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A UNESCO treasure in Egypt’s Sinai could get a tourism boom around it, if Greece and Cairo can agree on how to protect it

Tisztelet a hősöknek!

Zord

The 6-Member SEDE delegation mission to the United Kingdom organised in close co-operation with AFET and INTA, was a very timely visit following the announcement by the President of the European Commission and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to enhance strategic cooperation after their leaders’ meeting of 2 October 2024. The UK in particular has set out its ambition for an “enhanced EU-UK defence cooperation,” in light of Russia’s continuing war of aggression in Ukraine.
Location : London, United Kingdom
Press release
SEDE mission report including the programme
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

“The situation at Deutsche Bahn is dramatic, especially when you look at customer satisfaction, punctuality, and profitability,” said German Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder

The arrests come as wildfires rage across Spain, devastating about 40,000 hectares of land

The US leader initially said there would be some "land swapping going on," but appeared to have walked that back after speaking with European leaders a day before

Corruption probe widens as Lithuanian watchdog arrests ex-PM’s brother and four others

Bislang wurden rund 440.000 Hektar zerstört – fast doppelt so viel wie die Fläche Luxemburgs.

Les ministres des Transports du Royaume-Uni et de l'Allemagne ont convenu de lancer un groupe de travail conjoint visant à faire circuler les trains entre les deux pays.

The post Berlin et Londres main dans la main pour dessiner les contours des lignes ferroviaires transfrontalières appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Blazes across Southern Europe and the Balkans have already scorched nearly twice the size of Luxembourg

Sánchez wird nun als erster Regierungschef in die Geschichte eingehen, der gleich drei Jahre lang keinen Haushalt vorlegt.

Pour la troisième année consécutive, les vacances d'été du gouvernement espagnol débutent sans budget pour 2026 alors que le Premier ministre Pedro Sánchez essuie de vives critiques des divers partis politiques.

The post Pour la troisième année consécutive, l’Espagne de Pedro Sánchez n’a toujours pas de budget  appeared first on Euractiv FR.

The origin of COVID-19 remains a mystery, hampered by secrecy, stalled research and global inaction.

By Shreya Komar
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2025 (IPS)

More than four years since Covid-19 upended the world, the question of how it began remains unanswered. Did SARS-CoV-2 originate from animals to humans naturally, or did it accidentally escape from a laboratory? The World Health Organization’s latest report offers little new clarity and raises serious concerns about international cooperation and scientific transparency. On June 27, 2025, the WHO Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) released its second report examining how the virus emerged. Despite years of work and renewed international focus, the findings have been widely criticized for failing to break new ground. Much of the blame lies in what wasn’t included. Critical data requested from China was never provided, leaving glaring holes in the investigation.

“The report adds almost nothing to what a few talented independent investigators found several years ago,” said Viscount Ridley, co-author of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.

“That it has taken five years and 23 people to produce this ‘all but useless’ addition to the literature on the origin of Covid-19 is frankly a disgrace.”

The search for COVID-19’s origin is not simply an academic exercise. Understanding how this virus entered the human population is crucial for preventing the next pandemic. Scientists agree that future coronavirus outbreaks are not only possible but also likely. Knowing whether SARS-CoV-2 came from a wildlife market or a laboratory accident informs how humanity prepares for the next spillover.

While the SAGO report acknowledges both the zoonotic spillover and lab-leak theories as plausible, it stresses the need for further evidence. That evidence remains frustratingly out of reach.

“If China had been transparent all along, we would have been able to pinpoint what happened,” said Dr. Deborah Birx, who served as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator from 2020 to 2021.

Most virologists continue to believe that the virus has a natural origin, a view reinforced in a new documentary titled “Unmasking COVID-19’s True Origins” released by Real Stories on July 15. “The vast majority of virologists understand the virus had a natural origin,” one expert says in the film. Still, without access to early samples and full records, both theories remain scientifically viable, and political tensions continue to cloud the inquiry.

This latest WHO report comes just weeks after a major development in global health policy. On May 20, 2025, the World Health Assembly adopted the long-anticipated WHO Pandemic Agreement, a legally binding treaty intended to strengthen preparedness for future outbreaks. The agreement aims to fix the deep weaknesses revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic: sluggish coordination, delayed data sharing, and unequal access to vaccines and treatments.

The treaty commits countries to share information on emerging pathogens faster, to improve cooperation on disease surveillance, and to distribute medical tools like vaccines more equitably. It also respects national sovereignty, meaning that countries will not be forced to relinquish control of their public health decisions. Still, some provisions, particularly those concerning the sharing of pathogen samples and related benefits, remain under negotiation and are expected to be finalized in 2026.

The WHO’s first SAGO report, released on June 9, 2022, also found that both leading origin theories were possible and called for further data from Chinese authorities. The absence of transparency since then has only hardened frustration among scientists. The call for cooperation is not just about this virus but about preparing for what comes next.

Meanwhile, research vital to fighting COVID-19 and future respiratory diseases has quietly stalled. In 2024, Ohio State University was awarded USD 15 million to study new treatments for SARS-CoV-2 and long COVID. One promising clinical trial focused on a drug to treat hypoxemic respiratory failure, a leading cause of death among hospitalized patients. But halfway through, the National Institutes of Health abruptly terminated the funding.

The cancellation saved USD 500,000 but came after USD 1.5 million had already been spent. As a result, researchers were forced to abandon the trial entirely, delaying possible treatments that could have helped the nearly one million people hospitalized annually for respiratory failure caused by COVID, flu, and other infections. “This is a disaster for all of us,” said a veteran scientist at Ohio State.

“We’re all depressed and living on a knife-edge, because we know we could lose the rest of our grants any day. These people really hate us, yet all we’ve done is work hard to make people’s health better. A flu pandemic is coming for us; what’s happening in cattle is truly scary and all we have is oxygen and hope for people.”

Scientific leaders argue that the world must do the opposite of what is currently happening: invest more, not less, in pandemic-related science. Research that has languished or been underfunded must be revived and expanded. More international partnerships are needed, especially with researchers in hotspot regions such as China, to ensure the global community is better equipped to face the next threat.

As the WHO itself notes, “The work to understand the origins of SARS-CoV-2 remains unfinished.”

But without transparency, funding, and political will, it may remain that way for years to come. And if that happens, the world could be left just as vulnerable when the next pandemic emerges.
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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L’autorité néerlandaise de la concurrence réunira le 15 septembre douze géants des réseaux sociaux pour exiger des garanties contre la désinformation, les ingérences et les discours de haine, à l’approche des législatives d’octobre.

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Mercredi soir, plusieurs villes de Serbie ont été le théâtre d'affrontements violents entre manifestants étudiants et partisans du SNS, soutenus par des forces parapolicières et militaires, mettant en lumière une escalade inédite dans le bras de fer entre la population et le pouvoir.

- Le fil de l'Info / Serbie, Politique, Courrier des Balkans, Vucic

Spain has never missed two consecutive budget presentations since in 1975. Now it may miss a third

Alors que l'Europe est actuellement le continent qui se réchauffe le plus rapidement, la santé mentale de sa population s'en trouve affectée, et la réponse politique de l'UE se fait attendre.

The post L’Europe surchauffe, la santé mentale en pâtit appeared first on Euractiv FR.

The two leaders meet in Alaska on Friday for their first talks since 2021 and joint press conference in seven years

Les observateurs s'étonnent de la capacité du Hamas à payer les salaires de ses employés, étant donné que la zone est petite et en grande partie détruite.

Fiji is a Pacific Island nation renowned for its tourism industry, but it has also endured four armed coups and 38 years of political instability. Credit: Julie Lyn

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Aug 14 2025 (IPS)

Fiji, a nation located west of Tonga in the central Pacific, is renowned for its natural beauty and beach resorts. But for 38 years it has endured a political rollercoaster of instability with four armed coups that overturned democratically elected governments and eroded human rights.

Now, following a peaceful transition of power at the last 2022 election, Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and his coalition government want to deal with the past with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to pave the way for a more peaceful and resilient future.

The commission will “facilitate open and free engagement in truth-telling regarding the political upheavals during the coup periods and promote closure and healing for the survivors,” Rabuka, who led the first coup, told parliament before supporting legislation that was passed in December last year. Now he has pledged to oversee the country’s reconciliation and return to democratic norms.

The TRC is tasked with investigating what happened during the coups d’état of 1987, 2000 and 2006, related human rights abuses and the grievances that have driven the relentless struggle for power between Fiji’s indigenous and Indo-Fijian communities. Its focus is on truth-telling and preventing a repetition of conflict; it will not prosecute perpetrators of abuses or provide reparations to victims.

“This commission aims to serve the people of Fiji to come to terms with your own history… the purpose is not to put blame and to deepen the trauma and the difficulties, but to help the people of Fiji to move on for a better future for everyone,” Dr. Marcus Brand, the TRC chairman, who has extensive experience with transitional justice initiatives and held senior roles in the United Nations and European Union, said in January.

He is joined by four Fijian commissioners, namely former High Court Judge Sekove Naqiolevu, former TV journalist Rachna Nath, former Fiji Airways Captain Rajendra Dass, and leadership expert Ana Laqeretabua.

The Fiji Parliament, Suva, Fiji. Credit: Josuamudreilagi

Florence Swamy, Executive Director of the Pacific Centre for Peacebuilding, a non-governmental organization based in the capital, Suva, told IPS that the TRC is important to building trust in the country, where many people still experience fear and anxiety about the violence they witnessed.

“As a first step, it is creating a safe space for people to talk about what happened to them,” she emphasized.

Fiji’s political turmoil has roots in the past. British colonization in the nineteenth century was accompanied by policies that were intended to strengthen indigenous land rights and prevent dispossession, rights that were reinforced in Fiji’s first constitution at Independence in 1970.

But, at the same time, Fijian society was irrevocably changed by the organized immigration of Indians to work on sugar plantations and boost development of the colony. By the mid-twentieth century, the Indo-Fijian population was larger than the indigenous community and their demands for equal rights increased.

“Fijian Indians were brought to the country, in many cases, under the false pretense of better work and wage opportunities, to develop the economy of Fiji…while indigenous Fijians were hardly consulted about such a momentous decision,” Dr. Shailendra Singh, Head of Journalism at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, told IPS.

Soon the country’s politics were mired in a fierce contest for power. And in 1987, Rabuka, then an officer in the Fiji military, led the overthrow of the first elected Indo-Fijian government under Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra.

Rabuka then became Prime Minister from 1992 to 1999 before another Indo-Fijian government, led by Mahendra Chaudhry, was voted in. This triggered a second coup instigated by nationalist George Speight in 2000 in which the government was held hostage in the nation’s parliament for weeks. Then, in 2006, Frank Bainimarama, head of the armed forces, orchestrated the third coup, which he claimed was necessary to eliminate corruption and divisive policies in the government of the day presided over by Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase. For the next eight years he oversaw an authoritarian military government until democratic elections were held again in 2014.

Fiji’s capital city Suva. Credit: Maksym Kozlenko

The coups inflicted a significant human cost. Lawlessness, inter-community violence, military and police brutality, and arrests and torture of people critical of the regime occurred increasingly after 2006.

Three years later, Amnesty International called for “an immediate halt to all human rights violations by members of the security forces and government officials, including the arbitrary arrests, intimidation and threats, and assaults and detentions of journalists, government critics and others.” It also called for the repeal of the Public Emergency Regulations imposed by the government in 2009 that led to impunity for state officials involved in abuses.

Today, the demographic balance has shifted again in the wake of an outward exodus of Indo-Fijians, who now comprise about 33 percent of Fiji’s population of about 900,000, while Melanesians constitute about 56 percent. But societal divisions remain entrenched and the past has not been forgotten.

The commission is now preparing to hold hearings over the next 18 months. And Rabuka has promised to be one of the first to testify of his involvement in the political upheavals.

I will swear to say everything, the truth… I want to continue to live with a clear conscience. I want people to know that at least they understand my reasons for doing it,” he told the media in January. But the TRC also promises to place victims and survivors at the center of its mission, claiming that “their lived experiences are vital to fostering accountability, encouraging healing and building a more united and compassionate society.”

However, there are voices of caution, too, warning of the risks of reviving memories of conflict and pain and the need to prevent this from inflaming divisions.

While experts in the country speak of the need to go beyond the TRC and tackle structural issues of inequality and disenfranchisement, which have driven community grievances, “to make everyone feel a sense of belonging and loyalty to the country of their birth,” Singh said.

In particular, “indigenous fears concerning political dominance in Fiji” and “Indo-Fijians’ feeling of being marginalized by the state and not treated as equal citizens” need to be addressed, he continued.

The Fijian armed forces, which played a decisive role in executing the coups, often justifying their actions in protecting Fiji’s internal order, are also critical to the success of the country’s return to democratic governance.

In 2023 an internal reconciliation process began, aimed at ending military intervention in the country’s politics and elections. In April, during an official meeting with the TRC, the military leadership pledged ‘to ensure that past mistakes are not repeated, and that its role as a guardian of Fiji’s constitutional order remains anchored in service to all citizens, regardless of ethnicity, background or political belief.’

After the commission has concluded its estimated two years of work, it will make recommendations in its final report for public measures and policy reforms to support the country’s social cohesion. Here Swamy emphasizes that it is crucial the recommendations do not remain on paper but are acted on.

“In terms of the recommendations, who will be responsible for them? Will they ensure that the recommendations are implemented? And what mechanisms will be put in place to make sure that institutions are held accountable?” she declared.

Looking into the future, Swamy said that she would like to see her country become one “where everyone feels safe, where there is equal opportunity… a country where everyone can realize their potential.”

Note: This article is brought to you by IPS Noram in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.

 

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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