Agrégateur de flux

DRAFT RECOMMENDATION on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of the Agreement between the European Union and Canada laying down the conditions for the participation of Canadian legal entities and products originating in Canada to procurement under the SAFE Instrument
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
Committee on Security and Defence
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Borys Budka

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

DRAFT RECOMMENDATION on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of the Agreement between the European Union and Canada laying down the conditions for the participation of Canadian legal entities and products originating in Canada to procurement under the SAFE Instrument
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
Committee on Security and Defence
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Borys Budka

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Le vice-premier ministre, ministre de l'Intérieur, a convoqué d'urgence à Kinshasa le président de l'assemblée provinciale de l'Équateur, Delssy Mata. Cette décision intervient après une plénière mouvementée à Mbandaka, marquée par une divergence totale sur les poursuites judiciaires visant le gouverneur Bobo Biloko Bolumbu.

Le Premier ministre libanais, Nawaf Salam, a été reçu mardi à l'Élysée par Emmanuel Macron. Le président français a plaidé pour un accord entre Israël et le Hezbollah qui garantirait "l'intégrité territoriale du Liban", assurant qu'Israël devait "renoncer à ses visées territoriales". Le président français a ajouté que le Hezbollah devait être désarmé "par les Libanais".

Les journaux et media en ligne parus mardi 21 avril 2026 à Kinshasa se focalisent sur l’escalade de la violence dans l’Est de la RDC, malgré les avancées enregistrées dans les négociations à Montreux (Suisse)

Revue de presse du mardi 21 avril 2026

Léon XIV entame, mardi, la quatrième et dernière étape de sa tournée africaine avec une visite en Guinée équatoriale. Le pape sera attendu sur le terrain sensible du pluralisme politique et des libertés publiques dans cet État qui est l'un des plus fermés du continent africain.

North Korea’s ballistic missile. Credit: Wikipedia

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 21 2026 (IPS)

The ongoing military conflicts in the Middle East—involving the US, Israel, Palestine, Iran and Lebanon—have indirectly bolstered North Korea’s plans to expand its nuclear arsenal.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is quoted as saying the American attacks on Iran justified his decision to strengthen his military power and would eventually make his country safe in a world shaped by President Trump’s foreign policy.

The headline in a New York Times article last week read: “North Korea Tests New Weapons, Drawing Lessons from War in the Middle East”.

Among the weapons tested were missiles carrying cluster munition and graphite bomb payloads, much like weapons that have appeared in the Middle East, the Times said.

The testing signals that North Korea is trying to learn from the Middle East war.

Responding to President Trump’s interest in meeting with him, the North Korean leader has said he would agree to a meeting, only if the US formally recognizes his country as a nuclear power—and argued that leaders of Iraq and Libya would have survived US attacks if they possessed a nuclear deterrent.

“I don’t see any reason not to get along well with the United States if it withdraws its hostile policy towards us and respects our current (nuclear) status”, he said in a speech last February.

Trump met with the North Korean leader three times during his first term in office (2017–2021), including summits in Singapore (June 2018) and Hanoi (February 2019), followed by a brief meeting at the DMZ (June 2019), where Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to enter North Korea.

Meanwhile, the Washington-based Stimson Center points out that despite stringent international economic sanctions imposed primarily through the UN Security Council, North Korea’s progress in nuclear and missile development as well as in its nuclear doctrine has been remarkable, particularly since negotiations with the Trump administration stalled in 2018-19.

North Korea’s position that denuclearization is non-negotiable was again emphasized at their most recent Party Congress held in February 2026.

Dr M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security, Director pro tem, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, told Inter Press Service the attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran are unprovoked and further add to the incentive for countries to acquire nuclear weapons.

“There is no way to be sure that such acquisition would shield such countries under all circumstances, especially when military powers like the United States act with such belligerence”.

But rather than go down that direction, he pointed out, “our efforts should be focused on ensuring that countries do not resort to military violence and attacking other countries, and differences are settled through peaceful and diplomatic means.

While the current leaderships in many countries might not be inclined to act in such ways, it is up to civil society and social movements to help steer governments in a more peaceful direction, declared Dr Ramana.

North Korea has made “very serious” progress in its ability to produce more nuclear weapons, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog has said, in another sign that the regime is seeking to use its nuclear arsenal to ensure its survival, according to the London Guardian.

North Korea is thought to have assembled about 50 nuclear warheads, although some experts are skeptical of its claims that it is able to miniaturize them so they can be attached to long-range ballistic missiles.

Speaking during a visit to Seoul, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), confirmed reports of a rapid rise in activity at North Korea’s main nuclear complex, Yongbyon.

Grossi said work had intensified at Yongbyon’s 5MW reactor, reprocessing unit, light water reactor and other facilities, and the country was believed to possess several dozen nuclear warheads.

In an interview with IPS, Alice Slater, who serves on the Boards of World Beyond War and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space and is also a UN NGO Representative for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, told IPS “once again, North Korea is being singled out as a rogue state for complaining that its plans to strengthen its military capacity is justified given the US destruction of Iraq and Libya which never made any effort to go nuclear as North Korea did.”

It was widely unreported, she said, that North Korea was the only nuclear country to support a vote in 2016 at the UN First Committee that authorized negotiations to go forward on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons which resulted in the 2017 adoption of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Every single nuclear state as well as the states sheltering under the US nuclear umbrella, she pointed out, boycotted the meeting (except the Netherlands which was ordered to attend the UN meeting by a vote of its Parliament).

Which ones were the real rogue states? she asked.

While the news, dominated by what has been described by Ray McGovern founder of Veterans Intelligence Professions for Sanity as part of the MICIMATT (the Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence Media Academic Think Tank complex), is now trumpeting the new nuclear dangers and the frightening prospects of potential proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional nations, no attention is being paid to the opportunities to put a halt to the burgeoning nuclear arms race and the US race to weaponize space, characterized most recently by US plans for a “Golden Dome” estimated to cost 1.5 billion over the next years.

“There is a clear connection,” said Slater, “between maintaining space for peace and the willingness of Russia and China to negotiate for nuclear disarmament, going back to the time when Gorbachev proposed to Reagan that the US and Russia eliminate their nuclear arsenals provided the US gave up its plans to dominate and control space in its Vision 2020 document.”

While Reagan liked the idea of nuclear abolition, he refused to give up his Star Wars plans. Russia and China tabled a draft treaty in the consensus-bound UN Committee in Geneva in 2014 and 2018 which the US blocked, refusing to allow any discussion.

This past May 2025, on the 80th Anniversary of WWII, they issued a stunning proposal calling for global cooperation, supporting the “central coordinating role of the UN” and asking for a number of steps that could increase “strategic stability”

In particular, they criticized the US Golden Dome program, urging the need for the early launch of negotiations to conclude a legally binding multilateral instrument based on their draft treaty on the prevention of weapons and the use of force in outer space. They even pledged to promote an international commitment “not to be the first to deploy weapons in outer space”.

“Were the peace and arms control movements in the world to take up this extraordinary call and opportunity to reverse the disastrous course we appear to be plummeting towards—and demand that our governments enter negotiations on a treaty to guarantee that we will maintain a weapons and war free environment in space, there is little doubt that a new path will also be opened to finally ban the bomb”.

Time to give peace a chance, declared Slater.

Meanwhile, States Parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) will be meeting at the United Nations for the 2026 NPT Review Conference April 27-May 22.

The Review Conference comes at a time of increased nuclear threats arising from armed conflicts involving nuclear armed States, in particular the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the US/Israel invasion of Iran.

“This will make the deliberations and negotiations in New York very difficult, but also extremely important”, according to Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (PNND).

The PNND says it will be actively involved in the Review Conference – in conjunction with activities in parliaments around the world – to support the NPT by advancing nuclear risk-reduction, nuclear arms control, common security and the global elimination of nuclear weapons.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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La signature d'un accord pour l'exploration d'hydrocarbures en mer Ionienne marque une nouvelle étape dans la stratégie énergétique grecque. Derrière les promesses économiques, les organisations de défense de l'environnement s'inquiètent.

- Le fil de l'Info / Courrier des Balkans, Environnement dans les Balkans, Grèce, Environnement

By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Apr 21 2026 (IPS)

The global economy, is at the precipice of “stagflation” – growth slowdown and higher inflation – due to the energy price shock following the illegal US-Israel war on Iran. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recently termed this as a “textbook negative supply shock”. For the first time since the 1970s, the prospect of stagflation seems real.

Anis Chowdhury

What can central bankers learn from the 1970s stagflation?

Prospects of global stagflation

The IMF simulated three possible macroeconomic scenarios depending on the duration of this conflict and the extent of damages to energy infrastructure in the region. These range from a marginal drop in this year’s forecast global growth rate – from 3.4% to 3.1% – to a moderate decline to 2.5% and a sharp decline to 2%. The projected spikes in “headline inflation” – covering all goods and services, including volatile items, e.g., energy and food – range from 4.4% to 5.8% in 2026.

The IMF rightly doubts whether inflation can be checked with monetary tightening without causing substantial increase in unemployment. But it does not offer any solutions; instead advises the central banks to remain ready “to act decisively to maintain price stability”.

The IMF’s overall policy advice is conservative. However, it acknowledges the need for monetary and fiscal policy to support economic activities if the if financial conditions tighten sharply and global activity deteriorates markedly.

Inflation phobia and policy over-reaction

Ben Bernanke and his co-researchers found that the recession in the 1970s did not result from the oil-price shocks “per se, but from the resulting tightening of monetary policy”. Bob Barsky and Lutz Kilian found “that the oil price increases were not nearly as essential a part of the causal mechanism generating the stagflation of the 1970s as is often thought”. Ed Nelson blamed central banks’ “faulty doctrine” for the 1970s stagflation.

So, it was not inflation that caused output to decline, but rather, inappropriate and draconian efforts to curb inflation that inevitably repressed growth, and produced world’s first stagflation. This may happen again if central bankers overreact and tighten the financial conditions to kill the current “textbook supply shock” inflation.

The problem is the central bankers’ dogmatic group-thinking despite contrary empirical evidence. For example, the fear of unhinged inflation expectations and wage-price spirals do not have any empirical basis as reported in IMF research and the Australia’s Reserve Bank.

Yet, the central bankers and the IMF favour monetary tightening fearing the risk of “unhinged” inflation expectations and wage-price spirals.

Revisiting the inflation target

The central bankers’ group-thinking bias insists on an inflation target of 2% – a figure “plucked out of the air”, yet became “global economic gospel”. Don Brash, the acclaimed former Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, who was the first central bank governor to adopt a 2% inflation target admitted that it was based on a chance remark by then New Zealand Finance Minister Roger Douglas “during the course of a television interview”. It became “the mantra, repeated endlessly” as Brash and his colleagues “devoted a huge amount of effort” to preaching his new gospel “to everybody who would listen – and some who were reluctant to listen”.

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s former Chief Economist, questioned the wisdom behind the 2% inflation target and argued for a higher, e.g., 4% target following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. IMF research also advocated for a long-run inflation target of 4%. Such a moderately higher inflation should widen policy space.

Joe Gagnon and Chris Collins argued that “the case for raising the inflation target is stronger” than it is usually thought. Their research revealed that “the benefits [of a higher inflation target] clearly exceed the costs”.

Thus, one should not be surprised when The Financial Times says, “It is time to revisit the 2% inflation target”.

Rethinking inflation

Almost all central bankers see inflation as an outcome of excess demand, caused by either an increase in aggregate demand or a decrease in aggregate supply at a given price. Prices rise to eliminate the excess demand.

A common view is that higher prices lead to demand for higher wages which in turn cause higher prices, thus generating wage-price spirals. Therefore, central bankers focus on containing demand by raising interest rate regardless of the sources of inflation.

On the other hand, optimal policy-mix differ when inflation is seen as the result of a distributional conflict or disagreement. Guido Lorenzoni and Iv´an Werning analysed the impacts of supply shocks arising from “non-labour” inputs, such as energy under the different relative bargaining powers of labour and firms where the non-labour input price is perfectly flexible, and goods prices are more flexible than wages.

They found that the optimal policy response to a supply shock coming from the scarce non-labour input is to “run the economy hot”, i.e., to allow demand to exceed supply capacity and higher inflation. Their findings imply that it would be more efficient to reach the adjustment with the help of higher price inflation than through lower price inflation and deeper wage deflation by causing higher unemployment.

David Ratner and Jae Sim analysed the trade-off of anti-inflationary measures considering inflation as an outcome of distributional conflict. They found that restrictive anti-inflationary measures are more costly in terms of unemployment.

Interestingly, their finding corroborates the IMF’s observation that the aggregate supply curve has become flatter making restrictive anti-inflationary measures more costly in terms of higher unemployment. Unfortunately, the central bankers’ anti-inflation group bias dismisses the higher unemployment or growth declines due to restrictive policies as “short-term pains for long-term gains”.

Recent IMF research revealed permanent scars of recessions, including those arising from external shocks and macroeconomic policy mistakes; they all “lead to permanent losses in output and welfare”. The Lancet reported “substantial effects on suicide rates”. The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills, investigated the human cost of austerity policies during economic crises to emphasise that health indicators can significantly deteriorate.

Optimal policy response

In light of the above, the central bankers should reconsider their hawkish anti-inflationary policy-setting.

The governments around the world are trying to ease fuel-price impacts by fiscal measures such as a temporary reduction of fuel excise duty, subsidies and price caps. The mainstream commentators, including the IMF, argue that these measures may have significant fiscal costs if the crisis lingers on, and would put extra-burden on central banks, which are focused on controlling inflation.

Significantly, the optimal policy-mix should include tax revenue raising measures. Governments should consider enhancing tax progressivity. In particular, an excess profit tax should be imposed on the beneficiaries of higher interest rates and fuel prices, such as banks and fuel companies to fund cost of living support measures.

Dr. Ken Henry, Australia’s former Treasury Secretary has recently argued that a 100% tax on windfall profits from gas would be “socially optimal”. Tony Wood held “A windfall profit tax may be the least-worst solution to the gas crisis”.

Research based on US data reveals that an excess profit tax reduces existing racial and ethnic inequalities and inequalities between groups with different educational attainments. It can also accelerate renewable energy transition when increasing geopolitical tensions and climate impacts threaten continued volatility in fossil fuel and gas markets.

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

 

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Depuis sa victoire triomphale aux élections législatives du 12 avril dernier, Peter Magyar ne perd pas une minute. Il presse le président de la République de convoquer le nouveau Parlement le plus tôt possible, première étape avant la formation du gouvernement. Lundi, le futur Premier ministre a présenté une partie de sa nouvelle équipe. Si le vainqueur d'Orban met la pression, c’est d’abord pour pouvoir négocier rapidement avec Bruxelles le rapatriement des fonds européens destinés à la Hongrie. Mais c’est aussi pour abréger la période de transition entre les deux gouvernements.

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