Feed aggregator

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Les Championnats d’Afrique de lutte 2026 ont débuté lundi 27 avril à Alexandrie, en Égypte. Pour cette première journée, la République démocratique du Congo signe une entrée remarquée avec un total de trois médailles : une en or et deux en bronze chez les cadets.

Guy Kabeya, champion d’Afrique en -84 kg

Les grandes familles Minoungou à Tenkodogo, Weguédo et Kougsabla ;
Le Zang-Naaba de Weguédo,
Monsieur Minougou Jean-Baptiste,
La famille de feu Minougou Zounogo,
Madame Minoungou Poko àToéssin,

La famille de feu Minougou Francois à Paglayiri,
Monsieur Minougou Ferdinand,
Monsieur Minoungou Christian,
Monsieur Minoungou Mahamoudou,
Monsieur Minougou Élysée à Ouagadougou,
La famille de feu Minougou Lebimbila,
La famille Ilboudo à Loumbila et à Ouidi,
Madame Ilboudo Anne-Marie,

Les frères et sœurs :
Madame Sawadogo Agathe / Minougou,
Madame Minougou Marthe,
Madame Kaboré Alice / Minougou,
Madame Kana Adeline / Minougou,

Vous remerciement du fond du cœur pour vos soutiens spirituel, moral, matériel et financier lors du rappel à Dieu de leur fils, neveu, frère et cousin MINOUGOU PALINGWENDE ÉLIE, survenu le mercredi 22 avril 2026.

Les remerciements s'adressent en particulier aux personnalités ci-après :
– les responsables et collègues de la DGTCP ;
– Le Directeur de la DGTCP
– les pasteurs et frères et sœurs des différentes églises ;
– les collègues et amis des frères et des sœurs du défunt ;
– les voisins et voisines ;
– les ressortissants de Ouéguédo à Ouagadougou ;
– les belles-familles ;
– les jeunes du quartier.

<> (Hébreux 6 :10 LSG)

Nikos Androulakis, chef du PASOK, principal parti socialiste d'opposition, et qui a été le premier à découvrir que son téléphone avait été mis sur écoute, a déclaré que cette décision « portait atteinte à l'autorité du pouvoir judiciaire et la sapait ».

The post La Cour suprême grecque sous le feu des critiques après avoir clôturé l’affaire des écoutes téléphoniques appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Alors que les militaires au pouvoir, alliés à la Russie, tiennent un discours ouvertement antifrançais, Paris observe avec discrétion l’avancée des djihadistes et des indépendantistes touareg.

With women comprising around half the electorate, politicians have promised them direct cash transfers and gas cylinders. Will it impact how women vote?

Les allégations de détournement de 4,3 millions d'euros ont suscité un vif débat au Parlement

The post Fonds d’extrême droite : une plainte à l’Office européen de lutte antifraude met le Parlement sous pression appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Les pays européens pourraient-ils rassembler suffisamment de forces politiques et militaires pour se défendre sans les États-Unis ?

Le TP Mazembe a annoncé  la mise à disposition gratuite de son centre moderne de récupération au profit des clubs qualifiés pour les play-offs de la Linafoot Ligue 1 (Illico Cash). L’annonce a été faite dimanche 26 avril par le directeur de communication du club de Lubumbashi, Héritier Yindula, lors de son passage dans l’émission Okapi Sport.

Un appui concret aux clubs engagés

Stéphane Séjourné explique à Euractiv qu'il existe un risque de blocage massif à un moment où l'UE a besoin de s'intégrer

The post INTERVIEW : Séjourné vise un grand compromis politique pour sortir de l’impasse du marché unique appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Au moins 29 personnes ont été tuées par des hommes armés dans le nord-est du Nigeria, a déclaré lundi le gouverneur. Selon des témoins, les assaillants ont ciblé des jeunes rassemblés sur un terrain de football. Il s'agit du dernier épisode d'une série de violences meurtrières dans le pays le plus peuplé d'Afrique. Dans l'État d'Adamawa, frontalier du Cameroun, des violences sont régulièrement perpétrées par des jihadistes et des bandes criminelles locales.

A conversation with Chris Humphrey, executive director of the EU-ASEAN Business Council.

Which cyber threats is Germany facing today? How prepared are German critical infrastructures, and how do German intelligence services and the Bundeswehr respond to the growing threat? And how does the Russian espionage campaign using Signal, which countless politicians have fallen victim to, fit into the picture? Dr. Alexandra Paulus spoke about these questions with Deutsche Welle for the Documentary "Cyberattacks threaten Germany: Is Berlin ready to fight back?"

Wie problematisch sind einseitige technologische Abhängigkeiten? Und wie kann Europa durch Investitionen in Zukunftstechnologien wie Biotechnologie dazu beitragen, die eigene Verwundbarkeit durch solche Abhängigkeiten zu reduzieren? Darüber hat Dr. Alexandra Paulus mit dem Wissenschaftsmagazin 3sat Nano gesprochen. Aufhänger des Beitrags sind die US-Sanktionen gegen den Richter des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs Nicolas Guillou.

In today's edition: Kubilius, drones, investing in Ukraine

In today's edition: CAP, deforestation, Mercosur

In today's edition: EU's Google Gemini order, DMA search data risks, cloud sovereignty washing

This paper explores the degree to which, and how, Estonia has used the Capability Development Plan (CDP), the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), and the European Defence Fund (EDF) in its national defence planning and acquisition policies and practices. Consistent with its view of the respective roles of NATO and the EU in defence, Estonia largely disregards the outputs of the CDP and CARD in its defence planning, focusing instead on national and NATO-derived requirements. Estonia is, however, a strong advocate for the role that EU support and funding can play in building Europe’s defence capabilities. It is a willing participant in PESCO and strongly encourages its defence industry to participate in EDF projects, where Estonian entities have achieved relatively high levels of success in fields such as cyber, robotics, sensors, and surveillance technologies.

À télécharger

• ARES Group – Comment #127 (PDF)

L’article Integration of the European Capability Process in Member States’ Administration : The Estonian Case est apparu en premier sur IRIS.

By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Apr 28 2026 (IPS)

Bangladesh remains one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Its corruption perception index (CPI) score, 24, is 18 points below the global average score of 42, and 21 points lower than the Asia-Pacific region’s average of 45. One of the main sources of corruption is over-priced aid-funded projects as they lack competitive bidding. Projects funded through Government-to-Government deals drive up costs by more than 400% compared to more transparent alternatives, and around 35% of project costs are lost to corruption and inefficiency.

Anis Chowdhury

These are well-researched and well-known facts. Yet development partners continue to advance loans (packaged as aid) to Bangladesh violating the United Nations Principles of Responsible Sovereign Lending.

Complicity

Development partners – traditional and non-traditional – cannot deny their complicity. The most culpable is the World Bank, followed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The shares of Bangladesh’s external debt liabilities to them are around 29%, 23% and 18%, respectively, totalling 70% of total external debt. Russia and China are Bangladesh’s main non-traditional development partners, with their respective shares of total external debt at 11% and 7%. All donors offered loans rampantly to the fascist regime to achieve their strategic and business interest, ignoring its extensive corruption and wide-spread human rights violations.

The World Bank briefly demonstrated its adherence to responsible lending principles when it cancelled $1.2 billion IDA credit for the Padma Bridge project in 2012, citing high-level corruption allegations. But its lending subsequently increased as if to expiate itself for the cancellation of the Padma Bridge loan. Mr. Hasan, one of the most corrupt ministers in the deposed Hasina Government, boasted, “once the World Bank cancelled its credit to finance Padma Bridge but now [in 2023] it has proposed to provide $2.25 billion”. To embarrass (or absolve?) the Bank, Sheikh Hasina presented a picture of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge to World Bank President David Malpass at the loan signing ceremony.

While Dhaka boasted that the Padma Bridge project was “entirely funded” by the government, China Exim Bank in fact provided $2.67 billion preferential buyer’s credit. The project costed approximately $3.6-$3.9 billion, nearly 3 times the initial estimate of $1.2 billion (the amount sought from the World Bank), largely due to corruption. The cost over-run triggered crises in both the forex and local currency markets, leading to the erosion of the country’s foreign exchange reserves.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided the lifeline at the dying hours of Hasina’s kleptocratic regime when it approved $4.7 billion in January 2023 with some vague conditionality, such as raising revenues, implementing structural reforms to create a conducive environment to expand trade and foreign direct investment, deepening the financial sector, and developing human capital.

The IMF chose to turn a blind eye to widespread corruption, including the looting of banks by the regime’s cronies, gross violations of human rights and election engineering to hold on to power. Can the IMF absolve itself of responsibility for enabling the survival of the collapsing repressive and corrupt regime to commit human rights violations and abuses during the mass uprising against it a year and half later?

Old habits die hard

Corruption in Bangladesh has deep roots; corruption’s tentacles have reached almost the entire body polity of the country to become a ‘social culture’. Nevertheless, the Interim Government, led by Nobel Laureate Professor Yunus, took some bold reform initiatives to strengthen the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the integrity of the financial sector.

Thus, it is deeply disappointing that the newly elected government replaced the highly professional central bank governor with a failed business person with no background in banking or international macroeconomics within the first week of assuming power. A loan defaulter himself, the new governor immediately relaxed the loan rules. The government also amended the Interim Government’s Bank Resolution Ordinance to allow the return of the restructured banks to previous owners who looted these banks.

These changes, together with the new government’s rejection of the Interim Government’s ordinances concerning the ACC, the independence of judiciary and the human rights commission, are clear signs of the old habits’ refusal to die and the persistence of corruption.

Another old habit, i.e., addiction to loans (so-called aid), denies to die. As of April 2026, the External Relations Division (ERD) of the Ministry of Finance has been instructed to look for up to $3 billion from development partners. Interestingly, the ERD’s main activity is foreign fund searching through its ‘fund searching committee’ which meets periodically to review (code name for naming and shaming section chiefs) its monthly loan signing targets. Instead, the ERD should have been focusing on fostering and strengthening economic relations – trade and investment – as its name implies.

One direct damage of aid addiction is the lethargy in mobilising domestic resources – Bangladesh’s tax-GDP ratio (around 7%) is not only low compared with the averages for low-income countries (13.5%) and middle-income countries (18.9%), but has also been declining from its peak of around 9% in 2012 since its borrowing from development partners accelerated.

Of course, the other collateral damage is the persistence of corruption. IMF research finds that countries with “voracious” and “fractious” politics divert large amounts of public resources to unproductive transfers to powerful interest groups.

Development partners’ responsible roles

All development partners – multilateral and OECD DAC members – ostensibly are in favour of “good governance”, meaning against corruption. The World Bank “considers corruption a major obstacle… to promoting shared prosperity”. The IMF views corruption as “a major obstacle to economic growth, stability, and development”. The ADB “maintains a zero-tolerance stance against corruption, viewing it as a major obstacle to development, poverty reduction, and economic growth”.

Unfortunately, the evidence of their complicity presented above tells a different story from their avowed anti-corruption posture. This casts doubt on their role as development partners. Global evidence shows that donors do not systematically allocate aid to less corrupt countries.

The citizens of the country expect that development partners remain true to their declared anti-corruption stance and advance concessional loans provided the government commits to strict monitorable anti-corruption measures and deep structural reforms. In particular, urgently needed funds should be considered if:

• Ordinances of the Interim Government designed to strengthen anti-corruption measures, protect human rights and ensure judicial independence are ratified by the Parliament;
• amendments to the Bank Resolution Ordinance are repealed; and
• a professionally competent and experienced person with high integrity is appointed as central bank governor.

To achieve deep structural reform, the focus should be on strengthening domestic revenue mobilisation and reorientation away from the aid-dependent development model to a trade and investment led development model. Therefore, development partners should open up their markets, encourage investment in productive sectors and help develop Bangladesh’s productive capacity.

On the other hand, if they remain complicit and advance loans in a highly corruption-prone environment, any future pro-people government will have the right to declare such loans as “odious” and to refuse repayment obligation.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). He held senior UN positions in Bangkok and New York and served as Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Finance (with the status and rank of State Minister) in the Professor Yunus-led Interim Government. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

  

 

Related Articles

• The Demise of Democracy and Human Rights Violations in Bangladesh: International Financial Institutions’ Culpability
• Dealing with Bangladesh’s Odious Debt
• Odious Debts: What Can Bangladesh Learn from Ecuador?