Afrique

Le président Abdelmadjid Tebboune a déclaré qu'il n'excluait pas la possibilité d'un acte criminel après le recensement de 100 feux de forêt.

Wir freuen uns mitzuteilen, dass seit heute die Ausschreibung der W3-Professur für Angewandte Sozialforschung und Surveymethodologie online ist. Die Professur ist mit der Leitung des Bereichs Surveymethodik und -management am Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP) des Deutschen Instituts für ...

Ça commence avec une histoire de frigo. Ça se poursuit avec un fumet de plan B. Question : comment passe-t-on de l'un à l'autre ?

- La pompe à phynance / Dette, Économie

Two ships were seized within four days last week raising to at least 13 the number attacked since January.

Rajendra Dawadi a immédiatement réagi après avoir reçu des avertissements concernant les eaux qui se dirigeaient vers son école.

Partial presidential election results are displayed on a screen at the Zambian Elections results center in Lusaka on 17 August 2026. Credit: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Aug 31 2026 (IPS)

On 24 August, police sealed off access to Zambia’s courts, closed the day before the deadline for petitions to challenge the results of the 13 August presidential election. The judiciary’s top official cited security reasons, but the timing left little doubt that authorities meant to block the defeated candidate’s legal challenge.

Official results gave the incumbent, Hakainde Hichilema, 60.49 per cent of the vote, comfortably ahead of challenger Brian Mundubile’s 37.87 per cent. Some results from the concurrent National Assembly vote remain pending, but Hichilema’s United Party for National Development (UPND) has also won a commanding majority over Mundubile’s National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity, part of the opposition’s Tonse Alliance.

Mundubile rejected the presidential election result and vowed to contest it in court, but an election night police raid forced him into hiding. Officers killed former minister Mutotwe Kafwaya and arrested 11 other opposition figures, blaming an exchange of gunfire and accusing Mundubile’s party of possessing weapons and planning an insurgency.

Hichilema came to power in 2021 by comfortably defeating President Edgar Lungu, whose crackdown on civic freedoms led to a polarised and violent campaign. Hichilema promised democratic renewal, pledging to strengthen human rights and the rule of law. However, after some initial positive changes, he’s overseen a slide back to the kind of practices he once campaigned against.

Pre-election crackdown

Hichilema’s margin of victory suggests he’d likely have won anyway, but the ruling party stacked the odds further in its favour while penalising the opposition. European Union observers described an ‘uneven playing field’, with misuse of state resources in favour of the UPND, voter inducements including cash handouts, heavy pro-government bias in state media, self-censorship driven by restrictive laws and police restrictions on campaign events. They also flagged a heavy and intimidating military presence at counting locations, weak security in vote tabulation and counting and a six-hour suspension of counting on election night, after which local officials appeared to be taking instructions from Electoral Commission headquarters before announcing results.

Civil society had already raised concerns about the make-up of the Electoral Commission, believing some of its members were UPND supporters, and judicial independence, after Hichilema appointed numerous new judges from UPND stronghold regions.

In December, parliament approved a law changing the electoral system. It expanded the number of constituencies and introduced a more proportional system with reserved seats for women, young people and people with disabilities. Civil society’s objections centred on the lack of consultation and the speed of these major constitutional changes, which raised suspicions they were intended to benefit the UPND.

As the vote got closer, authorities blatantly targeted opposition politicians, including by using the draconian Public Order Act. Last October, police arrested 12 people, including an opposition member of parliament, when they took part in a meeting Mundubile was expected to attend at a private home, charging them with conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace and participation in an unlawful assembly. In February, police arrested 16 Tonse Alliance members on the same unlawful assembly charge.

Opposition politicians also faced arrest for what would once have counted as the normal cut and thrust of political debate. One of the weapons authorities used was the 2025 Cyber Security Act, which expanded their power to criminalise online commentary and criticism.

In January, police arrested opposition member of parliament Miles Sampa after he alleged by-election fraud. In February, they arrested National Democratic Congress leader Mambwe Zimba over a Facebook post depicting Hichilema in a coffin. In March, they arrested Socialist Party leader Fred M’membe over radio comments about Hichilema and the political controversy over funeral plans for Lungu, who died in 2025. All three spent time in detention before being released on bail.

The crackdown even reached an event that should have showcased Zambia for the right reasons. In April, just days before RightsCon, the world’s largest gathering on digital rights, was due to open in the capital, Lusaka, the government effectively cancelled it. They postponed it at too short notice for rescheduling. Over 2,600 people had planned to attend and some were already on their way. Authorities cited unspecified concerns about some speakers’ clearances and demanded more information on discussion topics. The government evidently didn’t want debate about issues it deemed controversial, including its human rights record. Zambian officials were also reportedly pressured by China, a key investor, over the planned participation of Taiwanese civil society representatives.

Time to restore freedoms

Zambians remain proud of their democracy, which has seen three peaceful handovers since multiparty elections returned in 1991. Hichilema should get democracy back on track by restoring all the freedoms that have been compromised. That starts with reversing regressive laws typically rushed through parliament with little consultation, including the Cyber Crimes Act and others that restrict online speech. The government must also commit to respecting media freedoms and letting the political opposition play its proper democratic role.

The government should replace the colonial-era Public Order Act. Hichilema vetoed its proposed replacement, the Public Gatherings Bill, passed by parliament in May. Civil society had raised concerns about the bill’s broad granting of discretionary powers to law enforcement officers and imposition of criminal sanctions. Zambia needs a law that allows peaceful protests and doesn’t criminalise organisers and participants. Civil society has also raised concerns about an NGO Bill that would grant the government extensive powers to regulate, suspend and dissolve civil society organisations. This bill must advance no further.

Three decades of peaceful transitions made Zambia a regional democratic beacon. Keeping it one requires a government that respects dissent, and a civil society free enough to make sure it does.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

 

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MEPs will review current challenges and plans to tackle them with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on 16 September 2026.

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Closing plenary at UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Credit: Anastasia Rodopoulou/ENB-IISD

By Kizito Makoye
DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 31 2026 (IPS)

When the rains fail across Tanzania’s northern Maasai Steppe, herders drive their cattle farther in search of pasture and water.

Boreholes run low. Cattle lose weight, milk yields fall and families begin selling cows, often their main source of livelihood. If the dry spell persists, herds can die, leaving families facing hunger.

What is happening on the Maasai Steppe is part of a wider debate over how the world’s rangelands should be restored. At the UN desertification summit in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, governments backed a $1.2 billion programme to restore rangelands, alongside measures to repair degraded land and prepare for drought.

For African pastoralists, the question is whether that money will reach them before the next drought.

Governments, meanwhile, failed to seal a global drought agreement, pushing the dispute into another round of negotiations in Egypt in 2028.

The consequences are particularly serious in Africa, where millions depend on livestock for food and income. Restoring pasture could help pastoralists survive dry years, but it will not solve the problem if grazing routes disappear, drought warnings arrive too late or funds fail to reach the people managing the land.

“The $1.2 billion Rangelands Flagship Initiative is an important recognition that rangelands are not wastelands or marginal areas,” said Ephraim Mtengeti, Professor of Range Sciences at Sokoine University of Agriculture.

“They are productive ecosystems that support millions of people, livestock, biodiversity and important ecological functions. For Africa, where pastoralism remains central to rural livelihoods, giving these landscapes greater financial and political attention is long overdue.”

The 45 projects sit within a wider $1.3 billion programme covering land restoration and drought measures in 23 countries. About $644.5 million is new finance, while another $216 million had already been confirmed.

The pledge is substantial, but it is small compared with the scale of the funding gap. The UN Convention to Combat Desertification estimates that about $355 billion a year will be needed until 2030 to meet global land-restoration commitments. Current investment is about $77 billion.

That leaves a shortfall of roughly $278 billion a year.

Private finance accounts for only about 6% of restoration investment. Governments and development agencies are therefore looking to blended finance, using public money to make projects that might otherwise appear too risky more attractive to private investors.

Many of the benefits of restoring rangelands, however, are difficult to turn into financial returns.

Peter Bakker, president and chief executive of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, said companies were willing to invest but needed projects that could make money.

“Business does not lack appetite for resilient supply chains, secure water and productive soil – it lacks bankable projects, credible data and a fair share of the early risk,” he said.

Mtengeti agreed that private investment was needed but warned against judging restoration solely by the returns it could generate.

“The financing gap is enormous, so it is understandable that COP17 is looking towards private capital and blended finance,” he said.

“But investors will naturally look for financial returns, whereas many of the most important benefits of rangeland restoration — water security, biodiversity, carbon storage, food security and social stability — are public goods.”

Rangelands as Economic Infrastructure

Rangelands cover about 54% of the Earth’s land surface and support roughly 2 billion people, including 500 million pastoralists. They provide pasture for livestock while storing carbon, supporting biodiversity and helping regulate water.

Restoration could generate $4 to $6 for every dollar invested, rising to as much as $36 when wider public benefits are included.

Restoring rangelands in Africa cannot simply mean fencing off land or imposing farming models designed for settled communities.

Pastoralism depends on mobility. Herders move livestock as pasture and water shift, sometimes crossing national borders.

“Rangelands cannot be restored effectively by treating them like a conventional agricultural field,” Mtengeti said.

“These are dynamic ecosystems, and pastoral mobility is one of the mechanisms through which livestock production adapts to variable rainfall and pasture availability.”

The pressure on grazing land is also increasing. Farms, roads, conservation areas and settlements are taking up more dryland, leaving less room for herders. During drought, the pressure becomes acute as people and livestock crowd around the few remaining sources of grass and water.

“Drought does not respect political boundaries,” Mtengeti said. “Pastoral systems in East Africa are interconnected, and livestock movements often respond to ecological conditions rather than national borders.”

Who Gets the Money?

COP17 also highlighted a shift towards larger, landscape-wide projects rather than small, isolated conservation schemes.

They include Kenya’s TWENDE programme, locally led adaptation financing across Africa, the $35 million Herding for Health initiative and a $100 million African Development Bank programme covering the Zambezi River Basin.

Scale alone, however, will not guarantee better results. Money can still go astray when land rights are disputed, local authorities are weak or communities struggle to gain access to funds.

“Communities should not be treated merely as beneficiaries of projects designed somewhere else,” Mtengeti said.

“They have knowledge of their landscapes, their grazing patterns and how ecosystems respond to climatic variability. That knowledge must inform the design and implementation of restoration programmes.”

Access to international finance presents another obstacle.

“If international finance remains locked behind complicated procedures that local organisations cannot access, then some of the people most exposed to drought will continue to receive the least support,” Mtengeti said.

The Drought Gap

The failure to agree on a global drought agreement was one of COP17’s biggest setbacks. The issue had already been left unresolved at COP16. Governments remained divided over whether such an agreement should be legally binding, leaving the decision until 2028.

“The postponement of a global drought instrument is disappointing because drought is no longer an occasional shock that communities can simply recover from,” Mtengeti said.

“In many dryland areas, repeated droughts are eroding livestock assets, weakening household incomes and undermining the ecological foundation on which pastoral livelihoods depend.”

Governments do not have to wait for a global agreement. More than 70 countries now have national drought plans, compared with only three in 2013.

COP17 also launched the Drought Resilience Investment Facility, which aims to raise up to $400 million from public and private sources.

Finance will also have to be matched by preparedness. Early-warning systems, reliable data, functioning institutions and water infrastructure are crucial, as is acting before drought develops into a humanitarian emergency.

“Countries should not wait for a global instrument before strengthening their own drought preparedness and investing in anticipatory action,” Mtengeti said.

The deadlock over drought came despite progress elsewhere at the summit.

Joao Campari, global food and agriculture leader at WWF, said the summit had given greater prominence to rangelands, grasslands and nature-positive farming.

“Yet hope alone will not protect nature, limit climate change or put food on the table. COP17 has laid strong foundations, but the focus must now shift to implementation on the ground and supporting local communities to deliver lasting benefits for all,” he said.

Where Will the Money Come From?

Closing the funding gap will also require governments to change policies that continue to undermine land resilience.

The UNCCD estimates that about $2.4 trillion in public finance supports environmentally harmful subsidies. Redirecting even part of that money could dwarf many of the commitments announced in Ulaanbaatar.

Governments must also protect grazing corridors, strengthen community land rights and ensure that the people managing the land receive a meaningful share of investment.

“Healthy rangelands are economic infrastructure,” Mtengeti said.

“They support livestock production, food security, employment, water systems and biodiversity. When these landscapes degrade, the costs are eventually borne by households and governments through livestock losses, food insecurity, humanitarian assistance and environmental damage.”

For pastoralists, the outcome of COP17 points to a basic reality: rangelands cannot be treated as empty land waiting for a more profitable use. They are part of the economic infrastructure on which food supplies, livelihoods and climate resilience depend.

Mtengeti said the summit had moved rangelands higher up the international agenda but that the commitments would need to be followed by action in pastoral areas.

“COP17 should therefore be seen as a step forward, but not as a solution,” he said. “The financing commitments are encouraging, and the greater attention to rangelands is important. But Africa’s dryland communities need action that is predictable, locally grounded and delivered before drought becomes a crisis.”

When governments meet again in Egypt in 2028, the value of the Mongolian pledges will be judged by what has happened in the drylands: whether pasture has recovered, livestock can move safely, communities have gained access to finance and drought losses are falling.

For pastoralists, the pledges will ultimately be measured during the next drought, when they need pasture, water and support to keep their herds alive.
IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Char residents crossing the Jamuna River by boat (Stock photo, 2016).

By Mohammad Zaman
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Aug 31 2026 (IPS)

Bangladesh’s riverine and coastal chars have always been landscapes of movement, but climate change is making that movement more violent, frequent, and unequal. The shifting islands of the Jamuna, Brahmaputra, Padma, and other rivers now reveal how climate stress multiplies deprivation, weakens citizenship, and forces char dwellers to absorb the costs of a crisis they did little to create.

After years of researching and writing about Bangladesh’s chars, I see them not as marginal landscapes, but as frontline climate geographies. They show how river erosion becomes repeated displacement, flooding brings livelihood collapse, and administrative neglect heightens vulnerability. Char people rebuild, migrate, and diversify under extreme uncertainty, but their resilience should not be romanticized. It is being stretched by intensifying hazards and institutions still designed for fixed land, fixed addresses, and orderly poverty. This is why the issue should be framed not simply as adaptation to hazards, but as a question of rights. The central problem is not that char dwellers fail to cope with a moving river; it is that institutions repeatedly ask them to cope without secure recognition, services, or protection.

Mohammad Zaman

Among the many myths about char people, the most dangerous is that they are naturally resilient. The phrase is flattering but evasive: it turns political abandonment into cultural strength. Families rebuild homes on land that may disappear, cultivate fields that may be swallowed before harvest, and send children to distant or fragile schools. These are not free choices; they are decisions made within a landscape shaped by erosion, floods, poverty, invisibility, and underinvestment.

Chars are marginal because state planning treats them as temporary spaces for poor and landless people. Some estimates suggest that chars cover roughly 8% of Bangladesh’s land area and are home to 15 to 20 million people. For char communities, migration is not a rupture in char life; it is a recurring way of organizing and rebuilding, often annually. But climate change is turning mobility from strategy into necessity. For many char dwellers, migration may begin as seasonal labour, become repeated relocation, and finally harden into permanent detachment from land, kinship, and legal security.

In 2024, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s Bangladesh country profile, monsoon floods triggered 1.3 million movements, while its disaster displacement risk reporting records more than 21 million disaster displacements in Bangladesh between 2008 and 2024. Among char people, climate change is felt through household decisions made under pressure: whether to rebuild on the same island, move to another char, keep children in school, or migrate to Dhaka for work. These choices are rational and strategic, but the field of options is narrowing under climate stress, vulnerability, and social exclusion.

Migration from char areas also reflects intelligence and aspiration: young people leave for wages, education, electricity, phones, clinics, and futures beyond subsistence and uncertainty. The tragedy is that climate-stressed households often move without skills, savings, documents, safe housing, or labour protection. The river follows them into the garment line, the rickshaw garage, the brick kiln, the domestic workplace, and the rented slum room.

How should these heightened risks from flooding and displacement be addressed? Adaptation is necessary, but it is not enough. Raised plinths, early warnings, flood-resistant crops and community preparedness may save lives, yet adaptation without land rights, education, healthcare, social protection and safe migration routes becomes a way of managing dispossession. Climate change deepens vulnerability because it strikes people who already lack secure tenure, dependable services and political recognition.

In Bangladesh, climate policy should stop treating char dwellers as humanitarian exceptions and start treating them as political subjects. Public services must be redesigned for moving landscapes through boat schools, mobile clinics, digital civil registration, portable social protection, and weather-responsive transport. Land administration must recognize erosion and accretion, while migration should be planned as adaptation through skills training, safe housing, labour rights, and social insurance. Gender must be central to this agenda. Women and girls often carry these risks most directly, through interrupted schooling, unsafe travel for work or services, increased care burdens during floods, and reduced voice in decisions about land, migration, and relief. Policies that imagine the household as a single male-headed unit misread both vulnerability and agency.

The politics of the char is the politics of who counts in a warming world. Fixed maps assume that citizenship has a stable address and that development follows roads. Char life challenges those assumptions. It shows that climate vulnerability is produced not only by hazards, but by institutions unable or unwilling to recognize lives shaped by unstable land.

Bangladesh can praise char people for endurance, or it can confront the uncomfortable truth: the river will keep moving; that is its nature. But if the rights of char people move more slowly than the river, the failure is political. Their future will not be secured by teaching them to adapt endlessly to disappearance, but by ensuring that no citizen has to prove belonging on land that may not be there tomorrow.

The experience of Bangladesh’s char dwellers shows that climate change is not only an environmental crisis, but also a crisis of rights, recognition, and governance. River erosion, floods, and displacement become devastating because they intersect with insecure land tenure, weak services, gendered risks, and limited political voice. A just response must therefore go beyond short-term adaptation and treat char communities as full citizens whose mobility, livelihoods, and claims to belonging deserve protection in a warming and increasingly unstable world.

Dr. Mohammad Zaman has lived and conducted extensive field research in the Kazipur-Sirajganj chars and has written widely on char land tenure, livelihoods, and social organization. He is the lead editor, with Mustafa Alam as co-editor, of Living on the Edge: Char Dwellers in Bangladesh (Springer, 2021). He can be reached at mqzaman.bc@gmail.com.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Seit der Teillegalisierung diskutieren wir über Cannabis. Doch dessen Konsum ist gar nicht gestiegen. Ein Blick ins Abwasser zeigt: Die wahren Drogenprobleme sind andere., Die Teillegalisierung von Cannabis vor zwei Jahren hat die Gesellschaft gespalten. Innenminister Alexander Dobrindt etwa spricht von einem richtigen »Scheißgesetz«, auch andere sparen nicht an harscher Kritik. Dabei deutet eine ausgewogene, wenn auch bislang vorläufige Betrachtung der Zahlen darauf ...

De la brousse aux marchés, le Madd de Casamance est une source de revenus pour les communautés locales.

Artiste bulgare et figure reconnue dans le domaine de la médaille d'art contemporain, Nadia Rozeva offre un aperçu de sa sensibilité unique à travers 50 œuvres créées entre 2002 et 2026.
Intime par nature et conçue pour être touchée, la médaille est une forme sculpturale de petite dimension, à la fois puissante et singulière. C'est un récit tactile, où la perception de son poids physique offre un ancrage sensoriel aux thèmes explorés et rend l'abstrait tangible.
Par le langage laconique (…)

- Agenda / Bulgarie, Région parisienne

Trois chefs-d'œuvre, trois styles, un seul sujet : l'après. Parce que les Japonais ont quelque chose que nous, « Occidentaux » n'avons pas : Hiroshima et Nagasaki. 

- Contrebande / Japon, Armement nucléaire, Bande dessinée

Committee meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Lars Løkke Rasmussen (right), Minister for Foreign Affairs of Denmark and President of the Security Council for the month of August, addresses the Security Council meeting entitled ‘Food Under Fire: The Security Council's Role in Mitigating Global and Local Food Crises’, under the agenda item of maintenance of international peace and security. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 28 2026 (IPS)

Across the board, UN officials and humanitarian organizations urged the Security Council to act before the consequences of food insecurity and famines hit, during a high-level open debate on Tuesday, August 25. More than 80 representatives took part in Tuesday’s conversation on conflict-related food insecurity under the theme “Food under fire: the Security Council’s role in mitigating global and local food crises”.

In 2018, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2417, which strongly condemned the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, as well as the unlawful denial of humanitarian access. Resolution 2417 solidified the link between armed conflict and food insecurity. Most importantly, the resolution stated the Security Council’s willingness to consider adopting sanctions against individuals or entities deliberately obstructing the delivery and distribution of humanitarian assistance. The resolution was a landmark achievement that, for the first time, treated hunger not as a result of war but as a humanitarian security threat that the Security Council is obligated to protect.

Eight years after resolution 2417 was passed, 2025 marked the highest year on record of global acute hunger, with more than 266 million people facing acute food insecurity and, for the first time this century, two famines simultaneously confirmed in Sudan and Gaza. On Tuesday, August 25, representative after representative discussed how resolution 2417 has gone largely unused.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened Tuesday’s session reminding the members of the sanction provisions in the resolution, stating: “This council expressed its willingness to consider information on the unlawful denial of humanitarian access and take appropriate steps, including sanction measures.” Guterres explicitly called on the Security Council “to make every effort to ensure accountability”.

Denmark’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, presided over the session and candidly stated how “resolution 2417 [is] a powerful tool, but its potential remains untapped, particularly when it comes to early warning.” Testament to that fact is how the resolution’s original text cited 74 million people worldwide facing conflict-induced hunger, a figure that has now doubled to 147 million people.

During Tuesday’s session, the representatives present, notably the elected members of the Security Council, narrowed in on the same point, that being that the famines occurring worldwide are completely preventable.

While discussing the famines in Sudan and Gaza, Dace Melbārde, Latvia’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, called the dual crises proof that “these famines are not natural disasters. They are man-made, and they are entirely preventable”. Ms. Melbārde urged the Security Council to “consider targeted sanctions and other appropriate measures against those who deliberately weaponize food and obstruct humanitarian access,” warning that “impunity cannot become another driver of hunger.”

“This is not fate. It is a choice. And when there is a choice, there is culpability,” said Lewis Garsheedah Brown, II, Liberia’s Permanent Representative to the UN. Brown also focused on how the dual famines devastating Sudan and Gaza are not fate or acts of nature, but instead predictable results of the Security Council’s inaction.

Carl Skau, the Acting Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), admitted institutional failure when it came to acting on the warning signs of Sudan’s famine. Examining Sudan’s Darfur region, Mr. Skau said: “We all saw the atrocities in al-Fashir coming, but the international community, including this Council, failed to act on those warnings.” Mr. Skau went on to say that “waiting for famine to be declared is a total failure of duty”. The famine in Sudan was compared to the crisis in 2017 and 2022 in Somalia, where early implemented Security Council-backed action helped to avert catastrophic famine.

Perrine Benoist, Co-CEO, Action Against Hunger and Member of the Global Coalition Against Conflict and Hunger (Rule 39), addresses the Security Council meeting. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Also during Tuesday’s session, Dr. Perrine Benoist, Co-CEO of Action Against Hunger, presented figures that highlighted the level of inaction the Security Council has taken despite the universal adoption of resolution 2417. Dr. Benoist detailed how there have been more than 9,300 incidents where conflict-related violence impacted food systems in over 45 countries. These incidents include more than 3,200 bombings of markets, agricultural land and water systems.

“Time and again, its provisions have been violated by parties to conflict, while implementation by the members of this Council has fallen far short of what the resolution demands,” Dr. Benoist said of resolution 2417.

However, despite the emphasis placed on strengthening and acting on resolution 2417, not every representative agreed to the scale of the action on Tuesday. Ambassador Vassily A. Nebenzia of the Russian Federation rejected the calls from other representatives to broaden the resolution’s application. Mr. Nebenzia argued that “resolution 2417 does not need an expanded interpretation or new mechanisms. It requires country-interest application where conflict does indeed create hunger.”

For the millions living through the famines in Sudan and Gaza and the tens of millions the WFP warned could be pushed into food insecurity, the consequences of the Security Council’s inaction are not abstract.

“We cannot wait for famine or catastrophic conditions to be formally confirmed,” said Guterres. “I call on this Council to act when the warning lights are flashing.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Credit: United Nations

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 28 2026 (IPS)

As the UN commemorates its 81st anniversary, one lingering question remains: what is the future of the world body.?

Will a hostile US downsize its operations at the United Nations, cut down its funding, continue defaulting in its payments — and perhaps eventually, withdraw from the world body?

So far, the US has pulled out of three UN agencies and one UN-affiliated body — including the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—and the Human Rights Council.

Is the UN far behind.?

Reports of a US visa denial to a Palestinian delegation to the General Assembly sessions next month, triggered several questions at a press briefing last week: “Don’t you think it’s a good idea to relocate the UN headquarters somewhere else in the world? Can the Secretary General initiate such a process? If there is such a process, how will it work? And will the United States take the United Nations hostage?”

In his response, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters: “This is an issue for Member States. If I’m not mistaken, the seat of the UN is listed in the charter. This city and the United Nations have had a joint history for the last 81 years, and I think all in all it’s been a good history.”

Question: “The U.S. is saying that they will deny the Palestinian delegation visas to come to the General Assembly. Are you aware of this? And is the UN doing anything about it?”

“Yes, we’ve seen those reports. It is very important for us that the United States honor its responsibilities under the host treaty agreement. We will continue to push for that. But at this point, we’ve only seen the press reports”.

According to one report, the US has withdrawn from 31 UN-related entities and bodies under a presidential memorandum signed on January 7, 2026, adding to prior departures from major agencies like the World Health Organization and UNESCO.

The January 2026 directive on withdrawals impacts largely targeting initiatives related to climate, development, and social policy. Key departures include the UNFCCC and IPCC (climate), UN Women and UNFPA (social/health), UNCTAD (trade), and various regional commissions and offices, including UN-Habitat

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and Program Director for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on the politics of the United Nations, told Inter Press Service (IPS) the makeup of the Security Council, having the headquarters of the United Nations located in the United States, is an outdated relic of World War II.

For most of the UN’s history, he pointed out, the United States has vetoed far more otherwise-unanimous UNSC resolutions than any other country. And, Washington has repeatedly reneged on its financial obligations.

Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, said Dr Zunes, the U.S. has repeatedly attacked UN institutions, including its judicial bodies, humanitarian organizations, and investigative commissions, particularly in regard to the enforcement of international humanitarian law.

“The U.S. wars on Iraq and Iran and the U.S. recognition of Israeli and Moroccan annexations of territories seized by military force have underscored a brazen disregard for the foundational principles of the UN Charter”.

“And the refusal to allow a delegation of a permanent observer member state (Palestine) is a direct violation of the U.S.-UN agreement making New York the world body’s headquarters”.

Despite this, there are certainly major logistical, financial, and institutional reasons why it would not make sense for the United Nations to remove its headquarters from New York.

“The very fact that it is even being discussed, however, is indicative that the United States is increasingly becoming an international pariah and an ironic choice as the host nation,” declared Dr Zunes.

Dr James E. Jennings, President, Conscience International, told IPS It is likely that the US will continue to withdraw funding from the UN, a process that has already begun by defunding certain agencies with the aim of bringing it further under the control of Washington.

Failing that, he said, Trump may attempt to establish an alternative body dominated by the US, forcing nations to choose allies and sidelining the UN. “Under today’s conditions, any breakdown of the UN’s rules-based order would be a sure trigger for global conflict”.

Q: Can the US restructure the UN to do its bidding?

A: Continued efforts by the US government to restructure the UN and its programs are more likely than an attempt to move the UN HQ from New York. The Security Council is useful to Washington because it can serve as a whipping post for global grievances, as notably during the Cold War in opposing the long series of “nyet” from the East Bloc, but also more recently by taking its hands off when Washington wanted to go to war in the Middle East.

Many observers believe President Trump is acting belligerently to merely exercise influence over the UN, but that would be a woeful misjudgment of the man and his methods. In fact, he seeks to completely dominate the world body, not simply make changes.

Anyone who has noticed his boast earlier this year that he should be recognized as the most powerful person who has ever lived, should take him at his word.

His ego, like the bottomless pit of Hell in the Biblical Book of Revelation, is a veritable Black Hole, knowing no limit to its depth.

How realistic his goal may be is another matter. But since money moves most things, and US largess has been one key to the UN’s successful operations over many decades, all bets are off until Congress gains the courage to undo his bidding.

Undoubtably, the UN’s key structures are being tested. The long-term consequences of great power manipulation of the UN are troubling, as evidenced by Exhibit One: the virtual erasure of Palestinian national rights over three quarters of a century.

The Truman Administration’s influence on weak countries to vote for the 29 November 1947 Partition of Palestine forced the creation of Israel against the wishes of the native Arab population and violated the spirit of the UN Charter.

Without fundamental changes in the Charter, the General Assembly’s influence cannot replace the Security Council’s dominance of global policy. A complete US withdrawal from the UN, or the creation of an alternative body dominated by Washington, would condemn the current organization to go the way of the late lamented League of Nations., declared Dr Jennings.

According to one report, the United Nations is decentralizing operations from New York under the UN@80 reform initiative, relocating several global offices and hundreds of positions to regional hubs.

Relocated Global Offices and Agencies

• UNICEF(United Nations Children’s Fund): Relocating global office functions from New York to Nairobi, Kenya.
• UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund): Moving global office operations from New York to Nairobi, Kenya.
• UN Women: Shifting global office operations and headquarters-funded posts from New York to Nairobi, Kenya, and Bonn, Germany.
• UNDP (United Nations Development Programme): Relocating hundreds of posts from New York to Europe (primarily Bonn and Madrid) alongside additional regional shifts.

Meanwhile, when Yasser Arafat was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva– perhaps for the first time in UN history– providing a less-hostile political environment and a platform, for the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement in Geneva by remarking: “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honorable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.

On his 1974 visit to address the General Assembly, he avoided the hundreds of pro and anti-Arafat demonstrators outside the UN building by arriving in a helicopter which landed on the North Lawn of the UN campus adjoining the East River.

Incidentally, when anti-Arafat New York protesters on First Avenue shouted: “Arafat Go Home”, his supporters responded that was precisely what he wanted—a home for the Palestinians to go to.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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The consequences of flooding extend far beyond damaged roads and infrastructure. They reach America’s farmlands, the soul of America’s food supply. Credit: Shutterstock

By Esther Ngumbi and Christy Gibson
URBANA, Illinois, US, Aug 27 2026 (IPS)

Across the U.S. Midwest, from Illinois to Indiana to Ohio, severe storms and heavy rains  caused devastating flooding, extensive damage to infrastructure, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. The historic scale and severity of flooding led to the issuance of disaster proclamations for the States of Illinois and Indiana.

Often underestimated and overlooked are the devastating and economically costly consequences of flooding for agriculture, crop production, agroecosystems, and, most importantly, America’s Midwest region’s critical infrastructure: its farmlands which lead the nation in the production of major crops, including corn and soybeans, collectively contributing to the United States agriculture  sector that is valued at $1.5 trillion.

Policymakers must pay attention to flooding and recognize it as a serious threat to American agriculture, with devastating impacts on America’s food supply, farm incomes, and national food security

This needs to change. Policymakers must pay attention to flooding and recognize it as a serious threat to American agriculture, with devastating impacts on America’s food supply, farm incomes, and national food security. Furthermore, evidence shows that the impacts of flooding on agriculture are comparable to those of drought, making a focus on flooding even more urgent.

Five reasons stand out as to why policymakers must pay attention to intensifying flooding events in the Midwest and their consequences for Midwestern agriculture.

First, the U.S. Midwest region is central and backbone of the American Nation’s food and energy systems. In 2024, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota alone produced more than half of the nation’s corn and soybeans. Furthermore, the importance of Midwest grown crops like corn extends beyond food and livestock feed. Data evidence shows that over 40% of U.S. grown corn has been used for ethanol production. When flooding disrupts Midwestern agriculture, the consequenses can reach beyond our food system and into America’s energy systems.

Second, flooding not only threatens crop production, but it also negatively impacts soil, soil functions, quality and countless number soil dwelling species including earthworms, and beneficial soil microbes, which are foundational ingredients to resilient agricultural production and functioning agroecosystems. These consequenses can persist long after flooding waters have receded, potentially affecting crop growth and productivity in subsequent seasons.

Third, flooding imposes costs on the insurance industry and other stakeholders supporting Midwest agriculture. From 1989 to 2020, excess moisture was the fastest-growing cause of loss reported to the USDA Risk Management Agency, increasing in 97 percent of the counties reporting, while total inflation-adjusted crop insurance indemnities rose 374 percent.

Of the $21.94 billion in crop and rangeland losses in 2023, nearly $10 billion was not covered by RMA programs, and excessive precipitation, flooding, and hurricanes accounted for $3.99 billion of the total. These costs also affect the businesses that transport crops: when flooding disrupts roads, rails, and rivers serving local grain elevators, those elevators pay farmers about 24 cents less per bushel for corn and 32 cents less per bushel for soybeans.

Fourth, our models are most confident that spring precipitation will increase by ~25-50% by the late century. However, single-day extreme precipitation events and excess summer precipitation are less predictable; one such event was the recent flash flooding across the Midwestern corridor this August.

This is especially concerning given that crops are in the reproductive stage and close to harvest, when farmers have already incurred the costs of this season’s crops and crops may have been affected by wet soil earlier in the season.

Waterlogging at reproductive stages has been estimated globally to reduce yields by 41.9 percent, compared with 34.8 percent at vegetative stages. Fields already stressed by wet soils earlier in the season may be damaged by both events. The loss in crop yields could be catastrophic for an already vulnerable sector.

Fifth, current policies are not keeping pace with the changing timing of flooding events. Although the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place several Federal programs to assist farmers, including prevented planting coverage, disaster and conservation assistance, and crop insurance, and continues to update these programs, many of these work best for flooding that happens early in the growing season rather than for flooding that devastates established crops later in the growing season.

The recent flooding events occurred in August, when crops including corn and soybeans are well established, and there is an urgent need for policymakers to reassess existing policies to ensure that farmers are shielded from production losses, income disruptions, and other economic costs that arise when flooding occurs late in the season.

American policymakers cannot afford to overlook or underestimate the extensive, devastating impacts of flooding on agriculture and the stakeholders who support the agricultural sector.

The consequences of flooding extend far beyond damaged roads and infrastructure. They reach America’s farmlands, the soul of America’s food supply, a sector already affected by rising fuel costs and fertilizer shortages, and may be compounded by supply-chain disruptions caused by flooding, as in 2019.

Policymakers must seize the opportunity to re-examine whether existing policies and recent investments, including the $700 million pilot program to support regenerative agriculture practices, can help the Midwest region and its farmlands meet the challenges brought about by increasing flooding and other severe weather events. Where policies fall short, policy makers must create new ones. Time is of essence.

Esther Ngumbi, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.

Christy Gibson, PhD, is an Illinois Distinguished Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she studies how floods and droughts reshape farming systems and the ecosystems that sustain them

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