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The USA cruise to a 103-86 victory over South Sudan to qualify for the Olympic men's basketball quarter-finals.

La justice guinéenne a rendu son verdict ce mercredi, dans l’affaire du massacre du 28 septembre 2009 au stade de Conakry, après près de deux ans de procès. Retour sur les temps forts et les principaux acteurs de ces évènements.

La justice guinéenne a rendu son verdict ce mercredi, dans l’affaire du massacre du 28 septembre 2009 au stade de Conakry, après près de deux ans de procès. Retour sur les temps forts et les principaux acteurs de ces évènements.

La justice guinéenne a rendu son verdict ce mercredi, dans l’affaire du massacre du 28 septembre 2009 au stade de Conakry, après près de deux ans de procès. Retour sur les temps forts et les principaux acteurs de ces évènements.

Ireland has launched a public consultation to inform the development of a new National Rare Disease Strategy. The results of the consultation will be considered by a steering group tasked with developing the strategy for 300,000 patients.

Nigerian officials are trying to work out how Favour Ofili’s name was left off the entry list for the women’s 100m at Paris 2024.

Established in 2013 by the UN Security Council, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) aimed to stabilize the situation in northern Mali, support the political transition, protect civilians, and promote human rights amidst ongoing conflict and instability. The mission’s mandate evolved over its ten-year tenure to address the changing political and security landscape, leading to its withdrawal at the request of the Malian government in 2023.

In this context, the International Peace Institute (IPI), the Stimson Center, and Security Council Report, with support from the German Federal Foreign Office and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, organized a workshop to discuss takeaways learned from MINUSMA’s ten-year presence in Mali. Held on June 13, 2024, the workshop brought together UN officials, member states, civil society stakeholders, and independent experts to assess successes and challenges related to the mandate, with the objective to draw lessons from MINUSMA’s experience that could ensure more realistic, effective, and achievable mandates in future UN peace operations.

Key takeaways from the discussion include recognition of MINUSMA’s crucial role in supporting the 2015 Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, protecting civilians, and stabilizing urban centers. However, the mission faced significant challenges, particularly due to the lack of a stable peace to maintain and the volatile political environment following two coups. Despite its efforts to adapt, MINUSMA struggled with host-state consent, resource constraints, and the complexities of an asymmetric threat environment. The lessons learned from MINUSMA point to the importance of political consensus, multistakeholder partnerships, and realistic alignment between mandates and resources for the success of future peacekeeping missions.

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La stabilité de la région est en question alors que les réactions se font entendre après la mort du chef du Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh.

La stabilité de la région est en question alors que les réactions se font entendre après la mort du chef du Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh.

Laut einer am Mittwoch (31. Juli) veröffentlichten Studie könnten etwa 91,5 Prozent der Arbeitsplätze im Bereich der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie durch künstliche Intelligenz (KI) gefährdet sein. Dies betrifft auch rund zehn Millionen Arbeitsplätze in der EU.

Ireland’s Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, has announced the formation of a National Clinical Trials Oversight Group. The group is tasked with developing strategies to increase the number of clinical trials conducted in Ireland.

The looming implementation of an EU law aimed at making European supply chains deforestation-free has united industry, traders, farmers, and NGOs in concern.

The European Commission has called on all parties in the Middle East to “exert maximum restraint” amid growing fears of a full-scale regional war following the assassination of a top Hamas official in Iran on Wednesday morning (31 July).

If Africa is to achieve the milestones under the UN 2030 Agenda for sustainable development or the Africa Union Agenda 2063, countries urgently need to recommit themselves to carrying out the Maputo Protocol. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Betty Kabari
NAIROBI, Jul 31 2024 (IPS)

International African Women’s Day on July 31 recognizes the contribution of African women toward political, social, and economic freedom on the continent. But gender equality is still not a reality for most African women.

Many countries still have regressive laws, and even the more progressive laws in other countries are often poorly carried out. There is a lack of supportive frameworks to promote and safeguard women and girls’ equality, such as research into rights violations and public education on gender equality and women and girls’ rights.

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, or the Maputo Protocol as it is known, provides a framework for fulfilling and upholding the rights of women and girls.

The lack of adequate progress is a reminder that governments have not met their obligation to address meaningfully the ways that laws, policies, and practices propagate patriarchal systems that discriminate against women and girls and entrench gender inequality in every aspect of life

It identifies various areas in which women and girls are denied equality and calls on governments to take legislative, institutional, and other measures to combat all forms of discrimination.

Forty-four out of 55 African countries have ratified the Maputo Protocol and some have made progress in enacting legislation in the two decades that it has been in force.

But the lack of adequate progress is a reminder that governments have not met their obligation to address meaningfully the ways that laws, policies, and practices propagate patriarchal systems that discriminate against women and girls and entrench gender inequality in every aspect of life.

Article 4 of the Maputo Protocol recognizes women’s and girls’ rights to life, integrity, and security of their person, some of the most fundamental, foundational rights. Yet violations of these rights are frequent and manifest in a number of ways including femicide – gender related killings of women and girls; what is called obstetric violence – ill treatment of women and girls when seeking reproductive health services; and lack of access to safe, legal abortion care.

In 2022, the United Nations identified Africa as the continent with the highest incidence of femicide. More than 20,000 women and girls on the continent were killed by intimate partners or family members that year, averaging more than 54 deaths daily – the highest in absolute numbers of any continent.

However, only the government of South Africa has consistently collected data on femicide or made any efforts to develop laws, policies, or programs that address femicide, such as in its National Strategic Plan on Gender Based Violence and Femicide. Other governments, such as Kenya, fail both to collect the relevant data and to effectively investigate and prosecute femicide.

African countries have also been slow to respond to mistreatment of women and girls during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care, including verbal and physical abuse, neglect, and non-consensual and medically unnecessary procedures.

Insufficient data  hampers conclusions on the exact scope of the problem but global studies have found that, depending on the country,  between 15 and 91 percent of women experience mistreatment during childbirth. There is also a dearth, globally, of data on abuses that occur when women and girls seek other maternal health services, including abortion services.

In Malawi, a 2019 report from the Office of the Ombudsman documented various forms of abuse and mistreatment during labor and delivery, including forced Cesarean sections and hysterectomies.

The causes included negligence by overworked and underpaid healthcare workers and a lack of medication and emergency obstetric care. Five years later, Malawi is lagging in carrying out the report’s recommendations.

Article 14 of the Maputo Protocol recognizes women and girls’ right of access to abortion care in cases when the pregnancy is a result of sexual violence or when the pregnancy endangers the physical or mental health of the woman, or the life of the woman or the fetus. But fewer than half of the countries that have ratified the Maputo Protocol have incorporated this right into their domestic law, and even fewer have implemented it.

In the absence of legally protected abortion care, 75 percent of all abortions on the African continent are unsafe. This results in maternal mortality as well as complications that require over 1.6 million African women and girls to seek post-abortion care each year.

In Zambia, which is considered to have some of the most liberal abortion laws on the continent, unsafe abortion remains prevalent and accounts for 30 percent of the country’s maternal mortality.

The law limits the availability of facilities and healthcare providers who can legally provide abortion services, contrary to guidance from the World Health Organization.

In addition, the government has not taken sufficient measures to address stigma against abortion or raise awareness of the country’s laws on abortion, leading to many women, girls, and even healthcare providers believing incorrectly that abortion is illegal.

If Africa is to achieve the milestones under the UN 2030 Agenda for sustainable development or the Africa Union Agenda 2063, the continent’s strategic framework to achieve inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development over a 50-year period, countries urgently need to recommit themselves to carrying out the Maputo Protocol. That means including taking immediate action to address femicide, obstetric violence and inaccessibility of safe, legal abortion care.

Betty Kabari is a women’s right researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Récemment réélue à la tête de la Commission européenne, Ursula von der Leyen a promis un système unique de réservation des billets de train pour l’ensemble de l’UE, une initiative qu’elle avait déjà évoquée lors de son précédent mandat mais qui n’a jamais vu le jour.

BAKU, 1 August 2024 – The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) today opened an election observation mission for the 1 September early parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, following an official invitation from the national authorities.

The mission is headed by Ditmir Bushati and consists of a core team of 11 international experts based in Baku and 28 long-term observers, who will be deployed throughout the country from 8 August. ODIHR also plans to request 280 short-term observers, to arrive several days before election day.

The mission will assess the conduct of the elections for compliance with OSCE commitments and other international obligations and standards for democratic elections, as well as with national legislation.

Observers will closely monitor all key aspects of the elections, such as the conduct of the campaign, including on social networks, the work of the election administration at all levels, election-related legislation and its implementation, respect for fundamental freedoms, media coverage and the resolution of election disputes. Observers will also assess the implementation of previous ODIHR election recommendations.

Meetings with representatives of state authorities and political parties, civil society, the media and the international community form an integral part of the observation.

The day after the elections, a statement of preliminary findings and conclusions will be presented at a press conference. A final report with an assessment of the entire election process and containing recommendations will be published some months after the elections.

For further information on ODIHR’s election observation activities in the country, please   visit:

https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/azerbaijan

Media contacts:

Kira Kalinina, Media Analyst: kira.kalinina@odihr.az, or +994 55 220 72 36

Katya Andrusz, ODIHR Spokesperson: +48 609 522 266 (Warsaw mobile), or katya.andrusz@odihr.pl.

About 91.5% of ICT specialist jobs, including around 10 million jobs in the EU, may be in jeopardy because of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a study conducted by big tech multinationals published on Wednesday (31 July).  

Des acteurs du secteur des télécommunications ont demandé au commissaire en charge du Marché intérieur, Thierry Breton, de reconsidérer certaines de ses positions  en vue de sa possible reconduction de poste pour le mandat 2024-2029.