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La première trêve internationale de l'année 2025 se tiendra en Mars. Dans ce cadre, la FIFA a dévoilé la date et les heures des différentes rencontres.

La FIFA a communiqué ces dernières heures les dates des matchs des 5e et 6e journées des éliminatoires de la Coupe du Monde 2026. Les Guépards du Bénin sont désormais fixés. La bande à Gernot Rohr affrontera le Zimbabwe le jeudi 20 mars 2025 à 16h GMT au stade Moses Mabhida de Durban, en Afrique du Sud.

Les Béninois retourneront par la suite en Côte d'ivoire pour accueillir les Bafana Bafana le Mardi 25 mars 2025 à 16h GMT au stade Félix Houphouët-Boigny d'Abidjan. Le regroupement des Guépards devrait démarrer le lundi 17 mars 2025.

À quelques jours des rencontres, il faut noter que pour le compte de ces éliminatoires du Mondial 2026, le Bénin est 3e du groupe C avec 7 points devant le Lesotho, le Nigeria et le Zimbabwe.

Voici le classement :

1er : Rwanda (7 pts, +2)
2ᵉ : Afrique du Sud (7 pts, +1)
3ᵉ : Bénin (7 pts, +1)
4ᵉ : Lesotho (5 pts, +1)
5ᵉ : Nigeria (3 pts, -1)
6ᵉ : Zimbabwe (2 pts, -4)

J.S

La Banque africaine de développement (BAD) à travers sa stratégie pays 2022-2026, accompagne plusieurs projets dans le secteur de l'énergie au Bénin. Plus de 1400 kilomètres linéaires de réseau haute tension sont en construction. Des travaux de réalisation de réseaux moyenne et basse tensions sont également en cours dans le pays.

Le 11 février 2025, la BAD a publié la revue à mi-parcours du Document de stratégie pays 2022-2026 pour le Bénin. Le document renseigne que 1447 kilomètres linéaires de réseau, haute tension sont en cours de construction. 5,2 kilomètres de lignes moyenne tension ont été réalisées et livrées. L'institution financière à travers sa stratégie accompagne également les travaux de réalisation 1 584 kilomètres de linéaires de réseau basse tension, dont 101,55 kilomètres déjà achevés.

Le taux national d'accès à l'électricité s'améliore
Ces infrastructures selon la BAD, ont permis de brancher 880 nouveaux abonnés et contribué à améliorer le taux national d'accès à l'électricité, qui est passé de 36,5 % en 2020 à près de 40 % en 2023. En milieu rural, le taux national d'accès à l'électricité s'est également amélioré passant de 10,4 % en 2020 à 12 % en 2023.
Ces projets de la BAD dans le secteur de l'énergie permettront à terme, d'améliorer considérablement l'accès à l'électricité sur l'ensemble du territoire national.

F. A. A.

Wer in Europa lebt, darf dank guter Lebensbedingungen auf ein langes Leben hoffen. Jedenfalls galt das bislang. Seit 1990 war die durchschnittliche Lebenserwartung der Menschen in EU-Staaten kontinuierlich gestiegen.

Madame, Monsieur,

Nous avons le plaisir de vous informer que la phase de commercialisation des logements du Programme 20 000 logements débutera officiellement
le jeudi 20 février 2025.

Cette étape marque un moment clé dans la concrétisation de ce projet phare du Programme d'Actions du Gouvernement (PAG), visant à offrir des logements sociaux et économiques accessibles à tous les Béninois.

À compter de cette date, vous pourrez effectuer vos demandes de réservation exclusivement en ligne. Pour ce faire, une inscription sur la plateforme dédiée (https://programmelogements.bj) à la commercialisation est obligatoire afin de finaliser votre démarche et confirmer votre demande de réservation.

Nous vous rappelons que les communes bénéficiaires de la Phase 1 sont celles d'Abomey-Calavi (Cité Nouvelle de Ouèdo) et de Porto-Novo (Cité CNSS de Porto-Novo).

Pour votre information, l'attribution d'un logement social ou économique, qu'il s'agisse de la location-accession ou de la vente au comptant, relève exclusivement d'une décision du Comité d'Attribution des Logements mis en place par décret n°2022-658 du 23 novembre 2022, dans le strict respect des critères retenus pour les cibles.

Le service commercial

X va contester la décision du tribunal de Berlin qui, en vertu du règlement sur les services numériques (Digital Services Act, DSA), a demandé à la plateforme à accorder aux chercheurs un accès immédiat aux données dans le cadre des élections allemandes.

In this Policy Triangle, supported by European Movement International, we delve into civil society and the Green Deal.

In a powerful appeal to the world’s largest economies during the G20 Summit, November 2024, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for urgent climate action and reform of international institutions, warning that current systems are failing to meet global challenges. Credit: UN Photo/Gustavo Stephan

By Danny Bradlow
PRETORIA, South Africa, Feb 19 2025 (IPS)

US president Donald Trump’s recent actions seem designed to reassert American power and demonstrate that it is still the dominant global power and is capable of bullying weaker nations into following America’s lead.

He has shown contempt for international collaboration by withdrawing from the UN climate negotiations and the World Health Organization. His officials have also indicated that they will not participate in upcoming G20 meetings because he does not like the policies of South Africa, the G20 president for 2025.

In addition, he’s shown a lack of concern for international solidarity by halting US aid programmes and by undermining efforts to keep businesses honest. He has demonstrated his contempt for allies by imposing tariffs on their exports.

These actions demand a response from the rest of the international community that mitigates the risk to the well-being of people and planet and the effective management of global affairs.
My research on global economic governance suggests that history can offer some guidance on how to shape an effective response.

Such a response should be based on a realistic assessment of the configuration of global forces. It should seek to build tactical coalitions between state and non-state actors in both the global south and the global north who can agree on clear and limited objectives.

The following three historical lessons help explain this point.

Cautionary lessons

The first lesson is about the dangers of being overoptimistic in assessing the potential for change. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the US was confronting defeat in the war in Vietnam, high inflation and domestic unrest, including the assassination of leading politicians and the murder of protesting students.

The US was also losing confidence in its ability to sustain the international monetary order it had established at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944.

In addition, the countries of the global south were calling for a new international economic order that was more responsive to their needs. Given the concerns about the political and economic situation in the US and the relative strength of the Soviet bloc at the time, this seemed a realistic demand.

In August 1971, President Richard Nixon, without any international consultations, launched what became known as the Nixon Shock. He broke the link between gold and the US dollar, thereby ending the international monetary system established in 1944. He also imposed a 10% surcharge on all imports into the US.

When America’s European allies protested and sought to create a reformed version of the old monetary order, US treasury secretary John Connolly informed them that the dollar was our currency but your problem.

Over the course of the 1970s, US allies in western Europe, Asia and all countries that participated in the old Bretton Woods system were forced to accept what the US preferred: a market-based international monetary system in which the US dollar became the dominant currency.

The US, along with its allies in the global north, also defeated the calls for a new international economic order and imposed their neo-liberal economic order on the world.

The second cautionary lesson highlights the importance of building robust tactical coalitions. In 1969, the International Monetary Fund member states agreed to authorise the IMF to create special drawing rights, the IMF’s unique reserve asset.

At the time, many IMF developing country member states advocated establishing a link between development and the special drawing rights. This would enable those countries most in need of additional resources to access more than their proportionate share of special drawing rights to fund their development.

All developing countries supported this demand. But they couldn’t agree on how to do it. The rich countries were able to exploit these differences and defeat the proposed link between the special drawing rights and development.

As a result, the special drawing rights are now distributed to all IMF member states according to their quotas in the IMF. This means that most allocations go to the rich countries who do not need them and have no obligation to share them with developing countries.

A third lesson arises from the successful Jubilee 2000 campaign to forgive the debts of low-income developing countries experiencing debt crises. This campaign, supported by a secretariat in the United Kingdom, eventually involved: civil society organisations and activists in 40 countries a petition signed by 21 million people and governments in both creditor and debtor countries.

These efforts resulted in the cancellation of the debts of 35 developing countries. These debts, totalling about US$100 billion, were owed primarily to bilateral and multilateral official creditors.

They were also a demonstration of the political power that can be generated by the combined actions of civil society organisations and governments in both rich and poor countries.

They can force the most powerful and wealthy institutions and individuals in the world to accept actions that, while requiring them to make affordable sacrifices, benefit low-income countries and potentially poor communities within those states.

What conclusions should be drawn?

We shouldn’t under-estimate the power of the US or the determination of the MAGA movement to use that power. However, their power is not absolute. It is constrained by the relative decline in US power as countries such as China and India gain economic and political strength.

In addition, there are now mechanisms for international cooperation, such as the G20, where states can coordinate their actions and gain tactical victories that are meaningful to people and planet.

But gaining such victories will require the following:

Firstly, the formation of tactical coalitions that include states from both the global south and the global north. If these states cooperate around limited and shared objectives they can counter the vested interests around the world that support Trump’s objectives.

Secondly, a special kind of public-private partnership in which states and non-state actors set aside their differences and agree to cooperate to achieve limited shared objectives. Neither states alone nor civil society groups alone were able to defeat the vested interests that opposed debt relief in the late 1990s. Working together they were able to defeat powerful creditor interests and gain debt relief for the poorest states.

Thirdly, this special partnership will only be possible if there’s general agreement on both the diagnosis of the problem and on the general contours of the solution. This was the case with the debt issue in the 1990s.

There are good candidates for such collaborative actions. For example, many states and non-state actors agree that international financial institutions need to be reformed and made more responsive to the needs of those member states that actually use their services but lack voice and vote in their governance.

The institutions also need to be more accountable to those affected by their policies and practices. They also agree that large corporations and financial institutions should pay their fair share of taxes and should be environmentally and socially responsible.

The urgency of the challenges facing the global community demands that the world begin countering Trump as soon as possible. South Africa as the current chair of the G20 has a special responsibility to ensure that this year the G20, together with its engagement groups, acts creatively and responsibly in relation to people and planet.

Source: Conversation Africa

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Daniel D. Bradlow is Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Die USA hätten keine Pläne ihre Truppen in "unserem Teil Europas" abzuziehen, sagte der polnische Präsident Andrzej Duda nach einem Treffen mit dem US-Sondergesandten für die Ukraine und Russland, Keith Kellogg, in Warschau am Dienstag. 

À la Une : la cheffe de la diplomatie européenne avertit de ne pas tomber dans un « piège russe », les États-Unis ne retireront pas leurs forces d’Europe, aurait assuré l’envoyé de Donald Trump à la Pologne.

L’agence belge Flanders Investment & Trade a fait état d’un afflux record d’investissements étrangers en Flandre et notamment dans le secteur pharmaceutique, les États-Unis étant en tête.

Die Außenminister Tschechiens und der Slowakei bemühen sich um Verbesserung der angespannten Beziehungen und trafen sich am Dienstag in Prag. Seit Ficos Rückkehr an die Macht in der Slowakei im Jahr 2023 sind die jahrzehntelang engen Beziehungen merklich abgekühlt. 

Children in Gaza stand on debris from a destroyed building. February 2025. Credit: UN News

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 2025 (IPS)

President Trump—whose rash and ill-conceived proposals continue unabated—has threatened to “seize Gaza,” turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” and move Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan, two longstanding American allies who depend heavily on US support for their survival.

The US President has also hinted that both countries would suffer either cutbacks or elimination of billions of dollars in economic and military aid —if they refuse to cooperate with him.

Is this for real or just an empty threat?

The proposed seizure of Gaza has been condemned by virtually all Arab leaders who have long advocated a full-fledged Palestinian homeland in the Gaza Strip

In an interview with Christiane Amanpour, Chief International Anchor for Cable News Network (CNN), Prince Turki Al-Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador to the US and UK, was quoted as saying Trump’s Gaza strategy is a “mad ethnic cleansing plan.”

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS Arabs cannot accept Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan simply because doing so will destabilize the entire region and all of their regimes.

The repercussions of the original ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 are still felt throughout the Middle East to this day, he said.

At that time, the majority of the native population of the Palestinian homeland was displaced, around 800,000, most of whom remained displaced within historic Palestine.

Displacing a population of 2.2 million, following a genocide that has ignited rage across the Middle East and around the world, he argued, is a suicidal move for Arab regimes that are already struggling in a desperate search for legitimacy.

“I believe Trump already knows this, but is using the threats to put pressure on Arab regimes to come up with an ‘alternative’ plan aimed at disarming the Palestinian resistance, thus meeting Israel halfway. But in essence, the Arabs have no control over the outcome of the war in Gaza”.

If Israel has failed to disarm Gaza after 15 months of a war of extermination, the Arabs won’t be able to do so, said Dr Baroud, author of six books and a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA).

In an interview with FRANCE 24, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Trump’s plan at “ethnic cleansing is not acceptable in our world”.

“In the search for solutions, we must not make the problem worse. It is vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law. It is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing,” Guterres told the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

Addressing members of the Committee last week, Guterres said: “At its essence, the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people is about the right of Palestinians to simply live as human beings in their own land.”

However, he said, “we have seen the realization of those rights steadily slip farther out of reach” as well as “a chilling, systematic dehumanization and demonization of an entire people.”

Dr Baroud said Prince Turki Al-Faisal is correct to call it “a mad ethnic cleansing plan”. It is.

But it will fail if the Arabs understand American intentions and focus their energies on supporting Palestinian steadfastness in Gaza

Israel is in its weakest position in decades, and aside from empty threats and rhetoric, it has very few cards left. Arab unity is now key, and I believe that a collective response could positively influence inner Arab relations and re-center Palestine as the driving cause for all Arab nations.

In fact, this could be the chance for the Arab League to matter once more, after decades of marginalization and irrelevance, declared Dr Baroud.

Meanwhile, when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in the Middle East last week, he was able to gauge the widespread Arab opposition to Trump’s plan, but apparently downplayed the proposal.

The New York Times quoted Rubio as saying Trump was merely trying to “get a reaction” and “stir” other nations into providing more assistance to post-war Gaza.

King Abdullah II of Jordan, leading a country which is already home to about 700,00 Palestinian, Syrian and Iraqi refugees, told Trump during a White House meeting last week that he is ready to offer a home to about 2,000 Palestinian children in need of medical care.

And perhaps nothing more.

Incidentally, the wife of the Jordanian King is Queen Rania, who is of Palestinian descent.

The proposed takeover of Gaza –and the forcible transfer of Palestinians—are considered both a war crime and a crime against humanity, according to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, was quoted in the New York Times, as saying: “Trump is just casually making major international crimes into policy proposals. He just normalizes violating, or proposing to violate, the absolute bedrock principles of international law”.

Meanwhile, Reuter’s reported that Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will not travel to Washington for talks at the White House, if the agenda includes Trump’s plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza, according to two Egyptian security sources.

In a call with al-Sisi on 1 February, the US president extended an open invitation to the Egyptian President to visit the White House. No date has been set for any such visit, a US official said.

The Gaza takeover will also be the primary topic on the agenda of an emergency Arab Summit meeting scheduled to take place in Cairo March 4.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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L’Espagne a invité les ministres des Finances de l’Union européenne (UE) à une réunion informelle le 13 mars à Valence pour lancer un « laboratoire de compétitivité », a déclaré mardi le ministre de l’Économie, Carlos Cuerpo, lors d’une conférence de presse Ecofin.

TASR: Csütörtökön (2. 20.) Szlovákiába látogat Mark Rutte NATO-főtitkár. Megbeszéléseket folytat Peter Pellegrini államfővel, Robert Fico kormányfővel (Smer), és Robert Kaliňák védelmi miniszterrel (Smer). Beszédet mond a lesti (Lešť/Zólyomi járás) katonai kiképzőközpont katonáinak, valamint a pozsonyi Comenius Egyetem oktatóinak és hallgatóinak jelenlétében.

Spanien will ein "Wettbewerbslabor" starten und hat dazu die EU-Finanzminister zu einem informellen Treffen im März eingeladen, sagte der spanische Wirtschaftsminister am Dienstag im Rahmen eines Treffens der EU-Wirtschaft- und Finanzminister. Die neue Initiative soll die Europäische Kapitalmarktunion stärken. 

L’administration Trump n’a pas l’intention de retirer ses forces d’Europe, a déclaré le président polonais Andrzej Duda après avoir rencontré mardi à Varsovie Keith Kellogg, l’envoyé spécial américain pour l’Ukraine et la Russie.

Die Lebenserwartung in europäischen Ländern ist zwischen 2011 und 2021 leicht gesunken, wobei nordische Länder besser abschneiden. Ursachen sind neben Erkrankungen zum Teil auf externe Einflussfaktoren zurückzuführen. 

In today's edition of the Capitals, read about Spain's ‘competitiveness lab’, Prague-Bratislava mending attempts, and so much more.

La Cour d’appel d’Aix-en-Provence a alerté sur le fait que limiter les droits de propriété sur les terrains où des antennes sont installées « constituerait incontestablement une entrave au principe de la libre concurrence ».

Ha februárban parlamenti választás zajlott volna Szlovákiában, a Progresszív Szlovákia (PS) nyert volna a szavazatok 24,1 %-ával. Második lett volna a Smer 22,1 %-kal, harmadik pedig a Hlas 12,5 %-kal – derült ki az AKO ügynökség felméréséből, amelyet a JOJ televízió megrendelésére készített.