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Chaque jour, Gora Fall, un pêcheur local de la ville de Saint-Louis, dans le nord du Sénégal, part en mer avec des sentiments mitigés : espoir et frustration. Les pêcheurs affirment que l'énorme installation offshore exploitée par BP les empêche désormais de survivre.

Chaque jour, Gora Fall, un pêcheur local de la ville de Saint-Louis, dans le nord du Sénégal, part en mer avec des sentiments mitigés : espoir et frustration. Les pêcheurs affirment que l'énorme installation offshore exploitée par BP les empêche désormais de survivre.

Chaque jour, Gora Fall, un pêcheur local de la ville de Saint-Louis, dans le nord du Sénégal, part en mer avec des sentiments mitigés : espoir et frustration. Les pêcheurs affirment que l'énorme installation offshore exploitée par BP les empêche désormais de survivre.

Die Drohung erfolgt nur zwei Wochen nach einem landesweiten Streik, der eine halbe Million Menschen auf die Straße brachte, den Zugverkehr lahmlegte und zu Auseinandersetzungen mit der Polizei führte.

As Cyprus assumes its second Presidency of the European Union, it steps into a role defined by crisis and change. The contrast with its first Presidency (2012) could not be sharper. Then, multilateralism prevailed; collaboration was possible, and conflict manageable. Today, multilateralism is under siege, conflicts dominate, and Europe faces existential challenges: its Union and Security, its Internal and Capital Markets, its Competitiveness, its Freedom and Values.

Every Presidency has one duty: to carry the Union’s business forward. For Cyprus, the central test will be guiding the negotiations on the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). This is an exercise in listening, negotiation, and compromise. More than anything, it will demand that Cyprus acts as an honest broker — a role where smaller member states often succeed more than larger ones.

Three Tests of Success

Like all Presidencies, Cyprus will be judged on three fronts:

• Institutional: Can it leave a footprint by steering the MFF to conclusion?
• Representational: Can it represent a policy theme, bigger than its national interest that endures? Water, as a scarce resource and driver of conflict and migration –with impact across continents -, could anchor a “Nicosia Declaration on Water.”
• Reputational: Can it use neutrality to build a legacy as a convener of peace and compromise?

It is commendable that Cyprus wants to include regional neighbors as observers in EU deliberations. The EuroMediterranean region — 500 million people, 10% of global GDP — is paradoxically the least interconnected in the world. Intra-regional trade is just one quarter of total trade. For a decade, progress has been negligible.

Cyprus, as the EU’s southeastern border, can help change this. By bringing neighbors into the European conversation, it can foster trade, collaboration, and peace. But this must be pursued with neutrality and as part of a long-term strategy and within EU’s governance model— not as a one-off gesture.

The Presidency is about Europe’s collective good, not national gain. Yet Cyprus’ reality cannot be ignored. It remains divided, with EU law barred from 30% of its territory. And, it is Europe’s only isolated island Member State.

This Presidency can remind Cypriots of the benefits of EU membership. It can remind Europeans of the reality that part of EU territory remains occupied by Turkey — an EU trade partner and NATO member. That contradiction must never be normalized, and it must never be replicated elsewhere.

Cyprus should not instrumentalize its occupation and division but deploy it as a precedent and the learnings which point to European security risks, given the current world order, prevailing Russia threats across the EU’s borders and continuing conflict between Israel, Palestine and regional actors.

Cyprus’ Presidency comes at a moment when Europe needs resilience and vision. It is an opportunity for a small state to leave a large footprint. To prove that neutrality can be strength. To show that Cyprus is not an island on the margins, but a player at the heart of Europe’s frontier.

Photo: Flickr

A HU-rizont Program céljait és a Szegedi Tudományegyetem Interdiszciplináris Kutatásfejlesztési és Innovációs Kiválósági Központ (IKIKK) kutatócsoportjainak sikeres pályázatait mutatták be szeptember 25-én a Nemzeti Kutatási, Fejlesztési és Innovációs Hivatal (NKFI Hivatal) országos roadshowjának első állomásán, a szegedi egyetemen.

Willkommen bei Rapporteur! Jeden Tag liefern wir Ihnen die wichtigsten Nachrichten und Hintergründe aus der EU- und Europapolitik. Need-to-knows: Gaza: Greta Thunberg nach Abfangen einer Hilfsflottille durch israelische Kräfte festgesetzt Exklusiv: Mitgliedsstaaten entwerfen Fahrplan für einen Masterplan „Bezahlbares Wohnen“ Kopenhagen: EU-Staats- und Regierungschefs stärken Rolle der Verteidigungsminister in Sicherheitsfragen Brüssel im Überblick Eine bedrückende Atmosphäre lag am Mittwoch […]

Des réseaux coordonnés de faux comptes TikTok diffusent des discours pro-russes et favorisant les partis anti-système en République tchèque, ont averti les services de renseignement du pays à la veille des élections législatives des 3 et 4 octobre.

The post Bots pro-russes et anti-systèmes sur TikTok : les services de renseignement tchèques sonnent l’alerte à la veille des législatives appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Plus a silicon valley for defence, drones money for Ukraine, and agenda changes in the institutions

A drill monkey in an electric enclosure at the ranch. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

By Promise Eze
BOKI, Nigeria, Oct 2 2025 (IPS)

For the past 23 years, Gabriel Oshie has started his mornings at Drill Ranch in the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, Boki, Cross River state, southern Nigeria.

At sunrise, he walks through an electric enclosure at the ranch, giving bananas and other fruits to the over 200 endangered drill monkeys he watches over.

Drill monkeys are among the world’s rarest primates, known for their brightly coloured faces and short tails. They live in large groups led by a dominant male and are found only in parts of Nigeria, southwestern Cameroon and Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea.

However, their numbers have fallen sharply due to deforestation, hunting and the illegal wildlife trade. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates fewer than 4,000 remain in the wild.

“Wildlife is the beauty of nature,” Oshie said, explaining what motivated him to work at the ranch. “When you see the drill monkeys, the forests, and other animals, you can’t help but appreciate their beauty. But it’s sad that people are destroying wildlife despite its importance.”

Gabriel Oshie has been working at the ranch for the past 23 years. Credit: Promise Eze/IPS

Wildlife Crime

Wildlife crime is the fourth most profitable illegal trade globally, worth billions of dollars each year. Nigeria has become a key hub, with porous borders and weak enforcement enabling traffickers to move ivory, pangolin scales and other endangered species.

Authorities have tried to curb the trade by shutting bushmeat markets and seizing smuggled wildlife. In July, officials announced the country’s largest wildlife-trafficking bust, intercepting more than 1,600 birds bound for Kuwait at Lagos International Airport.

But experts warn these efforts could fail if weak conservation laws, poor enforcement, limited public awareness and the lack of arrests or convictions persist.

“The state of biodiversity in Nigeria is in serious crisis,” said Rita Uwaka, Interim Administrator for Environmental Rights Action. “Much of our forested landscape has been depleted due to industrial plantations expansion, leading to significant loss of plant and animal species with devastating impacts on people and climate. We are also seeing concession agreements awarded to large-scale agro-commodities companies contributing to increased biodiversity loss. They arrive with promises of development, but vast forested areas, family farms, and ancestral lands are handed over to them amidst social, environmental, and gender impacts. In the process, they cut down forests that should serve as vital hubs for ecological conservation.

“The biggest drivers of biodiversity loss in Nigeria are in the agro-commodity sector, where large tracts of forest and wildlife sanctuaries are allocated to corporations at the expense of local communities, especially women and vulnerable groups who suffer differentiated impacts when forests and biodiversity are destroyed,” she added.

Preserving the drills

Two American conservationists, Liza Gadsby and Peter Jenkins, founded Drill Ranch in 1991 through their non-profit group Pandrillus. Now home to over 600 drills, it is the world’s most successful breeding project for the species.

En route to Botswana with only a tourist visa, Gadsby and Jenkins arrived in Nigeria where they learned of a gorilla conservation project in Boki. There, they discovered not only gorillas but also drill monkeys, thought before the 1980s to be nearly extinct outside Cameroon.

“Less was known about drills at the time, and they were more endangered than gorillas across Africa. Of course, the local people knew they were there all along, but the international community had only recently rediscovered them. So, we became quite interested in them,” Gadsby explained to IPS.

For over three years, their tourist journey took a different turn as they travelled across southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon, gathering information and persuading locals to surrender captive drills.

They established a sanctuary in Calabar, the capital of Cross River state, later expanding it into a natural habitat in Boki. They worked closely with 18 Boki communities, each contributing rangers who were often former hunters, to patrol the forests and deter poaching. Their efforts paid off, with locals surrendering as many as 90 drills to the project.

Today, the ranch houses both captive-bred and wild-born drills, each with a name and tattoo number. Alongside the drills, it cares for 27 chimpanzees, a soft-shell turtle and 29 African grey parrots seized from traffickers in 2021. In 2024, 25 parrots were released back into the wild.

The presence of Pandrillus in Boki, one of Nigeria’s largest green canopies, helped drive conservation gains in the area. In 2000, after a decade of lobbying, part of the forest reserve, where the ranch is located, was declared a wildlife Sanctuary by the government.

“We had been lobbying for over ten years, proposing that a portion of the forest reserve be upgraded to wildlife sanctuary status,” Gadsby said.

Bleak Future?

Rehabilitating drills into the wild is the main goal of the project, but rapid deforestation in Boki and Cross River is making this increasingly difficult, said ranch manager Zach Schwenneker.

With the thriving cocoa trade in the region, many people turn to farming for a living, often cutting down forests, including protected areas, for cultivation and exposing drills and other animals in the ranch to poachers.

Government support is also dwindling. Pandrillus once received monthly subventions to care for the animals, but the suspension of this funding has hindered conservation efforts. Today, the ranch relies largely on international aid and individual donations.

Uwaka told IPS that Nigeria’s National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plan would have effectively addressed these issues, but she argues that “The problem lies in enforcement. While the laws look impressive on paper, they are often ineffective in practice due to weak monitoring systems. Even where such systems exist, they are insufficient to ensure compliance. Policies should be put in place not to encourage poaching, and there should be strong regulatory frameworks to curb deforestation.”

For Oshie at the ranch, the project can only succeed if people value wildlife and biodiversity and no longer feel the need to hunt drills.

“But I’m here because I want to protect nature. If we are not here, logging activities could take over, destroying the trees and harming the animals,” he said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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La déclaration du Premier ministre polonais Donald Tusk en début de semaine selon laquelle la guerre en Ukraine est aussi « notre guerre » a provoqué une vive réaction de la part de son homologue hongrois Viktor Orbán, ravivant les tensions entre Varsovie et Budapest.

The post La guerre en Ukraine est-elle « notre guerre » ? La Pologne et la Hongrie en désaccord appeared first on Euractiv FR.

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Bienvenue dans Rapporteur. Je suis Nicoletta Ionta depuis Bruxelles. À savoir : Gaza : Greta Thunberg détenue après l’interception d’une flottille humanitaire par les forces israéliennes Exclusif : les États membres élaborent un projet de plan directeur pour le logement abordable Copenhague : les dirigeants de l’UE soutiennent un rôle plus important des ministres de la […]

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Depuis l'effondrement mortel de l'auvent de la gare de Novi Sad, le 1er novembre 2024, la Serbie se soulève contre la corruption meurtrière du régime du président Vučić et pour le respect de l'État de droit. Cette exigence de justice menée par les étudiants a gagné tout le pays. Suivez les dernières informations en temps réel et en accès libre.

- Le fil de l'Info / Courrier des Balkans, Vucic, Serbie, Politique, Société, Gratuit

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Onze personnalités ont été nommées pour siéger au sein du Conseil d'Administration de la Fondation Sèmè City, créée par décret lors du Conseil des ministres du 24 septembre dernier.

Le Conseil d'Administration de la Fondation Sèmè City compte trois membres actuels du gouvernement du président Patrice Talon, désignés au titre du Collège des « fondateurs historiques ». Il s'agit de : Romuald Wadagni, ministre de l'Économie et des Finances, Véronique Tognifodé, ministre des Enseignements secondaire, technique et de la Formation professionnelle, ainsi qu'Éléonore Yayi Ladekan, ministre de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche scientifique.

L'ancienne députée Sèdami Médégan Fagla rejoint également l'instance, en qualité de représentante de la Présidence de la République.

L'ex Premier ministre du Bénin, Lionel Zinsou, qui y siège comme membre du Collège des « personnalités qualifiées » est nommé Président de la Fondation.

Le Collège des « personnalités qualifiées » accueille également l'ex-ministre Marie-Odile Attanasso, l'ancien recteur de l'Université d'Abomey-Calavi Félicien Avlessi, ainsi que Stanislas Tomavo.

Trois hauts responsables de la Présidence siègent enfin au titre du Collège des « donateurs » : Maximilien Claude Cocou Olympio, coordonnateur de la Cellule juridique et conseiller juridique de la Présidence, Nounagnon Aristide Djidjoho, secrétaire général adjoint de la Présidence, et Aristide Edah-Sohou, directeur national du Contrôle financier.

La Fondation Sèmè City est dédiée à la promotion de l'innovation, de l'éducation et de la recherche.

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