Afrique

Im Männer-Eishockey hat es seit 2019 auf höchster Ebene kein Freiluftspiel mehr gegeben. Bei den Frauen gibt es hingegen am Dienstag in Gstaad erneut Open-Air-Romantik.

Das Jahr 2025 geht dem Ende zu. Viel ist passiert und denkwürdige Momente wurden auf Video festgehalten. Über die Festtage zeigt dir Blick nochmals die Bilder, die am meisten bewegten.

Les violences postélectorales en Tanzanie et d'autres coups d'État ont marqué ces douze mois mouvementés sur le continent.

Les violences postélectorales en Tanzanie et d'autres coups d'État ont marqué ces douze mois mouvementés sur le continent.

La politique du dirigeant russe a transformé les ultra-riches du pays en soutiens silencieux de la guerre en Ukraine.

Die meisten Schweizer, die in der Nacht auf Dienstag in der NHL zum Einsatz kommen, müssen als Verlierer vom Eis. Über den Sieg freuen darf sich Roman Josi.

In der Schweiz ist die Stimmung unter Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten angespannt. Rund ein Drittel der Bevölkerung will im neuen Jahr den Gürtel enger schnallen und sparen, wie eine Umfrage zeigt. Das ist insbesondere in der Westschweiz und im Tessin der Fall.

Credit: Isabel Infantes/Reuters via Gallo Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Dec 30 2025 (IPS)

Satellite images show corpses piled high in El Fasher, North Darfur, awaiting mass burial or cremation as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia tries to cover up the scale of its crimes. Up to 150,000 El Fasher residents remain missing from the city, seized by the RSF in November. The lowest estimate is that 60,000 are dead. The Arab militia has ethnically cleansed the city of its non-Arab residents. The slaughter is the latest horrific episode in the war between the RSF and the Sudan Armed Forces, sparked by a power battle between military leaders in April 2023.

Both sides have committed atrocities, including executions, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence. It’s hard to gather accurate figures, but at least 150,000 people are estimated to have been killed. Around nine million people have been internally displaced, and close to four million more have fled across the border. Some 25 million now face famine.

Civil society and humanitarian workers are responding as best they can, but they’re in the firing line. They face death, violence, abduction and detention. Emergency orders impose bureaucratic restrictions on civil society organisations and limit aid operations and freedoms of assembly, expression and movement, while troops also block aid delivery.

Reporting on the conflict is difficult and dangerous. Almost all media infrastructure has been destroyed, many newspapers have stopped publishing and both sides are targeting journalists, with many forced into exile. Extensive disinformation campaigns obscure what’s happening on the ground. Mohamed Khamis Douda, spokesperson for the Zamzam displacement camp, exemplified the dangers for those who tell the truth. He stayed on in El Fasher to provide vital updates to international media. When the RSF invaded, they sought him out and killed him.

The world looks away

Sudan is sometimes called a forgotten war, but it’s more accurate to say the world is choosing to ignore it – and this suits several powerful states. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the RSF’s biggest backer. It continues to deny this, even though weapons manufactured by the UAE or supplied to it by its allies have been found at sites recovered from RSF control. Without its support, the RSF would likely have lost the war by now.

In recent years, the UAE has worked to cultivate influence among several African states. It has developed a series of ports around Africa, with one planned on Sudan’s stretch of the Red Sea. It has big agricultural investments in Sudan and receives most of the gold mined there. The UAE has evidently concluded that RSF control is the best way of securing its influence and protecting its interests, regardless of the cost in human lives. In response, Sudan’s government has moved to improve links with Russia. It’s been reported it may allow Russia to develop a permanent Red Sea naval base.

The UAE faces little international pressure because western states that are strongly aligned with it, including the UK and USA, downplay its role. The UK government continues to supply the UAE with arms in the knowledge these are being transferred to the RSF, while a whistleblower has accused it of removing warnings about possible genocide in Sudan from a risk assessment analysis to protect the UAE. The European Union and UK reacted to the El Fasher atrocities by placing sanctions on four RSF leaders and the USA is said to be considering further sanctions, but these measures never reach as far as figures in the UAE government.

The UN Security Council, where the UK is the permanent member that leads on Sudan, has also been predictably ineffective. Russia has said it will veto any resolution the UK brings. Yet in June, the UK refused an offer from African states, serving on the Council on a rotating basis, to take over responsibility, something that could have created more space for negotiation.

Among other countries with regional influence, Egypt strongly favours the Sudan government, and Saudi Arabia is somewhat supportive too. They come together with the UAE and USA in a forum called the quad. Despite competing interests, in September there appeared grounds for hope when the quad brokered what was supposed to be a three-month humanitarian truce, followed by a nine-month transition to civilian rule. Both sides accepted the plan, only for the RSF to keep fighting, causing the Sudanese government to reject the proposal.

Pressure and accountability

Whether fighting halts may depend on the USA’s diplomatic whims. Trump has recently appeared to take more interest in the conflict, likely prompted by Saudi Arabia’s ruler Mohammed bin Salman, who visited the White House in November.

Trump may want to claim to have ended another conflict in his evident quest for the Nobel Peace Prize, but it’s hard to see progress unless the US government proves willing to pressure the UAE, including through tariffs, a blunt instrument Trump has used to force deals on other states. The fact the Trump administration currently applies tariffs at its lowest rate, 10 per cent, shows its continuing warmth towards the UAE.

Campaigners are trying to focus more attention on the UAE’s central role in the conflict. One highly visible focus is basketball: the NBA has an extensive and growing sponsorship agreement with the UAE, part of the regime’s efforts to sportswash its international reputation. Civil society campaigners are calling on the NBA to end its partnership, and their advocacy may help move Sudan up the US agenda.

The international community has the power to stop the killing, but first it must acknowledge the role of the UAE and its western allies in enabling it. All involved in the conflict, within and beyond Sudan, must put aside their calculations of narrow self-interest. The UAE, their allies and the other quad states should face greater pressure to broker a genuine ceasefire as a first step towards peace, and use their leverage with the warring parties to ensure they stick to it.

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

 

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');  

Für die Playoffs sind die Los Angeles Rams schon qualifiziert. Nun erleiden sie eine empfindliche Niederlage. Die Entscheidung gegen die Atlanta Falcons fällt erst kurz vor Schluss.

Nach einem angeblichen Drohnenangriff auf Putins Residenz sorgt Russland mit einer neuen Erklärung für einen Paukenschlag. Der Kreml sieht sich durch «Staatsterrorismus» gezwungen, härtere Massnahmen zu ergreifen. Die Ukraine bestreitet die Vorwürfe.

Beim UBS Kids Day können junge Hockeytalente mit den Stars des Spengler Cups trainieren. Mit dabei ist HCD-Legende Andres Ambühl. Zudem gibts hier einen Blick in das gefüllte Chalet Fribourgeois – natürlich mit dem unverzichtbaren Fondue.

Some content creators say they struggle to keep up with "impossible" Belgian advertising rules

Der spanische Influencer Jorge García-Dihinx (55) war leidenschaftlicher Skifahrer. Auf Instagram gab er unter anderem Wetter-Tipps.

Am Montagnachmittag kommt es in Meilen ZH zu einem Unfall. Eine vierköpfige Familie ist mit einem Porsche in Richtung Zürich unterwegs und gerät aus noch ungeklärten Gründen auf die Gegenfahrbahn. Dabei kollidiert das Fahrzeug frontal mit einem Volvo.

Wer sich einen Töff statt ein Auto als Taxi bestellt, darf nicht zu müde sein. Dies musste ein Mann in Thailand auf die harte Tour lernen. Denn er ist so müde, dass er vom fahrenden Töff auf die Strasse fällt.

Die Niederländerinnen und Niederländer bereiten sich auf die letzte Silvesternacht mit Böllern vor. Ab dem Jahreswechsel 2026/2027 soll nach einem Parlamentsbeschluss ein Böllerverbot gelten.

Die US-Streitkräfte haben erneut ein mutmasslich mit Drogen beladenes Boot im östlichen Pazifik versenkt.

Streit ums Erbe hat laut einer neuen Studie die Monogamie zum Erfolgsmodell gemacht. Der Wunsch, Land und Besitz ungeteilt zu vererben, führte demnach dazu, dass Männer die Anzahl ihrer Ehefrauen begrenzten.

Overfishing and illegal fishing are contributing to the loss of sharks, including great whites.

LG Electronics annonce officiellement la disponibilité en Algérie de sa gamme d’aspirateurs sans fil LG CordZero™ A9. Pensée pour répondre aux exigences actuelles en matière […]

L’article LG CordZero™ : la gamme d’aspirateurs sans fil désormais disponible en Algérie est apparu en premier sur .