Feed aggregator

By Simone Galimberti
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Dec 2 2025 (IPS)

This coming International Volunteer Day (IVD), celebrated every year on 5 December, is special because the United Nations will launch the International Volunteer Year 2026 or IVY 2026.

This is going to be a great opportunity to reset the global agenda of volunteerism, one of the most important tools to promote civic engagement, the bedrock of our societies.

Civic engagement, expressed through volunteerism, can make local communities more inclusive and people-centered.

Because volunteerism in essence is by the people, for the people and with the people, it is not just a tool but a catalyst for meaningful human-to-human experiences.

If it can be designed, planned and managed properly, including investing in the people that are engaged in it and driving it, volunteerism provides unique opportunities to grow and become better human beings.

In an era in which artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly evolving and challenging some of the most foundational aspects of our lives, volunteerism could offer a new meaning and new ground to forge connections by helping others.

“In an era of political division and social isolation, volunteering offers a powerful way to forge connections and foster our shared humanity,” shares UN Secretary-General António Guterres in his official message for this year’s IVD.

Yet, almost inexplicably, volunteerism struggles to be recognized for its vital role and for the functions it plays in our lives. Volunteerism should be something that can really rally people together, a glue that can help with re-establishing connections with others.

In short, volunteerism is a precious, universal unifying element in our lives. Unfortunately, we are still unable to uphold its values on a daily basis but we are also far from practicing it, truly making it an inextricable part of our being. After all, there is a common understanding that policymakers around the world have more serious things to deal with.

Instead of considering volunteering as something transformational, it is just seen as something nice, while instead it should be at the core of any serious policy promoting social cohesiveness, something that should be a priority for any government.

But will IVY mark a turnaround? Will this special initiative really make a difference? Will IVY then be embraced by leaders in a tokenistic way as normally happens or will there be a serious effort to center volunteering as a key enabler of local well-being and prosperity?

These might sound like rhetorical questions that can be easily shrugged off and dismissed because there are more important issues to be worried about.

UNV, the United Nations program that is formally part of UNDP, has a unique role in boosting volunteerism around the world.

I personally have great admiration for this organization but unfortunately, it falls short of the urgent priority to turbo-charge volunteerism, spreading it and mainstreaming it. At the end I do believe that UNV is failing in what is its central mission.

Recently I came across a post on LinkedIn about how the government of Uzbekistan is stepping up its support for UNV. This should be great news because for too long, the agency was seen as too westernized, too much modeled to reflect only a certain and partial version of promoting and practicing volunteerism.

I do recognize and praise UNV’s efforts to change and embrace a more diverse strategic outlook and engage with emerging economies and new nations like Uzbekistan.

But as I was going through the post, I immediately felt that this new type of engagement was as much as promoting volunteerism as it was about strategically building a pipeline of future UN staff from the Central Asian nation.

Because UNV has always been an entry door to join the ranks of the United Nations system, and this is something that has always bothered me. I never understood why this agency should promote what are, in practice, full-time jobs that have, basically, nothing to do with volunteerism and are more similar to professional internships or fellowships that, in essence, offer cheaper manpower compared to the UN’s pay standards.

To me, this approach does not make sense. Then why do we not entrust UNOPS, the operational arm of the UN with the tasks of running schemes that can offer tangible opportunities to those youths who dream of joining the UN?

I am aware that the UN is undergoing a drastic overhaul. I am concerned about it but I also see this process, driven by immense aid cuts by the American and other administrations, as a chance to redeem the UN as a more effective development force.

I do not know what will happen to UNV. I do appreciate and value the part of the agency that tries to elevate volunteerism in the policy-making processes around the world.

This coming IVY could offer a great platform to better promote and pitch volunteerism around the world.

A new edition of The State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, a massive global undertaking, will also be unveiled. With the new global report, a new Framework for the Global Volunteer Index will also be launched, an undertaking led by the University of Pretoria.

Having more data, more parameters and indicators to measure and assess the numbers of volunteers around the world and, importantly, their impact, is essential.

In this type of task, UNV has developed a unique degree of expertise and it can really exercise the best of the convening powers that the United Nations has been famed for.

In the eventuality of any restructuring, this component of UNV must be not only protected and safeguarded but also boosted. Perhaps UNV needs to shed itself of the outsourcing and onboarding functions it ended up assuming.

They were not supposed to become so central in the agency’s identity but they became the most important component of the agency, budget-wise. Either another agency takes up these responsibilities or UNV can fully separate such functions from its core business agenda.

An autonomous, semi-independent function could operate as it is already working now but it should be sealed off from other dimensions.

This would constitute a semi-spin-off of the operation of placing full-time United Nations Volunteers (UNV Volunteers) in UN Agencies, a task that is deemed strategically important for many nations, as the case of Uzbekistan I ran into tells us.

In envisioning such restructuring, each government willing to sponsor its UNV volunteers should be charged an additional budget item that could be directed to support the core functions of UNV.

I still imagine UNV running volunteering schemes around the world but these should be part-time and only in partnership with civil society. The current model of UNV Volunteers should be rebranded and decontextualized from any association with volunteerism.

The reason for this is simple: these promising young professionals, all well-meaning and well-motivated, are not volunteers nor are they engaged in any volunteerism-centered activity.

If UNV wants to still facilitate and deploy full-time volunteers, then the model being championed by VSO, centered on partnership with local organizations and offering small living stipends to its volunteers, should be considered.

This year’s theme of IVD is “Every Contribution Matters.”

A new and different UNV, more grounded, agile and closer to local communities and civil society organizations, can be imagined, ensuring that every contribution would “really” matter.

Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations.

IPS UN Bureau

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

Lundi, les négociateurs du Parlement et du Conseil sont parvenus à un accord provisoire sur des règles révisées pour le régime commercial préférentiel de l’UE avec les pays en développement.
Commission du commerce international

Source : © Union européenne, 2025 - PE

People walk through a destroyed neighbourhood in Gaza City. Credit: UN News

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 2 2025 (IPS)

The revenues from arms sales and military services by the 100 largest arms-producing companies rose by 5.9 percent in 2024, reaching a record USD 679 billion, according to new data released by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Global arms revenues rose sharply in 2024, as demand was boosted by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, global and regional geopolitical tensions, and ever-higher military expenditure.

For the first time since 2018, all of the five largest arms companies increased their arms revenues, according to SIPRI, one of the authoritative sources for arms sales and global military spending.

Currently, a rash of armed conflicts and civil wars are taking place in Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Yemen, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Somalia and Western Sahara, among others, triggering a rising demand for arms from governments and rebel forces.

Although the bulk of the global rise was due to companies based in Europe and the United States, there were year-on-year increases in all of the world regions featured in the Top 100. The only exception was Asia and Oceania, where issues within the Chinese arms industry drove down the regional total, according to SIPRI

The surge in revenues and new orders prompted many arms companies to expand production lines, enlarge facilities, establish new subsidiaries or conduct acquisitions.

“Last year global arms revenues reached the highest level ever recorded by SIPRI as producers capitalized on high demand,” said Lorenzo Scarazzato, Researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

‘Although companies have been building their production capacity, they still face a range of challenges that could affect costs and delivery schedules.’

Of the 26 arms companies in the Top 100 based in Europe (excluding Russia), 23 recorded increasing arms revenues. Their aggregate arms revenues grew by 13 percent to USD 151 billion. This increase was tied to demand stemming from the war in Ukraine and the perceived threat from Russia.

But the rise in arms revenues and military spending also had a devastating impact on civilians, with a rise in death tolls.

As of mid-to-late November 2025, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that over 70,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war since October 7, 2023.

But estimates of the death toll in the Russia-Ukraine war vary widely and are difficult to verify, as both sides consider military casualty figures to be state secrets.

Still, the number of Russian military casualties (dead and wounded) is estimated by sources like the UK Ministry of Defense and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to be over 1 million, a “stunning and grisly milestone.”

Ukrainian military casualties (killed and wounded) are estimated at approximately 400,000.

Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine,” told IPS the business of war is the business of lucrative death, and never more so than in 2025.

“The buyers and sellers of high-tech weaponry are in a macabre embrace, and the results can be found on the battlefield, in civilian suffering, and in the less-obvious carnage of depleted resources as children starve while profiteers feast.”

The United States stands out as the world’s biggest arms merchant. No other country comes close. And in recent years, when it comes to putting armaments to aggressively lethal use, Russia has become a standout with its war in Ukraine and Israel has become a standout with its war in Gaza, said Solomon, who is also national director of RootsAction.

“It should be clearly understood that U.S. weapons makers have been deriving tremendous profits from the Ukraine war and from Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Those profits will continue as long as the mutual destruction of Ukrainian and Russian lives continues and as long as Israel maintains its policies of destroying the lives of Palestinian civilians.

“In a world where several countries are major arms exporters, all of whom should be condemned for their activities, the United States is far and away the leader in murderous commerce,” he pointed out.

The fact that the U.S. excels at such commerce is a marker for a moral corruption built into the country’s political economy and power structure of governance. Opposition movements, nonviolent and determined, will be essential to forcing an end to what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism,” he declared.

Dr. Simon Adams, international human rights expert and President and CEO of the Center for Victims of Torture, told IPS in this new age of impunity, increased conflict and creeping authoritarianism in so many parts of the world, there has been a sickening increase in global arms sales.

The guns, drones, missiles and other weapons are coming from the major arms manufacturing countries and companies, but it is civilians in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and elsewhere who pay with their lives, he said.

“There is a direct correlation between the increase in the global arms trade and the fact that 123 million people are currently displaced in the world – the highest number since the Second World War.”

“We need governments to invest more in humanitarian solutions to global problems, not spend billions of dollars more every year on the manufacture and marketing of shiny new killing machines.”

“I long for the day when the arms trader will be seen like a slave trader, sex trafficker or drug dealer – as an international outlaw and pariah. As someone involved in an immoral criminal enterprise that is antithetical to human progress,” he declared.

Asked for a response, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters December 1 about the
“obscene amount of money that is going to weapon sales compared to the struggle that we face every single day trying to fund our humanitarian operations.”

“We understand that Member States need to defend themselves and the need for military. But I think if you do a compare and contrast the amount of money that is flowing into that sector as opposed to the amount of money that is being sucked out of the humanitarian and development sectors, it should give us all food for thought,” he declared.

Meanwhile, in 2024 the combined arms revenues of US arms companies in the Top 100 grew by 3.8 percent to reach USD 334 billion, with 30 out of the 39 US companies in the ranking increasing their arms revenues, according to SIPRI.

These included major arms producers such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.

However, widespread delays and budget overruns continue to plague development and production in key US-led programmes such as the F-35 combat aircraft, the Columbia-class submarine and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Several of the largest arms producers in the US are affected by overruns, raising uncertainty about when major new weapon systems and upgrades to existing ones can be delivered and deployed.

‘The delays and rising costs will inevitably impact US military planning and military spending,’ said Xiao Liang, Researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme.

‘This could have knock-on effects on the US government’s efforts to cut excessive military spending and improve budget efficiency.’

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');  

AMENDMENTS 1 - 189 - Draft report Recommendation for the Council, the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on EU-China political relations
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Hilde Vautmans

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 189 - Draft report Recommendation for the Council, the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on EU-China political relations
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Hilde Vautmans

Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

Pierre Jakubowicz, Florian Kobryn et Virginie Joron ne partent pas favoris dans la course a la mairie strasbourgeoise, mais ils pourraient bien chambouler le scrutin en mars prochain.

In today's edition: hydrogen, power cable priorities, particulate matter

Plus SAFE plans, PURL pledges, and German-Polish cooperation

Dauer des Videos : 30'

Haftungsausschluss : Die Verdolmetschung der Debatten soll die Kommunikation erleichtern, sie stellt jedoch keine authentische Aufzeichnung der Debatten dar. Authentisch sind nur die Originalfassungen der Reden bzw. ihre überprüften schriftlichen Übersetzungen.
Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP

Length of video : 30'

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2025 - EP

« Je suis la résurrection et la vie. Celui qui croit en moi vivra, quand même il serait mort ». Jean 11v25.

Le Baloum Naaba Tanga II à Bilbalogho,

Les familles OUEDRAOGO, TAPSOBA, TIEMTORE, et TIENDREBEOGO à Bilbalogho.
Les Familles KOURAOGO, NIKIEMA à Ouagadougou,

Les enfants Adèle, Agnès, Alain et Pascal,
Les petits- enfants et arrières- petits enfants,

Les familles alliées, SAWADOGO, OUEDRAOGO KABORE, KIEMDE, BONKOUNGOU, NIKIEMA, SANKI et TOUGMA,

très touchés par les nombreuses marques de sympathie, de compassion et de soutien multiforme reçues lors de la maladie, du décès, de l'inhumation le 16/09/2025 et la messe de funérailles chrétiennes,

Le Dimanche 21 /09/2025 de leur nièce, sœur, mère, belle sœur,
belle-mère, grand-mère et arrière-grand-mère TAPSOBA Marcelline,

vous adressent leurs sincères remerciements à tous ceux qui de près ou de loin ont soutenu moralement, matériellement et financièrement lors de cette douloureuse épreuve. Ils se réservent de citer des noms de peur d'en oublier.

Que Dieu rende à chacun le centuple de ses bienfaits.

Les grandes familles Nebié, Napon, Nignan, Namoro à Sissili, Ouagadougou, Bobo-Dioulasso, Nevry, Abidjan, Koumassi au Ghana, Yelbouga, Yalé, Kayéro ;

Les familles alliées Nacro, Zizien, Diasso, Yago, Ido, Yaro, Konaté, Wangara, Biyen, Benao à Sissili, Biéha, Léo, Niaboury, Pissa et en Italie ;

Les aînés de la famille Nebié, les petits frères, tantes, fils et filles de feu Sa Majesté Nebié Boureima BAMINTIÉ, Chef de Sissili, rappelé à Dieu le mardi 18 novembre 2025 au CHU de Bogodogo à Ouagadougou, adressent leurs sincères remerciements à tous ceux qui, de près ou de loin, leur ont témoigné soutien, compassion et solidarité lors de l'accompagnement du défunt à sa dernière demeure.

La famille royale exprime sa profonde reconnaissance au Haut-commissaire de la province de la Sissili, au PDS ainsi qu'à l'ensemble des délégations administratives qui sont venues leur manifester un soutien indéfectible.
Que Dieu leur rende au centuple leurs bienfaits.

Par ailleurs, elle informe que le « doua » aura lieu le 7 décembre à 9h dans le village de Sissili.

Sa Majesté Nebié Boureima BAMINTIÉ n'est pas mort ! Il demeure parmi nous.

Comme le disait Birago Diop : « Les morts ne sont pas morts… »

Union de prières !

Russmedia Digital und Inform Media Press
Freizügigkeit

Datenschutz: Der Betreiber einer Online-Marktplatz-Website ist für die Verarbeitung der personenbezogenen Daten verantwortlich, die in den auf seiner Plattform veröffentlichten Anzeigen enthalten sind

Russmedia Digital and Inform Media Press
Freedom of movement for persons

Data protection: the operator of an online marketplace is responsible for the processing of personal data contained in advertisements published on its platform

Russmedia Digital és Inform Media Press
Személyek szabad mozgása  

Adatvédelem: az online piactér üzemeltetője a platformján közzétett hirdetésekben szereplő személyes adatok adatkezelőjének minősül

Russmedia Digital et Inform Media Press
Libre circulation des personnes

Protection des données : l’exploitant d’un site de marché en ligne est responsable du traitement des données à caractère personnel contenues dans les annonces publiées sur sa plateforme

In today's edition: This week's agenda

Stichting Right to Consumer Justice und Stichting App Stores Claims
Raum der Freiheit, der Sicherheit und des Rechts
Die niederländischen Gerichte sind zuständig für die Entscheidung über eine Verbandsklage wegen behaupteten wettbewerbswidrigen Verhaltens von Apple in Bezug auf seinen auf den Markt der Niederlande ausgerichteten App Store

Stichting Right to Consumer Justice and Stichting App Stores Claims
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
The Netherlands courts have jurisdiction to hear a representative action concerning the alleged anticompetitive conduct of Apple in relation to its App Store aimed at the Netherlands market