Central Europe

L'église catholique romaine au Bénin est en deuil. L'évêque Barthélémy Adoukonou n'est plus. Il a tiré sa révérence dans la nuit du samedi 25 au dimanche 26 octobre 2025. L'annonce a été faite par la Conférence épiscopale du Bénin (CEB), à travers un communiqué ce lundi 27 octobre 2025.

Deuil au sein de l'église catholique. L'évêque Barthélémy Adoukonou a rejoint la demeure céleste dans la nuit du samedi au dimanche 26 octobre 2025 au Centre national hospitalier et universitaire Hubert Koutoukou Maga de Cotonou (CHNU-HKM). La Conférence épiscopale à travers un communiqué en date de ce lundi 27 octobre, a porté l'information à la connaissance de la communauté catholique.

Monseigneur Barthélémy Adoukonou est originaire du diocèse d'Abomey. C'est un théologien qui durant toute sa vie, a œuvré au renforcement du dialogue entre la foi et la culture, tant au Bénin qu'à l'international. Il a occupé par le passé, le poste de secrétaire du Conseil pontifical pour la culture au Vatican.
Paix à son âme !

Von links bis rechts hagelt es Kritik am Heimatschutz: Mit Einsprachen blockiere er den dringend nötigen Wohnungsbau. Präsident Martin Killias im Interview.

Matteo Mantini kassiert von der Liga eine Spielsperre. Damit verpasst er das Duell gegen YB.

Logieren wie Adlige oder lieber Bähnlerluft schnuppern? Die Stiftung «Ferien im Baudenkmal» hat ganz spezielle Ferienwohnungen in der Schweiz im Angebot.

Ce dimanche, MTN Bénin a apporté son soutien à une marche de sensibilisation organisée dans le cadre d' Octobre Rose, une campagne dédiée à la lutte contre le cancer du sein. L'objectif : encourager les femmes à se faire dépister et promouvoir la solidarité autour de cette cause majeure de santé publique.

Plusieurs centaines de femmes, venues des différents arrondissements de Cotonou et des communes environnantes, ont défilé sur le boulevard de la Marina, vêtues de tee-shirts blancs arborant le symbole d'Octobre Rose. Cette marche symbolique visait à sensibiliser la population à l'importance du dépistage précoce, à soutenir les personnes atteintes et à célébrer la solidarité à travers des activités sportives.

L'initiative de “La Marche Rose by PAM”, soutenue par MTN Bénin, est née de deux simples publications sur les réseaux sociaux, destinées à rendre hommage à des proches victimes du cancer du sein. « Ce n'était pas un projet structuré au départ. Tout est parti de deux posts devenus viraux », explique Pamela d'Almeida, promotrice de l'événement.

Grâce à l'engouement suscité et au soutien de plusieurs partenaires, dont MTN Bénin, l'idée a rapidement pris forme. Les participantes ont parcouru l'itinéraire allant de la place Bio Guera à la place de l'Amazone, avant de rejoindre l'espace “Bambou Numérique” sur la plage. Là, elles ont pris part à des activités sportives et récréatives, suivies de séances de dépistage dans un espace décoré aux couleurs de MTN.

« Après le dépistage, celles qui présenteront des signes ou anomalies seront orientées vers les centres de santé appropriés pour un suivi approfondi », a précisé Pamela d'Almeida.

Elle a également souligné que la sensibilisation ne devait pas se limiter au mois d'octobre : « Ce n'est pas seulement Octobre Rose qui doit porter ce message. Il faut sensibiliser toute l'année, jusqu'à la fin de l'année et même au-delà. »

Fière du succès de cette première édition, Pamela d'Almeida s'engage à pérenniser l'initiative : « La Marche Rose by PAM, c'est devenu ma cause. Nous devons la reprendre chaque année, c'est une obligation. »

World champions South Africa draw their series in Pakistan 1-1 by completing a comfortable eight-wicket victory in the second Test in Rawalpindi.

A vendor speaks to a customer at a second-hand clothes market in Mutare, Zimbabwe. Credit: Farai Shawn Matiashe/IPS

By Farai Shawn Matiashe
MUTARE, Zimbabwe, Oct 23 2025 (IPS)

Shamiso Marambanyika assists a male customer in selecting a pair of jeans on a Saturday morning in Mutare, a city in the eastern part of Zimbabwe.

The 38-year-old mother of three showed the customer a brand of Marks and Spencer, commonly known as M&S, a British retailer based in London.

“I can give you this for 5 dollars,” Marambanyika screamed to the customer, who later picked out a different pair of jeans. She is a vendor at a popular market for secondhand clothes in Sakubva, a densely populated suburb in Mutare, near the border with Mozambique.

Some of the popular brands of jeans Marambanyika had in her stock include Hennes & Mauritz, known as H&M from Sweden, and Levi’s and Old from the United States. These secondhand clothes are dumped in Western countries like the United Kingdom, shipped to Africa, and smuggled into Zimbabwe through Mutare, the gateway to the Indian Ocean in Mozambique.

The clothes are so cheap that one can get three T-shirts for USD 1. This has had repercussions not only on the local textile industry but also on the environment in Africa.

Pushing Local Clothing Manufacturers and Retailers Out of Business

Some clothing companies left by the British are struggling because of secondhand clothes and Zimbabwe’s ailing economy. Truworths Zimbabwe, a fashion retail chain established in 1957, closed about 34 of the 101 stores it operated in the late 1990s. To cut its operating costs, Truworths also reduced its workforce at its manufacturing division in the capital, Harare.

Bekithemba Ndebele, chief executive officer at Truworths Zimbabwe, confirmed to IPS that the company was sold because it was struggling. After going insolvent, Truworths was sold for USD 1 and officially delisted from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange in July 2025.

Last year, Truworths released a statement that the company could not compete with cheap imports. Ndebele declined to give further details. These formal clothing businesses cannot compete with thousands of individuals who sell smuggled secondhand clothes at markets in cities across the country, in the streets and from car boots.

At Marambanyika’s market in Sakubva, there are more than 1000 vending stalls, each vocally advertising their goods to attract potential customers. In Mutare city center, tens of vendors pay USD 6 per day to sell secondhand clothes on weekends. Unlike these vendors who do not pay taxes, retailers like Truworths pay taxes and are forced to use volatile local currency.

Rashweat Mukundu, a social commentator based in Harare, says economic hardship forces many to resort to secondhand clothes. “This is an overall economic challenge. Many people have no choice but to go and buy secondhand clothes because they cannot afford the new clothes sold in the organized retail sector,” he says.

In retail outlets, a pair of jeans costs at least USD 20.

Marambanyika, who hails from Buhera in Manicaland Province, was pushed into the secondhand clothing trade in 2023 after failing to secure a job. She pays USD 115 to a middleman known as a transporter who will buy a bale weighing 45 kilograms from Beira, a city and one of the business ports in Mozambique. “Prices vary with the quality of the jeans. There are about 100 pairs of jeans in a bale. I make a profit of USD 55 from each bale, and it takes two weeks to sell them all,” Marambanyika says, adding that she pays USD 22 monthly to the local authority.

Anesu Mugabe, a clothing designer and manufacturer based in Harare, says these secondhand clothes are often sold at extremely low prices, making it impossible for local manufacturers to compete.

“For instance, you can find a pair of jeans for as little as USD 2. This is unheard of in local retail stores. This has led to a significant decline in sales for us, forcing us to scale down our operations or even shut down altogether,” says Mugabe, who is now targeting corporates as a survival strategy.

Threat to the Environment 

Across Africa, from Kenya to Nigeria, cheap secondhand clothes are polluting the environment, according to a new report, Trashion: The Stealth Export of Waste Plastic Clothes to Kenya, published in February 2023.

Other recycling companies argue that the trade reduces waste in the Global South, but some environmental experts believe the trade is doing the opposite. Research shows that in Kenya, secondhand clothes are dumped in rivers and landfills. “What we are seeing is not recycling but dumping second-hand clothing from the West,” says Nyasha Mpahlo, executive director at Green Governance. “Unfortunately, there is no mechanism to dispose of the waste from secondhand clothes. Secondhand clothing is found in landfills. The industry is also causing carbon emissions.”

Amkela Sidange, an environmental education and publicity manager at the state’s Environmental Management Agency, says the textile waste is very minimal in Zimbabwe, contributing an estimated 7% to the total waste generated on an annual basis.

“An analysis of the source of the textile waste indicates it is coming from various sources, mostly coming from the textile industry and nothing on record is linked to secondhand clothes,” she tells IPS, citing a Solid Waste survey conducted in 2023.

Attempts to Ban Secondhand Clothes

Other countries, like Rwanda, successfully banned secondhand clothes in 2016 to protect the local textile industry. Zimbabwe did the same in 2015 but introduced import taxes in 2017 after pressure from the locals. But these measures and arrests by police did not tame the smuggling of secondhand clothes.

Local textile industry players are calling for the government to ban the importation of secondhand clothes and to reduce taxes on local suppliers to protect the local textile industry. In August, Local Government Minister Daniel Garwe instructed local authorities to enforce the ban on the sale of secondhand clothes. But traders have defied the minister’s efforts.

Marambanyika says if she is forced to pay import duty and other taxes, she will go out of business. “I feed my one son and two daughters and pay school fees for them using proceeds from this business. I cannot afford to pay those punitive taxes,” she says. “I will close and relocate to the village.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');   Related Articles

• AfDB Commits 11 Billion Dollars To Support Early Warning Systems, Food Security in Rural Africa
• Experts Launch a Climate and Health Curriculum for African Negotiators Ahead of COP30
• A New Solar Power Plant Powers Progress in Zimbabwe’s Renewable Energy Sector

Mike Tyson was a hit with boxing fans in Kinshasa after embracing his African roots as part of ongoing celebrations for the iconic Rumble in the Jungle.

Im Januar 2021 war er dabei, als das Kapitol in Washington gestürmt, fünf Menschen getötet und viele verletzt wurden. Im Januar wurde er von Präsident Trump begnadigt. Nun wurde er im Zusammenhang mit Todesdrohungen festgenommen.

Die heutige Königin Camilla war einst einfach nur Camilla Parker Bowles, Hausfrau und Mutter. Nun packt ihr Sohn Tom Parker Bowles über die Kochkünste seiner royalen Mutter aus.

Ein Schweizer Dorf schafft es unter die besten Tourismusdörfer der Welt. Ein anderes schafft es knapp nicht. Während Frankreich mit nur einem Dorf in das Ranking der Welttourismusorganisation einzieht, überraschen zwei andere Nationen.

Nach SVP und FDP wird auch die Mitte bald Stellung zu den EU-Verträgen nehmen. Sie wird sich dabei auf die Seite des Ja-Lagers schlagen. Innenpolitische fordert sie aber Nachbesserungen. Bei der umstrittenen Ständemehr-Frage dürfte die Partei vorerst kneifen.

Lösen Päckli aus China Hautausschlag aus? Genau das berichten Mitarbeiter in Schweizer Paketzentren, die täglich mit Sendungen von Temu, Shein und Wish arbeiten. Wir haben in die Kommentare geschaut, um herauszufinden, was die Community für Erfahrungen gemacht hat.

Rico Zandonella (64), einst Lieblingskoch von Tina Turner, fällt aus dem Gastroführer «Guide Michelin». Zum ersten Mal seit 40 Jahren steht der prominente Koch ohne Stern da. Der Goldküsten-Gastronom kann das nicht nachvollziehen. Und zeigt sich kämpferisch.

Die Kadetten Schaffhausen kassieren in der European League die erste Saisonniederlage. Der Schweizer Meister unterliegt Partizan Belgrad auswärts mit 26:29.

Der Genfer Banker Daniel C. wurde auf einem Katamaran vor Bari bei einer Zollkontrolle verhaftet. 26 Jahre lang war der wegen Betrugs und Geldwäscherei gesuchte Schweizer auf der Flucht gewesen. Er ist nicht der Erste, der sich jahrelang vor den Behörden verbarg.

Im August ein Minus von 55 Prozent, im September lediglich ein Hoffnungsschimmer: Trotzdem fürchten Schweizer Käseproduzenten, dass der grosse Einbruch beim Export in die USA erst noch bevorstehen könnte.

Daniel C. (59) ist seit 1999 auf der Flucht gewesen. Nun hat die italienische Zollpolizei den Schweizer gestoppt. Der Genfer wurde gesucht, weil er 20 Millionen gewaschen haben soll. Blick-Recherchen zeigen: Er liess es sich in der Zwischenzeit gut gehen.

Baby-News aus dem Grossherzogtum Luxemburg: Prinzessin Alexandra und ihr Ehemann Nicolas Bagory sind erneut Eltern geworden. Der Name des Jungen ist bereits bekannt.

The Kremlin also said Tuesday there was no "precise timeframe" for a summit between Trump and Putin