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On Wednesday, Parliament’s Public Health Committee adopted its response to the EU’s first ever cardiovascular health plan.
Committee on Public Health

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

On Wednesday, Parliament’s Public Health Committee adopted its response to the EU’s first ever cardiovascular health plan.
Committee on Public Health

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

On Wednesday, Parliament’s Public Health Committee adopted its response to the EU’s first ever cardiovascular health plan.
Committee on Public Health

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

On Wednesday, Parliament’s Public Health Committee adopted its response to the EU’s first ever cardiovascular health plan.
Committee on Public Health

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Der Bundesrat will Problemwölfe leichter abschiessen lassen. Künftig sollen Eingriffe auch während der Schonzeit und in Jagdbanngebieten möglich sein. Nun startet die Vernehmlassung.

Der Gemeinderat der Stadt Thun will einen Rahmenkredit von 50 Millionen Franken für Immobilienkäufe schaffen. Das sei für die «Umsetzung strategischer Ziele» relevant – etwa mit Blick auf den Wohnraum. Auch andere Städte kaufen immer mehr Liegenschaften.

Harry Kane bleibt beim 0:0 gegen Ghana blass – hat in der Schlussphase aber den Sieg auf dem Fuss. Dass der eigentlich so treffsichere Stürmer eine solche Topchance liegen lässt, überrascht Fussball-Experten und ärgert seinen Trainer.

Attacken auf die russische Öl-Infrastruktur verknappen den Treibstoff im Land massiv. An den Tankstellen herrscht Ausnahmezustand, die Autos stauen sich kilometerlang. Mittlerweile gehen die Leute sogar mit den Fäusten aufeinander los.

Ein betrunkener Autofahrer hat am Dienstag in Villmergen AG einen achtjährigen Buben auf dem Zebrastreifen frontal angefahren.

BBC World Service, le service international de l'audiovisuel public britannique, vient de lancer son site d'information et ses réseaux sociaux en roumain, une semaine après avoir fait de même en hongrois. Alors que Radio Free Europe ferme des antennes, la relève viendra-t-elle du Royaume-uni ?

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Une - Diaporama - En premier, Roumanie, Médias, Une - Diaporama

Wegen eines Unfalls staute es sich am Mittwochmorgen auf der A1 bei Zürich-Affoltern. Zeitverlust: über eine Stunde!

Der Schweizer Jobmarkt ist im Wandel – zu Ungunsten der Jungen. Es gibt immer weniger Jobs für den Berufseinstieg nach der Schule oder dem Studium. Ein Grossteil der jungen Menschen hat Angst, wegen KI künftig keine Stelle mehr zu haben.

In den Niederlanden ist erstmals ein schwer krankes Kind unter zwölf Jahren durch Sterbehilfe gestorben. Das Gesetz erlaubt dies erst seit Kurzem. Nun ermittelt die Staatsanwaltschaft.

Jennifer Grey hat ihrer langjährigen Freundin Tracy Pollan mit einem besonderen Rückblick zum 66. Geburtstag gratuliert. Die Schauspielerin veröffentlichte ein Strandfoto aus den 1980er-Jahren, auf dem die beiden Freundinnen oben ohne posieren.

Fifa-Präsident Gianni Infantino feiert die WM 2026 als «grösser als alles, was die Welt je gesehen hat». Mit 2,85 Millionen Fans nach 44 Spielen steuert das Turnier auf einen Zuschauerrekord zu. Zudem rechtfertigt der Walliser die Notwendigkeit der Trinkpausen.

Essig gilt als günstiges Hausmittel gegen Kalk, kann jedoch Waschmaschinen beschädigen. Experten empfehlen stattdessen spezielle Entkalker, um teure Schäden zu vermeiden.

Vor acht Monaten nahm sich Musikproduzent Jack White in Berlin das Leben. Seine Witwe Rafaella Nussbaum fand Trost beim Unternehmer Jan Kluwe. «Mit ihm ist meine Welt wieder im Gleichgewicht.»

Erfolg hängt nicht nur davon ab, was wir tun. Oft entscheidet vor allem, was wir konsequent lassen. Psychologen beobachten, dass erfolgreiche Menschen einige Verhaltensweisen bewusst meiden – weil sie Zeit rauben, Energie kosten und die mentale Gesundheit belasten:

By CIVICUS
Jun 24 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS speaks about the climate impacts of the 2026 World Cup with Frank Huisingh, founder of Fossil Free Football, a fan-led group that campaigns to end fossil fuel sponsorship in football and make the game more sustainable.

Frank Huisingh

The 2026 World Cup is the biggest in the tournament’s history, and the most polluting. With 48 teams playing across 16 venues in Canada, Mexico and the USA, millions of fans will fly across a continent, pushing emissions far beyond any previous World Cup. FIFA has taken on Saudi state oil company Aramco as a major sponsor, using football’s vast reach to promote the fuels responsible for climate change, while extreme heat is expected in 14 of the 16 host cities, putting players and fans at risk.

What makes this the most polluting World Cup ever?

The 2026 World Cup is probably the most polluting event humanity has ever staged. It is bigger than any edition before it, with 48 teams and 104 matches played across 16 host cities in Canada, Mexico and the USA.

In past tournaments, much of the pollution came from building stadiums. Qatar built its venues almost from scratch in 2022, and Saudi Arabia will pour enormous amounts of concrete into constructing new stadiums for 2034. This World Cup can at least rely on existing infrastructure. Instead, the main driver of pollution is travel. The host cities are so far apart that the only way to get between most matches is by plane, and fans are effectively forced to fly to follow their team.

Another factor is that the tournament is a giant billboard for polluters. Its sponsors include airlines such as American Airlines and Qatar Airways, carmakers like Hyundai-Kia, and Bank of America, a major financier of fossil fuels. This advertising adds significant emissions, because advertising drives up consumption.

The most concerning announcement of all was that Aramco, the Saudi state oil company and the world’s biggest oil producer, would become the World Cup’s biggest sponsor. Fossil fuel advertising works differently from the rest. It is not really about selling us our next product, since we don’t make those choices consciously, but about building influence and soft power. Aramco is using the largest platform on earth to spread its message.

This soft power matters. At the COP climate talks, Saudi Arabia is widely regarded as the worst blocker of climate action, rivalled only by Russia and now the USA. That unpopularity is exactly why it builds soft power elsewhere, by sponsoring huge events like this or fronting ads with figures such as former player Rio Ferdinand and former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, which will be highly visible throughout the tournament.

What’s the impact of extreme heat?

Because of climate change, summer football is now threatened by extreme temperatures it was never designed for, and FIFA has not adapted.

Fans may spend the whole day outside and then sit in the sun inside the stadium, which is dangerous for anyone, young or old. FIFA is doing little to help them stay hydrated. If anything, it is making things worse, having recently announced that people will no longer be allowed to bring their own reusable bottles into stadiums. A basic precaution would be to guarantee that fans can refill their bottles whenever they need to.

For players it can be just as serious. Teams will try to prepare for the heat, but the first reports are already coming in of players left exhausted by it in the USA. And the three-minute cooling breaks FIFA has introduced, which will be applied in every match regardless of conditions, are too short to bring players’ body temperature down or let them rehydrate properly. Experts say they should last at least six minutes.

We worked with a group of over 20 medical, climate and sports-science experts on an open letter warning that FIFA’s heat standards are genuinely dangerous, even impossible to justify. The way to measure how the body actually experiences heat is the ‘wet bulb globe temperature’, which combines air temperature, humidity, sun radiation and wind speed.

The experts, in line with the players’ union, say measures should begin at 26°C wet bulb and matches should be postponed at 28°C. Yet FIFA only takes any precaution at 32°C, and even then, postponing a match is not mandatory. That threshold is extreme. A 32°C wet bulb reading can correspond to 45°C in dry air or 35°C in high humidity, conditions in which no one should be playing sports outside at all.

So FIFA is promoting the causes of the crisis, exposing players to extreme heat and then failing to protect them. It could do so much better.

How does all of this sit with FIFA’s climate commitments?

In 2021, FIFA signed up to United Nations commitments to cut its emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040. It was a moment when the climate movement had real momentum and every organisation felt it had to put something down. But since then, the strategy has done little more than sit on paper, while FIFA has moved in the opposite direction.

Net zero by 2040 is a fantasy. The world won’t be net zero by then, so a travel-dependent tournament certainly won’t be either. The 50 per cent target, by contrast, is difficult but achievable. It could be reached by hosting the tournament in a smaller territory, using existing stadiums, encouraging fans to use public transport and prioritising local supporters rather than relying so heavily on international travel. International fans should absolutely be there – they are part of the experience – but it is also wonderful when the World Cup comes to town and local fans get the chance to attend.

Yet FIFA has taken no steps towards this target. Since signing up, its tournaments have only become more polluting. Politically and economically, FIFA has placed itself on the side of the fossil fuel industry and petrostates, not on the side of everyone else on the planet.

What can fans and civil society do?

Fossil Free Football is a tiny organisation, but we make as much noise as we can to hold FIFA accountable and force it to answer questions, which you can already see happening in the media. But we need many more players and fans alongside us.

Football can only survive if people can still go outside and play. So, if you love the game and care about its future, the first thing to do is speak up. Men’s football is often seen as conservative, but if you ask fans anywhere, they are as worried about the climate crisis as everyone else. That is why even talking about it with friends can make a difference, and it is where civil society activism begins.

From there, fans can call on their football associations and local clubs to act on climate. That might mean challenging a polluting sponsor, putting solar panels and a battery at the clubhouse or serving more plant-based food.

The same pressure is already working at the city level. A growing number of cities are banning fossil fuel advertising, much as we once did with tobacco when its impact on health became impossible to ignore. Amsterdam and Edinburgh have done it, and it can be replicated almost anywhere. Now football must do the same.

What lies ahead for the next World Cups?

I hope this tournament will be a wake-up call, and I fear the extreme heat and its toll on players may be what forces FIFA to change course. This summer might open the debate about moving the World Cup to winter, something that until now has only happened for Qatar.

The next event is the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil, which Aramco is also set to sponsor. Tellingly, far more female players than male players have spoken out against the deal. We are campaigning to get it dropped before the tournament. It would be a shame for a country like Brazil, which has lately played a fairly positive role on climate, to host a tournament sponsored by the biggest polluter.

The 2030 World Cup will be hot too, with the tournament taking place mainly in Morocco, Portugal and Spain and with three opening matches in South America. Southern Europe and Northern Africa in summer are no place to play football. Meanwhile, stadium construction in Morocco is already drawing protests from locals and its emissions will be huge.

As for the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia, eight years is a long time, especially as we are in the middle of a fossil fuel energy crisis driven by the war Israel and the USA are waging on Iran. Many Saudi infrastructure projects are already being scaled back, and the country and the world economy could look very different by then.

The risk, though, is that nothing changes politically at FIFA and the tournament goes ahead in Saudi Arabia, almost certainly in winter. That would mean yet another World Cup driving enormous emissions from construction, in a country that already imports a staggering share of the world’s concrete.

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
Solidarity World Cup CIVICUS
Climate: between breakdown and breakthrough CIVICUS | 2026 State of Civil Society Report
Qatar 2022: glory at what price? CIVICUS Lens 18.Nov.2022

 

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A lab technician conducts an HIV screening test at a medical centre in Hayatabad in the Peshawar district of Pakistan. Credit: WHO/Asad Zaidi

By Winnie Byanyima
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 24 2026 (IPS)

I am honoured to address this High-Level Meeting. I thank very much the President of the General Assembly for her leadership, our Co-Facilitators, and all the Member States for the extraordinary effort that brought us here now.

I also pay special tribute to the communities that have carried the AIDS response on their shoulders for four decades. These are people living with HIV; women and girls; gay men and other men who have sex with men; transgender people; people who inject drugs; sex workers. I also salute health workers; scientists; philanthropists; and development partners. Millions are alive because of your courage and brilliant contributions.

Twenty-five years ago, world leaders gathered in this hall for the first-ever United Nations General Assembly Special Session on a health crisis.

At the height of the pandemic, they made a promise: that AIDS would be stopped; that treatment and prevention would be accessible to all people in all countries; that funding would be mobilized to enable every country to fight the disease; that communities would lead; and that the United Nations would coordinate a global, multisectoral response unseen before.

As AIDS deaths peaked, my friend Diana, in my country Uganda, widowed by the virus, called me in tears. She said “I am ill. I may die. Please take care of my three children.” I kept my promise to her that day. Today those children are thriving adults — a lawyer, an accountant, an administrator.

Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS

Millions kept that promise. Communities, governments, scientists, health workers and companies kept the promise. That is the global AIDS response. And what progress we have made. Of 40 million people living with HIV today, 32.1 million are now on treatment, living long and healthy lives.

But let us not confuse progress with success. Nearly 9 million people are still not on treatment, and last year there were 1.2 million people who were newly infected. This is our last High-Level Meeting before the 2030 promise to end AIDS as a public health threat. We are just four years away. And the opportunity is extraordinary. Breathtaking science like long-acting medicines can now protect people from HIV with just two injections a year — it is not a vaccine, but it is the closest we have come. Research could yet give us a cure. Ending AIDS is possible.

Yet we meet at a perilous moment.

Multilateralism is at its weakest in a generation, and two threats are poised to reverse all our gains: the collapse in development financing, and the rollback of human rights, gender equality and civic space.

According to the OECD, development finance fell 23% in 2025 — the sharpest drop on record — HIV programmes in high-burden, low-income countries were hit hard. Our new UNAIDS data released last week show fragility. HIV testing has fallen 22% in high-burden settings, meaning people do not know their status and the virus continues to spread. Funding for condoms has been cut by more than 90% in some places. Prevention is being dismantled at the very moment we should be scaling innovations like new long-acting medicines.

Evidence also shows that countries that protect rights achieve stronger HIV outcomes. Yet we are seeing a dangerous rollback of the rights of those at highest risk — women and girls, gay men, trans people, people who inject drugs, sex workers. For the first time since UNAIDS began tracking, criminalisation is rising: over the past 10 to 15 years the trend has been of decriminalization. Last year two more countries criminalised same-sex relationships, and one increased penalties in 2026. These laws undermine services and allow HIV to spread. The shrinking of civic space is disabling community-led organizations that have proven the most effective in delivering services to people living with and affected by HIV. One study across 47 countries found community services to those most in need cut by 50 to 85%.

And yet Excellencies we can still seize the opportunity to stop this pandemic.

I stand here on behalf of UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. We were created in a moment of crisis — it is in our DNA to operate in crisis.

And here is what gives me hope.

52 countries have committed to increasing domestic financing since the rapid cuts. Regional initiatives — the Accra Reset led by President Mahama of Ghana, the African Union Roadmap, the Alliance for the Elimination of HIV in the Americas — are building health sovereignty. Financing agencies—the Global Fund, called for in this hall by Kofi Annan; the US bilateral programme—have secured new funding even in times of challenge. And we call for more.

Brazil’s G20 initiative is advancing regional production of medicines. And everywhere, communities refuse to give up and die —they continue to deliver services and defend one another under attack.

Governments of the world: are we going to keep the promise?

Five UN resolutions before now have driven progress up to here. The global AIDS response is perhaps the greatest, most successful story of multilateralism in forty years. Surely we can find a way to build on that success.

This Political Declaration is our chance to build on 25 years of commitment and point the way to 2030, and actually show multilateralism can deliver. We cannot fail, because we know what we must do:

• Commit to multilateralism, and to the shared targets before you.
• Sustain international financing, as countries mobilise their own resources.
• Protect the rights of people living with HIV to reach lifesaving services.
• Free the space, and let communities lead for their people
• Spur the science, so that innovations reach everyone in need as fast as possible

If we do these things, we can end AIDS.

Excellencies, when we walk out of this hall, let us look 40 million people living with HIV around the world in the eye and say: we kept our promise.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Excerpt:

Remarks by Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), at a High-level Meeting in the General Assembly Hall, 22 June 2026