Feed aggregator

Erst im Sommer gedraftet und schon mit den Superstars im Rampenlicht: Yanic Niederhäuser, der erste Deutschschweizer in der besten Liga der Welt, entzückt die NBA mit seiner Unbekümmertheit – und seinem Potenzial.

In today's edition: Steel imports, drinking water pollutants, plastic recycling

Situé dans le quartier de Brooklyn à New York, cet établissement est tristement célèbre non seulement pour les personnes qu'il a accueillies, mais aussi pour sa surpopulation et ses conditions insalubres.

Nach einem Anschlag auf das Kabelnetz waren zehntausende Haushalte tagelang ohne Strom. Jetzt können sie aufatmen: Am Mittwoch sollen alle Berliner wieder ans Netz angeschlossen werden.

The maternity ward at Kharkiv City Multifunctional Hospital No.25. Credit: UNFPA/Ukraine

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Jan 7 2026 (IPS)

“It was an emergency caesarean section when the life of the pregnant woman was at risk. We did the operation with just flashlights and no water, and against a backdrop of constant explosions,” says Dr Oleksandr Zhelezniakov, Director of the Obstetrics Department at Kharkiv Regional Clinical Hospital, in eastern Ukraine.

He is recalling what he says was “one of the most difficult” medical procedures he has been involved in since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of his country.

But it was far from the only time he has had to work in extreme conditions while his city is pounded by Russian shelling. In fact, he says, it has become routine for him and his colleagues.

“The current reality is that, given we are in a frontline city, we work like this almost every day, because the alarms never stop and we hear explosions almost every day,” he tells IPS.

“You just do what you have to do to save a life, to save the future. In such moments, you only think about saving a life. We work [in these conditions] because life must always prevail,” he says.

Staff look at the beginnings of construction of a bunkerised facility at Kharkiv City Multifunctional Hospital No. 25. Credit: UNFPA/Ukraine

Zhelezniakov’s hospital has, like many other medical facilities in Ukraine, been repeatedly attacked and damaged since the start of the war. The World Health Organisation (WHO) had documented more than 2,700 attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities since February 24, 2024.

These have included attacks on more than 80 maternal healthcare facilities – with devastating consequences for maternal health, as recently released data has shown.

According to analysis by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) released in December, there has been a sharp rise in the risk of dying in pregnancy or childbirth in Ukraine as the conflict grinds on.

The agency says repeated strikes on hospitals and the breakdown of essential services are forcing women to give birth in increasingly dangerous conditions, and health workers have warned that a combination of violence, chronic stress, displacement and widespread disruption of maternity care is driving a surge in pregnancy complications and preventable deaths.

Its analysis of national data shows a 37-percent increase in the maternal mortality rate from 2023 to 2024 – the most recent full year of national data available. In 2023, Ukraine recorded 18.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. In 2024, that figure rose to 25.9. The organisation says most of these are preventable deaths, reflecting a health system operating under extreme strain.

It said it had also seen sharp increases in severe pregnancy and childbirth complications. Uterine ruptures — among the most dangerous obstetric emergencies — have risen by 44 per cent. Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy have increased by more than 12 per cent, while severe postpartum haemorrhage has risen by nearly 9 per cent – from 2023 to 2024. Delays in accessing care, stress, displacement and disrupted referral pathways are key contributing factors.

Meanwhile, the situation in frontline regions is particularly acute. In Kherson, premature births are almost double the national average, and the region has the highest stillbirth rate in the country, according to UNFPA.

It cites contributing factors including stress, insecurity and difficulties in accessing care, which can lead to preterm labour and premature rupture of membranes.

Another indicator of system strain is the Caesarean section rate. Nationally, the rate now exceeds 28 per cent, already above recommended levels. In frontline regions, the figures are among the highest in Europe: 46 per cent in Kherson and approximately 32 per cent in Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv. These high rates often reflect the need for doctors and women to time deliveries around short windows of relative safety and can additionally show an increased pregnancy complication rate that requires surgical intervention, according to UNFPA officials.

“Attacks [on healthcare, including maternity and neonatal facilities] have had measurable and severe consequences for maternal health. Ukraine is entering another winter under conditions that sharply increase risks for pregnant women, newborns and the health workers who care for them,” Isaac Hurskin, Head of Communications, UNFPA in Ukraine, told IPS.

In early December, a maternity hospital in Kherson, a facility supported by UNFPA, was struck by artillery fire. During the strike, hospital staff moved women in labour and newborns into a bunkered maternity ward—one of many such facilities constructed by the government with help from groups like UNFPA to protect mothers and babies during active hostilities.

While everyone survived the attack and a baby girl was born in the bunker during the shelling, Hurskin said it was “a stark illustration of the conditions under which pregnancy and childbirth are now taking place — conditions no woman or health worker should ever have to face”.

But the devastation wrought by the war in Ukraine is also impacting wider reproductive health.

IPS has spoken to women in Ukraine who have admitted they are avoiding getting pregnant because of concerns about their ability to access maternal healthcare safely but also the conditions in which they may have to raise an infant.

“Women in conflict-affected areas have specific reproductive needs. It is very hard to meet them when a maternity hospital gets bombed on a regular basis, or when energy infrastructure is targeted, limiting the functionality of hospitals and forcing pregnant women to unequipped hospital shelters. A woman considering getting pregnant needs to make a decision based on these factors – whether a hospital is safe, whether she can have access to services, and whether she is able to care for the child afterwards, with no electricity, heating, or water at home,” Uliana Poltavets, International Advocacy and Ukraine Program Coordinator at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), told IPS.

“This is a trend which is being observed,” added Zhelezniakov. “Women fear not only for their lives and the lives of their unborn children during childbirth under shelling but also an uncertain future—a lack of safe housing, work, and normal conditions for raising a child. This is a rational fear in the irrational conditions of war. It is one of the reasons for the sharp decline in the birth rate.”

But he added that conversely, the effects of the war were impacting women’s ability to conceive.

“Chronic stress, high cortisol levels, anxiety, and sleep disorders directly affect hormonal balance and reproductive function. Constant stress also leads to hormonal imbalances (dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis). This causes an increase in cases of secondary infertility, premature ovarian failure, and endometriosis. We are already seeing an increase in the number of pathological menopauses in young women,” he said.

These threats to fertility and maternal health come at a time when Ukraine is facing a demographic crisis.

According to UNFPA, since 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea and supported separatist paramilitary movements in eastern Ukraine, the country has lost an estimated 10 million people through displacement, mortality and outward migration. Fertility has fallen to below one child per woman — one of the lowest rates globally.

It says that rising maternal deaths, increasing complications and pervasive uncertainty about the safety of childbirth reinforce one another, with long-term consequences for families, communities and national recovery.

“This is not only a humanitarian emergency. It is a demographic crisis with implications that will extend far beyond the end of hostilities. Protecting maternal health is central to Ukraine’s long-term recovery and future stability,” said Hurskin.

Indeed, examples from other recent conflicts where there has been widescale destruction of healthcare have shown the long-term effects of war on maternal and reproductive healthcare long after they have finished, from problems with rebuilding damaged and destroyed facilities, ongoing displacement, and continued shortages of medical staff just some of the barriers to women being able to access services.

“Look at Syria, for example. The healthcare system is being built back up, there is rebuilding of facilities, things are improving, but it will take decades to get back to where it was before. And maternal healthcare tends to be deprioritised both during and after a conflict – resources tend to go to other areas such as emergency and trauma care. Women in Syria will have problems with accessing maternal healthcare for years and years to come,” an expert on healthcare in war zones working for an international human rights group, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told IPS.

Zhelezniakov admits that a worsening of the demographic crisis in Ukraine is inevitable.

“The expectation is that it will get worse. The destruction of the maternal health care system only exacerbates existing problems caused by the war: the migration of women and children abroad, loss of life, economic instability, and psychological pressure,” he says.

But he adds that even now measures can be taken to improve maternal healthcare, including strengthening primary care, improving digitalisation (e-health systems), investment in prevention, mental health support programmes, environmental improvement, legislative regulation, and raising awareness of reproductive health to reduce mortality and disability, among others.

Developing international cooperation by creating “medical hubs” in relatively safe regions with the support of international partners, such as UNFPA and WHO, to ensure services, would also help.

“Even during active hostilities, we can and must work to adapt the system,” he says.

He also vows that, no matter what happens, he and other medical staff will not stop their work, recalling the emergency caesarean section performed by flashlight as shells rained down on Kharkiv.

“The birth of a child in such conditions is always a miracle and a powerful motivator to continue working, despite everything,” he says.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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');  

Written by Györgyi Mácsai and Nadejda Kresnichka-Nikolchova, Members’ Research Service (EPRS) with Raffaele Ventura, GlobalStat, EUI.

This infographic provides insight into the economic performance of China compared with the European Union (EU) and examines the trade dynamics between them. In 2024, China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate was recorded at 5%, while the EU experienced a growth rate of 1.1%. Chinese inflation rates remain stable at 0.2%. The exchange rate of the renminbi-yuan continues to rise, reaching 7.8 units per euro in 2024. Trade in goods and services between the EU and China has remained relatively stable, with a slight increase from the previous year. The EU is China’s largest trade partner in goods, accounting for 12.7% of China’s total imports and exports. Conversely, China is the EU’s second-largest trade partner, representing 14.6% of the EU’s trade, while the United States ranks first at 17.3%.

Read this ‘infographic’ on ‘China: Economic indicators and trade with EU‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

EU imports of services from China (2024)

DIW-Auswertung zeigt schrumpfende Größen von Neubauwohnungen seit 2005 – Dadurch sinken nun auch durchschnittliche Wohnungsgrößen im Bestand – Bis 2050 werden die Wohnungen in Deutschland im Schnitt sechs Quadratmeter kleiner sein als heute Nach Jahrzehnten kontinuierlich wachsender Wohnflächen ...

Virtuelle Fabriken bauen, Roboter trainieren, Probleme lösen, bevor sie entstehen: Der Industriekonzern Siemens und der US-Chipriese Nvidia weiten ihre Zusammenarbeit im Bereich der Künstlichen Intelligenz deutlich aus.

Yulia Burtseva, eine Influencerin aus Russland, ist nach einer Schönheitsoperation in Moskau gestorben. Der sogenannte Brazilian Butt Lift führte zu einem tödlichen anaphylaktischen Schock. Die Polizei ermittelt jetzt gegen die Klinik.

En avril 1945, plus de 400 prisonniers de guerre kosovars, qui avaient combattu avec les nazis, ont été massacrés par les partisans, alors qu'ils se trouvaient en transit dans le port monténégrin de Bar. Un témoignage inédit éclaire cette tragédie méconnue.

- Articles / Monténégro, Une - Diaporama, Monitor (Monténégro), Kosovo, Histoire

En avril 1945, plus de 400 prisonniers de guerre kosovars, qui avaient combattu avec les nazis, ont été massacrés par les partisans, alors qu'ils se trouvaient en transit dans le port monténégrin de Bar. Un témoignage inédit éclaire cette tragédie méconnue.

- Articles / Monténégro, Une - Diaporama, Monitor (Monténégro), Kosovo, Histoire

En avril 1945, plus de 400 prisonniers de guerre kosovars, qui avaient combattu avec les nazis, ont été massacrés par les partisans, alors qu'ils se trouvaient en transit dans le port monténégrin de Bar. Un témoignage inédit éclaire cette tragédie méconnue.

- Articles / Monténégro, Une - Diaporama, Monitor (Monténégro), Kosovo, Histoire

Erik ten Hag wird ab Februar für Twente Enschede arbeiten, ab Sommer dann als Technischer Direktor. Seit seiner Blitz-Entlassung bei Bayer Leverkusen im September war der Holländer ohne Job.

In Italien wollen die Swisscom-Tochterfirmen Fastweb/Vodafone und der Telekomkonzern TIM (Telecom Italia) den 5G-Ausbau zusammen schneller voranbringen.

Der Klimawandel bremst das Wachstum wichtiger Baumarten in der Schweiz. Obwohl die Bäume wegen steigender Temperaturen früher im Jahr zu wachsen beginnen, legen sie laut einer neuen Studie insgesamt weniger Holz zu als noch vor zehn Jahren.

In Wednesday's edition: Green(back)land, Mercosur momentum, farm safeguards

The pace of German greenhouse gas emissions cuts slowed further in 2025, putting in jeopardy climate goals in Europe’s biggest economy, a think tank warned Wednesday. Emissions fell by 1.5% in 2025 from the previous year, according to a study by Agora Energiewende, compared to a 3% drop in 2024 and 10% the year before […]

La Moldavie espère bien rejoindre l'Union européenne dès 2028, mais pourra-t-elle le faire sans régler d'abord la sécession de la Transnistrie ? Alors que Chypre vient de prendre la présidence du Conseil de l'Union, certains rappelle que l'île est toujours divisée...

- Articles / Une - Diaporama - En premier, Transnistrie, Courrier des Balkans, Moldavie, Questions européennes, Moldavie Russie UE, Une - Diaporama

European leaders say Washington already has broad military access to Greenland under a long-standing agreement

General Sir Rupert Smith reflects on Washington’s attack on Venezuela, past Western interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia – and why soldiers sometimes have to disobey orders