Afrique

La route des Balkans reste toujours l'une des principales voies d'accès l'Union européenne, pour les exilés du Proche et du Moyen Orient, d'Afrique ou d'Asie. Alors que les frontières Schengen se ferment, Frontex se déploie dans les Balkans, qui sont toujours un « sas d'accès » à la « forteresse Europe ». Notre fil d'infos en continu.

- Le fil de l'Info / Bosnie-Herzégovine, Albanie, Kosovo, Bulgarie, Questions européennes, Populations, minorités et migrations, Migrants Balkans, Courrier des Balkans, Croatie, Turquie, Grèce, Moldavie, Macédoine du Nord, Monténégro, Slovénie, Roumanie, Serbie, Gratuit, Grèce immigration

La route des Balkans reste toujours l'une des principales voies d'accès l'Union européenne, pour les exilés du Proche et du Moyen Orient, d'Afrique ou d'Asie. Alors que les frontières Schengen se ferment, Frontex se déploie dans les Balkans, qui sont toujours un « sas d'accès » à la « forteresse Europe ». Notre fil d'infos en continu.

- Le fil de l'Info / Bosnie-Herzégovine, Albanie, Kosovo, Bulgarie, Questions européennes, Populations, minorités et migrations, Migrants Balkans, Courrier des Balkans, Croatie, Turquie, Grèce, Moldavie, Macédoine du Nord, Monténégro, Slovénie, Roumanie, Serbie, Gratuit, Grèce immigration

La route des Balkans reste toujours l'une des principales voies d'accès l'Union européenne, pour les exilés du Proche et du Moyen Orient, d'Afrique ou d'Asie. Alors que les frontières Schengen se ferment, Frontex se déploie dans les Balkans, qui sont toujours un « sas d'accès » à la « forteresse Europe ». Notre fil d'infos en continu.

- Le fil de l'Info / Bosnie-Herzégovine, Albanie, Kosovo, Bulgarie, Questions européennes, Populations, minorités et migrations, Migrants Balkans, Courrier des Balkans, Croatie, Turquie, Grèce, Moldavie, Macédoine du Nord, Monténégro, Slovénie, Roumanie, Serbie, Gratuit, Grèce immigration

La route des Balkans reste toujours l'une des principales voies d'accès l'Union européenne, pour les exilés du Proche et du Moyen Orient, d'Afrique ou d'Asie. Alors que les frontières Schengen se ferment, Frontex se déploie dans les Balkans, qui sont toujours un « sas d'accès » à la « forteresse Europe ». Notre fil d'infos en continu.

- Le fil de l'Info / Bosnie-Herzégovine, Albanie, Kosovo, Bulgarie, Questions européennes, Populations, minorités et migrations, Migrants Balkans, Courrier des Balkans, Croatie, Turquie, Grèce, Moldavie, Macédoine du Nord, Monténégro, Slovénie, Roumanie, Serbie, Gratuit, Grèce immigration

By Mohamed Omar
MOGADISHU, Somalia , May 12 2026 (IPS)

When war erupted in the Middle East in late February, the most visible consequences were playing out in the Persian Gulf, with smoke rising from Dubai’s Jebel Ali port and shipping traffic across one of the world’s most critical maritime routes grinding to a near halt.

What was harder to see was a mother in Somalia, traveling 200 kilometers with a child too sick to sit upright, arriving at a stabilization center that was running low on the one product that could save her child’s life.

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most consequential maritime chokepoints, has sent shockwaves through global supply chains that reach far beyond the Gulf. Before the war began, roughly 3,000 vessels transited the strait each month.

In March, that number fell to just 154. The UN has warned that the resulting disruption is triggering a widening humanitarian and economic shock far beyond the Middle East, with rising oil prices and reduced maritime traffic driving up transport and food costs across import-dependent economies. We are certainly feeling that shock in Somalia.

Dr. Mohamed Omar is head of Health and Nutrition at Action Against Hunger in Somalia.

Somalia was already contending with acute malnutrition, with an estimated 1.84 million children under five expected to be impacted this year, up from 1.7 million last year. Of those cases, over 480,000 involve severe acute malnutrition, the form that requires immediate inpatient medical treatment.

These children are treated with two products: Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) and therapeutic milk, specifically the formulas F-75 and F-100, which are produced exclusively by Nutriset in France. Before the Strait of Hormuz closure, those products arrived in Mogadishu in 30 to 35 days via the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden.

Ships now divert around the entire African continent, extending delivery times to 55 to 65 days. That is nearly double the original transit time, and it comes with far less certainty about when shipments will actually arrive.

The cost increases compound the delay. A carton of therapeutic milk that cost $139 in 2024 rose to $186 in 2025 after USAID funding cuts, and has since climbed to $200 in 2026 following the Strait of Hormuz closure, a 44 percent increase in two years.

Fuel costs inside Somalia have surged by 150 percent, raising both the price of food for households and the cost of transporting supplies from Mogadishu to remote program sites like Hudur in the Bakool region. They represent the difference between whether a child receives treatment and whether a facility can afford to stay open.

Action Against Hunger, which operates 10 of the 52 remaining stabilization centers in the country, currently has only 69 cartons of therapeutic milk on hand. That figure covers roughly two weeks to one month of supply under current demand, and demand is rising sharply. Admissions at our facilities increased 35 percent between the first quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. At the same time, the number of stabilization centers across Somalia has already fallen from 71 to 52, after USAID’s termination order prompted facility closures earlier this year.

In areas such as Wajid, Somalia, Action Against Hunger replaced diesel-powered engines with solar-powered systems to supply water, reducing costs and providing a sustainable, long-term solution. Credit: Action Against Hunger

The funding gap to sustain nutrition interventions through 2026 stands at $2.9 million. That figure covers product procurement and in-country transportation costs. To put that in context: treating a child for severe acute malnutrition costs between $140 and $213. Preventing it costs $35. The math on early intervention is not complicated.

The Council on Foreign Relations has documented how shipping containers at Dubai’s International Humanitarian City now carry a $3,000 emergency surcharge, while the World Food Program has warned that supply chain pressures are driving up the costs of life-saving operations globally. These are systemic failures that compound each other.

There is a specific and urgent timeline here. UNICEF’s in-country stock of therapeutic milk is projected to run out by August 2026. Because of the extended shipping times caused by the Africa diversion route, funding must be committed by May or June for the product to arrive before that deadline.

Iran has agreed, in principle, to facilitate humanitarian aid shipments through the strait, and diplomatic efforts to reopen the waterway to commercial traffic are ongoing. But the ceasefire remains fragile, and even a partial reopening offers no guarantee that the specialized supply chains supporting therapeutic nutrition programs will recover in time.

The supply chain disruptions caused by the Iran war are a new layer on top of pre-existing funding deficits and a withdrawal of US foreign aid that was already forcing closures and rationing across the country.

The children arriving at stabilization centers and outpatient nutrition sites in Somalia did not cause any of these disruptions. They are the downstream consequence of a global logistics network absorbing simultaneous shocks it was never designed to handle. A $2.9 million funding gap is solvable. The question is whether the international community will respond in time.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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La coalition gouvernementale au pouvoir en Roumanie a volé en éclats le 5 mai, quand les sociaux-démocrates se sont alliés à l'extrême droite. La stratégie complexe du PSD a eu pour premier résultat de rompre le cordon sanitaire isolant l'AUR. Décryptage.

- Articles / Roumanie, Une - Diaporama, Politique, Courrier des Balkans, Roumanie vote

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Felice Noelle Rodriguez
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, May 12 2026 (IPS)

Transnational agribusinesses increasingly shape food policies worldwide. Claiming to best address recent food security concerns, they seek to profit more from innovations in food production, processing, and distribution.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Post-war food security
Food policies in the Global South have evolved significantly since World War Two (WWII), especially after nations in Asia and Africa gained independence, often after experiencing wartime food deprivations.

The early post-WWII and post-colonial eras saw new emphases on food security, especially following severe food shortages before, during, and after the war.

Many starved as millions experienced acute malnutrition. The wartime Bengal famine in India claimed over three million lives as Churchill prioritised British imperial interests and military priorities.

After WWII, colonial powers weaponised food supplies for counterinsurgency and population control purposes, especially to overcome popular anti-imperialist resistance.

Many who died were not military casualties but victims of deliberate counter-insurgency food deprivation. Unsurprisingly, food security efforts became a popular policy priority after WWII.

Western-controlled research organisations, including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), became highly influential, shaping and even developing post-colonial food security policies.

Felice Noelle Rodriguez

Green Revolution
Public research institutions were established in developing countries, many of which are affiliated with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

The Green Revolution initially focused on increasing yields of wheat, maize, and rice. These efforts increased cereal production unevenly during the 1960s and 1970s.

Malthusian logic held that rising life expectancies meant population growth outstripped the increase in food supply, constrained by limited agricultural land.

As government funding from wealthy nations declined, powerful corporate interests and philanthropies became even more influential. They often promoted their own interests at the expense of farmers, consumers, and the environment.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was established in the 1970s, channelling a small share of windfall petroleum incomes into food and agricultural development.

Soon after, the US transformed its Public Law (PL) 480 program into the World Food Programme (WFP). Thus, some FAO functions were ceded to donor-controlled UN funds and programmes also set up in Rome.

Embarrassingly, an FAO report found WFP food supplies were withheld from Somalia to avoid being taken by the ‘Islamist’ As-Shabaab militia. Chatham House also estimated two to three hundred thousand deaths as a consequence.

Neoliberalism
The counter-revolution against national development efforts in the 1980s undermined government fiscal capacities, import-substituting industrialisation, and food security efforts.

Neoliberal structural adjustment policies involving economic liberalisation were imposed on heavily indebted developing countries, mainly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Global North promoted trade liberalisation, undermining earlier protection of and support for food and industrial production.

Powerful food conglomerates sponsored and promoted import-friendly food security indicators, undermining FAO and other civil society research and advocacy efforts.

Countries hardly producing any food were highly ranked, as civil society organisations tried to counter with their own indicators, mainly focused on food sovereignty.

Trump 2.0
A new phase has begun with Donald Trump’s re-election as US president.

Trump 2.0’s weaponisation of economic policies and agreements, including food supplies, has ominous implications for countries trying to assert some independence.

Economic and military threats have been used for diverse ends, including economic, political, and other ‘strategic’ goals. Tariffs and sanctions are now part of a diverse arsenal of such weapons deployed for various purposes.

Governments have even been threatened with tariffs and sanctions for personal reasons. Trump has demanded Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro’s freedom following his failed coup after losing the last presidential election.

Deploying such economic weapons has worsened the deepening worldwide economic stagflation, as various Trump economic and military policy threats exacerbate contractionary and inflationary pressures.

The US-controlled WFP was long used to provide food aid selectively. But there is little sympathy left in Washington for other nations’ food security concerns.

To cut federal government spending, Trump has ended official development and humanitarian assistance, including food aid, while the US remains the world’s leading food exporter.

Nevertheless, Trump may take unexpected new steps to boost farmers’ earnings to recover electoral support before the November mid-term election.

Weaponisation of food aid took an ominous turn during the Israeli siege of Gaza, by calibrating food access to enable selective ethnic cleansing.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation attracted hungry residents to its food centres, causing hungry families desperately seeking food to be shot while seeking food.

Poverty is primarily defined by inadequate access to food, while the FAO considers income the main determinant of food insecurity.

Although World Bank poverty measures have generally continued to decline, FAO indicators suggest a reversal of earlier progress in food security over the last decade.

These contradictory trends not only reflect problems in estimating and understanding poverty and food security but also suggest that resulting policies are poorly informed, if not worse.

Professor Felice Noelle Rodriguez is Director of the Centre for Local History and Culture, Universidad de Zamboanga, Philippines.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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La démission du Haut représentant survient dans un contexte de tensions et de recomposition des influences internationales en Bosnie-Herzégovine. Contesté par la Republika Srpska, fragilisé par l'évolution des rapports entre Washington et l'Europe, Christian Schmidt laisse le système issu des accords de Dayton plus fragile que jamais.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Accords de Dayton, Bosnie-Herzégovine, Politique, Relations internationales, RS sécession, Questions européennes, Une - Diaporama

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By CIVICUS
May 11 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses Gen Z-led protests in the Philippines with Charles Zander, a 17-year-old climate justice activist from Bohol and youth campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines.

Charles Zander

The Philippines is particularly exposed to climate change, hit by increasingly destructive annual typhoons. In 2025, a major scandal over corruption in flood control funds brought young people onto the streets alongside climate and social justice activists who had long been organising. The protests led to some accountability, but activists argue that structural problems remain unresolved.

What brought you to activism?

I grew up in Bohol, an island province in the Philippines where the climate crisis knocks on our doors every week. When I was younger, politics felt distant, but that changed in 2021, when Typhoon Odette hit our province. My home was severely damaged, but others suffered a lot more. I knew people who lost everything. Coastal communities were flattened and some villages were so cut off that it took weeks for supplies to reach them. In my case, it took two years before we had electricity again, and a year before we had water or I could access education.

My two childhood best friends died in the aftermath, and losing them changed me. At first, I didn’t think I was doing activism. It started with relief work: distributing food, organising community support, listening to people who had lost everything. I realised people needed to be heard. But the more you listen, the more questions appear. Why were some communities still waiting for aid?

Eventually, I realised if you grow up in a place where disasters are routine, silence feels like complicity. I joined local groups working on climate justice, community education and disaster response. And I saw protest as the moment when patience runs out.

What are young Filipinos demanding?

For many young Filipinos, the climate crisis is not a policy issue; it is the story of our lives. Climate injustice is therefore at the core of our struggle, but it connects to many other struggles. We live in a country hit by stronger typhoons every year, yet coal plants still get approved. We have coastal communities losing their homes to storm surges, yet development decisions rarely involve them. We have severe flooding everywhere in the country, and our government is pocketing climate adaptation funds.

When disaster hits, wealthy neighbourhoods rebuild quickly and sometimes are not damaged at all, while remote island communities wait for assistance for months, if not years. Disasters expose inequality, so climate protests are about fairness, about whose lives are considered worth protecting.

How were recent protests organised, and what role did social media play?

There are many active organisations, youth groups and community leaders, and when a major event such as a typhoon or a scandal creates urgency, conversations spread through networks and messaging groups. At some point someone proposes a date, which we often tie to a symbolic moment, such as the day of a national hero. The most recent one, in February, was on the 40th anniversary of the 1986 People Power Revolution. This has practical implications: on holidays, people don’t have school or work, so they can participate without worrying about their livelihoods. And because they’re home, people are paying more attention to social media, which increases our reach.

In this sense, nobody owns the protests. Movements grow because many people decide the moment has come. But organising involves logistics, including permits, safety planning, communication, outreach and coordination among groups with different priorities and strategies. That process can be messy, but it also reflects the democratic nature of grassroots movements. Eventually we all come together and get onto the streets.

Social media platforms, particularly Facebook and Instagram, allow young people to organise quickly across islands, cities and movements. Calls for protests can reach people within hours. Organisers can document events, share live updates and counter disinformation.

We use memes a lot. Older generations might respond to more technical explanations, but Gen Z and Gen Alpha are more reachable through humour and jokes. We also link issues to people’s actual lives so they feel compelled to act. But there needs to be more work on making sure people really know what they are fighting for when they join, not joining because it looks cool on social media.

Ultimately, technology is just a tool. A hashtag cannot replace a community. The underlying work is slower and happens when no one is watching. Protests are the visible tip of the iceberg, but below the surface there are community workshops, policy research meetings with local leaders, training of young volunteers and network-building across the country. A protest is just one day, but organising is the thousands of conversations that make that day possible. Without that groundwork, protests would fade quickly.

What risks have you faced?

For me personally, one of the most tangible dangers has been surveillance, online and offline. After participating in a major climate and social justice march, I noticed my online activity and messages being monitored more closely. It’s a subtle kind of pressure, but it makes you think twice about who you trust, how you communicate, what you post.

There’s also intimidation. At one protest, for instance, local authorities questioned volunteers about their involvement, contacts and affiliations. This is meant to create fear.

This has emotional and practical impacts. It can be exhausting and sometimes isolating. But it also shapes how you organise. You become strategic, deliberate, more protective of your peers. The fact that there are risks shows that those in power recognise the potential of youth movements to challenge the status quo. It is a reminder that our struggle matters.

What have the protests achieved, and where have they fallen short of ambition?

Change rarely arrives all at once. Sometimes protests produce policy progress, stronger commitments and greater attention to issues. Sometimes the impact is cultural. A protest can shift what people believe is possible, what people believe is right.

In the Philippines, the most visible achievement concerned the corruption around flood control projects. Although change is slow, we have seen some politicians arrested. A sitting senator is in hiding right now because of an arrest warrant. If we hadn’t spoken up, we would have lost so much more money from climate adaptation projects while our communities continued to suffer.

But movements also face setbacks. Governments delay action, hiding behind procedural issues, and public attention moves on quickly. This is discouraging. What failure teaches, though, is that we should communicate more effectively, build stronger alliances and sustain momentum beyond a single protest. A movement is not defined by the moment it wins, but by whether it continues after losing.

Is it right to call these Gen Z protests?

I have mixed feelings about it. I understand why the label appears. Many of the visible faces in recent movements are young people. The label captures something real: many young people feel the future they are inheriting was shaped by decisions made long before they had any political voice. The climate crisis is the clearest example. Policies that created the crisis were implemented decades ago, yet the consequences will unfold across the lifetimes of today’s young people. That creates a sense of urgency, and calling these protests Gen Z protests signals that a new generation is politically active and unwilling to remain passive.

But movements are rarely that simple. In almost every movement, people from many generations stand together, students marching alongside workers, community elders joining demonstrations, parents bringing their children, veteran organisers who have been fighting for decades showing up alongside people attending their first protest.

When protests are framed only as Gen Z movements, something important gets lost. It can unintentionally erase the contributions of older generations who built the foundation for these struggles. Every movement stands on ground that someone else cleared. Civil rights campaigns, climate movements and labour struggles didn’t start with Gen Z. These are long historical arcs that young people are entering and pushing forward.

The most powerful movements are intergenerational. Older organisers bring experience, historical memory and institutional knowledge. Younger generations bring new energy, new tools and new ways of communicating. One generation can ignite a movement, but lasting change requires many generations moving together.

It is also wrong to call us leaderless. We are not leaderless; we are leaderful. We just refuse to adopt some of the hierarchical ways of organising of previous generations, because sometimes leading collectively works much better than having someone dictate everything.

What keeps you going?

People, particularly young people, keep going because the problems are immediate and impossible to ignore. Protesting means refusing to accept the future we are being handed and making our voices matter.

Hope is not a passive feeling. It’s found in action, not in waiting. I see hope in the movement, because when young people, elders, students and communities stand together, there’s a shared strength, and the possibility of a world that values dignity, justice and sustainability becomes real. We keep moving because we are not alone. I also find hope in history, because it shows that while change is messy, people have always managed to push the boundaries of what is possible.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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SEE ALSO
Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
Bulgaria: ‘We protested against a whole system of corrupt governance and state capture’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Aleksandar Tanev 21.Apr.2026
Philippines: ‘We refuse to stay silent while those in power treat public office like private property’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Raoul Manuel 25.Nov.2025

 

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Council approves a mandate to begin negotiations with the European Parliament on updated regulation on organic farming.

The Council adopted restrictive measures against further 16 individuals and seven entities responsible for the systematic unlawful deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation and within temporarily occupied territories.

The press briefing will take place on Wednesday 13 May 2026 at 16.30.

Der Rat hat einen Beschluss erlassen, mit dem die teilweise Aussetzung des Kooperationsabkommens mit Syrien aufgehoben wird, was ein Zeichen der Unterstützung für den Übergang und die Normalisierung der bilateralen Beziehungen ist.

The Council adopted the decisions authorising the signing of the EU-Mexico Modernised Global agreement and Interim Trade Agreement, advancing political cooperation, trade partnership and sustainable development between the EU and Mexico.

Der Rat hat eine Empfehlung zum Neuen Europäischen Bauhaus angenommen, in der die EU-Länder nachdrücklich aufgefordert werden, seine Werte in die nationalen Strategien und Finanzierungsmaßnahmen für eine erschwingliche, auf den Menschen ausgerichtete und partizipative bauliche Umwelt in der gesamten EU einzubetten.