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Das US-Militär hat drei mutmassliche Drogenboote im Ostpazifik und in der Karibik angegriffen. Elf Menschen starben. Die Boote befanden sich auf bekannten Schmuggelrouten, wie das Regionalkommando Southcom am 17. Februar 2026 mitteilte.

Monsanto, eine Tochter des deutschen Pharmariesen Bayer, hat in den USA einen Vergleich über bis zu 7,25 Milliarden Dollar abgeschlossen. Damit will der Konzern Klagen wegen seines umstrittenen Unkrautvernichters «Roundup» beilegen. Ein Gericht muss noch zustimmen.

Les habitants et les visiteurs de Shanghai ont célébré le premier jour du Nouvel An chinois par des festivités populaires dans les sites culturels et historiques de la ville, rapporte un correspondant de TASS.

Avec l'arrivée de la Fête du Printemps, comme on appelle en Chine le Nouvel An lunaire, le rythme de vie habituel de Shanghai ralentit. Les rues animées, les autoroutes surélevées à plusieurs niveaux sont habituellement très fréquentées et les tunnels souterrains de la mégapole deviennent parfois déserts. Une partie des habitants quitte la ville pour la campagne ou pour voyager. Ceux qui restent délaissent leur voiture personnelle, car durant la semaine à venir il n'y a pas d'urgence : les congés à l'occasion de la Fête du Printemps se prolongeront jusqu'au 23 février.

Les Shanghaïens restés en ville ne se pressent pas vers le centre le premier jour de la principale fête chinoise. Certains d'entre eux, adeptes du bouddhisme, se rendent dans les temples pour prier afin d'obtenir chance et prospérité pour la nouvelle année.

De nombreux habitants se rendent dans des lieux historiques nichés parmi les gratte-ciel de la mégapole afin de s'imprégner de l'atmosphère traditionnelle de la fête. Ces lieux permettent d'échapper à l'agitation urbaine et de ressentir l'esprit d'une célébration vieille de plusieurs millénaires.

TASR: Ipolyság előkészíti a Fő tér helyreállításának első szakaszát, az autóbusz-állomás felújítását. Zachar Pál polgármester tájékoztatása szerint ha minden rendben halad, nyáron kezdődhet a munka. Az elmúlt harminc évben több javaslat is született a Fő tér felújítására, mindegyik egy kicsit különbözött, mindegyiket jóváhagyta a Nyitrai Kerületi Műemlékvédelmi Hivatal, de végül egyik sem valósult meg – közölte Zachar Pál.

Dritte englische Woche in Folge für den FC St. Gallen. Am Mittwochabend steht das Nachholspiel in Winterthur an (19 Uhr) – auf dem Acker Schützenwiese. «Lieber Acker als Kunstrasen», meint Verteidiger Okoroji. Einen Aufreger gibts auch neben dem Feld. Das FCSG-Inside.

Gefährliche Selbstmedikation: Immer mehr illegale Haarwuchsmittel und Potenzpillen gelangen in die Schweiz. Besonders riskant sind Kombinationen wie Finasterid und Viagra, die gesundheitliche Schäden verursachen können. Experten warnen vor unkontrollierter Einnahme.

Ein 21-jähriger Asylbewerber aus Burundi richtete im Kantonsspital Aarau ein Chaos an. Trotz strenger Sicherheitsvorkehrungen verwüstete er sein Krankenzimmer. Zudem gefährdete der Tuberkulose-Patient Polizisten und Personal.

Prinzessin Diana war eine Vorkämpferin für ein Verbot der Antipersonenminen. Nun scheren sich immer weniger Staaten um das Abkommen. Die eigene Produktion der heimtückischen Bomben wird wieder hochgefahren. Allerdings setzt man heute auf «intelligente» Minen.

Credit: UNICEF/Eyad El Baba
 
What is international humanitarian law? Families flee their shattered homes in Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood in Gaza city. While aid workers serving conflict-affected civilian populations depend on a set of laws to protect them, some warring parties violate these global agreements, from targeting hospitals and schools to blocking aid workers from reaching civilians with lifesaving goods and services. Source: UN News

By Stuart Casey-Maslen
GENEVA, Feb 17 2026 (IPS)

International humanitarian law is at a breaking point, as rampant impunity for serious violations is enabling even greater abuses against civilians and detainees.

Across today’s wars, violations are no longer concealed or exceptional. They are increasingly open, systematic, and unpunished, with catastrophic consequences for those whom the law is supposed to protect.

New analysis of 23 situations of armed conflict between July 2024 and the end of 2025 reveals a consistent pattern: civilians are being killed, abused and starved at scale, while accountability mechanisms either falter or are actively undermined. Genocidal violence in Gaza, a renewed risk of genocide in Sudan, and mass atrocities elsewhere are not isolated horrors. Taken together, they point to a deeper failure – the collapse of meaningful restraint in the conduct of hostilities.

Conflict-related sexual violence has reached epidemic levels. Rape, sexual slavery, and sexual violence used as punishment or as a tool of territorial control have been documented across multiple conflicts, including in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, and Sudan. Particularly alarming is the growing number of cases involving attacks children, including victims as young as one.

These are not by-products of war, but violations long prohibited under international humanitarian law, now committed with near-total impunity. This occurs with the complicity of many other States, which have a duty to respect and ensure respect international humanitarian law.

This erosion of civilian protection is not primarily the result of gaps in legal knowledge. The rules exist. The problem is political choice – and a persistent failure to enforce, clarify and update the law where it no longer offers meaningful restraint.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the global arms trade. The United Nations Arms Trade Treaty has been widely ratified, including by major exporters such as China, France, and the United Kingdom. In theory, it requires its member States to deny arms transfers where there is a clear risk that weapons will be used to commit serious violations of international law. In practice, legal risk assessments are all too often overridden by strategic and political considerations.

Continued arms exports to Israel, Russia, and others, despite overwhelming evidence of civilian harm, have had devastating consequences on the ground.

Closing this gap does not require a raft of new rules in the short term. It requires the consistent application of existing ones: enforceable, evidence-based export controls; independent scrutiny of licensing decisions; and real accountability where transfers are authorised despite a clear risk that the law will be breached by the recipient.

Certain categories of weapons are though incompatible with the protection of civilians, but do not necessarily violate the already permissive standards. Repeated firing into populated areas of gravity ordnance from the air and inaccurate long-range artillery from the ground has been a major driver of civilian casualties across multiple conflicts.

There is a fundamental lack of clarity on two key rules: first, how close an attack may be launched to a military target while still complying with the law; and second, how much incidental civilian harm is permissible when targeting a military objective.

On both issues, the law urgently requires clarification. Restricting air-delivered weapons to precision-guided munitions alone would already make a measurable difference to civilian survival. Achieving this, however, requires States to clarify and update the rules of international humanitarian law that were drafted in the 1970s.

In State-on-State conflicts such as in Kherson province in Ukraine, drones have been used by Russian forces – and others – to target civilians, sometimes with real-time video footage disseminated online by the perpetrators.

At the same time, armed drones are no longer the preserve of States. Their use by non-State armed groups is increasing rapidly, including by JNIM in the Sahel, Islamic State in Somalia, and the Arakan Army in Myanmar. There is an urgent need for stronger mechanisms to attribute, investigate, and prosecute unlawful drone and autonomous weapon attacks.

Impunity on this scale is not inevitable. It is the product of sustained political and financial neglect. Institutions designed to promote compliance with international humanitarian law – including domestic courts and international tribunals – are under severe strain, with some facing paralysis or closure due to lack of resources.

Judges at bodies such as the International Criminal Court have even been sanctioned simply for carrying out their mandates. If States are serious about protecting civilians, political and financial support for these institutions must be treated as a core obligation and a policy priority, not an optional gesture.

The current moment represents a critical test for international humanitarian law itself. The international lawyer Hersch Lauterpacht once warned that the law existed at the “vanishing point” of international law. That warning is no longer theoretical.

Whether humanitarian law continues to function as a real constraint on warfare, or recedes into symbolic rhetoric, will depend on the political choices states make now – and on whether civilian protection is treated as a legal duty rather than a discretionary one.

Stuart Casey-Maslen is an international lawyer and lead author of War Watch: International Humanitarian Law in Focus at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Russland weitet die Kontrolle über das Internet erheblich aus und erlaubt nun auf Forderung des Inlandsgeheimdienstes FSB die Abschaltung des Mobilfunks.

Wo Olympia draufsteht ist nicht Olympia drin. Viele Fans reisen enttäuscht von den Winterspiele in Italien ab. Auch Athleten und Funktionäre äussern Kritik. Vor allem etwas sorgt für Kopfschütteln.

Egyházi és kulturális programsorozattal, új látogatóbarát alkalmazásokkal és egy új, Michelangelo kézírása ihlette betűtípussal készül a Szent Péter-bazilika felszentelésének négyszázadik évfordulójára a Vatikán.

La Grande Mosquée de Paris a confirmé ce mardi la date de début du Ramadan 1447, fixée au mercredi 18 février 2026. Comme le veut […]

L’article Début du Ramadan 2026 : la Grande Mosquée de Paris fixe la date pour les musulmans de France est apparu en premier sur .

Sind Kühe die wahren Umweltsünder? Der Bund investiert ganze 830'000 Franken in ein Projekt, um den Methan-Ausstoss von Rindern zu verringern. Unsere Community findet die Idee lachhaft.

Heftige Schneefälle sorgen im Wallis für Chaos und Freude: Während in Arbaz der Alltag wegen der hohen Lawinengefahr lahmgelegt war, lockte die Belalp Wintersportler mit sicheren Pisten und frischem Schnee. Allerdings hat man auch hier Bauchschmerzen.

Der deutsche Schauspieler Lambert Hamel ist tot. Er wurde 85 Jahre alt. Seine Familie teilte mit, dass er nach schwerer Krankheit bereits am vergangenen Freitag starb.

Kapisztóry Ferenc, az Érsekújvári Egyetemi Kórház és Rendelőintézet alapítójának leszármazottait keresi a kórház az egészségügyi intézmény megnyitásának közelgő 130. évfordulója alkalmából.

It is the latest twist over the fate of Lungu's body, which remains in a South African morgue since his death.

2026. 2. 17

La Nouvelle-Zélande a été frappée par une nouvelle vague d'exode de ses citoyens. Plus de 70 000 personnes ont quitté le pays en seulement un an, soit environ 1,4 % de ses 5,1 millions d'habitants.