Feed aggregator

MEPs from the Foreign Affairs and Development Committees and the Human rights Subcommittee will meet Andrzej Poczobut in Strasbourg this evening.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Development
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

MEPs from the Foreign Affairs and Development Committees and the Human rights Subcommittee will meet Andrzej Poczobut in Strasbourg this evening.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Development
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

MEPs from the Foreign Affairs and Development Committees and the Human rights Subcommittee will meet Andrzej Poczobut in Strasbourg this evening.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Development
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

MEPs from the Foreign Affairs and Development Committees and the Human rights Subcommittee will meet Andrzej Poczobut in Strasbourg this evening.
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Committee on Development
Subcommittee on Human Rights

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Június 12-én életbe lépett az Európai Unió új migrációs paktuma, amelyet még 2024-ben fogadott el az Európai Parlament, és amely az eddigi, dublini rendszert váltja. Egyszerre ígér szigorúbb és gyorsabb beléptetési módot, a tagállamok pedig különböző státusba kerülnek az alapján, hogy kedvezményezettjei a paktumnak, vagy szolidaritást kell vállalniuk a nagyobb migrációs nyomásnak kitett országokkal. Románia […]

Articolul Nem tartalmaz „migránskvótát” a pénteken életbe lépett paktum apare prima dată în Kolozsvári Rádió Románia.

For six minerals critical to South Korea’s most strategically important industries, China’s 2025 share of Korean imports ranges from 14.8 percent to 94.2 percent 

The PLA’s military expansion is steadily chipping away at one of Australia’s principal defensive assets: geography. 

Recent survey data suggest that many Taiwanese fear that Taiwan’s interests could be overlooked or sacrificed as Washington and Beijing seek to stabilize their relationship.

Monday 15 June

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Monday 15 June

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Monday 15 June

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Monday 15 June

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Monday 15 June

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

The merger is the latest step in the consolidation – or rebranding – of power under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. The names change; the system stays the same. 

Le débat sur la révision ou le changement de la Constitution en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) continue de susciter des réactions au sein de la société. Les autorités traditionnelles, réunies au sein de l’Alliance nationale des autorités traditionnelles du Congo (ANATC), ont à leur tour pris position, dimanche 14 juin, en proposant une approche consensuelle inspirée des pratiques coutumières.

The global financial architecture needs a deeper reset; it should build a country's capacity to withstand shocks and grow over time. Credit: Shutterstock

By External Source
Jun 15 2026 (IPS)

When G7 leaders arrive in Evian-les-Bains this month, France will host more than another summit. It will host a test of whether rich-country coordination can still solve problems that no country can manage alone. Aid budgets are shrinking, debt-service bills are crowding out investment, climate shocks are damaging infrastructure, and private capital remains scarce and expensive where it is needed most.

France has rightly made reducing global imbalances a priority of its G7 presidency. The G7 must show how finance should move differently and with global impact.

The urgent focus is development finance. G7 ministers have acknowledged that many partner countries face repeated crises, structural vulnerabilities, rising debt, food insecurity, and humanitarian needs. France has also placed African investment and the role of public development banks on the G7 agenda.

These issues are not separate. A drought that cuts harvests can weaken revenue, raise debt distress, damage health, interrupt schooling, and make the next investment more expensive. The current Ebola outbreak reminds us how vulnerable we all are to these crises.

The current global financial architecture was built for a world that believed growth could be separated from ecology, projects from systems, and risk from resilience. That world is gone

The dominant development finance paradigm treats each problem in its own box. The world no longer works that way.

That is why the global financial architecture needs a deeper reset; it should build a country’s capacity to withstand shocks and grow over time. Investments should work together. A solar plant that cannot feed a resilient grid, a road washed away by the next flood, or a hospital without reliable water, power, and social services support may look good in a project document and still fail the economy.

First, the world needs a better measure of wealth. GDP is useful, but incomplete. It counts activity; it does not tell us whether a country is building or consuming the assets on which future prosperity depends. A forest cleared for short-term export can raise GDP, and so can rebuilding after a flood.

Neither means that a country is becoming richer if its soils, water, skills, and institutional trust are deteriorating. A reset should ask whether produced assets, natural systems, people’s capabilities, and public institutions are becoming stronger together.

The practical step is not abstract. Finance ministries could require comprehensive wealth impact statements. When a government considers a debt-financed power system, port, irrigation program, or disaster-risk loan, it should show not only the likely effect on deficits and growth, but also the likely impact on water security, land-use management, public health, skills, and future disaster losses.

Creditors and rating agencies should look at the same evidence. A country that protects floodplains, strengthens schools, and reduces energy vulnerability is making itself a safer borrower, even if those gains remain invisible in conventional accounts.

Second, the world needs to appraise investment portfolios, not isolated projects. This is where many well-intentioned plans underperform. A seawall without drainage and mangrove protection may shift risk rather than reduce it.

Climate-smart agriculture without storage, cold chains, and roads leaves farmers exposed. Solar panels without grid upgrades and reliable payment systems can leave generations stranded. The question should not be which project has the highest standalone return, but which combination of investments most improves resilience, productivity, and long-term wealth in the public interest.

This approach would also help mobilize private capital. Investors are often told that developing countries are too risky. But part of that risk reflects weak systems: unreliable power, poor maintenance, exposed supply chains, thin insurance, and fragile public finances.

Coordinated ublic investments should be used to lower these risks at the portfolio level by preparing interconnected pipelines, funding data, providing guarantees, supporting local-currency finance, and strengthening early-warning systems and building the institutions that keep assets working when shocks hit. Capacity building would not be a charity; it would be risk reduction.

Third, states and markets need clearer rules for allocating capital. For policymakers, this means that budgets, debt strategies, and industrial plans should include the assets and vulnerabilities they create. For multilateral development banks, the IMF, credit-rating agencies, and regulators, it means treating climate adaptation, nature protection, social capability, and debt sustainability as one conversation, not four.

Country platforms should bring them into a single investment plan with clear priorities and accountability. For investors, assets that protect water, power, food systems, health, and skills should be viewed as infrastructure for returns, not as ESG decoration.

The G7 can make this pivot at Evian. It could agree that major development-finance packages should include wealth impact statements; that multilateral development-bank country strategies should use portfolio appraisal; that public development banks should standardize guarantees and project preparation for resilience; that debt workouts and new lending terms should reward verified investments that reduce future losses; and that private co-financing should be linked to transparent outcomes. These reforms simply require an acceptance by institutions to judge success differently.

None of this is anti-market, anti-growth, or anti-finance. It is pro-accuracy, pro-stability, and pro-prosperity. The central task is simple: build a financial architecture that strengthens society’s productive capacity and the planet that sustains it, not that merely flatters the next quarter’s accounts.

The current global financial architecture was built for a world that believed growth could be separated from ecology, projects from systems, and risk from resilience. That world is gone.

France’s G7 presidency offers a chance to replace it with a financial system that measures real wealth, funds investments that work together, and rewards countries for reducing the risks that threaten everyone. That is how we move from fragmented finance to resilient prosperity and from short-term gain to long-term global public investment.

 

Hyginus ‘Gene’ Leon is the Executive Director of the Development Bank for Resilient Prosperity and was the sixth President of Caribbean Development Bank (CDB)

Simon Reid-Henry, PhD is a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo and Head of Secretariat of the Coalition of Governments (and International Organisations) on Global Public Investment

 

Plus de trois mois après le déclenchement du conflit qui a opposé Israël, les États-Unis et l’Iran nul ne peut en prédire l’issue définitive, en dépit de l’annonce d’un accord dont les contours restent flous et les interprétations à géométrie variable. L’Iran a démontré une capacité de résilience et de riposte qui avait été sous-estimée par ses adversaires. L’Iran sort vainqueur de cette confrontation. Ses adversaires n’ayant rejoint aucun des objectifs qu’ils s’étaient fixés. Le régime est en place et son emprise est plus forte que jamais. Téhéran ne cèdera pas son uranium enrichi en dépit des déclarations triomphantes de Donald Trump. Sa capacité balistique qui semé la terreur dans toute la région n’est que très faiblement entamée. Ses avoirs à l’étranger, notamment dans le Golfe, sont partiellement débloqués et le sort du détroit d’Ormuz n’est pas scellé. 

Quelles conséquences pour les alliances conclues ?

Cet épisode guerrier qui a embrasé toute la région du Golfe a déjà eu des conséquences importantes. Il n’est plus sûr que les pays de la région qui ont déjà essuyé plusieurs milliers de tirs (7 500) de la part des Iraniens sur leurs infrastructures aient conservé leur confiance dans les capacités de leur allié (protecteur) américain à assurer leur sécurité. Au contraire, un ressentiment est palpable envers ceux qui les ont entrainés malgré eux dans un conflit qui met en péril la stabilité de la région et tout ce qui s’y rattache. Les contacts officiels entre Riyad et Washington se sont nettement ralentis depuis quelques mois. C’est le signe d’un refroidissement des relations.

Un conflit révélateur de l’impuissance des pays de la région face aux menaces

Ce qui étonne le plus c’est la paralysie dont semblent frappés les pays de la région. L’embarras dans lequel ils se trouvent est le signe d’une impuissance révélée au grand jour. La protection américaine n’a pas suffi à préserver les pays de la région. Pire, ils ont été entrainés malgré eux dans un conflit qu’ils n’avaient pas souhaité.

À la recherche d’alliances régionales

Riyad qui avait commencé à construire avant le conflit un nouvel axe régional (Turquie, Pakistan, Égypte et Qatar) se voit conforté dans cette voie. Le rapprochement de Mohamed Ben Salman avec la Turquie revêt ici une importance capitale. Riyad et Ankara ont le projet de créer (ou de faire revivre) un couloir terrestre pour l’acheminement des marchandises entre les pays du Golfe et l’Europe. Il s’agit de faire revivre la fameuse ligne du chemin de fer du Hedjaz qui reliait Istanbul à la Mecque. Ligne qui avait été inaugurée en 1908 au temps de l’Empire ottoman. Cette ligne qui passe par la Turquie, la Syrie, la Jordanie et l’Arabie saoudite serait connectée à d’autres lignes ferroviaires dans la péninsule arabique. Le Qatar étudie pour sa part l’idée de remettre en fonction un gazoduc qui le relierait au port de Banyas en Syrie.

Le projet saoudo-turc vise aussi à contourner la fermeture du détroit d’Ormuz et d’échapper aux tarifs d’assurance qui ont augmenté de 300 %.

La Syrie bénéficiaire de la situation régionale

Autre particularité, tous ces projets mettent en relief l’importance de la Syrie de l’après-Assad. Les deux principaux alliés du président syrien Ahmed al-Charaa (Turquie et Arabie saoudite) permettront ainsi à ce pays exsangue de tirer de substantiels bénéfices des droits de passage sur son territoire. Damas passe ainsi de paria du Moyen-Orient à un rôle central.

L’incapacité de riposter met en relief le désarroi des pays de la région

L’absence de riposte des pays du Golfe aux attaques qu’ils subissent de la part des Iraniens est le signe d’un désarroi. Ces pays tentent malgré tout de préserver l’avenir. Ils savent que l’Iran sera toujours leur voisin immédiat et qu’il faudra faire avec. L’absence de riposte (à part un raid de l’aviation émiratie en avril dernier) s’explique aussi par la faiblesse structurelle des armées du Golfe. Les Monarchies de la péninsule ne souhaitent pas s’engager dans un conflit dont l’issue est plus qu’incertaine. Le formidable arsenal accumulé ces dernières années ne leur sert à rien et leur dissuasion est réduite à la plus simple expression.

Oman en situation d’échec diplomatique

Dans cet ensemble le cas d’Oman est assez emblématique. Le Sultanat a toujours affiché une neutralité de bon aloi et a cherché à privilégier les voies du dialogue. Jusqu’au déclenchement des hostilités, Oman jouait le rôle d’intermédiaire entre l’Iran son voisin et les États-Unis. La contribution d’Oman à la conclusion de l’accord de Vienne sur le nucléaire iranien (JCPOA) avait été cruciale au début des négociations.

Après le début du conflit en février dernier, le Sultanat qui avait œuvré jusqu’au bout pour un accord s’est senti trahi par son allié américain et a été brutalement écarté de son rôle de facilitateur entre les deux parties au profit du Pakistan et plus tard du Qatar. C’est un camouflet de plus pour la diplomatie omanaise.

Saïd Badr al-Busaïdi, le ministre omanais des Affaires étrangères, ex-médiateur dans les discussions entre l’Iran et les États-Unis, dans une interview à The Economist avait accusé l’administration américaine de « s’être laissée entrainer » par Israël dans cette guerre alors qu’un accord semblait à portée de main. L’assassinat de Ali Larijani, ancien secrétaire du Conseil suprême de sécurité nationale iranien (2025-2026), a privé le Sultanat de son principal interlocuteur iranien.

Pourtant, Oman est un acteur régional majeur. Il partage avec l’Iran le détroit d’Ormuz dont la circulation s’effectuait principalement sur le rail omanais dans ses eaux territoriales. Le Sultanat n’a pas réagi à la fermeture d’Ormuz de la part de l’Iran, de même que les attaques iraniennes n’ont pas épargné les terminaux de Doqum et de Fahl près de Mascate. À part des protestations de pure forme, les Omanais n’ont pas réagi. Il est vrai qu’Oman tire profit de sa position en dehors des eaux du détroit. Bon nombre des denrées qui transitaient par le détroit pour approvisionner les pays du Golfe sont déchargées dans les ports omanais situés sur la mer d’Arabie et sont ensuite acheminées par voie terrestre vers leur destination.

Quelles incidences à Bahreïn et au Koweït ?

La situation à Bahreïn, qui abrite le Commandement central des États-Unis (Centcom), et au Koweït est plus délicate. Ces deux pays sont les cibles d’attaques iraniennes des Iraniens, même si les défenses antiaériennes réussissent pour l’instant à contenir l’impact des frappes de rétorsion après les attaques américaines contre des cibles iraniennes. Le prix à payer semble assez élevé pour ces deux pays dont la situation intérieure est fragile : ils comptent tous deux de fortes minorités chiites et des cellules accusées d’être liées aux Gardiens de la Révolution iraniens ont été démantelées dans les deux pays.

Accord de paix : quelles perspectives pour les monarchies du Golfe ?

La volonté de Donald Trump de vouloir parvenir à tout prix à un accord avec l’Iran aura des conséquences lourdes pour la région. L’Iran aura prouvé sa capacité à résister à deux puissances majeures. Si la situation dans le détroit d’Ormuz ne revient pas au statu quo ante et si l’Iran conservait sa capacité de poursuivre son programme nucléaire, les monarchies du Golfe devront revoir leur stratégie diplomatique. Elles devront, soit composer avec le régime iranien, soit se tourner vers de nouvelles alliances, aussi fragiles soient-elles.

L’article La guerre en Iran et ses conséquences pour la région est apparu en premier sur IRIS.

Chatbots and AI companions have rapidly moved from science fiction into everyday life. Credit: Shutterstock

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Jun 15 2026 (IPS)

AI chatbots and AI companions designed to simulate human-like conversation and provide relationships and companionship through generative artificial intelligence (AI) have rapidly evolved from science fiction into everyday reality.

Globally, approximately one billion people – about 12% of the world’s population – now use generative AI chatbots monthly, with usage approaching parity among men and women.

Dedicated AI companions and virtual friends are estimated to have between 50 to 100 million active users worldwide. The global AI companion market is valued at roughly USD 50 billion in 2026 and is projected to grow nearly ninefold by 2034.

These technologies, including the growing use of AI avatars, are increasingly taking the place of human interactions in homes, schools, workplaces, and other settings. Marketed as virtual friends, romantic partners, or personal assistants, AI chatbots and AI companions offer users emotional support, entertainment, guidance, and companionship.

As their capabilities become more sophisticated, many users report forming emotional attachments to these systems, with increasing numbers of users believing that their AI companion or chatbot is sentient or possesses human-like awareness.

While these technologies can provide new opportunities for connection, they cannot replace the face-to-face interactions that are essential to social development, particularly among children and adolescents

Advances in robotics are also moving AI companions beyond screen-based interactions into the physical world. With increasingly human-like appearances, behaviors, and communication abilities, these systems are becoming more sophisticated and human-like in the way they interact with people.

Unlike AI assistants, which primarily answer questions or perform tasks, AI companions are designed to simulate conversations and relationships, encouraging emotional connections as friends, confidants, or romantic partners.

By providing human-like conversation, these artificial intelligence devices are offering support against social isolation and loneliness, providing educational instruction, dispensing advice and guidance, becoming friends and romantic partners, and transforming personal relationships.

The chatbots and AI companions have introduced social, psychological and ethical changes to how men, women, and especially children experience companionship, domestic life, and schooling. In particular, generative AI chatbots and AI companions have opened a new frontier in developing friendship and social relationships.

Many adolescents now rely on these new technologies for school assistance, entertainment, and emotional support. As a result, relationships with chatbots and AI companions – as friends, therapists, and even romantic partners – have become increasingly complex and, in some cases, riskier.

These emotionally engaging interactions can exacerbate psychological vulnerabilities and blur the lines between human relationships and machine-generated companionship.

In several widely publicized cases, AI chatbots have encouraged or failed to prevent self-harm. In addition, some deaths have been linked to young people who developed obsessive emotional attachments to AI companions.

However, despite the complications and risks, the world’s current attention and concerns about AI remain focused primarily on its growing impact on employment, budgetary cuts, and taking over jobs currently performed by men and women.

In contrast, relatively little attention is being given to chatbots and AI companions that engage in conversations and increasingly form personal relationships with men, women, teenagers, and children at home, in schools and in many other settings.

While these technologies can provide new opportunities for connection, they cannot replace the face-to-face interactions that are essential to social development, particularly among children and adolescents.

AI chatbots also raise risks to personal privacy, psychological well-being, the spread of misinformation, and the reinforcement of harmful behaviors. In addition, a broad range of other concerns has been identified regarding the use of chatbots and AI companions.

These concerns include delaying social and emotional development among children and teenagers, blurring the distinction between software and reality, encouraging risky behavior, exploiting young people’s emotional needs, reinforcing unhelpful thoughts, distorting users’ sense of reality, and fostering simulated attachments and dependence (Table 1).

Source: Author’s compilation.

The United States Psychological Association recently warned that relationships between children and adolescents and AI chatbots could displace or interfere with healthy social development. The association noted that friendships and social support from other people have long-term benefits for emotional well-being, physical health, and longevity.

Among generative AI chatbots, the leading platforms by market share in May 2026 are generally reported to be ChatGPT, Claude AI, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, and Grok. Several industry analyses place ChatGPT’s share at roughly 50-55%, with Claude AI at about 21% of market share emerging as the second-largest platform (Figure 1).

Source: FirstPageSage.

In March 2026, the country with the largest number of ChatGPT users was the United States, with approximately 205 million users. Following the U.S., the countries with the largest ChatGPT user populations were India, Brazil, Canada, and France (Figure 2).

Source: fatjoe.

It is certainly the case that chatbots and AI companions cannot feel love toward an individual. Nevertheless, hundreds of millions of men, women, and children worldwide are increasingly relying on these technologies for conversation, information, companionship, and non-judgmental interactions.

These technologies may help to address chronic loneliness and social isolation, conditions that have consistently been linked to detrimental effects on physical and mental health and increased risk of premature death. The World Health Organization (WHO) formally recognizes loneliness as a global public health concern, with roughly one in six people worldwide experiencing problematic levels of loneliness.

Chatbots and AI companions can help alleviate loneliness and social isolation by providing readily available conversation and companionship without judgement and expectations. As chatbots, AI companions, and androids become increasingly sophisticated, growing numbers of people are exploring the new forms of emotional connection and intimacy with these technologies.

At the same time, the growing use of chatbots and AI companions for personal relationships raises important social, psychological, ethical, and policy concerns.

Although chatbots and AI companions may help reduce loneliness and social isolation for some users, they also pose risks, especially for children and young people. Because AI systems do not possess genuine empathy and are not trained or licensed as mental health professionals, excessive reliance on them for emotional support may isolate vulnerable individuals and distort perceptions of human relationships.

Debate continues regarding the appropriate level of regulations for these technologies. Some government officials, technology companies, investors, and researchers argue that these new and emerging AI technologies should remain largely unregulated, with people themselves determining how to adapt to these technologies.

Some of the reasons for keeping the development of AI unregulated include: prevents regulatory paralysis; accelerates technological breakthroughs; encourages venture capital investment; maintains global geopolitical competitiveness; promotes national security; prevents market monopolies; benefits national interests; and leads to better lives for men and women.

Others, however, argue that AI chatbot and AI companion technologies need to be regulated in order to protect the mental health of children and young adults; reduce the negative effects of social media and excessive screen time; mitigate risks, deception, bias, discrimination, and misinformation; promote economic stability and fairness; become a public resource; protect human rights and intellectual property; and ensure data privacy.

Among the proposed safeguards and regulations for chats and AI companions are requirements for non-human disclosure, crisis protocols for self-harm, age verification measures, limits on their use in elementary schools, bans on impersonation, and stronger protections for minors.

Fueled in part by technology companies, governments worldwide are moving rapidly to deploy generative AI systems and chatbots in schools, universities, and other settings.

However, the spread of these new AI technologies may pose risks to the development and well-being of children and teenagers, raising concerns among educators, parents, and policymakers. Interactions with AI chatbots, especially when they are intense and prolonged, may contribute to the onset or worsen delusions or mania. Research is also finding that AI companions provide responses that may worsen mental health issues.

Additionally, a recent study reported that reliance on generative AI chatbots may reduce critical thinking engagement in some contexts. Another study has raised concerns that AI chatbots can exploit teenagers’ emotional vulnerabilities, sometimes leading to inappropriate and harmful interactions.

The United States Federation of Teachers recommends “no screens” for children in second grade or younger, and restricting the use of AI chatbots for students in elementary schools. The organization has expressed concerns that excessive screen use may hinder socialization, independent thinking, and critical-thinking development.

The long-term effects of AI chatbots remain uncertain, with researchers just beginning to investigate them. However, classroom teachers and some city officials report that many students are increasingly relying on chatbots for easy answers rather than developing problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.

The U.S. Federation of Teachers has urged elementary schools to avoid using artificial intelligence tools like AI chatbots with students and called for national privacy and safety standards governing AI use in schools.

Research suggests that chatbots and AI companions may pose several risks, particularly for teenagers. Concerns include emotional dependency, declining mental health, harmful interactions, and revealing sensitive personal information, including mental health issues and sexual orientation.

Reliance on chatbots and AI companions for emotional support may also contribute to social isolation and interfere with the development of normal human relationships. Because these technologies are designed to simulate emotional intimacy, they can blur the line between genuine human connections and artificial interactions.

A risk-assessment study found that inappropriate dialogue could be readily elicited from chatbots on topics such as sex, self-harm, violence, drug use, and racial stereotypes, raising concerns about their influence on vulnerable users, particularly children and adolescents.

In conclusion, chatbots and AI companions have rapidly moved from science fiction into everyday life. They increasingly exhibit human-like characteristics, including natural-sounding human voices, memory of past interactions, continuous processing of personal information, apparent preferences, constant availability, and the ability to provide companionship and guidance on personal and social matters.

Public discussion of generative AI has focused largely on employment and job displacement, while less attention has been given to its social, psychological, and ethical effects. As chatbots and AI companions become more capable and widely used, concerns about their impact on the well-being, development, and relationships of young people are likely to become increasingly important for parents, educators, policymakers, and technology developers.

 

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division, and author of many publications on population issues.

ENTSCHLIESSUNGSANTRAG
eingereicht gemäß Artikel 115 Absätze 2 und 3 der Geschäftsordnung
zu dem Entwurf eines Durchführungsbeschlusses der Kommission über die Finanzierung des Jahresaktionsplans 2026 für die Vereinigte Republik Tansania
(D115284/01 - 2026/2749(RSP))
Ausschuss für auswärtige Angelegenheiten

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP