins, responsables de formations politiques afin d'arbitrer en toute impartialité.

F. A. A.

Au Bénin, le paludisme demeure un véritable problème de santé publique, particulièrement pendant la saison des pluies, où la prolifération des moustiques favorise la transmission du Plasmodium, l'agent pathogène. Face à cette maladie qui peut évoluer « rapidement » vers une forme grave, surtout chez les enfants âgés de moins de cinq (05) ans, certains symptômes doivent alerter les parents, et conduire à consulter un médecin en urgence. Dr Lisette CAPO-CHICHI, médecin pédiatre, donne ici quelques indications.

Le paludisme est une maladie endémique qui sévit au Bénin. Malgré les différentes mesures prises par les pouvoirs publics pour son éradication, la maladie persiste et connaît une recrudescence surtout en période de grande saison pluvieuse, où le risque de contagion est souvent très élevé. Chez les enfants âgés de moins de 5 ans, plus exposés à la maladie, la moindre fièvre doit alerter les parents qui devront consulter sans délai.
La fièvre, premier signe qui doit immédiatement attirer l'attention
Selon le médecin pédiatre, le premier signe évocateur du paludisme est la fièvre, le plus souvent « élevée ». Celle-ci s'accompagne généralement d'un syndrome grippal caractérisé par des courbatures, la fatigue et les maux de tête. Chez les plus jeunes enfants (moins de 5 ans), des troubles digestifs sont fréquents. Ils peuvent présenter des vomissements, ou encore des douleurs abdominales. « Dès qu'un enfant présente de la fièvre, dans un contexte comme celui du Bénin où le paludisme est endémique, les parents doivent consulter rapidement dans un centre de santé », conseille Dr Lisette CAPO-CHICHI. « Toute fièvre chez un enfant doit conduire à une consultation rapide. Plus le traitement est administré tôt, plus les chances de guérison sont élevées et moins le risque de complications est important », a-t-elle ajouté évoquant les autres symptômes qui doivent retenir l'attention en ce qui concerne les cas graves.

Reconnaître les signes d'un paludisme grave
Au-delà des symptômes habituels, certains signes traduisent une aggravation de la maladie et nécessitent une prise en charge urgente. Parmi eux, figure la prostration. Dans ce cas, l'enfant selon les explications du médecin, devient inhabituellement faible, cesse de jouer, et ne parvient plus à marcher ou à se tenir debout.
A cela s'ajoute une incapacité à boire et une inappétence ; des convulsions répétées ; une perte de connaissance voire un coma ; une pâleur importante liée à une anémie sévère ; un ictère conjonctival et des difficultés respiratoires. « Même si certains signes sont visibles, d'autres complications ne peuvent être détectées qu'à l'hôpital. D'où la consultation est nécessaire et urgente, recommande le médecin.

La prévention, une arme puissante
La lutte contre le paludisme repose d'abord et avant tout sur la prévention. La professionnelle de santé conseille de dormir sous une moustiquaire imprégnée d'insecticide à longue durée d'action (MIILDA) chaque nuit. L'assainissement régulier du cadre de vie, l'élimination des eaux stagnantes et des gîtes larvaires autour des habitations font partie également des moyens efficaces permettant de se prémunir contre la maladie. Selon le médecin pédiatre, la plupart des cas de décès d'enfants par paludisme surviennent pendant la saison pluvieuse ; une période au cours de laquelle le risque de transmission est « maximal ».

Pour les enfants âgés de 3 à 59 mois vivant dans les zones à risque, une Chimio prévention saisonnière (CPS) est proposée dans les centres de santé. Il s'agit d'un traitement préventif qui permet de réduire de façon significative, le risque de développer un paludisme pendant les périodes de forte transmission.

En cette période marquée par la présence d'eaux stagnantes, une conséquence des fortes précipitations enregistrées pendant la saison des pluies, la pédiatre conseille de vérifier l'accès à la prévention au CPS dans les zones concernées ; l'élimination des eaux stagnantes autour des habitations ; la surveillance des enfants âgés de moins de 5 ans, et la consultation dès le premier signe. S'assurer de la disponibilité des tests de diagnostics rapide (TDR) et des combinaisons thérapeutiques à base d'artémisinine (CTA).

Le médecin rappelle que le vaccin contre le paludisme est progressivement intégré aux programmes de vaccination afin de renforcer la protection des enfants.
Pour ce qui concerne la femme enceinte, la prévention du paludisme passe également par un suivi prénatal correct, avec un « traitement préventif intermittent ».

Dans le cadre de la lutte contre le paludisme, le Bénin a marqué son adhésion à l'initiative « Zéro Palu ! », lancé en avril 2014 au Sénégal. Le pays a introduit en avril 2024, la vaccination contre le paludisme dans son programme élargi de vaccination. Dans sa dynamique de renforcement de cette lutte, le gouvernement a également procédé à la mise en place de l'Agence nationale de lutte contre la malaria et les moustiques. Celle-ci se veut un instrument spécialisé, autonome et réactif.

Elle aura pour mission de mener une lutte coordonnée contre le paludisme et les moustiques vecteurs. Ses principales missions consistent à : concevoir, mettre en œuvre et évaluer les programmes de démoustication ; renforcer les actions de prévention et de lutte contre la maladie ; réduire l'incidence et la mortalité liée aux maladies transmises par les moustiques ; promouvoir la recherche et l'innovation dans le domaine de la lutte anti-vectorielle ; sensibiliser les populations sur les comportements préventifs et les traitements curatifs ; appuyer les collectivités locales dans la gestion des nuisances liées aux moustiques.

La vision à long terme est d'inscrire le Bénin au rang des pays qui auront éradiqué le paludisme, maladie dont le taux de mortalité a régressé passant de 0,83 à 0,7 pour 1000 habitants à risque.

F. A. A.

Le président de la République peut-il dissoudre le Sénat ? Le ministre porte-parole du gouvernement a répondu à la question ce dimanche 9 août 2026, sur la Radio nationale.

Le Sénat, nouvelle institution de la République suscite depuis son installation, plusieurs interrogations. Sur la Radio nationale ce dimanche 9 août 2026, le ministre porte-parole du gouvernement a éclairé l'opinion.
Au sujet de la question relative à sa dissolution par un président de la République, le ministre porte-parole explique que « la constitution ne l'a pas dit ». L'institution, a-t-il ajouté, ne peut pas non plus sanctionner le président de la République.
Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji, au cours de l'entretien avec les journalistes a assimilé le Sénat à un « conseil de sages » appelé à jouer un rôle d'arbitrage entre l'exécutif et le législatif. Raison pour laquelle ses membres sont apolitiques, et ne devraient appartenir ni présider un parti politique.

F. A. A.

Une attaque de drones ukrainienne a fait au moins 13 morts et une quarantaine de blessés au Tatarstan, en Russie, lundi 10 août 2026. Selon les autorités, l'attaque a visé « des sites industriels comme civils ». Dans la nuit de dimanche à lundi, la Russie a annoncé avoir abattu 456 drones ukrainiens.

UN Indonesia Solar power is widely used on the islands of Java, Madura, and Bali. Credit: UN News

By Delia Paul
MELBOURNE, Australia, Aug 10 2026 (IPS)

In much of the Asia-Pacific region, energy is a success story. Electricity access has greatly increased and the use of clean cooking fuels is now widespread. The region has kept pace with the rest of the world in adopting renewable energy. Many countries have made energy efficiency gains; the Republic of Korea is one of those in the lead worldwide. Progress has continued even in the face of recent energy crises sparked by the war in Ukraine and conflict over the Strait of Hormuz.

Yet, this year’s High Level Political Forum on sustainable development (IHLPF) in New York— a yearly event to review progress on the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) —sounded some warning bells.

With SDG 7 on energy, the international community agreed to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services. Clean cooking fuels are part of that transition. SDG 7 also set targets to increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, and double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency. On all these measures, Asia-Pacific countries have done well. This year’s HLPF, however, raised some important questions.

Firstly, success is a matter of definition. In 2010, Central and South Asian countries accounted for 36 per cent of the world’s electricity-access deficit; by 2024, that proportion had shrunk to just 3 per cent, a turnaround that the UN’s latest report of progress on SDG 7 attributes to rapid grid expansion, regional power market integration, and rising incomes. That achievement is nuanced, however, when we consider the livelihood dimension, where many countries still face challenges especially in rural areas.

Vijay Modi, a professor at Columbia University and director of its Laboratory for Sustainable Energy Solutions, addressing HLPF delegates on the first day of the talks, noted that access is not the same as affordability. Affordable energy is needed, for example, to run the water pumps for farm irrigation, and to light shops that may want to extend their opening hours — aspects of electricity access that are missed, if focusing only on household-level energy services.

Secondly, generalised statistics can mask the true scale of the challenge that still remains. The share of people using clean fuels and technologies for cooking has nearly doubled across most of Asia since 2010. Central, South, East and Southeast Asian countries have done especially well: India alone is responsible for about 40 percent of the worldwide reduction in the clean-cooking access deficit, China for roughly 30 percent, and Indonesia for about 10 percent.

In terms of percentage points, this all looks great. In terms of absolute numbers, though, India still has the largest numbers of people without access to electricity services and clean cooking fuels; China ranks third in the world; Indonesia ranks 16th. These are countries with large populations, where a percentage point gained in access represents many more people than a percentage point gained in a smaller country. While their progress should be applauded, the challenge is far from over.

Third is the question of financing. From 2023 to 2024, international financial flows for clean energy fell in Central, South, East and Southeast Asia. That is a troubling trend, given that much remains to be done. The role of public utilities remains crucial.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Cambodia’s state utility, Electricité du Cambodge, transformed the fragmented, war-torn nation’s power grid into a unified network, partnering with independent power producers, using foreign investment to build transmission lines and power stations, and prioritising electricity connections and financing for low-income households. Such success is not a given.

Damilola Ogunbiyi, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy, reminded the HLPF that in Africa, some utilities have not achieved viability and are facing bankruptcy. “It’s about finance, at the end of the day,” she said, while highlighting that renewable energy is the least-cost pathway to meeting energy needs worldwide.

The current geopolitical situation only strengthens the case for increasing uptake of renewables and decreasing reliance on traditional fossil fuels, said Francesco La Camera, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). This process, he noted, could be accelerated through mini-grids, peak time management (strategies to reduce and shift electricity consumption away from peak demand times), and removal of trade barriers to renewable energy technologies. Some of this is already happening in Asia, but with just four years to go until the 2030 deadline for achieving the SDGs, UN monitoring shows that progress is insufficient.

Globally, four structural trends are holding back progress. They are explained in the 2026 UN report, “Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report.” Progress on reducing energy intensity has mainly been achieved in industry, and is now slowing. Energy efficiency standards don’t necessarily match the technology available in the marketplace. Demand for air conditioning has increased, pushing up electricity demand. Growth in electricity demand now outstrips the supply of renewable energy that is actually available. Tackling just one of these barriers — let’s say energy intensity, for example — would require tripling the rate of progress in the next four years.

For now, the UN has launched a new work programme to accelerate action leading up to the 2030 deadline for the SDGs. On the current rate of progress, the world will probably not meet all the SDG 7 targets. But, given the energy gains already made in this region, Asia-Pacific countries may do better than others.

Dr Delia Paul is an associate of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, and is affiliated with Monash University’s Global Peace and Security research hub in Australia.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Peter George attaching the solar lights and panels on the plastic design bags. Credit: Madina Kula Sheriff/IPS

By Madina Kula Sheriff
FREETOWN, Aug 10 2026 (IPS)

Growing up, Peter George, a young innovator in Bo District in Southern Region, Sierra Leone, watched people dump electronic waste near the farmland where his grandmother cultivated crops.

He told IPS that people would dump electronic waste, such as discarded batteries and other damaged electronic components, near the area where she grew crops, and the chemicals from the waste affected the crops and reduced yields.

But that experience triggered his curiosity and fascination with how electronic devices worked and led him to use e-waste to create solar lamps for students.

“We started using some of the electronic waste to develop solar lamps. These lamps helped students study at night, and we also donated some to other children,” George said.

However, George’s innovation shifted from solar lamps to recycling plastics to make backpacks as plastic pollution worsened in Bo.

“Many people often think plastic pollution is only a problem in Freetown, but the issue is also very serious in provincial cities like Bo. During the rainy season, the roads become flooded because water cannot flow properly in drains due to blockage by plastic waste. This disrupted our school and displaced people,” George said.

George later founded Ideal Technologies in 2018, a youth-led enterprise operating in Bo District that transforms plastic and electronic waste into solar-powered backpacks and lighting systems for school children.

Through his initiative, George believes he is tackling the problem of e-waste and plastic pollution in Sierra Leone, which has become a serious challenge.

The World Bank estimates that Sierra Leone generates about 130,000 tonnes of plastic waste each year, much of it from single-use plastic bottles, water sachets and plastic bags that pollute the country’s coastline and harm marine life. Globally, electronic waste is also rising rapidly.

The Global E-waste Monitor 2024 says the world generated 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022, but less than 22.3 percent was formally collected and recycled.

Authorities say plastic pollution has become a growing threat to Sierra Leone’s coastal ecosystems and tourism industry.

Yet, despite the scale of the challenge, Sierra Leone’s plastic waste management policy is still under development.

“I looked at everything happening around me and started thinking about how to solve the challenge of poor access to electricity, e-waste pollution and plastic pollution. I started developing solar-powered backpacks made from recycled plastic and e-waste.

“During the day, the backpacks are carried like ordinary school bags. At night the attached solar-powered lighting allows children in communities with limited electricity to continue studying after sunset,” George told IPS.

For him, innovation represents more than recycling. He says it is about changing the way people think about waste.

“Things that people saw as waste, I saw as solutions,” said Peter.

Turning Discarded Plastic into Livelihoods

Like George, Manty Sulman Beckley in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, refuses to see plastic as the end of a product’s life. Instead, she recycles waste into everyday items that she sells for a living.

For the past five years, Beckley has transformed single-use plastics into shopping bags, handbags, baskets, chairs, tables and bricks.

The climate activist and founder of the Beckma Empowerment Initiative said her passion for recycling began during childhood, watching her aunt repair and make household furniture. Inspired, she started fixing broken chairs at home.

“As a teenager, I started thinking about how to repair broken chairs around me. Gradually my passion for creating things grew, and as an adult, the passion developed into a plastic recycling initiative after I witnessed how plastic waste was destroying communities across Freetown,” she said.

To source materials, Beckley works with households and young waste collectors in her community.

Despite these efforts, she said securing enough recyclable material remains difficult.

“In my house and surrounding communities, I advocate against throwing plastic waste carelessly. I provide bags for households to collect their plastic waste, which I later gather for recycling.

“Even fifty full rice bags of single-use plastic are not enough to create items like bricks, baskets, and other products, meaning we constantly need to collect more,” she said.

Setbacks

These innovators believe recycling offers an opportunity to give waste a second life, but they say limited financial support and a lack of equipment continue to hinder progress.

For George, the lack of equipment for large-scale production is the key challenge.

“One of our greatest challenges is having the right tools and equipment. If there is greater investment in recycling, especially for young people, it could significantly change the story of single-use plastics, providing income for waste collectors and recyclers,” he told IPS.

But beyond this, Beckley said being a woman in the recycling and innovation space also comes with unique challenges.

“There are people who call asking for products or services, but once they realise a woman is behind the work, they begin to doubt my ability. Some openly say they would rather work with a man,” she said. “I usually tell them that everything posted on my page is work that I have personally done.”

Impact

Over the past two years, George said Ideal Technologies has expanded its work, particularly among schoolchildren in underserved communities. In 2024, his innovation was recognised through the Youth-Led Innovation Challenge, organised by the UNDP and the Environment Protection Agency Sierra Leone, where he was the winner.

The recognition brought financial support that allowed the initiative to reach more communities.

“Through grants from this and other initiatives, we have supported more than 400 school children in rural communities. This does not include people we have supplied products to through partnerships or buyers overseas,” George said.

For Beckley, she measures the rewards of recycling differently and urges greater government support for youth-led recycling initiatives.

“This is my main source of income, and I have also created job opportunities for people who have learnt from me. Some of them now continue making bags and other recycled products on their own,” she said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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By CIVICUS
Aug 10 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses India’s Cockroach Janta Party movement with Harshit Singh, a young activist, poet and storyteller who took part in protests in Delhi.

Harshit Singh

In May, India’s Chief Justice, Surya Kant, compared unemployed young people to cockroaches. The Cockroach Janta Party was born when a Gen Z movement took the insult as its name. It rapidly gained millions of followers online and mobilised street protests to demand accountability for exam leaks that forced over two million students to resit their tests, calling for the education minister’s resignation. On 20 July, police met a protest in New Delhi with pellet guns, teargas, batons and arrests. Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned on 25 July.

What’s the Cockroach Janta Party, and how did it start?

On 15 May, the Chief Justice of India said that young people who couldn’t find a job and turned to media, social media and activism to attack the system were like cockroaches. He corrected himself the following day, saying he had meant only those entering the legal profession with fake degrees, but it was too late. Everybody felt hurt and frustrated.

Abhijeet Dipke, a young Indian, posted a tweet asking what would happen if all the cockroaches came together. Within 24 hours he had set up an Instagram page, a website and a manifesto that said that if you were lazy, unemployed and had time on your hands, you qualified as a cockroach. The name, Cockroach Janta Party, was a parody of the ruling party. The response was enormous. Artists and creators began promoting the platform, and within weeks over 20 million people were following it.

It grew that fast because the frustration was already there. Two weeks before Surya Kant spoke, the question paper for the national medical entrance exam leaked in advance, and the exam was cancelled for over two million students who had spent years preparing. At least 21 students died by suicide; every morning we woke up to news of another death. And this was not an isolated case. Every other day we hear about another exam paper leaking somewhere.

The Cockroach Janta Party gave young people somewhere to channel their frustration with the education system and unemployment. It gave us hope and a chance to demand a better education system, one that isn’t privatised and doesn’t cost so much that only privileged people get a good education.

But education is just the baseline. Beyond it, this is a movement that brings together everyone who has been neglected and not listened to for years, so they can express their frustration and ask for change. What started as satire became a national movement that nobody, not even the person who started it, expected.

Would you call this a Gen Z movement?

It was organised by Gen Z, and most of us in it are, but it’s not only that. I have seen every generation at the protest. People of different castes, gender identities and religions have come together under one umbrella to ask for their rights. At the end of the day, we are all Indians, and every issue this country is going through is our issue.

There is no criterion for joining and no enrolment process. If you think something is wrong, or that your basic rights are not being respected, that is the moment you support the movement, however you can. Come to the protest, talk about it online or in print, and be a voice where you are.

What struck me most is how many people came who didn’t support Abhijeet or disagreed with something a spokesperson had said. Some didn’t even like that we call ourselves cockroaches. They came anyway, because the movement is bigger than any person in it and because after a long time we have a platform where we can speak out loud, with other people standing next to us. That’s why it grew so fast.

What role has social media played?

Social media has played a central role. The movement started online and the vast majority of what it has achieved rests on that. Nobody expected it to come onto the ground and organise protests at this scale.

The reason it mattered this much is that the media here is compromised. If you say anything against the government, mainstream television and print media will not carry it. There was a protest in the heart of the capital for weeks and you wouldn’t find a single headline about it in the newspapers or magazines.

But when you are on the ground with your phone, taking photos and videos, you become your own media. And everyone was using their platforms. It didn’t matter whether someone had 10 followers or 5,000, each person was reaching the audience they had. In the end, mainstream media just reaches a limited number of people, but social media reaches everyone.

The turning point was when artists and creators started speaking. I hesitated at first. My livelihood is social media and ticket revenue, so I doubted what would happen to my future if I spoke against the government. I feared my accounts would be taken down. But I couldn’t deny what was happening, so I spoke out, and many other artists did too.

How has the government responded?

The government has responded very negatively. People who question the government, protest against it or ask for their rights get labelled as anti-national or terrorists. There’s no second thought about it. When I was a child, those were heavy words. Watching this government make them ordinary and using them against us was frightening.

For seven weeks we were at Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in central Delhi. The Prime Minister’s Office, the President’s house and every ministry are within a five-kilometre radius. Still, not official came to meet us. What they did instead was try to dilute the protest by dividing us with anything they could find. They mocked queer people and spread hatred between Hindus and Muslims, but the unity held and we stood together.

On 20 July, we marched from Jantar Mantar to parliament. Delhi hadn’t seen a peaceful protest this massive in about 15 years. Thousands of people, including children, teenagers and grandparents, were on the streets asking for their basic rights. We were carrying flowers, banners and posters, and chanting slogans.

But the security forces met us with repression and violence. They used pellet guns, teargas and batons against anyone, even if they were just standing nearby. There’s a girl who’s still in intensive care on a ventilator.

The way the police handled the protests was illegal and unconstitutional. At that moment a lot of people in India realised something was badly wrong, and support for our movement grew massively across the country. Cities, districts and small towns started protests in solidarity. That is when the government understood it had to listen.

What has the movement achieved?

Our non-negotiable demand was the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan and action against everyone involved in the scam. Pradhan stepped down, and we are glad he did, but it shouldn’t have taken this long or this much violence. He even framed it as a way to stop the protests and prevent terrorist activity, not as an admission that anything had gone wrong. Accountability is still missing.

Our other two demands are still unmet. We asked for compensation of 10 million rupees (approx. US$115,000) for every family that lost a child to suicide. Those families haven’t received anything, not even an apology.

We also asked that nobody who took part in the protests face legal action. Instead, the police have spent the past days tracing protesters and opening cases against them. There’s a lot of rage about it, and Abhijeet and others have said we may have to protest again.

What support does the movement need now?

What we most need is for people to stop being afraid. Protesting here is almost a taboo, because people expect repercussions and stay away, which makes organising anything at all difficult.

That fear is not irrational. This government controls the security forces, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, and it can do whatever it wants with them, as we saw on the streets. The courts will not stop it either, because the judiciary is compromised in the same way the media is.

But if something is wrong, it is fine to ask the government why. They are here to serve us. All we are asking for is to be able to protest peacefully in what is supposed to be the world’s largest democracy.

We need young people in this country to keep showing up and artists to stop being silent, because if the mainstream media will not speak out, art must become the mode of resistance. Support from abroad matters too. When people elsewhere talk about our movement, it creates pressure on the government. And we must hold on to what we know – our rights and our intentions – because diluting the agenda is what the government will try next.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

India has recently been added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries where a severe deterioration in the quality of civic space is taking place.

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India added to human rights watchlist as repression intensifies in Modi’s third term CIVICUS Monitor 29.Jul.2026
Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | 2026 State of Civil Society Report
India: ‘When civil society is constrained, it cannot challenge power or amplify excluded voices’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Devanshi Vaid and Smarinita Shetty 11.Dec.2025

 

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By Jan Lundius
ROME, Aug 10 2026 (IPS)

World News are more or less currently fully occupied with the U.S. – Iran debacle and to a lesser degree the Gaza genocide, the on-going war in Ukraine, and to an even lesser degree the one in Sudan.

When Trump and Netanyahu recently met it is likely that the situation on the West Bank was not even on the agenda. This is the reality of international high-level politics and press reporting. Too much cannot remain in focus and certain essentials are simply forgotten, or remain under-reported. Nevertheless, this fact doesn’t hinder unrest and glaring injustice from smouldering in some places, being on the verge of exploding at any time, with devastating results. The West Bank is such a place and strangely enough do the majority of Israelis and U.S. decision makers not appear to realize the presence of an enormous powder keg of suppressed frustration that could detonate at any moment. An astonishing reality particularly considering Israel’s bloody war on Gaza, which still has not come to an end after the death of approximately 72,600 Palestinians (of which 21,280 have been children) and 2,040 Israelis.

Since 1967, the West Bank has been under Israeli occupation, a circumstance rendered illegal under international law. This unresolved situation has made 2,748,000 Palestinians prisoners in their own land, while a rising number of 670,000 Israeli settlers have illegally occupied their territory, claiming their right to drive away or marginalize the Palestinians while adhering to a belief that a land that “belonged to them” two thousand years ago now can be used as defence for ethnic cleansing.

Settler actions against resident Palestinians are generally unchallenged by the occupying Israeli administration and are creating what has been called a “coercive environment”, which compels Palestinians to leave, often followed by the establishment of new settler outposts.

A 2026 Le Monde investigation noted that since 2020 Israeli courts have not given jail sentences to any Israeli settler found responsible for killing Palestinian civilians and in 2026 The Times of Israel documented that in recent years 99 percent of complaints made against Israeli soldiers by Palestinian civilians were closed without indictment. As of 20 July, this year, 18 Palestinians have died on the West Bank during attacks involving settlers. In the last three years, from 2023 to 2025, 1,244 Palestinians – including 268 children – have been killed on the West Bank.

Many disputes between settlers and permanent Palestinian residents concern water inequality. On the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers consume on average about seven times more water than Palestinians, whose levels generally fall below the minimum of WHO recommendations for clean water access. This leads us to Omar Mwannes Yaghi, who together with two other scientists in 2025 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His life story reveals two aspects of Israeli treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. First, the prejudiced attacks on an entire ethnic group during which individuals are mistreated and killed irrespective if they belong to a hostile, fighting force or not. As member of a Palestinian refugee family, a person like Yaghi could easily have been killed if he had been born in Gaza, instead of in a refugee camp in Jordania. Secondly, Yaghi proves the worth of an individual irrespective of his/her ethnic origin. In the future, the achievements of Omar Mwannes Yaghi might prove to be inconceivably much more important for the survival of humankind than those of a Netanyahu, or a Trump.

Omar Mwannes Yaghi was in 1965 born in a refugee camp outside of Amman, within an impoverished crowded household with many children, all living in a single room that also housed the family’s cows and goats. What in particular tormented them was their limited access to clean water.

As a young boy, who recently had learned to read and write, Omar happened to visit a library where he became fascinated by the coloured plates illustrating chemical bonds, an experience that made him decide to become a chemist. He did very well in school and already as a fifteen-year-old he received a royal grant making it possible for him to travel to the U.S. and study at Hudson Valley Community College, from which he graduated in 1983 with an Associate of Science in Mathematics and Science. Eventually, he ended up in Berkeley as a professor at the University of California.

Omar Yaghi is best known for his work in the field of molecular “weaving”, part of what has become known as reticular chemistry, which assembles molecular building blocks to create crystalline, large, strong bonded, and porous, metal-organic frameworks called MOFs. Such MOFs can be used to create clean energy technologies, including hydrogen and methane storage, carbon dioxide capture (that might contribute to the mitigation of climate change), and the harvesting of water from desert air, thus reducing the world’s ever-increasing thirst for clean water.

In July 2026, Omar Yaghi left the U.S. to lead an artificial intelligence and material science research institute at Tsinghua University in Beijing. One important reason for this was the increasingly insecure federal funding to research in the U.S., combined with expanding international recruitment initiatives by China.

Omar Mwannes Yaghis’ life story proves the fact that every human life matters and that a poor refugee child can grow up to become a person whose research might contribute to save the entire world from disaster and improve the wellbeing of us all. Furthermore, it highlights the extreme importance of funding and providing unbiased, international, basic and advanced research. It also proves that Palestinians, particularly children, ought to be treated with dignity and respect, deserving a place to live in peace and prosperity, with access to education, which great value has been proven by the Nobel Laureate Omar Mwannes Yaghis.

Main sources: Mandraud, Isabelle (2026) “En Cisjordanie, l’impunité absolue des colons israéliens ayant commis des crimes,” Le Monde, 17 avril. Sharon, Jeremy (2026) “Less than 1% of complaints against soldiers in West Bank lead to charges, data shows,” Time of Israel, 27 January. Yaghi, Omar (2019) Harvesting Water from Desert Air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOOVBKWRLxk, and (2018) Reticular Chemistry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS_VI-8sMF0

This is part 1 of an analysis of the connection between youth movements and political change; part 2 will analyze how youth-led revolutions have changed political scenarios globally.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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L’APR FC du Rwanda refuse de se déplacer à Kinshasa pour affronter les Aigles du Congo au tour préliminaire de la Ligue des champions de la CAF. Le club rwandais invoque des préoccupations liées à l’épidémie d’Ebola et à la situation sécuritaire en République démocratique du Congo.

By giving the deposed Bangladeshi PM a platform to lash out at the present regime from Indian soil, India has signaled that it still stands with its old friend.