Africa

The raid on a Christian school came amid a surge of attacks by armed groups in the African nation.

The kidnapping comes amid a surge of attacks by armed groups in the African nation.

Beeindruckend, wie YB in der Startphase gegen Winterthur den Tabellenletzten überfährt. Das 5:0 am Ende ist nach dem 4:1 in St. Gallen schon das zweite Statement unter Gerardo Seoane. Walzen die Polarbären nun alles platt?

The authorities in landlocked Ethiopia have ratcheted up rhetoric over access to an Eritrean port.

The authorities in landlocked Ethiopia have ratcheted up rhetoric over access to an Eritrean port.

André Corrêa do Lago, COP30 President of Brazil, during a highly charged closing plenary. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kiara Worth

By Joyce Chimbi
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 23 2025 (IPS)

Following tense, nightlong negotiations and bitter rows between more than 190 country delegations, a “politically charged Belém package” was finally forged at COP30—so named because of the highly contentious and difficult-to-negotiate issues within the climate talks. Belém was supposed to be ‘a how’ climate conference. Decisions made at the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change would shape how the Paris Agreement moves from word to action and to what extent global climate actions can be reached. In this COP of “implementation and multilateralism in action,” politics carried the day in more ways than one.

Observers, such as Wesley Githaiga from the Civil Society, told IPS that issues touching on trade, climate finance, and fossil fuels are politically charged because of competing and conflicting national interests.

Gavel came out without a roadmap for ending fossil fuels. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kiara Worth

“Some countries bear more responsibility for the climate crises than others and have a higher financial responsibility to address climate change,” Githaiga said. “Striking a balance between the needs of vulnerable developing nations and the economic priorities of developed wealthy countries is difficult.”

Conflicting national interests escalated when COP30 was suspended for additional side consultations just one hour before the final outcome on Saturday, following an argument that broke out over procedural issues.

The Elephant in the Room: Fossil Fuels

On one hand, a few highly organized petrostates from the Arab Group of nations, including Saudi Arabia, were opposed to Colombia, which was supported by the European Union and other Latin American countries like Panama and Uruguay regarding fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are by far the largest contributors to global warming. Scientists have warned of catastrophic temperature rises of up to 2.5°C by mid-century.

Githaiga says the issue was procedural because Colombia was objecting to an already-approved text. The main point of contention was the transition away from fossil fuels. COP28 achieved a historic breakthrough by advocating for a global shift away from fossil fuels. How to transition had been the most highly contentious issue at Belém.

So contentious that COP30 ultimately decided to sidestep ‘fossil fuels’ altogether.

Despite nearly 80 developed and developing countries standing firm demanding an end to the use of planet-warming fossil fuels, there is no mention of fossil fuels in the final COP30 agreement, only an oblique reference to the ‘UAE consensus.’ Despite the demands of Brazil’s neighbors Colombia, Panama, and Uruguay for stronger language, the announcement of a voluntary roadmap outside the UN process went ahead.

Throughout the tense climate talks, observers speculated that the COP30 outcome would include text on either “phasing away” from fossil fuels or “phasing down.” The end result did not include a roadmap for abandoning oil, gas, and coal. Recognizing that the world expected more ambition, Brazilian COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago told delegates, “We know some of you had greater ambitions for some of the issues at hand.”

Despite the lack of consensus, the COP30 President announced on Saturday that the presidency would publish a “side text” on fossil fuels and forest protection due to the lack of agreement. There will be two roadmaps on these two issues. The work will be done outside of the formal negotiations headed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the Brazilian COP Presidency.

Climate Finance

Nevertheless, all was not lost. According to Mohamed Adow, the Director of Power Shift Africa, the creation of a Just Transition Action Mechanism emerged as a positive development, acknowledging that the global shift away from fossil fuels will not abandon workers and frontline communities.

Adow nonetheless stressed that “developed countries have betrayed vulnerable nations by both failing to deliver science-aligned national emission reduction plans and also blocked talks on finance to help poor countries adapt to climate change caused by the global north.”

“Rich countries cannot make a genuine call for a roadmap if they continue to drive in the opposite direction themselves and refuse to pay up for the vehicles they stole from the rest of the convoy.”

Disagreements are not about climate finance in itself but about how funds will flow from the wealthy to the vulnerable, poor states. But the lack of ambition did not cut across the eight-page declaration developed at the mouth of the world largest rainforest—the Amazon.

The negotiations did succeed in their determination to deliver an economic transition, even though there are concerns that some of the climate finance agreements, such as those on adaptation, are too sweeping, too general, and lacking in specifics. COP 29 raised the annual climate finance target of developing nations from USD 100 billion to USD 300 billion. COP30 agreed to scale finance and to specifically mobilize USD 1.3 trillion annually by 2035 for climate action.

On adaptation, Adow said, “Belém restored some integrity to the Global Goal on Adaptation, removing dangerous indicators that would have penalized poorer countries simply for being poor.”

“The slow pace of finance negotiations is worrying. The promise to triple adaptation lacks clarity on a base year and has now been delayed to 2035, leaving vulnerable countries without support to match the escalating needs frontline communities are facing. As it stands, this outcome does nothing to narrow the adaptation finance gap.”

Adow continues, “COP30 was intended to focus significantly on raising funds to assist vulnerable nations in adapting to climate change; however, European nations have undermined these discussions and removed the protections that poorer countries were seeking in Belem.”

“Europe, which colonized much of the global south and then imperiled it further through its industrialized carbon emissions, now works against even efforts to help it adapt to the climate crisis.”

Many of the countries that have submitted their National Adaptation Plans lack funding. The agreement moving forward is to double adaptation finance by 2025 and triple it by 2035. But it is not clear where this money will come from—public financing, private or wealthy nations.

On the frontlines of the climate crises, Sierra Leone challenged the emphasis on private capital to fund climate adaptation efforts, stating that the private sector is not known for its robust support of adaptation. Observers like Githaiga say instead, there is a need to triple public funding for adaptation.

“If you read the text carefully, you actually realize there is no agreement requiring countries to contribute more funds for climate activities,” he says.

Loss and Damage

On the Loss and Damage Fund, operationalization and replenishment cycles are now confirmed. A first in the history of COPs, trade was and will be discussed within the UNFCCC rather than just the World Trade Organization, in recognition of the intersection between trade and climate change.

The UN climate summit also delivered new initiatives such as the launch of the Global Implementation Accelerator and the Belém Mission to 1.5°C to drive ambition and implementation. This is about meeting the ambition gap by cutting emissions. The ‘Belem Package’ seeks to raise ambition by setting a new 1.5°C warming target to match the pace of the climate crisis. There was also a commitment to promote information integrity and counter false narratives.

Ultimately, COP30 will be remembered for increased climate activism and, more so, the visibility of Indigenous Peoples and the recognition of Afro-descendants. Importantly, it’s the recognition of the cross section between climate change and action and racial justice—although the reaction from some Indigenous peoples is that they would like to have a formal seat at the table.

Belém also raised ambitions for protecting the world’s forests, as the Forest Finance Roadmap is already backed by 36 governments, accounting for 45 percent of global forest cover and 65 percent of GDP. This roadmap seeks to close a USD 66.8 billion annual gap for tropical forest protection and restoration.

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell summed up the positives.

“So COP30 showed that climate cooperation is alive and kicking. Keeping humanity in the fight for a livable planet. And that’s despite roaring political headwinds. That while one country stepped back. 194 countries have stood firm in solidarity. Rock-solid in support of climate cooperation.

“With or without Navigation Aids, the direction of travel is clear: the shift from fossil fuels to renewables and resilience is unstoppable, and it’s gathering pace,” Stiell said at a press conference at the end of the COP.

However, many others will also remember COP30 for its lack of ambition to deliver on a 2023 promise made to the world to phase out fossil fuels. The lack of a science-based pathway to facilitate a fast, fair and funded phaseout of fossil fuels is a blemish on Belém’s climate deal.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Excerpt:

Despite nearly 80 developed and developing countries standing firm demanding an end to the use of planet-warming fossil fuels, there is no mention of fossil fuels in the final COP30 agreement, only an oblique reference to the 'UAE consensus.'

Malcolm Marx is named men's player of the year at the World Rugby Awards, while Fabian Holland wins the breakthrough player prize.

Legalább kilencen meghaltak izraeli légicsapásokban a Gázai övezetben, emellett többen megsebesültek. ez ismét aláássa a Hamász és Izrael közötti törékeny tűzszünetet.

Brussels' bid to promote an ‘Economic Security Doctrine’ epitomises the EU Commission chief's grand strategy: to repeatedly churn out vacuous grand strategies

The host nation's goal of advocating for developing nations may be overshadowed by the absence of the US president.

AS FAR beat debutants ASEC Mimosas 2-1 in the African Women's Champions League final to become continental champions for the second time.

AS FAR beat debutants ASEC Mimosas 2-1 in the African Women's Champions League final to become continental champions for the second time.

A la suite d'un braquage perpétré le dimanche 16 novembre 2025, à hauteur du village Gango, dans la commune de Tchaourou, un suspect a été arrêté, et deux autres identifiés grâce à l'action coordonnée des unités de Police et des chasseurs traditionnels de la localité.

L'enquête ouverte par la Police après le vol à main armée du dimanche 16 novembre à Gango, porte ses fruits. L'un des auteurs présumés a été arrêté par la Police. Ceci, grâce à l'intervention rapide des éléments du commissariat de l'arrondissement de Tchaourou appuyés par les unités de Tchatchou et de Kassouala, ainsi que les chasseurs traditionnels.
Le suspect selon la Police, a été interpellé en possession de la moto de l'une des victimes. Deux autres complices présumés, ont réussi à prendre la fuite, mais ont été rapidement identifiés.
La Police républicaine en appelle à la vigilance et à la collaboration de la population pour la sécurité de tous.

F. A. A.

Le Bénin numérique, une inspiration pour l'Afrique ? Ce n'était pas un coup de chance, mais “un processus, une vision« . En 10 ans, le Bénin a transformé son écosystème numérique avec 100 projets majeurs et une méthode reproductible.

“Le Bénin rayonne depuis quelques années, et cela ne s'est pas fait rapidement. C'était un processus, une vision », souligne Melaine Aquereburu-Olouman, Directeur du Bureau de projets à l'ASIN. Aujourd'hui, plusieurs projets numériques ont été conduits avec succès, portés par des équipes pluridisciplinaires et une organisation rigoureuse.

Déploiement de la fibre optique, digitalisation des collectivités locales, extension de l'internet dans les localités, modernisation des services publics, et bien plus…. Depuis 2017, le Bénin a lancé une vaste stratégie de transformation numérique articulée autour de nombreux projets. Et avec une méthode que nous détaillons.

Voici les 6 recettes qui expliquent cette réussite

1. Une gouvernance de projets autonomes

Plus de 100 projets et 1 000 sous-projets sont suivis et pilotés par des responsables dédiés. Chaque acteur nommé dans la gouvernance dispose d'un réel pouvoir d'action, ce qui garantit efficacité et rapidité d'exécution.

2. Un portefeuille de projets structuré

Les initiatives numériques sont inscrites dans un portefeuille cohérent, permettant une vision globale, un alignement stratégique et un suivi rigoureux des priorités du pays, selon Melaine Aquereburu-Olouman.

3. Une agence d'excellence au cœur du dispositif

Le modèle béninois repose sur la création d'agences spécialisées dotées de talents hautement qualifiés.

4. Wekenou : un intranet collaboratif

Wekenou symbolisant les jarres dans lesquelles chacun dépose connaissances et savoirs permet une collaboration transparente. Tous les départements y consultent en temps réel le statut et l'avancement des projets.

5. L'ASIN Delivery Method

Il s'agit d'un ensemble de processus et de modèles standardisés qui garantissent qualité, efficacité et uniformité dans l'exécution des projets numériques. Tous les acteurs travaillent selon une même méthodologie reconnue.

6. Un arsenal d'outils opérationnels

Tableaux de bord, outils de reporting, systèmes de suivi en temps réel : le pilotage des projets s'appuie sur une panoplie complète d'outils modernes permettant un contrôle précis.

Et la “sauce secrète” du Bénin

Au-delà de ces six recettes, trois ingrédients distinguent particulièrement le Bénin et expliquent l'accélération de son écosystème numérique.

1. Une adoption du numérique au plus haut niveau

Tous les membres du gouvernement utilisent des solutions digitales, notamment la plateforme E-Conseil, qui élimine la paperasse lors des réunions.

2. Un leadership opérationnel engagé

Les autorités de tutelle maîtrisent les enjeux à tous les niveaux : fibre optique, cybersécurité, infrastructures, gouvernance numérique… Cette proximité opérationnelle garantit une exécution rapide et cohérente.

3. Le choix de catalyseurs stratégiques

Le pays s'appuie sur des figures clés qui orientent, supervisent et valorisent la politique numérique. Parmi ces acteurs figurent notamment : Serge Adjovi, Directeur général de l'Agence de Développement du Numérique (ADN) et Ouanilo Médégan Fagla, Directeur général de l'ANSSI-Bénin.

Pour Melaine Aquereburu-Olouman, le Bénin a su donc combiner vision, organisation, leadership et innovation pour bâtir un modèle de transformation numérique désormais cité en exemple en Afrique.

Edwige APEDO, Radio Djena (Togo)

Cet article est rédigé par l'équipe de la Rédaction Éphémère initiée à Cotonou du 17 au 22 novembre dans le cadre du projet MediAOS.

Un conducteur de taxi a été jugé ce jeudi 20 novembre 2025, à la Cour de répression des infractions économiques et du terrorisme (CRIET), pour avoir tenté de corrompre un agent de police en plein contrôle.

Interpellé par la Police lors d'une opération de contrôle sur l'axe Sakété-Kétou, un conducteur de taxi glisse un billet de 2000 dans son livret de bord, et le remet au policier. Surpris par cette tentative de corruption, l'homme en uniforme dépose une plainte contre le conducteur qui sera interpellé et placé sous mandat de dépôt. Poursuivi pour « tentative de corruption » d'agent public, il a été jUgé ce jeudi 20 novembre à la CRIET.
A la barre, le mis en cause a reconnu les faits et plaidé coupable. Le juge au terme du procès lui a accordé une liberté provisoire sous une caution de 20 000 FCFA.
L'affaire est renvoyée en janvier 2026 pour les réquisitions et les plaidoiries.
Marina HOUENOU (Stag)

Le mercredi 19 novembre 2025, le tribunal d'Abomey-Calavi a rendu son verdict dans une affaire d'escroquerie impliquant un féticheur.

En quête de prospérité et de faveur pour la libération de son mari incarcéré, une femme sollicite les services d'un féticheur. Incapable de satisfaire la demande de prospérité de sa cliente, le féticheur lui propose de recourir à un greffier capable d'intervenir dans la procédure de libération de son époux.
A la barre, l'accusé a reconnu avoir reçu 347 000 francs CFA chez la plaignante, alors qu'il lui aurait soutiré jusqu'à un million de francs CFA. Il a expliqué aux juges avoir pris 300 000 francs CFA de don pour soigner l'un des enfants malades de la victime, et 47 000 francs CFA pour des sacrifices rituels.
Le féticheur reconnu coupable d'escroquerie, a été condamné à 60 mois de prison dont 36 mois ferme, et une amende de 100 000 francs CFA. Il devra également verser 1 052 000 francs CFA à la victime, au titre de dommages et intérêts.

F. A. A.

Le parti Force cauris pour un Bénin émergent (FCBE), a soumis sa liste de candidature pour les élections législatives de janvier 2026 à la Commission électorale nationale autonome (CENA), le mercredi 19 novembre 2025. La liste déposée par le secrétaire exécutif national, est composée de 109 candidatures titulaires et 109 suppléants dans les 24 Circonscriptions électorales (CE).

Liste des candidats FCBE

Credit: UN News/Felipe de Carvalho

By Ginger Cassady
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 21 2025 (IPS)

Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon River, was always going to be a symbolic host for the UN COP30 climate summit, but the mood here has gone far beyond symbolism.

Indigenous Peoples, forest communities, women, workers and youth have set the tone in the streets and in the many grassroots spaces across the city. Their message has been consistent and clear — the Amazon cannot survive under the same financial system that is destroying it.

Inside the talks, however, governments are still trying to confront a planetary emergency while operating within a global economic architecture built for extraction. Debt burdens, high borrowing costs, reliance on extractive commodities, volatile currencies and investor-driven pressures all shape what is deemed “possible” long before negotiators put pen to paper.

This is the constraint the UN climate regime cannot escape: countries are expected to deliver climate action within a financial order that makes that action prohibitively expensive.

For wealthier countries, maintaining this structure shields their budgets and geopolitical leverage. For many developing countries, pushing for more ambitious outcomes means navigating the limits imposed by debt service and credit ratings. Emerging economies face their own entanglements, tied to commodity markets and large-scale extractive industries that remain politically powerful.

Overlaying this landscape is the relentless influence of lobbyists from fossil fuel companies, agribusiness conglomerates, commodity traders and major banks. Their presence across delegations and side events narrows the space for solutions that would challenge their business models.

What remains “deliverable” tends to be voluntary measures, market mechanisms and cautious language—steps that do not shift the structural incentives driving deforestation, fossil expansion and land grabs.

The Just Transition Debate Exposes the Real Fault Line

Nowhere is this tension more visible in the final hours of COP30 than in the negotiations over the Just Transition Work Programme. Many industrialized countries continue to frame just transition in narrow domestic terms: retraining workers and adjusting industries. For most of the G77, it is inseparable from land governance, food systems, mineral access, rights protections and—above all—financing that does not reproduce dependency and extraction.

The proposed Belém Action Mechanism reflects this broader vision. It could embed rights, community leadership, implementation support and a mandate to confront the systemic barriers that make unjust transitions the norm. But its language remains heavily bracketed — a sign of both political resistance and the pressure from vested interests uncomfortable with shifting power toward developing countries and frontline communities.

Debt-Based Forest Finance: The TFFF’s Structural Risks

The Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), launched by Brazil ahead of COP30, has become a flashpoint for these concerns. Despite political appeal, its reliance on long-term bonds and private capital ties forest protection to the expectations of bond markets rather than to the rights and priorities of the Peoples who live in and protect the forests.

Civil society groups have warned that the TFFF risks locking forest countries deeper into market volatility, exposing them to investor-driven conditions, and prioritising investment returns toward creditors over Indigenous Peoples or forest communities.

By treating forests as financial assets within debt markets, the model risks repeating the very dynamics that have fueled deforestation: inequitable power relations, external control and dependence on private capital.

As the talks wind down, negotiators should be frank about the stakes: debt-based climate finance will entrench, not ease, the vulnerabilities that climate action must confront.

Food, Land and the Weight of Finance

The financialization of land and food systems also looms over COP30’s final outcomes. Agribusiness giants, asset managers and commodity traders have reshaped agriculture into a global investment sector, consolidating land, driving forest loss and sidelining small-scale producers.

Draft texts now reference agroecology and Indigenous knowledge, but the political space for transforming these systems remains limited. Without addressing how speculative capital and global supply chains dictate land use, any agreement will fall short of what climate resilience truly requires.

Rights and Human Safety Under Threat

In the closing days of the talks, attempts to dilute gender language, weaken rights protections and sideline environmental defenders have drawn strong backlash from civil society and many governments. These are not isolated disputes; they reflect the political economy of extraction. Where industries rely on weak rights protections to expand, rights language becomes a bargaining chip.

The Indigenous Political Declaration: A Blueprint for Structural Change

As negotiators haggle over bracketed text, the Amazon-wide Indigenous Political Declaration stands out as one of the most coherent and grounded climate agendas to emerge at COP30. It calls for:

• Legal demarcation and protection of Indigenous territories as a non-negotiable foundation for climate stability.

• Exclusion of mining, fossil fuels and other extractive industries from Indigenous lands.

• Direct access to finance for Indigenous Peoples — not routed through state or market intermediaries that dilute rights or impose debt.

• Recognition of Indigenous knowledge and governance systems as central to climate solutions.

• Protections for defenders, who face rising threats across Amazonian countries.

This is not simply an agenda for the Amazon; it is a structural map for aligning climate action with ecological reality.

The Divide That Now Matters

As COP30 closes, it is clear the old frame of North versus South cannot explain the choices before us. The more revealing divide is between those defending an extractive financial order and those fighting for a rights-based, equitable and ecologically grounded alternative. Many of the interests blocking climate ambition in the North are aligned with elites in the South who profit from destructive supply chains.

Indigenous Peoples, women, workers and small-scale farmers share more in common with one another across continents than with the financial interests influencing their own governments.

Belém has forced the world to confront the limits of incremental change within an extractive order. Whether the final decisions reflect that reality will determine not just the legacy of this COP, but the future of the Amazon itself.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Ginger Cassady is Executive Director, Rainforest Action Network

Plagued by drought, farming families living within the boundaries of the Dry Corridor in eastern Guatemala have resorted to rainwater harvesting, an effective technique that has allowed them to cope

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN LUIS JILOTEPEQUE, Guatemala, Nov 21 2025 (IPS)

Plagued by drought, farming families living within the boundaries of the Dry Corridor in eastern Guatemala have resorted to rainwater harvesting, an effective technique that has allowed them to cope.

This enables them to obtain food from plots of land that would otherwise be difficult to farm.

Funded by the Swedish government and implemented by international organizations, some 7,000 families benefit from a program that seeks to provide them with the necessary technologies and tools to set up rainwater catchment tanks, alleviating water scarcity in this region of the country.

These families live around micro-watersheds in seven municipalities in the departments of Chiquimula and Jalapa, in eastern Guatemala. These towns are Jocotán, Camotán, Olopa, San Juan Ermita, Chiquimula, San Luis Jilotepeque, and San Pedro Pinula.

“We are in the Dry Corridor, and it’s hard to grow plants here. Even if you try to grow them, due to the lack of water, (the fruits) don’t reach their proper weight,” Merlyn Sandoval, head of one of the beneficiary families, told IPS in the village of San José Las Pilas, in the municipality of San Luis Jilotepeque, Jalapa department.

The Central American Dry Corridor, 1,600 kilometers long, covers 35% of Central America and is home to more than 10.5 million people. Here, over 73% of the rural population lives in poverty, and 7.1 million people suffer from severe food insecurity, according to FAO data.

As part of the project, the young Sandoval has taken action to harvest rainwater on her plot, in the backyard of her house. She has installed a circular tank, whose base is lined with an impermeable polyethylene geomembrane, with a capacity of 16 cubic meters.

When it rains, water runs off the roof and, through a PVC pipe, reaches the tank they call a “harvester,” which collects the resource to irrigate the small garden and fruit trees, and to provide water during the dry season, from November to May.

In the garden, Sandoval and her family of 10 harvest celery, cucumber, cilantro, chives, tomatoes, and green chili. For fruits, they have bananas, mangoes, and jocotes, among others.

They also have a fish pond where 500 tilapia fingerlings are growing. The structure, also with a polyethylene geomembrane at its base, is eight meters long, six meters wide, and one meter deep.

Another beneficiary is Ricardo Ramírez. From the rainwater collector installed on his plot, he manages to irrigate, by drip, the crops in the macro-tunnel: a small greenhouse next to the tank, where he grows cucumbers, tomatoes, and green chili, among other vegetables.

“From one furrow I got 950 cucumbers, and 450 pounds of tomatoes (204 kilos). And the chili, it just keeps producing. But it was because there was water in the harvester, and I just opened the little valve for just half an hour, by drip, and the soil got well moistened,” Ramírez told IPS with satisfaction.

En español: Video: La sequía en el este de Guatemala se alivia con la cosecha de agua de lluvia

 

Security forces have launched operations to assess the situation and locate the missing pupils.