Agrégateur de flux

On en parlait depuis des années. Edi Rama et Giorgia Meloni l'ont fait. L'Italie va transférer ses demandeurs d'asile en Albanie. La conformité de l'accord avec le droit européen demeure incertaine. En Albanie, beaucoup dénoncent un abandon de souveraineté.

- Articles / Albanie, Populations, minorités et migrations, Questions européennes, Courrier des Balkans, Migrants Balkans

As former BTA Bank chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov pursues his battle with the French judicial authorities, four months after the Court of Cassation quashed an order cancelling the legal action taken against him, the Brussels-based NGO Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF) is

The Italian cyber intelligence outfit Movia will be presenting its spyware Spider at next ISS World, the gathering of intelligence

Like many French investment funds before it, Eurazeo, with €35bn in assets under management (AUM), wants to have its own

Marc Abensour, France's ambassador in Singapore from 2016 to 2022, has been reaching out to contacts in the Pacific since

Israeli drone maker Aeronautics Ltd has continued to do business with an obscure Russian fintech company, even after the war

New York: New senior adviser for StoneTurnAfter a dozen years as head of the compliance department at Moody's rating agency,

The French embassy in Moscow recently decided to change the security contractor that protects its compound in the heart of

Abiy Ahmed says that access to a port is an existential question for his landlocked country.

Les pourparlers au Soudan, qui ont repris fin octobre en Arabie saoudite, n'ont pas permis de parvenir à un cessez-le-feu. Les deux parties se sont contentées de réaffirmer la nécessité d'améliorer l'accès à l'aide humanitaire, a indiqué Riyad mardi. La guerre entre l'armée soudanaise et les Forces de soutien rapide (FSR) a fait plus de 9 000 morts depuis le 15 avril

Des frappes aériennes de l'armée malienne à Kidal ont fait mardi plusieurs morts, dont des enfants, selon des résidents. L'armée dit avoir visé des "cibles terroristes". Ces frappes préfigurent de la bataille à venir pour ce bastion de la rébellion touareg et enjeu majeur de souveraineté pour l'État central. Le Cadre stratégique permanent (CSP) a fait état dans un communiqué de 14 morts, dont huit enfants regroupés devant une école et six notables, tués par des drones de l'armée malienne.

ÄNDERUNGSANTRÄGE 1 - 243 - Entwurf eines Berichts Die Rolle der präventiven Diplomatie bei der Lösung eingefrorener Konflikte weltweit – verpasste Chance oder Wandel für die Zukunft?
Ausschuss für auswärtige Angelegenheiten
Željana Zovko

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2023 - EP

À l’occasion du 48e anniversaire de la Marche verte, le souverain marocain a réaffirmé sa volonté de faire du sud du royaume un hub économique consacré à l’Afrique.

Im Krieg zwischen Israel und der Hamas trat der türkische Präsident Erdogan zunächst als neutraler Vermittler auf. Inzwischen bezieht er jedoch klar Position für die Hamas. Warum der radikale Sinneswandel? Ein Gespräch mit der Türkeiexpertin Hürcan Asli Aksoy von der Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin.

Sattvica/ EUIPO - Maradona u. a. (DIEGO MARADONA)
Geistiges und gewerbliches Eigentum
Rechtsstreit um die Marke DIEGO MARADONA: Das Gericht der Europäischen Union bestätigt die Entscheidung, mit der das EUIPO es abgelehnt hat, den Übergang der Rechte an dieser Marke auf die argentinische Gesellschaft Sattvica einzutragen

Sattvica v EUIPO - Maradona and Others (DIEGO MARADONA)
Intellectual and industrial property
Legal battle over the DIEGO MARADONA trade mark: the General Court of the European Union confirms the EUIPO’s refusal to register the transfer of that trade mark in favour of the Argentine company Sattvica

Alors que les autorités militaires burkinabè peuvent désormais réquisitionner des citoyens dans le cadre de la lutte contre les groupes terroristes, des syndicats et organisations de défense des droits humains affirment avoir été spécifiquement visés par ces mobilisations. Ils dénoncent une volonté de faire taire les voix discordantes.

In mid-October, urgent global health issues were discussed at the World Health Summit (WHS) in Berlin. Simultaneously, the eagerly awaited new “negotiating text” of the pandemic accord was published. The aim is for the accord to be drafted and presented for decision by the 77th World Health Assembly in May 2024. The proposal will be voted on by 194 member states of the World Health Organization (WHO). Initial reactions to the new negotiating text focussed on what was probably the most controversial topic, but one that was not discussed much at the WHS: equitable access to medical supplies through the pandemic accord. However, the WHS would have offered politicians, researchers and civil society a rare opportunity to discuss the lessons to be learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic and what is really needed to ensure access.

Lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic

Although the participating guests at the WHS emphasised the need to learn from the Covid-19 pandemic, they shied away from addressing pressing questions about intellectual property (IP) rights as well as pathogen access and benefit-sharing (PABS). The discussion about IP rights is about whether, in the event of a pandemic, there should be compulsory licences for a limited period of time, as well as a mandatory transfer of technologies and knowledge by pharmaceutical companies. The PABS discussion revolves around the question of whether signatory countries and WHO should receive some kind of compensation if pharmaceutical companies can access pathogens and sequencing data via a central database in order to develop commercial medical countermeasures.

In order to answer whether the temporary waiver of IP rights and PABS could really contribute to the faster development and distribution of medical countermeasures, it is necessary to take an honest look at what worked well during the pandemic and what did not. One clear positive aspect was the rapid development of new medical countermeasures. The exchange of pathogens and sequencing data via open platforms gave researchers and pharmaceutical companies rapid access to emerging virus variants. What did not work, however, was the fair distribution of newly developed countermeasures. This was because the products were either not sold to countries in the Global South or only on very unfavourable terms, which was also due to non-transparent contracts being forced upon them by pharmaceutical companies. At the same time, the financial advantages resulting from the sharing of pathogens and sequencing data generally only benefited industrialised countries and pharmaceutical companies. This is despite the fact that the development of countermeasures is also based on collaboration with researchers from the Global South.

Weaknesses of the current approach

The pandemic accord is intended to ensure that the global community is better prepared for pandemics in the future. However, the new negotiating text does not contain any solid binding provisions. Instead, it attempts to regulate the distribution of medical goods via IP rights and PABS mechanisms. Although the current draft includes the voluntary transfer of knowledge and technologies and the temporary waiver of IP rights, it is unclear how well these voluntary regulations will work in practice. In addition, the initially unsuccessful attempt to produce a Covid-19 vaccine by WHO’s mRNA production centre in South Africa has shown that waiving patents is not enough. Although Moderna’s “recipe” was available in South Africa, there was a lack of knowledge and training of local staff by the pharmaceutical company. Vaccine production was therefore drastically delayed.

The proposal presented for a PABS mechanism also raises doubts. The negotiating text envisages a system in which countries share pathogens and data showing pandemic potential with a central WHO laboratory network. A pharmaceutical company that accesses material via the network would have to give up a percentage of the products developed from it in return. Although this process of centralisation sounds plausible at first, there are considerable concerns about its functionality. While the procedures for exchange and collaboration via existing open platforms already work very well worldwide, similar centralised systems have shown considerable weaknesses. This is because they necessarily have to link access and benefit-sharing to a complex legal framework that includes multiple private contracts, in turn making the rapid transfer of data more difficult and the sharing of medical countermeasures non-transparent.

Currently, it remains unclear whether the approaches to IP rights and PABS outlined in the negotiating text are sufficient to achieve the goals that have been set. For the most controversial issue, however, a simpler solution is conceivable: Equitable access to medical countermeasures could be ensured by creating an unconditional obligation to share. Specifically, it would be possible for states to commit in the accord to surrender a certain percentage of the medical countermeasures they have acquired themselves. These contributions could then be distributed fairly among the signatories of the pandemic accord by WHO or a newly created institution.

ÄNDERUNGSANTRÄGE 1 - 474 - Entwurf eines Berichts Beziehungen zwischen der EU und China
Ausschuss für auswärtige Angelegenheiten
Hilde Vautmans

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2023 - EP

The government's staunch support for the Palestinians is criticised by leaders of the Jewish community.