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Radsport-Asse unter sich: Marc Hirschi und Julian Alaphilippe sprechen im Blick-Interview über ihre neue Rolle bei Tudor, vergangene Rivalitäten und die tragischen Todesfälle von Gino Mäder und Muriel Furrer.

Sensationelle Entdeckung für Tina-Turner-Fans: Ein verschollener Song aus dem Album «Private Dancer»-Album wurde wiederentdeckt. «Hot For You, Baby» wurde heute Donnerstag erstmals auf BBC Radio 2 gespielt und erscheint auf einer Jubiläumsausgabe des Kultalbums.

Wir alle kennen es: Bananen werden oft schneller braun, als man sie essen kann und allzu oft landen sie in der Biotonne. Nach dem weiten Weg, den die krummen Früchte hinter sich haben, ist das schade - und zugleich unnötig. Wir zeigen dir, warum:

VIENNA, 23 January 2025 — Upholding OSCE principles and supporting Ukraine were core messages from OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen at the inauguration of the 2025 Finnish Chairpersonship during the OSCE Permanent Council meeting in Vienna today.

“The security situation in Europe has not been this unpredictable or unstable since the Second World War,” said Chairperson Valtonen during her opening remarks.

Stressing the importance of defending the OSCE’s shared principles, Valtonen explained how these principles shape co-operation between states and protect the freedoms and the very foundations of a stable society.

“Our task as Chair is to ensure that our shared principles are not merely memories of the past but continue to live and guide us through these difficult times,” Valtonen said.

The Chairperson spoke of the steps Finland will take to strengthen co-operation between the participating States and ensure the OSCE is well-equipped to respond to crises and security threats.

She emphasized that supporting Ukraine and its territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence will remain a central focus of the OSCE’s work under the Finnish Chairpersonship.

“Almost three years have passed since the Russian Federation started its war of aggression in Ukraine. The war undermined the European security order. Supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence is at the heart of the OSCE’s work and our Chairpersonship,” Minister Valtonen said.

Turning to the OSCE’s comprehensive approach to security, Minister Valtonen stressed that the Chairpersonship’s priorities will also include protecting and promoting human rights, democracy and the rule of law, as well as gender equality, inclusion of people with disabilities, and engaging young people and civil society.

“The OSCE’s extensive geographical coverage and comprehensive concept of security make it a unique security organization. OSCE provides invaluable support to the participating States across all dimensions and regions,” Chairperson Valtonen said.

Minister Valtonen highlighted the challenges faced by the OSCE as an organization and Finland’s focus on strengthening the Organization’s operational capacity while safeguarding its unique role as a forum for political dialogue. A special Helsinki+50 Fund set up by the Finnish Chairpersonship, in partnership with interested participating States and the OSCE Secretariat, will further bolster the Organization’s work, she said.

“It is our collective duty to ensure that the OSCE survives not only to its 50th anniversary but also beyond,” Chairperson Valtonen said.

Find more about the framework and goals for the OSCE's activities in 2025 in Finland's Chairpersonship programme (https://www.osce.org/chairpersonship/583975). The overarching theme is resilience. The programme is built on three guiding principles: 1) Respect the OSCE principles and commitments, 2) Respond to today’s challenges, and 3) Prepare the OSCE for the future.

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Babyglück im Bundeshaus! Der Zürcher FDP-Nationalrat Andri Silberschmidt und seine Frau Andrea haben ihr erstes Kind bekommen. Die frohe Botschaft verkündete der Politiker in den sozialen Medien.

Die Stadt Romanshorn hat beim Kanton Thurgau ein Gesuch für einen Vorentscheid eines mehrere hundert Meter langen Stegs in den Bodensee eingereicht. Damit soll die Bewilligungsfähigkeit des Vorhabens geklärt werden, schrieb die Stadt am Donnerstag in einer Mitteilung.

Ein neuer Flächenbrand, der sich rasch ausbreitet, hat in Südkalifornien Tausende Menschen in die Flucht getrieben. Das sogenannte «Hughes»-Feuer wütet rund 70 Kilometer nördlich von Los Angeles.

US-Präsident Donald Trump wird die 55. Ausgabe des World Economic Forum in Davos prägen – obwohl er lediglich per Video zugeschaltet wird. Blick ist ab Montag, den 20. Januar, am Gipfel der globalen Wirtschaftselite dabei. Im Ticker halten wir dich auf dem Laufenden.

Mitte-Nationalrat Philipp Kutter prüft eine Kandidatur für den Bundesrat. Nach einem schweren Skiunfall ist er Tetraplegiker und auf Unterstützung angewiesen. Kutter sieht Herausforderungen – glaubt aber, dass der Bundesratsalltag für ihn organisierbar wäre.

La deuxième édition du Concours national de Dissertation, initié par la Fondation UBA et porté par la Banque UBA-Bénin a livré ses premiers résultats. Pour cette phase de présélection, une douzaine de candidats a été retenue pour la suite de la compétition. La liste de ces finalistes a été rendu publique mardi.

Douze finalistes émergent de cette première phase du concours. Cette première phase du concours avait connu la participation de près d'un millier de candidats à travers tout le BENIN. Ces derniers ont soumis leur dissertation depuis leur domicile ou école via les moyens communique par UBA BENIN. A l'arrivée, les 12 meilleures productions ont été sélectionnés pour prendre part a la suite de la compétition. Il s'agit de (par ordre de mérite) :

1- LOKONON Peindha (CMS Bohicon)
2- TOLLI Ericka Shalom (Lycée Toffa 1er)
3- ABAOUMBA M.O. Onction (CSC de la Salle / Akassato)
4- BEHANZIN Sègnisu Y. (CMS Bohicon)
5- NOUATIN Raïmi A. (Lycée Agricole Médji de Sékou)
6- DANSSOU Consolate M. (CMS Bohicon)
7- ADEDEDJI Chefick Akanni (Bilingual School Tchinvié Aga)
8- HOUNYOVI Boladji Yann (CEG Dowa)
9- LAWANI Mahmoudath (Lycée Toffa 1er)
10- ABOUDOU Kafayath (St Jeanne d'arc d'Abomey)
11- LEBRUN Annabelle Dayana (St Jeanne d'arc d'Abomey)
12- EKE D. Lidwins (La bonne semence de Calavi)

Ces douze finalistes sont invites pour la composition finale qui se tiendra le Samedi 1er Février 2025 dans les locaux de la Direction générale de UBA BENIN sises à Patte d'oie (Cotonou, BENIN). A l'issue de cette épreuve finale les 3 meilleurs seront primes à l'issu d'une cérémonie de remise de prix.
Notons que pour cette édition du concours, une tablette sera offerte aux 12 finalistes. Faut-il le souligner, le premier recevra un trophée et une enveloppe financière de 500.000Fcfa tandis que le deuxième recevra une enveloppe de 300 000Fcfa et le troisième, une enveloppe de 200 000Fcfa. Plusieurs lots de matériels didactiques seront également offerts à tous les finalistes de cette édition.
Le concours national de dissertation est une initiative de la Fondation UBA qui vise à développer et promouvoir la culture de l'excellence chez les plus jeunes apprenants en developpant leur sens critique à travers la dissertation. Ouvert aux élèves du second cycle de l'enseignement secondaire, soit de la classe de 2nde en Terminale, ledit concours est a sa deuxieme édition au Bénin.

Der ehemalige Signa-Boss René Benko (47) ist am frühen Donnerstagmorgen in seiner Villa in Innsbruck festgenommen worden. Das berichten österreichische Medien.

Zum 20. Geburtstag überrascht sie ihre Fans: In der neuen Staffel «Germany's next Topmodel» feiert Heidi Klum eine Premiere mit männlichen Plus-Size-Teilnehmern und Best-Agern.

Zusammenfassung:

23. Januar 2025 – Die deutsche Wirtschaft steht aufgrund des demografischen Wandels und des Ausscheidens der Babyboomer-Generation aus dem Arbeitsmarkt vor einem zunehmenden Arbeits- und Fachkräftemangel. Dieser wird das Produktionspotenzial der deutschen Wirtschaft erheblich einschränken. Das inländische Steigerungspotenzial zur Deckung des Arbeitskräftebedarfs ist nur gering, so dass der Migration eine zentrale Rolle zufällt. Bereits seit 2023 wird der Aufbau der sozialversicherungspflichtigen Beschäftigung lediglich durch ausländische Staatsangehörige getragen. Aktuelle Berechnungen zeigen, dass ohne Migration die Wachstumsrate des Potenzials von derzeit lediglich 0,4 Prozent rasch auf null sinken würde. Um die Potenzialrate bis 2029 wieder zu ihrem langfristigen Mittelwert von 1,1 Prozent (dem Durchschnitt über den Zeitraum von 2004 bis 2023) zu heben, wäre den Berechnungen zufolge eine Zuwanderung von 1,5 Millionen Erwerbspersonen notwendig. Um die Zuwanderung von Arbeitskräften aus Drittstaaten attraktiver zu machen, ist das reformierte Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz zwar ein Schritt in die richtige Richtung. Um den positiven Effekt ausländischer Arbeitskräfte auf den Arbeitsmarkt und das Potenzial der deutschen Wirtschaft aber weiter zu stärken, müssen politische Maßnahmen wie der Abbau von bürokratischen Hürden bei der Visaerteilung und der Anerkennung von Qualifikationen vorangetrieben werden. Zudem ist es notwendig, die Sprachkenntnisse und Weiterqualifizierungen von Migrant*innen zu fördern, um ein Missverhältnis zwischen dem Arbeitsangebot und -bedarf zu vermeiden.

Blutiger Angriff auf Kinder in Bayern: Ein Afghane hat einen Mann und ein Kind getötet. Die Ermittler rätseln bislang über das Motiv. Klar ist: Der Täter war der Polizei bekannt.

MySports-Experte und Spieleragent Sven Helfeinstein (42) lässt keinen kalt. Im Podcast spricht er über den Nachwuchs, fehlende Resultatbulletins und das Tessiner Eishockey.

The United Nations Security Council met on January 17, 2025 to discuss the situation in Syria and the Middle East. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 2025 (IPS)

Thirteen years of extended conflict, economic downturns, and multiple earthquakes, has left Syria in the midst of a severe humanitarian crisis. Hostilities remain abundant across all of Syria’s governorates, with each facing widespread civilian displacements and damage to critical infrastructures. Following the change of government in December of 2024, Syrian refugees have begun returning from neighbouring countries. However, this return has been marred with insecurity due to the sheer scale of unexploded ordnance, which has resulted in numerous civilian casualties.

December 2024 saw the end of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime due to a series of offensive missions coordinated by the Syrian opposition. Subsequently, the Syrian Transitional Government, headed by Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir, has facilitated the transfer of power and will act as the head of state until 1 March 2025.

According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the end of Assad’s rule led to an eruption of hostilities across Syria, mainly concentrated in eastern Aleppo, Al-Hasakah, Ar-Raqqa, Quneitra, and regions along the Tishreen Dam. Between January 16 and 18, at least three civilians were killed and 14 injured from extensive shelling in Menbij, Ain al-Arab, and surrounding areas. On January 17, a bombing led to the damaging of several civilian infrastructures, including shops, ambulances, and healthcare centers.

Intensified violence had also led to the Tishreen Dam becoming damaged and non-functional for the past six weeks, depriving 413,000 people in Menbij and Ain-al Arab of water and electricity. The Menbij National Hospital has also been compromised due to lootings, with medical equipment, ambulances, and generators being at low stock, making healthcare efforts increasingly difficult. Repair efforts have been impeded due to persisting insecurity.

Heightened insecurity and displacement has plunged Syria into a state of economic emergency. Devaluation of Syrian currency and inflation have made the cost of food and other basic goods nearly inaccessible for the vast majority of the Syrian people. Poverty in Syria has been described as “near universal” by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), with approximately 90 percent of Syrians being financially insecure.

Living conditions for the majority of Syrians have exacerbated significantly in the past two months. The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that approximately 13 million people struggle with extreme hunger. Additionally, IRC estimates that over 100,000 children under five years old suffer from acute malnutrition.

636 displacement shelters have had their water, sanitation, and hygiene services suspended due to underfunding, leaving approximately 636,000 people without access to clean water. OCHA states that the situation is particularly dire in northeast Syria, with 24,600 internally displaced persons (IDPs) residing in 204 collective shelters in dire need of water, latrine service, heating, winter clothing, and mental health support.

Poor sanitation and overcrowding in displacement shelters has led to the emergence of a cholera outbreak in Syria. Disease outbreaks have been a persistent threat in Syria since the eruption of hostilities and have significantly worsened in late 2024. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there have been over 200 confirmed cases of cholera in Syria.

WHO, in collaboration with UNICEF, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and local health authorities, launched a 10-day oral cholera vaccination campaign in Syria and managed to reach 100 percent vaccine utilization. However, due to compromised water systems and inadequate sanitation infrastructure, Syrians remain particularly vulnerable to future outbreaks. Humanitarian organizations such as UNICEF and WHO have begun winterization efforts to protect Syrians in displacement shelters from the spread of influenza-like illnesses.

According to a 2025 situation overview from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are currently about 7.2 million internally displaced people in Syria, as well as 6.2 million refugees, primarily based in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Türkiye, and Jordan. Additionally, rates of displacement have increased significantly since the transition of power, with approximately 627,000 people, including 275,000 children, having been displaced across the country, especially in Idlib and Aleppo.

In a situation report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), it has been confirmed that over 125,000 Syrian refugees have returned from neighbouring countries as of December 2024, with most of these returnees being concentrated in the Aleppo, Ar-Raqqa and Dara’a governorates.

Returnees and displaced Syrians are particularly vulnerable to unexploded ordnance. According to estimates from UNICEF, there are over 300,000 mines spread across the country. In December of 2024 alone, there have been at least 116 instances of children being killed or injured by unexploded ordnance, averaging about 4 cases per day. According to the humanitarian organization Humanity & Inclusion, approximately 14 million people are at risk of being injured or killed by explosive munitions.

“Girls and boys in the country continue to suffer the brutal impact of unexploded ordnance at an alarming rate. It’s the main cause of child casualties in Syria right now and has been for many years, and will continue to be. Every step they take carries the risk of an unimaginable tragedy,” said Ricardo Pires, UNICEF Communication Manager for Emergencies.

The United Nations and its partners remain on the frontlines of this crisis to assist vulnerable populations in Syria as they navigate this transitional period. UNICEF’s Syria Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) appeal for 2025 seeks 488 million dollars in funding in order to scale up responses. So far, only 11 percent of this fund has been secured.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Ein neues Zentrum zur Überwachung von Epidemien ist am Donnerstag in Bern eingeweiht worden. Das Zentrum für Pathogen-Bioinformatik (CPB) soll die Überwachung von Epidemien in der Schweiz durch die Analyse genomischer Daten verbessern.

Afrikas Staats- und Regierungschefs haben mit Unterstützung der EU ein umfassendes, kontinentweites Stromnetz geplant.  Aber fast eine halbe Milliarde Afrikaner haben keinen Strom - und laufen zunehmend Gefahr, abgehängt zu werden.

Aujourd'hui dans l'Expresso : dans la course à l'intelligence artificielle, les États-Unis surclassent l'Europe, avec les biocarburants, la Finlande espère recréer la magie Nokia, l'opposition tchèque propose de mettre fin à la fourniture de munitions à l’Ukraine.

By Luke Cooper
LONDON, Jan 23 2025 (IPS)

Trump’s trade policy blends aggressive tariffs, legal manoeuvring and transactional diplomacy. But could he really blow up the global trade system?

The Trump team make the mistake of thinking about the global economy as a series of bilateral trade relationships when it is actually a complex and highly integrated system of connections.

President Donald Trump won his re-election on the promise of fighting an unprecedented trade war against the rest of the world.

He has proposed a universal tariff on all goods imports to the United States of between 10-20 per cent, rising to 60 per cent for shipments from China and even higher in some areas. After winning the election, Trump initially doubled down further on this rhetoric, threatening a 25 per cent tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada.

The Trump transition team are divided over these proposals but appear to be sticking to the idea of some form of universal tariff. Reports suggest though that they plan to target strategic industries such as defence manufacturing and metallurgy, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals, and energy production.

This would still amount to a radical disruption of the global trading system. It would also lead to retaliatory action from the United States’ larger trading partners and violate the terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

America cannot simply ‘decouple’ from China

Economic and geopolitical competition with China has become an obsession of the American political elite. The Trump administration first introduced tariffs on China in 2018, and these were kept by his successor and extended further in 2024.

One of the reasons that the Trump administration are edging towards the idea of using universal tariffs is the failure of China-focused tariffs to bring down the overall US trade deficit in goods, which has exceeded $1 trillion each year from 2021 to 2024.

The Trump administration’s focus on Mexico and Canada reflects the fact that they, along with China, are by some distance America’s major source of goods imports, each accounting for in excess of $400 billion in 2023.

But the Trump team make the mistake of thinking about the global economy as a series of bilateral trade relationships when it is actually a complex and highly integrated system of connections.

The decline and plateauing of the US-China trade relationship since 2018 disguises how supply chains adapted with Chinese components routed into final line assembly in Southeast Asian states. American industry is itself embedded in such networked production.

Richard Baldwin and Rebecca Freeman calculate that ‘Chinese inputs into all the inputs that American manufacturers buy from other foreign suppliers… is almost four times larger than it appears to be’ in trade statistics.

In a still highly integrated world economy, China’s competitive production and its dominance of goods exports make it an unavoidable partner — and its sluggish domestic economy increases its dependency on its export strength. For the United States to tackle the rerouting of goods through third countries to avoid tariffs would require complex rules of origin tests that would be challenging and expensive to implement.

The imbalance that the Trump administration highlights is certainly real. It has long been recognised that the United States economy is heavily skewed towards consumption over production — and that the opposite is the case for China.

The gross savings rate – the proportion of national income not spent on consumption – in China is more than double the level of the US. China’s low consumption and high savings provide the basis for huge investments in production with the goods then needing to be consumed elsewhere.

This relationship shapes the world economy: the US consumes an enormous amount of goods, and China provides many of these goods. By 2030, China is expected to account for an astonishing 45 per cent of all global industrial production — an increase from just six per cent a quarter of a century ago. Trade imbalances on this scale pose a problem for the global economy.

For many years, lonely voices on the left argued that the goal of trade efficiency – e.g. the plentiful cheap industrial products China offers – should be balanced against other objectives like supporting jobs and environmental protection.

But today, the idea that trade should not be ‘free’ but conditional on the political choices we make enjoys much wider support. Numerous conservatives that are hawkish on competition with China now agitate very loudly against American economic dependency on its supply chains.

While this American turn has raised important questions about supply chain resilience, the relationship between trade and human rights, and how to design industrial policies that deliver the outcomes we want, Trump’s brand of ‘strongman’ nationalism offers no serious answers.

Trump’s heterogeneous coalition

The Trump administration would like to lower the price of the dollar to boost US goods export performance, but the blunt single instrument that they favour – tariffs – will not bring this about. As David Lubin argues, while tariffs increase the cost of imported goods in the American market, this in no way equates with weakening the dollar.

The general strength of the US economy and the importance of its market for global exporters mean that tariffs will create downward pressure on the currencies of states that are subject to them. Added to this is the inflationary effect of tariffs and Trump’s expansive fiscal policy – i.e. his huge tax cuts – which will incline the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates.

So, rather than a weakened dollar the result would be the opposite: a dollar with even more buying power. Unless the Trump administration start from an analysis that the trade deficit is closely related to the combination of two internal imbalances, the American imbalance towards consumption over investment and the reverse in China, their policies will simply not work.

To bring about the kind of rebalancing in global trade that the Trump administration claims to want would require multilateral cooperation — the antithesis of ‘America first’. It points to thinking holistically about the global economy and its rules — addressing not only goods trade but also services, finance and capital movements.

Some in the Republican Party are asking these questions. The conservative think tank American Compass has identified financial liberalisation as the critical source of trade imbalances. Vice President J. D. Vance has even argued that the role of the dollar as a global reserve currency is a ‘massive subsidy to American consumers but a massive tax on American producers’.

However, any move to greater control of capital movements would put the Trump administration on a collision course with Wall Street, which seems unlikely. The Trump camp includes a coterie of far-right-moving billionaires like Elon Musk who see his authoritarianism as a vehicle for their brand of economic libertarianism, which conveniently supports subsidies and government spending when it benefits their interests.

These backers would recoil at the idea of capital controls. Trump has also threatened huge tariffs on any states that pursue de-dollarisation and his Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent has confirmed the administration will maintain the dollar’s position as a global reserve currency. A more moderate proposal is to reach out to Beijing to agree on a plan for dollar devaluation.

Shahin Vallée suggests Trump could launch a multilateral initiative to strike a deal on a package of coordinated measures. However, this would require reducing the US budget deficit — an effort that becomes much harder in the context of the administration’s plans for huge tax cuts.

The Trumpian method of politics

All of these proposals assume, however, that the Trump administration is capable of developing policies with some sense of the general interest in mind. Trump’s own statements provide little grounds for anticipating this.

Consider how his team have previously hinted at exploiting ideological divisions within the European Union. Trump’s propensity to link trade policies with non-trade issues, such as immigration and drug enforcement, could be applied to European states to offer quid pro quos that seek to circumvent the EU institutions.

While EU states share a Common External Tariff, Trump may be inclined to offer unilateral tariff reductions to his far-right co-thinkers in exchange for deals that benefit his networks and have nothing to do with a trade. As Viktor Orbán’s Hungary is a landlocked state, it could not match any US tariff concession (given that all goods it received would have to pass through another EU member state), but he may have something else to offer team Trump.

In the United States, it is also highly likely that the tariffs would be riddled with exemptions and opts-outs, providing obvious avenues for kleptocratic deal-making with corporate lobbyists.

Trump should not be read then as a champion of ‘Main Street against Wall Street’. Or as the head of a political faction aimed at mobilising the powers of American statecraft to redesign its domestic economy and external trade relations.

Instead, it might be better to analyse Trumpism – and the ideologically heterogeneous networks and actors that constitute it – as representing an oligarchisation in which institutions are captured to secure sectional advantages for supporters, exchanging political for economic power and vice versa.

The transactionalism fundamental to this approach to politics seems likely to carry over into the administration’s trade policy with potentially chaotic and contradictory effects.

Luke Cooper is an Associate Professorial Research Fellow in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Director of PeaceRep’s Ukraine programme. He is the author of Authoritarian Contagion (Bristol University Press, 2021).

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS), published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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