Africa

Der Mann mit den wenigsten Runden, Kimi Antonelli (19), holte mit 1:33,669 den Testsieg in Bahrain. Der Mercedes-Star: «Im Cockpit ist es wie beim Blitzschach. Du hast für den nächsten Zug kaum Bedenkzeit!» Der Italiener war 0,249 schneller als Teamkollege Russell.

Der Ständerat wollte, dass Morde sollen in der Schweiz nicht mehr verjähren. Die Nationalratskommission sieht das anders - und will stattdessen die Fristen ändern.

Afcon 2027 will be held in June and July next year and reports the finals could be delayed are "totally unfounded", says African football boss Patrice Motsepe.

Afcon 2027 will be held in June and July next year and reports the finals could be delayed are "totally unfounded", says African football boss Patrice Motsepe.

« L'homme, quelque porte qu'il ouvre, où qu'il aille, même cloué à sa chaise, finit inéluctablement par tomber sur le passé. »
L'histoire débute ainsi : Numan Numić, apprenant que sa fiancée s'est promise à un autre, entame une cavale meurtrière de 47 jours à travers les paysages vallonnés d'une Yougoslavie rurale. C'est son fils, Semir, qui donne au récit sa voix et sa profondeur. Entravé par l'ombre d'un père dont il ne lui reste que la légende, il tente de reconstituer un passé éclaté (…)

- Livres / Serbie, Littérature, Grand Bazar - Diaporama

Somali Islamist militant group al-Shabab has staged several attacks in Kenya, prompting the border to be closed.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says the army will work with the police to fight organised crime and illegal mining.

Depuis l'effondrement mortel de l'auvent de la gare de Novi Sad, le 1er novembre 2024, la Serbie se soulève contre la corruption meurtrière du régime du président Vučić et pour le respect de l'État de droit. Cette exigence de justice menée par les étudiants a gagné tout le pays. Suivez les dernières informations en temps réel et en accès libre.

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

Blessing Muzarabani claims a superb 4-17 as Zimbabwe held their nerve to stun Australia with a thrilling 23-run win in the T20 World Cup.

Blessing Muzarabani claims a superb 4-17 as Zimbabwe held their nerve to stun Australia with a thrilling 23-run win in the T20 World Cup.

Five former UN Secretaries-Generals
 
United Nations Faces Crisis Amid Global Retreat on Rights and Democracy

By Widad Franco
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 13 2026 (IPS)

United Nations member countries will select a new UN secretary-general this year to succeed António Guterres in January 2027. The change in leadership comes at a time when human rights and democracy, as well as the international organizations created to uphold those principles and provide lifesaving assistance, are under unprecedented attack.

So far member countries have formally nominated only two candidates: former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi from Argentina.

The threats to the global human rights system demand a courageous leader at the UN who will put human rights at the heart of its agenda. Yet the selection process gives veto power over any candidate to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States.

But human rights are clearly not a priority for China, Russia, or the United States.

Human Rights Watch and others have long documented attempts by China and Russia to defund and undermine the UN’s human rights pillar. More recently, the United States, which played a key role in creating the UN and its human rights architecture in 1945, has rejected and defunded dozens of UN programs promoting rights and humanitarian assistance.

The Trump administration has also withheld billions of dollars in UN dues, which has been a major factor in the organization’s crippling financial crisis. While Washington recently announced an initial payment toward its arrears, its actions have nonetheless seriously affected the UN’s ability to do its work.

US President Donald Trump has also been trying to sideline the UN by establishing a “Board of Peace,” modeled after the Security Council, with himself as chairman for life. Invited leaders include serial rights abusers from China, Belarus, Hungary, and Saudi Arabia, along with two men—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin—facing International Criminal Court warrants.

The UN needs a leader willing to stand up to major powers and abusive governments to defend victims of abuses and marginalized communities, and aggressively support accountability for serious crimes.

As member states nominate additional candidates, they should put forward a diverse pool, especially women and others with proven track records on human rights, and ensure a competitive and transparent process that places an exceptional individual committed to human rights atop the UN.

Widad Franco is UN Advocate, Human Rights Watch

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Dawn is breaking and the world’s biggest refugee camp stirs to life. Smoke rises from small cooking fires among rows of bamboo and tarpaulin shelters as children line up for food. For 38-year-old Mon Bahar, one of over 1.1 million Rohingya refugees in a sprawling network of camps that make up Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, […]

Progress on SDG 6 — ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all — remains critically off-track. With none of its eight targets on course to be met by 2030, this commentary argues that the shortfall reflects not merely implementation failures, but a deeper conceptual problem: water governance frameworks rely on a homogeneous, techno-centric understanding of water that ignores its multiple social, cultural, political, and ecological dimensions. We introduce the concept of "waterS" (plural, capitalised) to foreground this multiplicity. Drawing on the Spanish aguas, the term captures the diverse forms, values, and meanings water holds across different communities and contexts — from a measurable substance (H₂O) to a spiritual entity, a living being, or the foundation of social and hydrosocial relations. This stands in contrast to SDG 6's universalist framing, rooted in Western modernist traditions, which reduces water governance to engineering, hygiene, and risk management. Through empirical examples — from peri-urban water use in India, desalination conflicts in Antofagasta, Chile, and infrastructure-led rural water projects in Telangana, India — we demonstrate how standardised technical approaches perpetuate inequities in access, marginalise Indigenous and local governance systems, and reproduce power imbalances in participation and decision-making. We further critique the commodification of water, the limits of market-based governance, and the inadequacy of current monitoring frameworks that rely on aggregate national data while overlooking lived local realities. Looking ahead to the post-2030 agenda and the 2026 UN Water Conference, we propose a paradigm shift toward power-sensitive, pluralistic governance frameworks. Key recommendations include community-led participatory planning, legal recognition of customary water rights, equity-based financial models, citizen-science data collection, and rights-based approaches that centre marginalized groups — especially women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples — in water decision-making.

Progress on SDG 6 — ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all — remains critically off-track. With none of its eight targets on course to be met by 2030, this commentary argues that the shortfall reflects not merely implementation failures, but a deeper conceptual problem: water governance frameworks rely on a homogeneous, techno-centric understanding of water that ignores its multiple social, cultural, political, and ecological dimensions. We introduce the concept of "waterS" (plural, capitalised) to foreground this multiplicity. Drawing on the Spanish aguas, the term captures the diverse forms, values, and meanings water holds across different communities and contexts — from a measurable substance (H₂O) to a spiritual entity, a living being, or the foundation of social and hydrosocial relations. This stands in contrast to SDG 6's universalist framing, rooted in Western modernist traditions, which reduces water governance to engineering, hygiene, and risk management. Through empirical examples — from peri-urban water use in India, desalination conflicts in Antofagasta, Chile, and infrastructure-led rural water projects in Telangana, India — we demonstrate how standardised technical approaches perpetuate inequities in access, marginalise Indigenous and local governance systems, and reproduce power imbalances in participation and decision-making. We further critique the commodification of water, the limits of market-based governance, and the inadequacy of current monitoring frameworks that rely on aggregate national data while overlooking lived local realities. Looking ahead to the post-2030 agenda and the 2026 UN Water Conference, we propose a paradigm shift toward power-sensitive, pluralistic governance frameworks. Key recommendations include community-led participatory planning, legal recognition of customary water rights, equity-based financial models, citizen-science data collection, and rights-based approaches that centre marginalized groups — especially women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples — in water decision-making.

The US president has shaken up international relations and the continent is working out where it stands.

Holt sich Debütant Timo Meier bei Olympia den nötigen Schwung? Mit einem Doppelpack gegen Frankreich ist der Devils-Stürmer vielversprechend ins Turnier gestartet. Das macht Vorfreude auf den Knüller gegen Kanada.

As glaciers shrink and vanish, changes in water flows pose a growing risk to the water, food and livelihood security of billions of people. Credit: FAO

By QU Dongyu
ROME, Feb 12 2026 (IPS)

Glaciers – the world’s hidden water banks – are a source of life for billions. The seasonal melt from mountains and glaciers sustains some of the world’s most important rivers, such as the Indus, the Nile, the Ganges and the Colorado. Those and other mountain-fed rivers irrigate crops, provide drinking water for nearly two billion people, and power electricity generation.

But, as glaciers shrink and vanish, changes in water flows pose a growing risk to the water, food and livelihood security of billions of people.

In the short term, accelerated melting can trigger environmental hazards: flash floods, glacial lake outburst floods, avalanches and landslides.

In the long term, the glaciers as water sources will simply disappear.

By century’s end, most glaciers will contribute far less water than they do today, undermining agriculture in both mountain villages and sprawling lowland breadbaskets downstream.

We need policies and collaboration that address glacier-fed water systems, cross-border cooperation, and risk-sharing and early warning mechanisms – especially as rivers fed by glaciers often span multiple countries

Mountains cover more than a quarter of the world’s land and are home to 1.2 billion people, but these regions are heating up more rapidly than the global average. Mountain communities are especially vulnerable to increasing climate variability and decreasing seasonal water availability for agriculture and irrigation. With often no viable alternative water supply, the loss of agricultural production can lead to climate displacement and greater instability.

Five of the past six years have seen the most rapid glacier retreat on record, and the impacts are already being felt.

Communities from the Andes to the Himalayas are experiencing shorter snow seasons, erratic runoff, and the loss of reliable water. In Peru, dwindling glaciers have slashed crop yields. In Pakistan, reduced snowmelt threatens seasonal planting cycles. Many glaciers have already reached or are expected to reach “peak water” – the point at which meltwater runoff is at its maximum, after which flows will gradually decline – in the coming two or three decades. This means everyone who depends on glacier-fed rivers faces increasing scarcity when population growth will push water demand even higher.

Beyond science and survival, the disappearance of glaciers erases something less tangible but equally profound. For Indigenous Peoples and mountain communities across Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Pacific, glaciers are sacred. Their melting erodes traditions, rituals, identity and cultural heritage bound to mountain landscapes for centuries.

While there is still time to act, global responses remain fragmented and inadequate. That’s why the United Nations declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation – a clear reminder that preserving these frozen ecosystems means protecting our future.

To ensure food and water security from the peaks to the plains, a bold shift in policy, investment and governance is urgently needed.

Broadly speaking, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, improving water management, and strengthening early warning systems, adaptative agriculture and sustainable agrifood systems are necessary.

We need to turn the challenges posed by melting glaciers into opportunities to the benefit of all.

Agriculture, both a major water user and a key sector for adaptation, can itself be a solution when developed sustainably. Techniques like terrace farming, agroecology, agroforestry and crop diversification – practiced by mountain communities for centuries – help preserve soil and water, reduce disaster risk and support livelihoods. Such adaptation efforts should be inclusive, drawing on Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge and addressing root vulnerabilities like poverty and gender inequality.

We must also mobilize investments in water and agricultural infrastructure. This includes more climate finance to support vulnerable mountain communities that struggle to access training, funding and innovation.

In addition, governments need to align strategies, policies and plans to address this critical nexus between water, agriculture and climate resilience. Mountains are often absent from national climate policies and global adaptation frameworks. We need policies and collaboration that address glacier-fed water systems, cross-border cooperation, and risk-sharing and early warning mechanisms – especially as rivers fed by glaciers often span multiple countries. This also includes reviewing basin-wide water allocation strategies, plans and investment in infrastructure to improve water use efficiency, and step up glacier monitoring and research.

Preparing for a world with fewer glaciers and less of their precious water requires innovation and coordination. In Kyrgyzstan, FAO has been helping experts construct artificial glaciers – ice towers created by spraying mountain water and that gradually melt in summer. In the region of Batken alone, this initiative has helped store over 1.5 million cubic meters of ice, enough to irrigate up to 1,750 hectares.

In Ladakh, India, the social enterprise Acres of Ice has developed automated ice reservoirs to capture unused water in autumn and winter and freeze it until spring. In the Peruvian Andes, a community-based initiative is addressing the deterioration of water quality from minerals exposed by receding glaciers through a natural filtration system using native plants.

But far more needs to be done, together. Glaciers matter because water matters. To ignore their rapid retreat is to gamble with global food and water security.

—

FAO is mandated to lead the global observance of International Mountain Day, coordinated through the Mountain Partnership Secretariat, which is financially supported by the governments of Italy, Andorra and Switzerland. The Secretariat collaborated closely with UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organization, co-facilitators of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation 2025.

 

Excerpt:

QU Dongyu is Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

AMENDMENTS 1 - 148 - Draft opinion Interim report on the proposal for the multiannual financial framework for 2028-2034
Committee on Security and Defence
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Search efforts are continuing for the missing passengers, who included children.