Africa

Das fünfte Teilstück beim diesjährigen Giro d'Italia ist nichts für schwache Nerven. Igor Arrieta und Afonso Eulalio liefern sich ein Duell um den Tagessieg, dessen Dramaturgie nicht alltäglich ist.

Entre nouveau format, calendrier élargi, enjeux sportifs et innovations dans les règles du jeu, voici le guide complet de la prochaine Coupe du Monde 2026 qui s’annonce déjà comme un tournant dans l’histoire du football.

Confederation of African Football president Patrice Motsepe admits to errors following the chaotic Afcon final between Morocco and Senegal which dented Caf's reputation.

Confederation of African Football president Patrice Motsepe admits to errors following the chaotic Afcon final between Morocco and Senegal which dented Caf's reputation.

Le 12 avril 1955, le Dr Jonas Salk annonça que son vaccin contre la poliomyélite était sûr et efficace. Il allait sauver d'innombrables vies, mais il refusa de breveter le vaccin, le qualifiant de « cadeau aux enfants du monde ».

A BBC investigation exposed how scammers posted social content of dogs in distress to dupe donors into giving money.

A BBC investigation exposed how scammers posted social content of dogs in distress to dupe donors into giving money.

Seit 2023 stehen die Rohbauten einer unvollendeten Siedlung im östlichen Zentrum Englands leer. Jugendliche zünden dort Feuer und sprühen Graffitis an die Wände. Anwohner und Stadtrat warnen vor Sicherheitsrisiken und fordern eine schnelle Lösung.

Du steigst ins Flugzeug – doch dein Ziel bleibt geheim. Mystery-Flights versprechen Abenteuer statt Planung. Während Wizz Air den Trend pusht, reagieren Schweizer Airlines zurückhaltend. Was steckt hinter dem Hype?

The actor was recognised for his contributions to entertainment as well as his humanitarian efforts.

Despite Labour's heavy losses in local elections and demands that he step down, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer intends to remain in office. While acknowledging his responsibility for Labour's poor performance, he also emphasised that it was his duty to deliver the changes that the party had promised. But the pressure is mounting: four ministers have now resigned.

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres launched the UN80 Initiative in March 2025. Faced with the US government’s increasingly hostile approach to the UN, UN80 was presented as a reform geared towards making the UN system “fit for purpose”. However, this policy brief argues that both the UN bureaucracy and member states have missed key opportunities to turn UN80 into a tool for reconfiguring UN multilateralism and providing space for multilateral cooperation that – despite rising geopolitical tensions – effectively addresses transnational challenges. The UN Secretariat, on the one hand, has pushed for a rushed reform agenda through an avalanche of bureaucratic reshuffling and technocratic ideas that are driven primarily by the logic of efficiency gains. Despite investing considerable efforts, it has failed to develop a coherent organisational and governance vision for the future of the UN that would help the organisation adapt to shifts in global power and policy preferences. Although welcoming reform efforts in principle, member states – on the other hand – have neither provided proactive guidance on desired reform outcomes, nor offered strategic input on the reform proposals put forward by the UN bureaucracy. They have failed to take up their role as political reform governors of a UN system in need of adapting to new geopolitical realities. Although the trajectory of UN80 to date has been far from ideal, the Initiative could still serve as a first step towards more fundamental reform efforts that address member states’ diverging preferences and attempt to tackle multilateral governance deficits. Inorder to highlight what is at stake, the policy brief outlines three scenarios of how post-UN80 dynamics might unfold, helping stakeholders identify what kind of UN system they would like to see and which steps might be necessary to get there.

Scenario 1. Faltering momentum: the phase-out of UN80 contributes to UN fragmentation and decline. Member states and the UN bureaucracy continue working through the UN80 Initiative’s to-do list until everything is either proclaimed done, watered down or silently abandoned. This leaves major challenges unaddressed, contributing to increasing levels of fragmentation and dysfunction across the UN system.

Scenario 2. Bold moves: strategic UN reform ambitions supersede technocratic logics. Member states leave decisions about efficiency gains to UN chief executives while prioritising and spearheading more ambitious reforms. They task the new Secretary-General with designing a high-level debate on the purpose(s) and the future governance of the UN system that reaffirms the UN as the multilateral centre of world politics.

Scenario 3. Muddling through: a combination of technocratic and governance reforms keeps the UN afloat. Cost-cutting reforms continue while a coalition of reform-oriented small and medium-sized member states pushes for a selective reform of multilateral governance. The result is a somewhat smaller UN system that, while not fundamentally transformed, is better equipped to navigate geopolitical tensions.

The foreign minister says the "distressed" Ghanaians registered with the embassy in Pretoria to be evacuated.

The foreign minister says the "distressed" Ghanaians registered with the embassy in Pretoria to be evacuated.

Tisza Party Leader Péter Magyar speaks to a crowd of supporters in Siófok, a town in Somogy County, southwestern Hungary, after leading a landslide election victory in April. Credit: SNRTZ

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Australia, May 13 2026 (IPS)

Péter Magyar, leader of the pro-democratic centre-right Tisza Party, which recently swept into power on an unstoppable wave of hope for change, has now been sworn into office as Hungary’s new Prime Minister.

After a decade and a half of increasing authoritarian governance by the former Fidesz regime, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the pro-democracy movement in the central European nation delivered a democratic rebound at the general election held on 12 April.

“I will not rule over Hungary; I will serve my homeland,” the 45 year old Magyar pledged during the taking of the oath of office ceremony in the Hungarian parliament on 9 May. The formal beginning of a new era in the country was followed by a massive public festival dedicated to freedom and democracy in the streets of Budapest, Hungary’s capital. The celebration took place nearly a month after the Tisza Party leader stood in front of jubilant crowds as the election result became clear to declare, “Today the Hungarian people said yes to Europe. They said yes to a free Hungary.”

The new Tisza government, which secured a supermajority of 141 of 199 parliamentary seats, has promised a roll back of the democratic decline that occurred during the Orbán era. After being elected into power in 2010, the Fidesz regime steadily stifled opposition and dissent by manipulating the electoral system, eroding the independence of the judiciary and media, threatening government critics and undermining the work of civil society organisations.

Péter Magyar (L), Leader of the Hungarian Tisza Party, and Viktor Orbán (R), Leader of the Fidesz Party, at a European Parliament Plenary Session in Brussels, 9 October 2024. Credit: European Union/Alain Rolland

“The election results have opened the door to exercising public power within appropriate constraints. Checks and balances may be revived, social participation can have a greater role, and the constant attacks against NGOS and the independent press may cease,” Gábor Medvegy at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union in Budapest told IPS.

These were the expectations of many Hungarians 37 years ago, when the nation severed ties with its Communist past. Located west of Romania and south of Slovakia and Ukraine, Hungary lived under Soviet-aligned rule from 1947 to 1989 when it began the transition to a multi-party democracy. It then became a member of NATO in 1999 and the European Union (EU) in 2004.

But the next generation after this moment of immense political and social change witnessed the gradual loss, rather than gain, in democratic rights, as Orbán implemented policies in line with his vision of “illiberal democracy”. Four years ago, the European Parliament declared that Hungary had become an ‘electoral autocracy’ which undermined the rule of law, freedom of expression, religion and association while failing to address corruption. According to Transparency International, the nation has a poor corruption perception score of 40/100. And soon it was penalised for its autocratic tendencies when the EU withheld billions of euros in funding.

The possibility of a political alternative emerged two years ago when Magyar, who held positions in the Fidesz Government, resigned to join the opposition. He remains a deeply patriotic leader speaking to Hungarian interests, but he has also articulated a clear commitment to change. The Tisza Party’s manifesto, ‘A Functioning and Humane Hungary,’ outlines a vision of accountable governance, return to the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and media and a renewed fight against corruption, while also improving public services and addressing the cost of living and rural disadvantage. At present the nation’s public spending on health is about half the EU average and its preventable mortality rate of 333 per 100,000 people is well above the EU average of 168, reports the European Commission.

The party’s focus on core voter concerns and strong policies is likely to have been a factor in the high voter turnout of 77 percent and strong youth participation in the April poll. An estimated 30 percent of the country’s population of 9.7 million people are aged under 30 years, and media reports claim that 65 percent of voters in this age group were Tisza supporters.

And the new government has made a rapid start on its policy promises.  Negotiations with the EU have begun to re-establish democratic norms in Hungary and secure the release of the withheld funding. “What is important is the economic development in Hungary,” Dr Anton Shekhovtsov, Visiting Professor at the Central European University in Vienna, told IPS. “If Magyar is able to de-block the EU funding that was withheld for a few years now, the economic situation will hopefully improve.” It will also be important to enable Hungarian industries to thrive in order to boost the domestic economy, he added.

But, to achieve this, the new government will have to address nepotism in state institutions and key public office posts. “Essentially Hungary, under Orbán, is a captured state. The power of Fidesz has penetrated state institutions very deeply. So the task for Tisza is now to drain the swamp, get rid of the deep state,” Shekhovtsov emphasised.

Democracy more widely in Europe could also benefit from the influence of Hungary’s new leadership. The EU’s support of Ukraine, following the Russian invasion in 2022, was impeded by the Fidesz government’s repeated alignment with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Orbán opposed the bloc’s Russian sanctions and, in February, vetoed a critical 90 billion euro loan to Ukraine after a damaged pipeline halted the supply of oil from Russia. However, Hungary lifted its veto by 23 April, with oil flows resuming, and approved the EU’s next round of sanctions on Russia.

“Unlike Orbán, Magyar has no ties to Russia and, therefore, his government will not be subordinated to Moscow and its interests,” Bálint Madlovics, research fellow at the Central European University in Budapest, told IPS. He has also “clearly framed Ukraine as a victim of aggression, strongly opposing any external pressure on Kyiv to cede territory”.

However, on migration, another regional issue, Hungary’s new prime minister made it clear in the months before the election that he opposes illegal migration and intends to maintain the southern border fence which was constructed in 2015 to prevent unauthorised migrants from entering the country. Although Hungary may need to alter its stance when the EU’s new migration and asylum agreement, which requires member states to contribute to the regional responsibility for managing refugees, is implemented in June.

Yet, arguably, the new government has, in a short time, begun to build confidence with its own people and with other European nations that are committed to a democratic region.  In the long term, strengthening civic rights and liberties and improving equality are crucial for the new Hungary, Medvegy said. And “we must help ensure that people are not merely spectators of politics but active participants,” he emphasised.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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A residential building in Beirut, Lebanon, lies in ruins. Credit: UNICEF/Fouad Choufany

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, May 13 2026 (IPS)

Violence has metastasized into humanity’s baseline condition. Yet international institutions remain paralyzed by vetoes and rivalry, offering hollow declarations while dehumanization becomes normalized. Coordinated action, not gestures, is desperately needed.

Global violence today is metastasizing, not contained; over 180,000 violent events reported globally by the International Institute for Strategic Studies signal a world in which conflict has become a baseline condition rather than an exception. More than 130 armed conflicts now rage—over twice the number of 15 years ago—shattering infrastructure, tearing apart social fabric, and normalizing dehumanization as a political weapon.

Women and children bear the brunt: hundreds of millions live within range of armed clashes, with millions of preventable deaths and lifelong trauma caused not only by bullets and bombs but by hunger, disease, and gender-based violence unleashed by war’s chaos.

Yet the UN system and the world’s democracies appear increasingly paralyzed—trapped in vetoes, geopolitical rivalries, and hollow declarations—offering gestures of concern rather than the coordinated, enforced accountability this modern plague of violence so desperately demands.

The global escalation of violence is a structural crisis rather than an aberration—one that reveals the failure of international institutions, exposing the normalization of suffering across political, economic, and societal dimensions.

The proliferation of violence signals not just an increase in armed confrontations but a breakdown in the very mechanisms meant to constrain conflict, rendering dehumanization a routine tool of power, as demonstrated in the following.

The Philosophical Angle

Violence represents the collapse of legitimate political authority and the rise of impotence masquerading as force. Hannah Arendt’s foundational insight remains essential: “Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. Violence appears where power is in jeopardy, but left to its own course, it ends in power’s disappearance” (On Violence, 1970).

This speaks directly to today’s proliferation of conflicts, which indicate not state strength but institutional failure, where violence substitutes for the consent and legitimacy governments can no longer command. The resort to violence signals the exhaustion of political dialogue and the absence of legitimate power structures capable of resolving disputes.

Economic Disenfranchisement

Economic drivers are critical accelerants of contemporary violence through resource competition, commodity exploitation, and systemic inequality. Slavoj Žižek’s concept of systemic violence captures the pervasive economic roots: “Therein resides the fundamental systemic violence of capitalism, much more uncanny than the direct pre-capitalist socio-ideological violence: this violence is no longer attributable to concrete individuals and their ‘evil’ intentions, but is purely ‘objective,’ systemic, anonymous.”

The greed-driven exploitation of natural resources—from diamonds in Sierra Leone to oil in Venezuela and cobalt and other conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo—finances rebellions and turns conflict into a profitable enterprise. Economic deprivation, geoeconomic confrontation through weaponized tariffs and sanctions, and commodity price shocks directly shape military capacity and conflict outcomes.

The Political Compulsion of Violence

Political violence emerges not merely from divergent interests but from the deliberate choice to pursue objectives through coercion rather than negotiation. The paralysis of the UNSC and democratic institutions reflects what Arendt identified as bureaucratic tyranny: “In a fully developed bureaucracy, there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can present grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. … everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act… where we are all equally powerless, we have a tyranny without a tyrant.”

This captures the international community’s inability to enforce accountability—vetoes and geopolitical rivalries create a structural void where violence thrives unchecked. Political fragility and weakening institutions, seen in Syria and Myanmar, make societies vulnerable to breakdown, radicalization, and violent dissent.

Societal Fragmentation

Societal conditions create climates where violence becomes normalized through inequality and the erosion of social cohesion. Thomas Hobbes’s bleak assessment of unconstrained human nature remains relevant: in the state of nature, “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” While Hobbes described a pre-political condition, his insight applies to societies where governance collapses and fear dominates, conditions now afflicting millions living within range of armed clashes.

Social norms that accept violence as conflict resolution, combined with economic inequalities and a lack of community participation, create environments where aggression flourishes. This normalizes dehumanization, where, as in Nigeria, Israel and South Africa, gendered violence, ethnic tensions, and historical grievances fuel recurring cycles of brutality.

Nationalism, Repression and State Complicity

State-level factors amplifying violence include the failure to address ethnic marginalization, resource competition, and the absence of functional governance. Walter Benjamin warned of violence’s relationship to law and state power: “There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism” (On the Concept of History, 1940).

This observation underscores how national institutions perpetuate violence through their foundational structures and exclusionary practices. Nations repeatedly falling victim to civil and international wars demonstrate governments’ inability to recognize and address destabilizing issues like political, religious, or ethnic marginalization. The weaponization of state apparatus through totalitarian mobilization of violence destroys the very space where political thinking and resistance might occur, as demonstrated in China and Eritrea.

Religious Instrumentalization

Religion, when co-opted by political actors or stripped of its ethical core, becomes a potent catalyst for violence, sanctifying exclusion and legitimizing brutality. Sectarian divides—whether in the Middle East, South Asia, or parts of Africa—transform identity into a battlefield where compromise is heresy and annihilation becomes duty. René Girard’s insight is instructive: “Religion shelters us from violence just as violence seeks shelter in religion.” When faith is manipulated to justify power or grievance, such as in India, Israel or Iraq, it ceases to restrain violence and instead consecrates it, deepening cycles of retribution and rendering conflicts existential rather than negotiable.

The convergence of these dimensions explains why violence has become a baseline condition rather than an exception. Several measures must be considered to de-escalate global violence. Although effecting change is extremely difficult, every effort must still be made, provided the public leads the charge through sustained protest, continuous advocacy, and relentless pressure on policymakers to enact change.

Reform UN Security Council Veto Power

Governments must constrain veto authority by restricting its use in cases involving genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Permanent members should abstain when directly involved, transforming the veto from obstruction into accountability and addressing institutional paralysis that enables unchecked violence.

Establish Functional Early Warning Systems

International bodies should implement systems linking detection to preventive action, closing the warning-response gap. These must integrate predictive analytics, local expertise, and cross-border coordination to anticipate violence months before eruption, enabling timely diplomatic and humanitarian intervention.

Address Economic Inequality and Insecurity

Governments should implement policies that reduce income inequality—including wage increases, tax reform, and financial assistance—aimed at addressing violence triggers. Targeted lending, job creation, and redistributive policies alleviate financial strain that fuels conflict and crime, making structural prevention more effective than reactive measures.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is President of the Institute for Humanitarian Conflict Resolution.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Ethiopian long-distance runner Yebrgual Melese dies at the age of 36 after falling ill during a routine training session.

Ethiopian long-distance runner Yebrgual Melese dies at the age of 36 after falling ill during a routine training session.

The home affairs minister hails the ruling as a "victory" against the "abuse" of the refugee system.