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Mohamed Hanefi - Il serait risible de se demander si la patrie a un droit de réclamer ses droits. Quand les citoyens sont traités...

Július 6-án Dunaszerdahelyen, a MOL Arénában küzd meg a cseh-szlovák Szuperkupáért a Spartak Trnava és a Slavia Praha.

Keiner ist in der Handball-Nati jünger als Samuel Zehnder. Und kaum einer spielt so abgezockt wie der 19-Jährige.

In Moosleerau im Kanton Aargau hat sich am Mittag ein tragischer Unfall ereignet. Um kurz nach 12 Uhr wurde ein 10-Jähriger von einem LKW erfasst und tödlich verletzt.

Kína vizsgálatot indít a FedEx amerikai globális szállítmányozó vállalat ellen azt követően, hogy a Huawei Technologies kínai technológiai nagyvállalat csomagjait engedély nélkül “eltérítették” – számolt be a CGTN kínai nemzetközi hírcsatorna.

A vizsgálatot a kínai hatóságok azzal indokolták, hogy a FedEx a gyanú szerint súlyosan megsértette kínai ügyfelei jogait és érdekeit, ezzel pedig megszegte a Kínában érvényes vonatkozó jogszabályokat.

A Huawei a hét elején azzal vádolta meg a FedExet, hogy beleegyezése nélkül megváltoztatta csomagjaik útvonalát. A Huawei beszámolója szerint a Japánban feladott csomagjaikat a kínai irodáik helyett a cég amerikai címére kézbesítették, ráadásul két másik, Vietnamban feladott szállítmányukat is átirányították az Egyesült Államokba az eredetileg megjelölt szingapúri és hongkongi címekre történő kézbesítés helyett.

A FedEx még kedden közzétett egy bejegyzést a Weibo kínai mikroblogon, amelyben elnézést kérnek a Huaweitől a hibásan kézbesített csomagok miatt. A közleményben azt is hangsúlyozták, hogy semmilyen kívülről érkezett utasítás nem állt az ügy hátterében.

Vang Suo-ven kínai kereskedelmiminiszter-helyettes egy vasárnapi sajtótájékoztatón újságírói kérdésre válaszolva elmondta: Kína továbbra is szívesen látja azokat a külföldi cégeket, amelyek a törvényeket betartva működnek. Hozzátette: a külföldi befektetésekre vonatkozó új törvény is épp arra az alapelvre épül, hogy a külföldi vállalatok a belföldiekkel egyforma bánásmódban részesüljenek.

Ma Csün-seng, a kínai posta elnöke vasárnap a CCTV kínai állami televíziónak az üggyel kapcsolatban elmondta: a hatályos törvény egyértelműen rendelkezik arról, hogy a szállítmányozó vállalatoknak a feladó által megjelölt címre és az általa megjelölt címzettnek vagy meghatalmazottjának kell kézbesítenie a feladott csomagot. Amennyiben egy vállalat ezt a szabályt megszegi – tette hozzá, – azzal jogsértést követ el az ügyfelével szemben, ilyen esetben pedig a postafelügyeleti szerveknek jogukban áll vizsgálatot indítani.

Ma hangsúlyozta: semmilyen szállítási cég sem gátolhatja a futárszolgáltatás akadálytalan működését “nem kereskedelmi okok” miatt.

Az amerikai-kínai kereskedelmi konfliktus egyik legújabb fejleményeként a kínai kereskedelmi minisztérium pénteken bejelentette, hogy listát állít össze azokról a külföldi vállalatokról, szervezetekről és személyekről, amelyeket megbízhatatlannak tart, mert kárt okoztak kínai vállalatoknak.

A “megbízhatatlan entitások listájára” azok kerülnek fel, akik semmibe veszik a piaci szabályokat és a szerződések szellemét, nem kereskedelmi okokból akadályoznak beszállítókat termékeik kínai vállalatoknak való eladásában, valamint súlyosan sértik kínai vállalatok legitim érdekeit és jogait.

Az amerikai kereskedelmi minisztérium előzőleg, május közepén tette feketelistára a Huaweit és 68 leányvállalatát, amelyek így amerikai kormányzati engedély hiányában nem vásárolhatnak termékeket és szolgáltatásokat amerikai cégektől.

Les directeurs cantonaux de justice et police appellent les clubs à faire preuve de fermeté face aux fans violents en Suisse.

By Charlotte Munns
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 6 2019 (IPS)

Attacks on Afghan schools tripled between 2017 and 2018, according to a UNICEF report released last week: from 68 attacks to 192 in 2018. This figure seems unlikely to decrease as the Afghan government prepares to use schools once again for political activity in the upcoming election.

The report comes following the Third International Conference on Safe Schools in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The international community met to discuss the Safe Schools Declaration which outlines means to protect schools in times of conflict. Attendees have called into question the effectiveness of this Declaration.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore expressed concern that education in Afghanistan was “under fire.”

“The senseless attacks on schools; the killing, injury and abduction of teachers; and the threats against education are destroying the hopes and dreams of an entire generation of children,” she said in a statement.

On Tuesday Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said in a statement, “due to the conflict in Afghanistan, more than 1,000 schools closed by the end of last year, leaving half a million children out of school.”

This swell in attacks comes as schools are being pulled deeper into the conflict in Afghanistan. They are used more and more frequently in elections. Educational institutions were used as polling booths for Afghani’s to cast their votes in the 2018 presidential election, as well as in 2014.

The majority of schools attacked in 2018 were used in some capacity during the elections.

Anthony Neal, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s (NRC) Advocacy Manager in Afghanistan and attendee at the Third International Conference on Safe Schools, said in a statement to IPS, “out of the 192 attacks on schools that took place last year, 92 of these were election-related,” adding, “using schools in this way places them directly on the front line.”

While schools have been used peacefully for political purposes elsewhere, the unique political situation in Afghanistan places a target on schools used in this capacity.

“In many countries around the world schools are used as polling centres – including just recently across Europe for the European Parliamentary elections. In most countries this occurs without increasing the risk of attack on these facilities,” Anthony Neal told IPS, “unfortunately in Afghanistan – where elections are seen as a major divide between the different sides of the conflict – this is not the case.”

Patricia Gossman, Senior Researcher in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, echoed this statement when she told IPS “a polling place is going to be a target unfortunately, given the Taliban’s attitude toward the elections.”

Organisations have called for polling booths and voter registration centres to be moved away from schools.

“Many schools across Afghanistan are currently being used by armed forces,” Neal said, “in order to protect education in Afghanistan, those supporting the elections should find alternative polling and voter registration sites.”

Despite this call to find new locations for election activities, the Afghan government seems to have made no progress in finding alternate sites, with reports indicating they are already preparing school buildings for the elections.

“They have made no preparations to use any other facilities,” Gossman said, “it is not beyond the means of those planning to come up with another facility.”

She suggested using tents as polling booths, which have been used successfully in other countries before, and are independent, neutral and cheap.

With the upcoming election scheduled for September, Afghanistan could see a worsening in an already precarious educational situation.

According to the World Bank, Afghanistan has a literacy rate of just 31%, one of the lowest in the world. This is partly due to the near complete prohibition of female education under Islamist Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001.

The UNICEF report released last week underscores this deterioration, estimating 3.7 million school-aged children, close to half of all Afghanis between the ages of 7 and 17, do not attend formal schools.

Attacks on educational institutions in Afghanistan is part of a global issue that the international community has attempted to address.

In a statement to the Third International Conference on Safe Schools Mark Lowcock, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator said, “in the last five years, more than 14,000 attacks on education were reported in 34 countries.”

He claimed poor adherence to the Safe Schools Declaration, to which Afghanistan is a signatory, is partly to blame; “when countries sign up for the declaration, they have to implement the obligations under it,” he added, “we are seeing too many examples of forces occupying schools. That has to stop.”

In the specific case of Afghanistan, however, the effectiveness of the Safe Schools Declaration seems questionable.

Speaking on the intensity of the violence in Afghanistan, Gossman noted, “even the best intentions seem to get thrown at the wind once you’re faced with this kind of pace of conflict.”

She added, “there’s all kinds of promises on paper that look very good, but implementation and enforcement are severely lacking.”

While the Safe Schools Declaration may aim to protect education in times of conflict, when faced with a context in which education is being violently targeted it seems powerless to instigate real change.

The post Afghan Schools Left Unprotected by Government & International Community appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Während der Probezeit soll für Neulenker ein Nachtfahrverbot gelten. Das schlägt die Beratungsstelle für Unfallverhütung vor. Wir haben für Sie die Meinungen aus der Community zusammengefasst.

French left-wing and environmentalist MEPs have decided not to attend a meeting organised by the French government. They are refusing to support its call for an "équipe de France" in the European Parliament as it would mean siding with MEPs of Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement national. EURACTIV France reports.

A Debreceni Fazekas Mihály Gimnázium 12. C osztályos tanulói igazán rendhagyó tablót hagytak meg az utókornak: ha a tabló felé tartjuk a mobilunkat, megelevenednek előttünk a diákok.

Written by Christian Salm,

© European Communities

Between 23 and 26 May 2019, 427 million European Union (EU) citizens had the opportunity to vote for Members of the European Parliament. This was the ninth time that EU citizens could vote directly for the policy- and decision-makers who will represent them in EU politics. European elections are consequently one of the most important events in the EU political cycle. With a view to this year’s European election and challenges to come for the new Parliament, many EU observers attached special historical significance to this ninth European election. Looking back, while the very first European election was held forty years ago, in 1979, the journey to holding European elections was long and complex.

No democratisation without participation

Participation is a central element of democratic systems. Of all the possibilities for political participation, a direct election is the strongest instrument for citizens’ involvement in politics. In 1952, when the predecessor to today’s European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), was inaugurated as the political authority representing citizens within the newly developing supranational political system of European integration, it seemed self-evident that it should be directly elected. The 1951 Paris Treaty, establishing the ECSC, and the 1957 Rome Treaty, creating the European Economic Community (EEC) and providing the historical framework for the present-day EU, therefore specified direct elections to the assembly first as an option and then as a constitutional obligation. Until 1979, however, instead of citizens directly electing Members, each of the EEC Member States’ national parliaments appointed their representatives. Called European Parliament since 1962, the body’s democratisation had fallen short of the claim formulated in the Treaties. Subsequent concepts of the future political design of European integration therefore demanded the organisation of European direct elections, to fulfil the requirement of democratisation.

Long journey to European elections

Shortly after the signature of the Rome Treaty, the new EEC Assembly’s Committee on Political Affairs and Institutional Matters created a working group, tasked to draft a report on direct elections. In May 1960, based on the working group’s preliminary findings, the EEC Assembly voted on a draft convention on direct elections, prepared by Fernand Dehousse, a Belgian Member. It proposed an assembly of 426 Members (three times more than the existing EEC Assembly), elected by direct vote, for a term of five years. To garner support for its draft convention, the Assembly argued that the process of European integration could not succeed without direct citizen participation. However, the EEC Council of Ministers did not reach a decision on the draft, due to reluctance on the part of the French Government.

Later statements took up the Assembly’s arguments for holding direct elections. In 1972, a report on the Parliament’s future development by a European Commission working group, headed by the French law professor, Georges Vedel, stated: ‘The introduction of direct elections would considerably contribute to the Community’s democratisation and consequently, to its authentication, its legitimacy’. Updating the Parliament’s 1960 draft convention, a new draft, prepared in 1974, by the Dutch Member, Schelto Patijn on behalf of the Parliament’s Political Affairs Committee, emphasised that: ‘the process of European unification cannot succeed without the direct participation of the people affected’. Parliament therefore considered ‘direct universal suffrage as an indispensable element in achieving further progress towards integration and establishing a better equilibrium between the Community institutions on a democratic basis’. Likewise, the report on a concept of a European Union, by the Belgium Prime Minister, Leo Tindemans, published in 1975, argued that direct elections would give the Parliament a new political authority. Moreover, Tindemans’ report made clear that direct election to the Parliament, alongside the strengthening of the entire political and institutional framework of the Community, should figure among the long-term goals of European integration.

Electoral Act

The first big step on the journey to European direct elections was taken when, in September 1976, 16 years after the Parliament had first submitted proposals for European elections, the Council of Ministers issued the Act concerning the election of the Members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage. Largely based on the Parliament’s 1974 draft convention, the Act set the number of Members of Parliament at 410. Furthermore, it confirmed a future uniform electoral procedure for all Member States, but without indicating a clear schedule for its implementation. In that respect, the Act contradicted the Parliament’s 1960 draft convention, but was in line with the 1974 draft convention, which was less ambitious and demanded a lower level of electoral uniformity across the Member States.

Crucially, direct elections were closely connected to the issue of extending the Parliament’s powers. To give meaning to the expected democratisation through European elections, substantially increasing the Parliament’s powers seemed imperative. The question was how best to organise this democratisation: by holding European elections first, and then increasing the Parliament’s powers, or the other way around. Parliamentary debates revealed a circular reasoning regarding the problem; however, the dominant opinion that emerged was that the Parliament would need to secure democratic legitimacy by holding direct elections first and then obtain more powers. On that basis, the Parliament demanded timely ratification of the Act by the Member States. The Council of Ministers decided that European elections should be held for the first time on a common date in 1978.

First European election, 1979

Despite the Council’s plan to hold elections in 1978, the first direct European election took place in 1979, as it was impossible for some Member States to adopt the relevant electoral laws in time for the election to take place earlier. A milestone in European integration history was reached when 180 million European citizens were called to vote for Members of the Parliament in June 1979. High-ranking politicians, such as the former German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, the leader of the Italian Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer, and the former French Minister of Health, Simone Veil, stood for election. The turnout in the first European election was around 63 %. Based on the election result, seven political groups were constituted at the Parliament’s opening session in July 1979. The Members voted for Simone Veil to become the first President of the first directly elected European Parliament. A Jewish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, Veil’s election can be seen as a symbolic stand against the nationalism that was one of the causes of the First and Second World Wars.

Building EU legitimacy and identity

With the introduction of European elections in 1979, the European Parliament is the world’s first international parliament representing a democratic system based on the element of participation that allows the greatest citizen involvement in politics. Held in five-year cycles over the past 40 years, direct elections have contributed both to deepening European integration and to strengthening the EU’s legitimacy. Despite its complexity, the EU’s decision-making systems are democratic, thanks in part to the directly elected Members of the Parliament. Moreover, in the last four decades, the Parliament has changed and developed enormously, gaining far-reaching legislative powers.

European elections 1984 to 2019

Alongside the constant increase in Parliament’s powers, however, turnout in European elections has persistently declined. While in the 1984 election the turnout, at 61 %, was close to the turnout in the first election, it fell to a historic low of 42 % in 2014. Over the years, European elections have also encountered political and institutional developments. For instance, the 2014 election introduced the ‘Spitzenkandidaten process‘, an approach whereby European political parties nominate their lead candidate ahead of the European elections, and the largest party after the election is considered to have a mandate to provide the Commission President.

In the 2019 European election, the turnout, at 51 %, increased for the first time since the first direct election in 1979, and reached the highest level of the last 20 years. In other words, more than 50 % of EU citizens eligible to vote took part in the election, making it the largest transnational election ever held. The electoral issues in the 2019 election, such as economic, monetary and environmental policy, did not differ significantly from those in past elections. In 1989, for example, environmental issues, especially water and air quality, were a clear common theme, just as climate protection issues figured largely in this year’s election.

European elections: a core element of EU’s political identity based on democracy

The EU’s political identity today is strongly rooted in the value of democratic principles. While the 1957 Rome Treaty did not mention democracy as a value underpinning the movement towards a ‘closer union’, democracy today forms a fundamental tenet of EU self-identification. In fact, the debates on holding European direct elections in the 1960s and 1970s widely contributed to defining the EU’s political identity as based on democracy. Introduced with the first European election in 1979, EU citizens’ right to vote for the Members of the Parliament is a core element of the EU’s democratic system.

Read this ‘At a glance’ on ‘European elections: A historical perspective‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

422252 Belarusian judges participating in an ODIHR seminar on international rule of law standards related to the right to a fair trial in criminal proceedings. Minsk, 6 June 2019. Public Affairs Unit, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Katya Andrusz

Fair trial rights in criminal justice topic of ODIHR event in Belarus

International rule of law standards related to the right to a fair trial in criminal proceedings was the topic of a training seminar organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) together with Belarusian judicial institutions on 6 June 2019 in Minsk.

International standards on procedural requirements, guarantees of the right to a fair trial, the principles of equality of arms in criminal proceedings and the right of victims and injured parties to legal assistance were the focus of this sixth in a series of seminars on rule of law issues. The seminars are part of the two-year, European Union-funded project Promoting Democratization and Human Rights in Belarus.

“The right to a fair trial is a crucial element of criminal justice based on the rule of law,” said Ghenadie Barba, Chief of the Rule of Law Unit at ODIHR. “The sharing of international standards and good practices of OSCE participating States in this regard plays an important role in promoting effective and human rights compliant criminal justice systems.”

The seminar was organized with the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus and the Institute for Re-training and Continuing Education of Judges and Personnel of Prosecutor’s Offices, Courts and Justice Institutions (IRCE) at the Belarusian State University.

“Improving and strengthening the fairness of the national justice system is inextricably linked with the implementation of generally recognized international standards in this area,” said Ludmila Zaitseva, Head of the Prosecution Activity Department at IRCE.

The training event involved 30 participants (17 women and 13 men), most of them judges. In addition to the training of some 200 legal professionals during thematic seminars, the project’s activities will also include exchange visits on rule of law and other justice-related issues.

Par Farid Abdeladim Décédé hier matin des suites d’une longue maladie, Fouad Boughanem, directeur-gérant du quotidien francophone Le Soir d’Algérie, a été inhumé hier au cimetière de Dély Ibrahim. Il a été accompagné à sa dernière demeure par une foule nombreuse. De nombreux confrères et des personnalités de différents horizons lui ont rendu un dernier […]

The post Le directeur de la publication du “Soir d’Algérie” Fouad Boughanem inhumé hier : Un professionnel doublé d’un homme de conviction appeared first on .

Heidi Klum – oder doch schon Kaulitz? Die Model-Mama unterschreibt schon mit einem neuen Nachnamen.

Par Salami Youcef Les réserves de changes, le seul levier dont dispose le pays pour maintenir un semblant d’ordre et de stabilité dans l’économie, perdent sérieusement de l’élan. En chiffres, elles sont passées à “79,88 milliards de dollars à fin décembre 2018, contre 97,33 milliards de dollars à fin 2017”, ce qui correspond à une […]

The post Les réserves de changes ont chuté à 79,88 milliards de dollars à fin 2018 : De grosses difficultés se profilent à l’horizon appeared first on .

The European Commission unveiled a whole series of country-by-country recommendations on Wednesday (5 June), including guidance on how to improve transport links and boost sustainability through shrewd investments.

Europas Währungshüter halten angesichts wachsender Risiken für die Konjunktur an ihrem Billiggeldkurs fest und verschieben eine mögliche Zinserhöhung mindestens auf die zweite Jahreshälfte 2020.

RFI Afrique - Au Sénégal, après la réaction du président Macky Sall à l’enquête sur l’attribution de marchés pétroliers de nos...