Afrique

ÄNDERUNGSANTRÄGE - Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the European Fund for economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture and rural, fisheries and maritime, prosperity and security for the period 2028-2034 and amending Regulation (EU) 2023/955 and Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2024/2509
Ausschuss für Sicherheit und Verteidigung
Ana Catarina Mendes

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2026 - EP

Les casques bleus bangladais de la MONUSCO ont lancé une vaste campagne de sensibilisation de proximité sur Ebola, le week-end dernier, à Rhoo et Seseti, dans le territoire de Djugu (Ituri). Cette initiative vise à protéger les milliers de personnes déplacées vivant dans ces zones de forte promiscuité, alors que la province demeure l'épicentre de cette 17e épidémie de virus Ebola.

Credit: Derek Hudson/Getty Images. Source: International Monetary Fund (IMF)

By Mario Mansour and Fayçal Sawadogo
WASHINGTON DC, May 26 2026 (IPS)

Developing countries face major difficulties as income from natural resource extraction industries decreases and wealthier nations reduce their aid.

Nontax revenue from natural resources extraction and foreign aid grants for general spending have fallen by a combined 3.8 percent of gross domestic product since 2000, according to the latest annual update of the IMF’s World Revenue Longitudinal Database.

Gains from tax collection since then amounted to just 2.6 percent, offsetting only two-thirds of the decline, our unique tally of detailed public revenue data shows.

The Chart of the Week shows that the decrease in proceeds from nontax extractive revenue was the biggest driver of the drop for both low-income developing countries and emerging market economies.

These revenues are generally what governments earn from industries like oil, gas, and mining—such as royalties, profit sharing, and dividends from state-owned enterprises. Declining foreign aid grants for general spending also contributed to lower revenues.

Closing the gap often requires collecting more tax revenue, and affected countries won’t be able to deliver on their economic development goals without doing so. To succeed, they need sustained investment in domestic tax policy and tax administration, supported by effective institutions to underpin them.

The IMF supports member countries through its capacity development efforts—customized technical assistance and training services, often delivered through collaboration with donor countries and other international organizations.

Capacity development helps developing countries build expertise and policy frameworks to improve tax systems and institutions. It also reduces dependence on volatile and declining revenues, such as from extractive industries and foreign support.

Helping developing countries with this work, known as domestic revenue mobilization, contributes to fiscal resilience, which ultimately benefits global economic growth.

Evaluating how governments raise more reliable, sustainable revenue from within the economy requires high-quality granular data. Our database tracks decades of tax and nontax revenue consistently across 195 economies using data provided by our members.

The database is also a unique resource for researchers, policymakers, and development practitioners seeking to analyze revenue trends, benchmark performance, and identify reform priorities.

Mario Mansour & Fayçal Sawadogo, International Monetary Fund

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Les données de suivi montrent plusieurs vols effectués par des avions de reconnaissance et des drones de l'US Navy au cours de la semaine dernière.

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Written by Mar Negreiro with Öykü Dilara Anaç

AI companions are chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs) designed for personalised, emotionally engaging interactions. The popularity of AI companion platforms, such as Character.AI and Replika, has grown rapidly in recent years. These systems interact in ways that closely resemble human relationships, allowing users to customise their companions and develop strong emotional attachments. While some of the challenges they pose overlap with those associated with generic AI chatbots, AI companions raise additional concerns.
Children are particularly vulnerable, with reports of exposure to sexualised conversations and prompts to engage in self-harm or suicide, highlighting the need for stronger safeguards. However, to date, few countries have put forward specific legislation for this.
The EU has no specific laws for AI companions, although existing legislative frameworks like the AI Act, the Digital Services Act and the General Data Protection Regulation may apply.

Read the complete briefing on ‘The spread of AI companions and the challenges they generate‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Revue de presse du 26 mai 2026

La progression de l'épidémie d'Ebola dans l’Est de la RDC et l'oral du ministre des Mines à l'Assemblée nationale font la Une des journaux parus ce mardi matin.

C'est à cause de pressions américains que le Haut représentant Christian Schmidt aurait démissionné. En cause, le gazoduc Southern Interconnection. Ce projet à 1,5 milliard de dollars est porté par une société appartenant à des proches de Donald Trump.

- Articles / Bosnie-Herzégovine, Economie, Questions européennes, Relations internationales, Énergie Balkans, USA Balkans, Courrier des Balkans

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Nurina Malek
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 26 2026 (IPS)

The Federal Reserve Bank’s turn to ‘reserve management’ exposes the limited policy options still available as the US seeks to protect itself against international stagflation stemming from President Trump’s policies.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Ex-Duquesne Capital chairman Stanley Druckenmiller, former George Soros ‘clone’ and right-hand man, has suggested that Fed adoption of reserve management implies it is running out of policy options.

Reserve management
Successive US administrations have long refused to address the roots of the worsening fiscal and debt problems.

As the US Treasury borrows ever more to continue funding federal government spending with less tax revenue, the accumulated public debt of $39 trillion now costs over a trillion dollars a year to service, even more than 2025 defence spending!

Total Fed losses since 2022 exceed $245 billion! But how does a central bank, that literally creates its own money, lose money?

The losses are blamed on the Fed paying banks over 4% interest on reserves after 2008. However, most Treasury bonds the Fed bought to fund the COVID crisis response yield only 1–2%!

This massive ‘negative carry trade’ is booked as a ‘deferred asset’. Such creative accounting implies the US is technically insolvent. But this is not a problem as long as Wall Street shapes its own narrative.

Nurina Malek

In December 2025, Fed chair Jerome Powell announced that the Fed would purchase $40 billion in Treasury bills each month. This new mode of money creation finances government debt.

After over a decade of ‘quantitative easing’ (QE), which created money on a large scale, the Fed claimed it was reducing its balance sheet from 2022 to 2025 to curb inflation.

Risk diversification
Finance ministries and central banks worldwide increasingly worry about their vulnerability.

The US decision to freeze about $300 billion of Russian assets held in Western financial institutions is supported by its Western allies. Such actions have triggered broader concerns.

Threatened by the prospect of a softening bond market, the Fed turn to reserve management, which implies it has exhausted other options, including printing money.

Increasingly weaponised in recent years, the dollar is no longer trusted as a neutral reserve asset. Hence, central banks have been diversifying their heavily dollar-denominated reserve assets to reduce vulnerability.

Physical gold has been quietly acquired to change reserve portfolios. Over the past three years, non-US central banks have bought over 1,000 tons of gold annually.

Horns of dilemma
New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has announced that reducing interest rates and shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet are his policy priorities. Both seem responsible and sensible.

Lowering rates benefits borrowers. But a smaller balance sheet implies less market intervention, requiring greater fiscal discipline and monetary credibility, both of which are desired by markets.

But Warsh’s two goals cannot be realised together in today’s US economy. Over $10 trillion in bonds are maturing and need refinancing over the coming year, as the Treasury borrows ever more to finance its faster-growing fiscal deficit.

The Fed balance sheet cannot be reduced while keeping rates low. The new Fed Chair will also have to choose between printing money and letting the bond market collapse. All his predecessors have chosen to print money.

In 2012, Jerome Powell was sceptical of QE, arguing it would never be enough. But by 2020, Fed chair Powell printed more dollars than ever before.

The Fed has long been expected to buy up Treasury bonds that private interests did not purchase. Increasing the money supply has kept the banking system liquid and depreciated the dollar, as desired by Trump 2.0.

As private investors and foreign central banks lose interest in US Treasury bonds, demand is at its weakest in decades.

Who will buy new US debt if the Fed does not buy Treasury bonds while rates remain low? Outgoing Fed chair Powell came to the rescue.

As ‘reserve management’ requires less market demand, he has given the dollar system an unexpected new lease of life without lowering interest rates, as Trump demanded.

However, the policy change will do little to reverse contractionary and inflationary pressures on the world economy, worsened by Trump’s various policies.

Oil accelerant
The Hormuz oil shock could accelerate this otherwise gradual transition. The slow energy transition away from fossil fuels has increased vulnerability.

In the last half-century, oil price hikes have raised energy costs, exacerbating inflation worldwide. In 1973, the OPEC embargo quadrupled petroleum prices overnight.

Over the following year, the gold price almost doubled. The 1979 Iranian revolution more than doubled crude oil prices, which in turn pushed gold prices even higher.

The conventional central bank response of raising rates to fight inflation could worsen stagflation, as inflation rises while economic growth slows.

Raising interest rates may check some sources of inflation, while increasing borrowing costs, squeezing investment and consumption, and hiking the costs of Treasury debt.

Interest payments on accumulated federal debt will exceed a trillion in 2026. As old debt issued during QE is refinanced at higher rates, fiscal and debt problems will accelerate.

Therefore, the Fed’s turn to reserve management is not merely a minor technical change in balance-sheet bookkeeping. It is trying to address worsening public finances as policy options run out.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Le gouvernement congolais a débloqué la somme de 20 millions de dollars américains pour faire face à l’épidémie d’Ebola qui frappe la partie Est du pays. Le ministre de la Santé publique, Roger Kamba, a révélé cette information lundi 25 mai à Kinshasa, lors du briefing ministériel virtuel organisé par Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention ( Africa CDC).

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Les Léopards de la RDC ont entamé, lundi 25 mai, leur rassemblement à Bruxelles, en Belgique, pour préparer la Coupe du Monde 2026.

Ils ont été accueillis par le sélectionneur national, Sébastien Desabre, et toute son équipe technique.

Pour ce Mondial 2026 (co-organisé par les États-Unis, le Canada et le Mexique), la RDC a été logée dans le Groupe K.

Des commerçants installés entre le magasin BELTEXO et l’avenue ACP, le long du boulevard Mzee Laurent-Désiré Kabila, à Mbuji-Mayi (Kasaï-Oriental), affirment être exposés à des odeurs nauséabondes.

Selon plusieurs témoignages, ces odeurs proviendraient de la prison centrale, dont les fosses septiques seraient totalement saturées.

Un problème d’hygiène qui survient alors que la province reste en alerte sanitaire face à l’épidémie du virus Ebola.

Les conditions de vie des militaires s’améliorent de jour en jour sur les différents fronts de l’Est du pays, fait remarquer l’ONG Centre d’études pour la promotion de la paix, de la démocratie et des droits de l’homme (CEPADHO).