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In diesen Wochen findet der Prozess gegen Marius Borg Høiby statt. Ihm werden unter anderem Vergewaltigung, häusliche Gewalt und Drogenmissbrauch vorgeworfen. Blick hält dich über die Entwicklungen auf dem Laufenden.

Der Schweizer Franken kam am 7. Mai 1850 in Umlauf. Seither hat es neun Banknotenserien der Schweizerischen Nationalbank gegeben. Und für die zehnte ist jetzt das Design bekannt. Blick stellt Geldscheine von früher vor.

Die kantonale Asylunterkunft beim Bahnhof Wildegg AG soll drei weitere Jahre betrieben werden. Das Bauprojekt für das als Unterkunft genutzte, ehemalige Hotel verzögert sich. Die Unterkunft bietet Platz für bis zu 140 Personen.

This contribution to the Korean Development Institute's Knowledge Brief series contextualises and analyses the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-Operation and Development's reform plan, as published in January 2026.

This contribution to the Korean Development Institute's Knowledge Brief series contextualises and analyses the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-Operation and Development's reform plan, as published in January 2026.

This contribution to the Korean Development Institute's Knowledge Brief series contextualises and analyses the German Federal Ministry for Economic Co-Operation and Development's reform plan, as published in January 2026.

Sechs Schweizer Mitarbeitende verbleiben weiterhin in der Botschaft in Teheran. Diese soll weiterhin betrieben werden. Doch falls sich die Lage vor Ort verschlimmert, hat die Schweiz einen Notfallplan. Dieser heisst «AAD 10».

Lausanne hat in drei Tagen drei heftige Rückschläge erlitten – und sich in der Chefetage gleichzeitig neu aufgestellt. Rappelt sich das Team nun auf? Das Lausanne-Inside.

Immer wieder Ärger mit Rüdiger: Der deutsche Innenverteidiger in Diensten von Real Madrid wird zum Wiederholungstäter und sorgt mit einer brutalen Aktion gegen Getafe für viel Kopfschütteln und Unverständnis.

Trauer um Model und Schauspielerin Annabel Schofield. Die ehemalige Mode-Ikone, die auch in «Dallas» zu sehen war, ist an Krebs gestorben.

Den Schlussmonat dieses Rennwinters lancierte letzten Sonntag der Super-G in Soldeu. Vor dem Saisonfinale in Lillehammer bleiben den Speedfahrerinnen nur noch die Rennen im Val di Fassa. An die Premiere von 2021 hat Corinne Suter und die Schweiz beste Erinnerungen.

The government will end study visas from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, due to what she says is abuse.

Carlos Bernegger kommt, um Dennis Hediger herauszufordern. Sagt der FCZ-Trainer vor dem Heimspiel gegen Lausanne selber genau so. Das FCZ-Inside.

Tehran, the capital of Iran. Credit: Unsplash/Hosein Charbaghi. Source: UN News

By Jacqueline Cabasso and John Burroughs
OAKLAND, California, Mar 4 2026 (IPS)

Operation “Epic Fury” manifests an epic tantrum by President Donald Trump, supported by his sycophantic minions, with dire consequences for the people in the region, peace and security worldwide, the global economy, and the post-World War II international legal order.

The United States/Israeli bombing of Iran clearly violates fundamental rules of international law. It violates the sovereignty of Iran, contrary to Article 2(4) of the UN Charter which prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

There is no plausible case that the U.S. and Israel are acting in self-defense against an imminent attack. Nor is regime change an acceptable justification for use of force, as it runs directly counter to the injunction to respect the political independence of states.

Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, briefing reporters outside the Security Council, described the United States’ bombing in Iran as a “dangerous escalation.”
“I am gravely alarmed by the use of force by the United States against Iran today,” said the UN chief, reiterating that there is no military solution. “This is a dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge – and a direct threat to international peace and security.”

It is striking that the Trump administration has made no real effort to use multilateral mechanisms or to invoke international law. Both by its action and by its contempt for international law, the administration is accelerating the erosion of basic rules relating to use of force that has been underway for nearly three decades following the end of the Cold War.

The erosion of the legal framework formally limiting the use of armed force has been a long process, punctuated in the 21st century by increasingly frequent shocks of large-scale wars launched by major powers with less and less regard for international law and institutions.

The first of these was the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the stage set by the long, massive U.S. presence in and around Iraq in the 1990s and the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 2001. Unlike the Trump administration, the George W. Bush administration at least gestured toward providing an international law rationale for the invasion—but built its justifications for war on a foundation of lies.

Then came the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which both lacked any serious international law justification. There have been other instances of aggression in this century, such as the recent U.S. invasion of Venezuela to abduct its president. But U.S. actions in relation to Iraq, those of Russia in Ukraine, and the U.S./Israel bombing of Iran stand out as major developments in the erosion of rules on use of force.

Concerning Iran’s nuclear program, prior to the bombing it was not at a stage of development that provided any basis for a claim of self-defense. In general, it has appeared for many years that Iran had a uranium enrichment capability, in part in order to preserve the option of acquiring nuclear weapons at some point in the future, but had not made the acquisition decision.

And it was the United States, during the first Trump administration, that unilaterally withdrew from the painstakingly negotiated 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an international agreement that placed effective and verifiable restraints on Iran’s nuclear program.

Discussions of Iran’s program generally do not address the fact that Israel has a robust nuclear arsenal. In the long run it is not practical to allow some states to have nuclear weapons and to deny them to others. The most straightforward way to deal with problems posed by the actual proliferation of nuclear weapons, as in the case of North Korea, or their potential proliferation, as in the case of Iran, is to move expeditiously toward the global abolition of nuclear arms.

Another at least partial way is to build new regional nuclear weapons free zones. That approach has indeed been tried in the case of the Middle East. Both in the context of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and in the United Nations, there have been serious efforts to get negotiation of a Middle East zone underway, with Iran’s willing participation.

However, Israel and the United States have boycotted these efforts. This severely undercuts the legitimacy of their position as they claim to act to stop a menacing Iranian nuclear program.

What should be the response to these developments?

First, the invasion of Iran should be condemned as unlawful aggression, and the basic UN Charter rules should be defended, with the aim of at least preserving them for the future.

Second, it should be recognized that the world is undergoing a major transformation marked by the resurgence of authoritarian nationalism, with authoritarian ethno-nationalist factions in power or constituting significant political forces in many countries, including all of the nuclear-armed states.

There is a need for realism about the nature of the challenge, and for new thinking and innovative forms of advocacy and politics for a more fair, democratic, peaceful, and post-nationalist world.

Jacqueline Cabasso is the Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland, California; John Burroughs is a member of the organization’s Board of Directors.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Der grösste Schweizer Baukonzern Implenia hat vergangenes Jahr trotz etwas weniger Umsatz operativ mehr verdient. Die Aktionäre können sich freuen: Das Unternehmen erhöht die Dividende markant.

Nur gut zehn Minuten kommt Svenja Fölmli gegen Nordirland zum Einsatz, Doch die Freiburg-Stürmerin zeigt das, was ihre Kolleginnen vermissen lassen: Zielstrebigkeit und Effizienz. Mit ihrem Tor zum 2:0 macht sie sich zur grossen Siegerin des Abends.

Athletinnen und Athleten aus Russland und Belarus dürfen an den Paralympischen Winterspielen teilnehmen. Das löst in der Sportwelt grossen Unmut aus: Nun hat auch Deutschland einen Teil-Boykott der Eröffnungsfeier angekündigt.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) are non-state, not-for-profit, voluntary entities formed by people to address social, political, or environmental issues.

By Gina Romero
BOGOTA, Colombia, Mar 4 2026 (IPS)

A year has passed since a 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign assistance signaled the deepening of a structural dismantling of international solidarity. Today, the “existential threat” to the freedom of association I warned of in my report to last year’s General Assembly (A/80/219) is no longer a warning; it is a lived reality.

Thousands of civil society organizations (CSOs) worldwide have been reduced to their minimum or are completely vanishing, while others are forced into transformations that compromise their core missions. This is not only creating more victims of human rights violations but has also left prior victims alone.

For the freedom of association, the impact is devastating. The dismantling of USAID, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), and other dedicated funds from other countries has cut the lifelines for NGOs that served as democratic watchdogs worldwide (Refugees International).

Therefore, this is not merely a budgetary shift but a coordinated attack on the infrastructure of dissent. In the U.S., for example, foundations and nonprofits are facing “three overlapping crises” (Maecenata Stiftung, Refugees International, other):

• Policy Threats: Executive Orders targeting DEI and redefining “charitable” status to strip tax exemptions.

• Organizational Targeting: Explicit vilification of networks like the Open Society Foundations and investigative letters targeting major funders like the Gates and Ford Foundations.

• Mass Closings: Organizations are laying off up to 95% of staff, leading to a “generational funding collapse” of the humanitarian system.

In the meantime, worldwide we also see ultra-conservative anti-rights groups and autocratic regimes rushing to fill the vacuum left by established aid agencies. These groups are, among others, reshaping the global health landscape with actions that restrict reproductive rights and LGBTQI+ protections (The Guardian). In the Asia-Pacific region alone, 240 million young girls are facing a “coordinated global backlash” as programs focused on education and gender equality are the first to be cut (Women’s Agenda).

As I reported to the UN General Assembly last year, the right to association is an integral part of human nature. When states vilify aid as “criminal” or “corrupt,” they dismantle the lifelines that keep civic space alive (United Nations). We must restore a sustainable aid architecture that serves human dignity and the planet rather than private profit or political control.

But the impact on communities and individuals is far too grave. The data emerging in early 2026 is devastating. Since the 2025 freeze, researchers estimate the dismantling of U.S. foreign aid alone has already caused 750,000 deaths, over 60% of whom are children—a rate of 88 preventable deaths every hour (different sources).

Projections indicate that without restoration, 22.6 million people could die from preventable causes by 2030 (The Guardian).

The “hammer” thrown at the aid system has undone decades of progress:

• Access to justice: Deeply affected by terminated grants funding for community violence intervention programs, legal assistance for crime victims from underserved communities, court-appointed advocates for children in cases of abuse or neglect, services for victims of hate crimes, shutting down the safety net for domestic violence survivors and closing of shelters and hotlines, etc. (CIJ, LLF).

• Democracy and rule of law: Crisis in independent media and civil society reduces the critical voices that speak truth to the power and weakens checks and balances in democracies and hybrid regimes, while in authoritarian context the constraints of dissenting voices increases repression, especially against the most vulnerable groups (Global Democracy Coalition).

• Human rights: global and regional mechanisms of human rights protections have seen drastic cuts of funding, which jeopardize the human rights protections worldwide. The OHCHR received a 16% cut of its budget for 2026 and several Human Rights Council mandates are also being defunded, many tied to HHRR violations investigations in authoritarian states (ISHR).

• Global Health: Access to PrEP and life-saving HIV drugs has been halved for 80% of community organizations. Cholera deaths in the DRC alone surged by 361% in 2025 after essential water projects were halted (Oxfam).

• Education: The abrupt cancellation of nearly 400 USAID-funded education programs in 58 countries risks leaving millions of children—predominantly girls and refugees—without access to quality learning (ETF).

• Food Security: In West and Central Africa, 55 million people are expected to endure crisis levels of hunger, or worse by the end of the first semester of 2026, including over 13 million children are also expected to suffer from malnutrition during the year 2026 (WFP). In Afghanistan, monthly reach for emergency food aid plummeted from 5.6 million people to just 1 million (Refugees International).

Perhaps most alarming is the collapse of data collection systems. As USAID programs disappeared, so did the reporting requirements that tracked disease, death, and human rights violations (The Japan Times). We are entering a period where the true scale of suffering and needs may never be fully known (Refugees International).

Besides the cut of funding, the existential threat is also related to the reduction of possibilities of civil society organizations to collect new funding due to the increase of mis/disinformation about CSO work that lead to lack of trust in communities and therefore increases the shrinking civic space, already heavily affected by anti-NGO laws and persecution (Global aid freeze tracker).

We cannot allow a world without civil society. It is a world without hope, where the most vulnerable are left alone to face the most pressing human crises and wars. The international community must move beyond “business as usual” to restore a sustainable and just aid architecture that empowers civic engagement rather than advancing its suppression.

Gina Romero is UN Special Rapporteur, Freedom of Assembly and of Association.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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L'escalade militaire au Moyen-Orient relance en Bosnie-Herzégovine le débat sur l'influence iranienne. Entre accusations politiques, rappels historiques et relations aujourd'hui marginales, la question sert surtout de levier dans les tensions internes du pays.

- Le fil de l'Info / Une - Diaporama - En premier, Une - Diaporama, Radio Slobodna Evropa, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Relations internationales, Politique

L'escalade militaire au Moyen-Orient relance en Bosnie-Herzégovine le débat sur l'influence iranienne. Entre accusations politiques, rappels historiques et relations aujourd'hui marginales, la question sert surtout de levier dans les tensions internes du pays.

- Le fil de l'Info / Une - Diaporama - En premier, Une - Diaporama, Radio Slobodna Evropa, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Relations internationales, Politique