Afrique

Le président sénégalais, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a nommé lundi le technocrate Ahmadou Al Aminou Mohamed Lô, un ancien de la Banque centrale des Etats d’Afrique de l’Ouest, à la tête du gouvernement.

New push for European joint debt timed to land ahead of EU ministerial meeting

Jacquemain Shabani a invité, samedi 23 mai, les députés provinciaux du Kongo Central à privilégier des solutions capables de préserver la stabilité et la quiétude au sein de leur Assemblée provinciale.

L’inaccessibilité des routes continue de retarder la mise en service du marché central de Kinshasa.

Le Chef de l’État Félix Tshisekedi a constaté cette réalité lors de sa visite d’inspection, samedi 23 mai, dans ce lieu de négoce modernisé et prêt à accueillir près de 50 000 acheteurs par jour.

Le TP Mazembe a terminé la phase aller des Play-Offs du championnat national de football (LINAFOOT) en tête, à la suite de son match nul (0-0) ce lundi 25 mai face au FC Les Aigles du Congo.

Cette rencontre de la 7e et dernière journée s’est disputée au Centre technique Kurara Mpova de Kinshasa.

Avec 16 points en 7 journées, les Corbeaux devancent d’un point les Samouraïs kinois (15 points en 7 sorties).

Astana’s futuristic skyline and Japan’s urban landscape converge with symbols of clean energy, connectivity and peace, reflecting a partnership shaped by smart-city cooperation, energy security, and shared memories of nuclear suffering.　Credit: INPS Japan

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
TOKYO, Japan, May 25 2026 (IPS)

The relationship between Japan and Kazakhstan is often described in terms of diplomacy, investment and regional cooperation. But at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty, it deserves to be understood in broader terms: as a partnership linking cities, resources, technology and peace.

Kisho Kurokawa

Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, offers a powerful symbol of that evolving relationship. Built on the vast steppes of Central Asia, the city is often described as a futuristic capital, with glass-and-steel towers, broad boulevards and monumental architecture reflecting the aspirations of a young state seeking to define its place in the 21st century.

For Japan, however, Astana is not simply a distant capital. Its master plan was shaped in part by the late Kisho Kurokawa, one of Japan’s leading architects, who sought to combine Kazakhstan’s nomadic heritage, harsh natural environment and state-building ambitions with forward-looking urban design. That historical connection is now taking on new meaning as Japan and Kazakhstan expand cooperation in smart cities, green technologies, energy security and nuclear disarmament.

On May 22, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev met Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike in Astana to discuss cooperation in smart city development, digital technologies, finance, education, emergency response and sustainable urban management. Tokyo, one of the world’s most densely populated metropolitan areas, has developed advanced systems in public safety, disaster preparedness, transportation and administrative services. For rapidly growing Astana, Tokyo’s experience provides a valuable reference point.

Akorda

This is not merely technical cooperation. It points to a new form of urban diplomacy, in which cities work directly together to address shared challenges such as climate change, disaster risk, energy efficiency, digital governance and sustainable growth. In an age when many of the world’s most urgent problems are experienced first and most directly in cities, such cooperation matters.

Yet the deepening Japan-Kazakhstan relationship cannot be explained by urban cooperation alone. Behind it lies a more urgent geopolitical reality: instability in the Middle East and the resulting anxiety over energy security.

Japan has long depended heavily on the Middle East for crude oil. Tensions around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz pose risks that directly affect Japan’s economy and daily life. For Tokyo, diversifying energy sources, critical mineral supplies and transport routes is no longer simply a matter of trade policy. It has become a central element of economic security.

Middle Corridor. Photo credit: TITR

In this context, Kazakhstan has gained renewed importance. The country is rich in oil, natural gas, uranium and critical minerals, while also serving as a logistical hub linking Central Asia and Europe. At the “Central Asia plus Japan” summit held in Tokyo in December 2025, strengthening critical mineral supply chains and supporting the Trans-Caspian Corridor — a route connecting Central Asia and Europe without passing through Russia — were placed at the center of regional cooperation.

For Japan, rare earths, lithium and other critical minerals are essential to batteries, electronics, renewable energy systems and next-generation industries. Diversifying both sources of supply and transport routes is therefore an energy policy, an industrial policy and a security policy at once. Astana is increasingly becoming an important platform for Japan’s engagement with Central Asia.

Semipalatinsk Former Nuclear Weapon Test site. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri

The logic of this partnership is not limited to resources. It also extends to technology and sustainability. During Koike’s visit, a Kazakhstan-Japan business event brought together Japanese companies specializing in decarbonization, renewable energy, drone technologies and carbon credit solutions. On the Kazakh side, interest in Japanese expertise has been growing in renewable energy, artificial intelligence and digital transformation.

Urban development, environmental technologies, resource cooperation and logistics infrastructure are no longer separate policy fields. They are becoming part of a wider strategic framework in which Japan and Kazakhstan can complement each other: one with advanced technology and urban management experience, the other with resources, geography and a young capital still in the process of defining its future.

But there is a deeper layer to this relationship that should not be overlooked: the memory of nuclear suffering.

Japan is the only country to have suffered atomic bombings in war, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kazakhstan endured severe radiation damage from repeated Soviet nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk test site, where more than 450 nuclear tests were conducted between 1949 and 1989, leaving long-term consequences for local communities and public health.

In 1991, Kazakhstan closed the Semipalatinsk test site. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it gave up one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals remaining on its territory and chose the path of a non-nuclear-weapon state. That decision has become a defining feature of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy.

Japan and Kazakhstan both know, not as an abstract matter of security theory but through historical experience, what nuclear weapons can inflict on human beings, communities, the environment and future generations. This shared memory gives the bilateral relationship a distinct ethical foundation.

That memory has also shaped sustained cooperation among governments, civil society and international organizations. INPS Japan has reported on nuclear disarmament-related conferences and events involving Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Center for International Security and Policy, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and Soka Gakkai International.

A Group photo of participants of the regional conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear-free-zone in Central Asia held on August 29, 2023. Photo Credit: Jibek Joly TV Channel

One notable example was the anti-nuclear exhibition “Everything You Treasure — For a World Free From Nuclear Weapons,” jointly organized in Astana by SGI, ICAN and Kazakhstan’s Center for International Security and Policy. Held in September 2022 at Keruen Mall in central Astana, the exhibition used photographs, illustrations and graphics to educate young people about the dangers of nuclear weapons, from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima to the continuing humanitarian consequences of nuclear arms.

A documentary produced by CISP, a Kazakh NGO, with support from SGI.

Such initiatives are important because nuclear disarmament cannot be left to diplomats alone. If the memory of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk is to shape policy, it must also be passed to younger generations. Exhibitions, survivor testimony, documentaries and civil society campaigns help ensure that nuclear weapons are discussed not only as instruments of deterrence, but also as weapons with catastrophic human, environmental and intergenerational consequences.

In 2023, a regional conference in Astana addressed the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, testimony from nuclear test victims, and victim assistance and environmental remediation under the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Unlike debates that frame nuclear weapons mainly in terms of deterrence or national prestige, such forums place affected people, their families, communities and environment at the center.

A documentary on Kazakhstan’s nuclear test victims, I Want to Live On: The Untold Stories of the Polygon, produced by Kazakhstan’s CISP with support from SGI, has also helped bring the testimonies of second- and third-generation victims in the Semey region to international audiences. Together with workshops involving the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs and discussions on cooperation among nuclear-weapon-free zones, these efforts keep the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons at the center of global disarmament debates.

Akorda.kz

In 2025, President Tokayev delivered a lecture at the United Nations University in Tokyo, warning that nuclear risks were again on the rise. Referring to Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk, he stressed that Japan and Kazakhstan are both countries that understand the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons.

That message should be taken seriously. Japan and Kazakhstan do not occupy identical security positions. Japan continues to rely on the United States’ nuclear deterrence as part of its security policy, while Kazakhstan, having renounced nuclear weapons, is a member of the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. Yet both countries share common ground in seeking to transform the memory of nuclear harm into action for international peace.

Japan and Kazakhstan Draw Closer as Iran Crisis Reshapes Energy and Security Priorities. Credit: INPS Japan

This is why practical cooperation in smart cities, green technologies, energy transition, critical minerals and the Trans-Caspian Corridor carries meaning beyond ordinary transactions. It rests on a wider foundation: mutual trust, shared vulnerability and a common responsibility to help build a safer and more sustainable future.

At a time when crises in the Middle East are shaking the global energy order and nuclear risks are again moving to the forefront of international politics, the Japan-Kazakhstan relationship is no longer merely a story of friendship. It reflects Japan’s own choices in an age of uncertainty: whether to approach Central Asia only as a source of resources, or as a region with which it can build a broader partnership linking cities, technology, energy security and peace.

Astana, the futuristic capital shaped in part by a Japanese architect, has become more than a symbol of Kazakhstan’s ambitions. It is also a reminder that the future of international cooperation will depend not only on markets and infrastructure, but on memory, responsibility and the courage to imagine security beyond fear.

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Plan pitches cash to make homes, public housing and neighbourhoods more energy efficient

Le gouvernement provincial de Kinshasa a annoncé la poursuite des opérations de démolition et de libération des emprises publiques autour du grand marché.

Plusieurs églises et écoles font fi des mesures barrières contre la maladie à virus Ebola, malgré les appels répétés des autorités politiques à la vigilance.

Ce dimanche 24 mai, de nombreuses églises ont accueilli des fidèles dans une ambiance habituelle, sans distanciation sociale. Dans plusieurs lieux de culte, les salles étaient bondées, rendant difficile l’application des consignes de prévention.

Deux personnes ont trouvé la mort lors d’échanges de tirs survenus dans la nuit du dimanche 24 mai, dans la cité de Runingu, territoire d’Uvira (Sud-Kivu).

Ces deux groupes Wazalendo, chacun dirigé par son propre commandant, seraient en désaccord autour d’une question encore non élucidée. Les tirs ont retenti durant toute la nuit, provoquant un mouvement de panique au sein de la population.

His anti-establishment party won four seats on Sunday

La Commission européenne a annoncé l’octroi de 15 millions d’euros supplémentaires d’aide humanitaire afin de soutenir la riposte à l’épidémie d’Ebola qui sévit en République démocratique du Congo et en Ouganda.

Selon un communiqué parvenu ce lundi 25 mai à Radio Okapi, ce financement vise à appuyer les opérations d’urgence dans les zones touchées, ainsi que les efforts de préparation et de prévention.

Les troubles entre la foule qui tente de récupérer les corps des personnes soupçonnées d'être infectées par le virus Ebola et les autorités se poursuivent.

Les migrants, originaires du Tigré, une région du nord de l’Ethiopie ravagée par une guerre, entre 2020 et 2022, sont emprisonnés dans la prison de Khamis Mushait pour trafic de drogue.

Sonia Dahmani, 60 ans, très critique du président tunisien, Kaïs Saïed, est poursuivie dans cinq affaires, toutes liées à des déclarations ou publications dans les médias.

Le trafic aérien a repris ce lundi 26 mai à l’aéroport international de Bangboka, à Kisangani, (Tshopo) au lendemain d’une série d’attaques attribuées à des drones, selon des sources aéroportuaires concordantes.

Malgré une nuit marquée par une forte tension, les activités reprennent progressivement sur le site aéroportuaire, témoignant d’une certaine résilience des usagers et des opérateurs aériens.

While rumours swirl in Washington over who will replace Tulsi Gabbard, who resigned from her role as Director of National [...]

La grande famille BABOUE à Tienlour, Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso, Cote d'Ivoire, les familles BADO, BADOLO, BAZIE, BAKOUAN, à Godyr et Didyr, Les grandes familles BASSOLE, BAMOUNI, OUANDO, BATIONO à Réo, Perkouan, et familles alliées ont la profonde douleur de vous annoncer le décès survenu le mercredi 22 avril 2026 à Ouagadougou suivi de l'inhumation le vendredi 24 avril 2026 à Ouagadougou de leur très chère épouse, mère, fille, tante, grande mère, arrière-grande mère.

Madame BABOUE née KANSOLE Mariam Fabiola.

Très touchés par les nombreuses marques de compassion, de solidarité et de soutiens qui ont été témoignées durant cette douloureuse épreuve, les familles remercient très sincèrement les voisins de Boanan, Pissy, l'Eglise du Centre Internationale d'Evangélisation CEI/Pissy, le pasteur principal du CEI/Pissy, avec tout le corps pastoral, les anciens, les diacres, les responsables, les fidèles de l'Eglise, les amis, les collègues et connaissances.

La famille se réserve le droit de citer des noms de famille ou de personnes, de peur d'en oublier.
Dieu Tout Puissant vous récompense au centuple de vos bienfaits.
« Jesus lui dit : Je suis la résurrection et la vie. Celui qui croit en moi vivra quand même, il serait mort »

En bas de la photo
Madame BABOUE née KANSOLE Mariam Fabiola
15 février 1954-22 avril 2026
Tu resteras toujours gravée dans nos cœurs

Le calme est revenu ce lundi 25 mai matin à Mungwalu, commune rurale située à environ 85 kilomètres au nord de Bunia, dans le territoire de Djugu (Ituri), après un dimanche marqué par de vives tensions et des échauffourées autour de l’hôpital général de référence de la localité, épicentre de l’épidémie d’Ebola dans la région. À l’origine des incidents, le décès d’un leader religieux, très connu dans la zone, emporté par le virus Ebola.

Deborah Nyokabi speaking at the 81st African Commission on Human & Peoples' Rights

By Deborah Nyokabi
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 25 2026 (IPS)

The theme of Africa Day 2026, “63 years of unity, integration and development,” offers a stark reminder of the gap that often exists between rhetoric and reality. While commendable regional legal frameworks have advanced legal protections for millions of women and girls, injustice remains written into the fabric of national family laws in many African countries, entrenching gender inequality in the home.

Such is the reality for the young woman in Kampala whose marriage was never legally registered and who, in the eyes of the State, does not exist as a wife.

For the woman in Lagos whose husband took their children after a divorce she did not want, and the law backed him.

For the Muslim widow in Nairobi who cannot inherit the home she shared with her husband for thirty years because property passes to his male relatives.

How the global anti-rights movement is targeting women’s rights in Africa

African countries have made laudable advances in legal rights for women and girls, but many laws governing marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance remain stubbornly unequal.

Deborah Nyokabi

Equality Now’s report, Gender Inequality in Family Laws in Africa, documents how legal frameworks continue to subordinate women within the family. Women face intimate partner violence; some laws permit child marriage; customary and religious marriages frequently operate outside formal legal protections, leaving wives without legal safeguards; divorce settlements do not recognise women’s unpaid domestic work; and custody laws favour paternal authority over equal parental rights.

Reform remains slow, uneven, and increasingly obstructed by a coordinated anti-rights movement that includes transnational ultra-conservative Christian organisations, populist political actors from the Global North, billionaire-funded conservative foundations, and right-wing think tanks and legal advocacy groups. They have found fertile ground in Africa, forging alliances with conservative organisations, religious leaders, and politicians who promote illiberal agendas.

Operating in plain sight and dressed in the language of culture, tradition, and sovereignty, these groups target parliaments, constitutional drafting processes, and regional human rights bodies. They draft model legislation, deploy strategic litigation, lobby policymakers, and cultivate relationships with heads of state and cabinet ministers.

They infiltrate international and regional human rights spaces to weaken protections, and run expensive communications campaigns while channeling cross-border funding to local organisations to portray coordinated efforts as grassroots.

Anti-rights groups seeking to reshape African policy

At the second Pan-African Conference on Family Values, held in Nairobi in May 2025, a declaration was adopted calling the family “not a flexible or negotiable construct” and committing to translate their discriminative doctrine into enforceable laws and regional partnerships. High-ranking Kenyan government officials delivered the opening and closing addresses.

The conference was co-sponsored by Family Watch International, C-Fam, and the Alliance Defending Freedom, all of whom served on the advisory committee of Project 2025, an initiative by the US-based Heritage Foundation seeking to roll back reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and diversity initiatives. These are not fringe actors. They are well-funded, politically connected, and pushing into the mainstream.

These groups have also drafted a proposed African Charter on Family, Sovereignty, and Values, which undermines gender equality by rejecting universal definitions of gender, sexuality, and sexual and reproductive health rights. Tabled at an inter-parliamentary conference in Entebbe in 2025, it calls for withdrawal from international human rights instruments and seeks to shield states from obligations under the Maputo Protocol, the African Union’s legally-binding women’s rights treaty.

Applications for observer status at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights from organisations such as the Alliance Defending Freedom signal an intent to infiltrate the very bodies designed to hold States accountable to their obligation to ensure equality, including in the family.

Harmful bills pass fast while equality bills stall

One of the most devastating patterns is the speed at which homophobic ‘family protection’ legislation moves, while paralysis grips laws to advance gender equality. In Uganda, the Anti-Homosexuality Act was passed in under three months. In Ghana, lawmakers are promoting the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill; in Kenya, political support for the Family Protection Bill is growing. Backed by far-right organisations in the US, these bills seek to criminalise sexual minorities and promote a rigid, exclusionary vision of the family centred on heterosexual marriage and conservative social structures.

Meanwhile, family law reform bills that would give women equal rights in marriage, divorce, and custody have stalled for decades in Uganda, Cameroon, and Ghana. The contrast is not coincidental. The same movement blocking equality for women and girls in family laws is the one pushing legislation against LGBTQI+ people. It uses the same language: family values, cultural integrity, sovereignty, national cohesion. But when you trace the money and the actors, the strategy becomes clear. The goal is not to protect the family. It is to protect the patriarchy within it.

How African civil society and coalitions are fighting back

None of this goes unanswered.

When the Pan-African Conference on Family Values convened in Nairobi, over twenty Kenyan human rights organisations petitioned for the venue to refuse to host it. Billboards celebrating diverse families lined the road from the airport. Activists disrupted the social media narrative and organised in the streets.

Strategic litigation has compelled the government to reinstate safe abortion guidelines in Kenya. International coalitions, including African women, have pushed back against anti-rights infiltration at the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women. Survivors, lawyers, activists, and advocates are refusing to cede ground.

Working in coalitions is one of the most powerful tools available to those defending gender equality. The anti-rights movement succeeds in part because it is coordinated across borders, sectors, and institutions. The response must be equally organised. Equality Now’s coalition work is grounded in this understanding. Through the Africa Family Law Network, we join with civil society organisations, legal networks, faith communities, survivor advocates, and parliamentarians to build and sustain a stronger common front.

What African governments must do to reform family laws

This year’s Africa Day should serve as a call to action to prioritise family law reform. We are at a perilous moment of global regression in women’s rights, where hard-won legal safeguards are being deliberately dismantled. Discriminatory family law sits at the heart of that regression. The ask is not complicated. The political will is what is missing. We stand ready to work with you to change that:

To the African Union: Advocate for the universal ratification and implementation of the Maputo Protocol, a floor, not a ceiling. Push for lifting of reservations on equality in marriage, family, and reproductive rights by member states. Resist attempts to water down its provisions through model reservations crafted by anti-rights legal networks.

To African parliaments and parliamentarians: Reform discriminatory laws on marriage registration, equal divorce rights, child custody, and inheritance that have been stalled for too long. Every year of inaction is a year of harm. Do not allow parliaments to be used as platforms for movements that entrench inequality in the family under the disguise of protecting it.

To African governments: Enforce the Maputo Protocol, and ratify if not already undertaken. Conduct awareness-raising campaigns on family law rights. Invest in legal aid that reaches women in rural communities and informal settlements. Allocate sufficient budgets to gender equality and family law reform. Recognise unpaid care work. National family protection policies must protect all family members, not only those who fit a narrow ideological template.

To civil society, lawyers, journalists, and advocates: Build and sustain coalitions across borders. Expose the funding and actors behind anti-rights campaigns. Tell the stories of the women these laws fail. Make the abstract concrete. Keep going.

“Until family laws are equal, there is no equality in African society.”

This Africa Day, let us be clear about what we are celebrating, and honest about what still needs to change.

Deborah Nyokabi is a Legal Advisor on Legal Equality at Equality Now, a global human rights organisation dedicated to ending discrimination against all women and girls. She is based in Nairobi, Kenya.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Millions of African women live under laws that deny them equal rights at home. A well-funded global movement is working to make sure it stays that way.