The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
DAR ES SALAAM, Apr 29 2025 (IPS) - Under the scorching Tanzanian sun, Neema Mushi wipes sweat from her dust-covered face and swings her pickaxe into the earth. The impact sends dust swirling into the air, coating her tattered clothes. She barely notices. For the past eight years, this has been her life—digging, sifting, sieving, and hoping to strike gold in the male-dominated pits of Geita. It is a grueling task riddled with obstacles.
“I want to own a mining pit myself,” she says. “But in this industry, women are always ignored when it comes to land ownership issues.”
Despite years of hard work, women like Mushi remain on the wobbly edge of survival.
One evening, after hours of rock crushing, she spots a tiny twinkle of gold. Before she can pocket it, a male miner comes close to her.
“This is my spot,” he growls, snatching the gold from her hands. Mushi clenches her fists, knowing she can’t fight back—not in a system that was never built for her.
She once tried to register a mining plot in her name. At the local office, the clerk barely looked up.
“You need your husband’s permission,” he muttered, shuffling papers on his desk. Mushi hesitated—she had no husband, only three children to feed. The clerk shrugged. “Then find a male partner,” he said, waving her away.
Before joining Umoja wa Wanawake Wachimbaji, a cooperative for women miners, Mushi struggled to pay her children’s school fees. Now, she watches them walk to school in clean uniforms, their laughter filling the air. She has struck more than gold—she has found hope.
A group of women miners formed Umoja wa Wanawake Wachimbaji, pooling resources and fighting for a mining license of their own. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS
Crushing Male Chauvinism
Tanzania is Africa’s fourth-largest gold producer, with mining contributing nearly 10 percent of the country’s GDP. An estimated one to two million people work in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), and nearly a third of them are women. Yet, despite their numbers, female miners struggle for recognition, battling land ownership restrictions, lack of financing, and discrimination in a sector where men hold the power.
For years, Mushi worked informally at the edges of licensed mines, sifting through gold-bearing rocks discarded by male miners. Without a mining license or land of her own, she relied on middlemen who bought her finds at exploitative prices.
“If you don’t have your own claim, you are at their mercy,” she says. “They can chase you away at any time.”
Tanzania’s mining laws technically allow women to own licenses, but in practice, few manage to acquire them. The bureaucratic process is complex, and costs are prohibitive.
“Most mining land is allocated to men or big companies,” says Alpha Ntayomba, a mining activist and Executive Director of the Population Development Initiative. “Women often end up working on borrowed land or as laborers on someone else’s claim.”
Beyond land rights, financial barriers loom large. Mining requires investment—equipment, processing facilities, and sometimes heavy machinery. But banks see women miners as too risky, denying them loans and locking them into a cycle of dangerous, low-paying work.
As a light rain drizzles, a dozen women trudge through dust-choked paths, carrying heavy sacks of ore on their heads. Many are single mothers, struggling to survive in an industry where they are often underpaid, exploited, and subjected to harassment.
“Women in artisanal mining are at the bottom of the chain,” says Ntayomba. “They do the hardest jobs—crushing rocks, washing ore in mercury-contaminated water—yet they earn the least and are most vulnerable to abuse.”
Sexual Exploitation and Harassment
For many female miners, exploitation is a daily reality. Reports of sexual harassment and coercion in exchange for job opportunities are widespread. Women working in gold-processing areas often depend on male pit owners or brokers to access ore, making them vulnerable to abuse.
“Some women are forced into exploitative relationships just to get access to the gold they help extract,” says Ntayomba. “Sexual favors become a hidden cost of doing business for many women in this sector.”
Many hesitate to report harassment for fear of retaliation or job loss. Others lack the legal knowledge or support networks needed to seek justice.
“I know women who were kicked out of their jobs after rejecting advances from male mine owners,” Ntayomba says. “The system is rigged against them, and the lack of strong legal protections worsens it.”
Health Risks and Mercury Exposure
Beyond exploitation, women in artisanal mining also face severe health risks. Many spend hours washing gold with mercury—a toxic metal that can cause neurological damage and birth defects—without any protective equipment.
“Most women don’t know how dangerous mercury is,” says Ntayomba. “They mix it with their bare hands and inhale toxic fumes, exposing themselves and their children to long-term health problems.”
Activists like Ntayomba are pushing for change through advocacy and training programs. His organization has been lobbying for stricter regulations to protect women’s rights, provide safer mining practices, and ensure equal access to economic opportunities.
“We need the government to recognize women miners as key players in the sector,” he says. “That means formalizing their work, providing safety training, and ensuring they have legal rights to mining claims.”
But progress is slow.
“Women in artisanal mining deserve dignity, fair pay, and protection from exploitation,” Ntayomba emphasizes. “The industry cannot continue to thrive on their suffering.”
Breaking Rocks, Breaking Barriers
Determined to change their fortunes, Mushi and a group of women miners formed Umoja wa Wanawake Wachimbaji, pooling resources and fighting for a mining license of their own—in line with Sustainable Development Goal 8, which focuses on “Decent Work and Economic Growth, a crucial building block for achieving gender equity and women empowerment.
With support from the Tanzania Women Miners Association (TAWOMA) and government programs for female entrepreneurs, they secured a small mining plot and invested in better equipment.
“We had to prove that we belong here,” says Anna Mbwambo, a founding member of the cooperative. “For too long, women have been treated like helpers, not miners.”
For Mushi, the cooperative has changed everything. “Before, I could barely afford school fees for my children,” she says. “Now, I can save, and I dream of expanding.”
Despite persistent challenges, change is underway. Organizations like STAMICO, Tanzania’s State Mining Corporation, are training small-scale miners in safer, more efficient techniques. The government has also established gold-buying centers to ensure fairer prices, reducing women’s dependence on exploitative middlemen.
Internationally, calls for gender inclusivity in mining are growing. The World Bank has pushed for reforms to make the industry more accessible to women, while the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is advocating for policies that empower female miners.
TAWOMA, which has fought for women’s rights in mining since 1997, continues to push for a future where women are not just included but leading.
“We want to see women owning mines, running businesses, and making decisions,” says its chairwoman.
Carving a New Future
Standing at the edge of her mine, Mushi watches her fellow miners work the land they now own. It is a small plot, overshadowed by larger male-run operations, but to her, it represents something bigger—hope.
“I want my daughters to see that a woman can do anything,” she says. “She can work, she can own it, and she can succeed.”
She grips her pickaxe and swings again, sending another spray of dust into the air. Each strike brings her closer to a future where women miners are not just surviving but thriving.
This article is brought to you by IPS Noram, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
IPS UN Bureau Report
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UNITED NATIONS, Apr 29 2025 (IPS) - Water emergencies are deeply personal to us. Coming from Southeast Asia and southern Africa—two regions that struggle with water challenges—we have witnessed firsthand how water defines the fate of communities and nations.
In many areas of the world, floods have become a persistent risk, displacing millions and causing severe economic losses. Extreme rainfall has led to destroyed homes, infrastructure, and livelihoods. In 2022 alone, floods affected more than 90 million people globally, with damages surpassing $120 billion.
Yet in others, prolonged droughts have had devastating consequences. In southern Africa, rivers are drying up, crippling agriculture and energy production. The severe droughts of recent years have left millions without reliable access to water, and created cascading economic and social challenges.
The extremes of too much or too little water are connected by a simple truth: we cannot solve our water challenges without protecting the ecosystems that regulate them.
Water is running out where we need it most and arriving in excess where we don’t. One in four people lacks access to safe water. Droughts and floods are intensifying, putting not just people, but entire economies at risk.
But the global response remains reactive rather than preventative—billions are spent on disaster relief, yet the fundamental role of nature in water resilience remains overlooked.
Across our regions, we have seen how wetland ecosystems sustain life. Rice paddies in Southeast Asia sustain food production while also acting as natural reservoirs, capturing and regulating seasonal water flows. Mangrove forests along coastlines protect from storm surges while helping to stabilize freshwater supplies.
In southern Africa, wetlands help sustain livestock and agriculture, with floodplains and seasonal wetlands providing grazing land and water storage during dry periods. The Okavango Delta in Botswana, a Ramsar-listed Wetland of International Importance, is just one example—critical for regional water resilience, supporting biodiversity and sustaining livelihoods in one of Africa’s driest regions.
Cracked earth, from lack of water and baked from the heat of the sun, forms a pattern in the Nature Reserve of Popenguine, Senegal. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
Wetland ecosystems are nature’s most effective water managers, yet they are disappearing three times faster than forests. The destruction of wetlands in urban areas has increased the severity of floods, while the degradation of inland wetlands has led to worsening desertification.
Retno Marsudi
UN Secretary-General Special Envoy on Water
Every wetland lost further weakens our ability to manage water sustainably.
The global water financing gap is estimated at $1 trillion annually, but only a fraction of this goes toward nature-based solutions. Restoring wetlands is often a cost-effective complement to traditional infrastructure, reducing the need for costly flood defences and water treatment facilities. So why does it continue to be undervalued in water governance?
The international community has already taken some important steps in the right direction. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 6 on clean water and sanitation, depend on addressing wetland loss.
Musonda Mumba
Secretary General, Convention on Wetlands
One truth is undeniable: We must rethink water governance. As co-authors of this piece, we know that solving global water issues requires integrated solutions. The Triple A approach presented at the One Water Summit—Advocate, Align, Accelerate—provides a framework for putting wetlands at the centre of water strategies through collaboration.
The upcoming COP15 of the Convention on Wetlands, hosted in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, in July 2025, presents an opportunity to reinforce commitments to wetland restoration as a solution for water resilience.
Delaying action only deepens losses, as floods and droughts continue to wreak havoc on both people and the planet. Investing in wetlands now prevents far greater costs in the future. Each restored wetland means cleaner water, fewer disasters, and a stronger foundation for resilience.
If we want reliable water both now and for future generations, we must protect the ecosystems that sustain it. Keeping wetlands intact means keeping water flowing—clean, available, and accessible to all.
Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations
IPS UN Bureau
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Apr 28 2025 (IPS) - They found shoes, hundreds of them, scattered across the dirt floor of an extermination camp in Jalisco state. These abandoned shoes, once belonging to someone’s child, parent or spouse, stand as silent witnesses to Mexico’s deepest national trauma. Alongside charred human remains and makeshift crematoria meant to erase all evidence of humanity, they tell the story of a crisis that has reached industrial-scale proportions.
In March, volunteer search groups uncovered this sprawling death camp operated by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Teuchitlán. The discovery wasn’t made by sophisticated government intelligence operations but by mothers, sisters and wives who’ve transformed their personal grief into relentless collective action. For them, the alternative to searching is unthinkable.
Mexico is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe of staggering proportions. Over 121,000 people have disappeared over the past decades, with 90 per cent of cases occurring since 2006, when then President Felipe Calderón militarised the fight against drug cartels. Add to this the estimated 52,000 unidentified human remains held in morgues across the country and the true scale of this national tragedy begins to unfold.
A web of complicity
What makes Mexico’s crisis particularly sinister is the systematic collusion between arms of the state and organised crime. The Jalisco camp’s proximity to federal security installations raises troubling questions about official complicity and active participation in a system that treats some populations as expendable.
The crisis follows a well-established pattern. In states such as Jalisco and Tamaulipas, criminal organisations collaborate with local authorities to enforce territorial control. They use violence to recruit forced labour, eliminate opposition and instil terror in communities that might otherwise resist. Security forces are often implicated, as seen in the 2014 disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College, where investigations revealed that military personnel witnessed the attack perpetrated by a criminal organisation but failed to intervene.
Young people and women from poorer backgrounds bear the brunt of this horror. In Jalisco, a third of missing people are between 15 and 29 years old. Women and girls are systematically targeted, with disappearances often linked to human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Ciudad Juárez has become notorious for femicides, with over 2,500 women and girls disappeared and murdered since the 1990s. Migrants transiting through Mexico are vulnerable to abduction for extortion or forced recruitment, as seen in the 2010 San Fernando massacre, when 72 migrants were executed for refusing to work for a criminal group.
Mothers turned activists
Faced with government inaction or complicity, civil society has stepped in. Human rights organisations document disappearances, support victims’ families and demand accountability, including by organising public demonstrations, collaborating with international bodies and bringing cases before international courts. But the most remarkable response comes from grassroots collectives formed by families of the disappeared. Throughout Mexico, hundreds of groups such as Guerreras Buscadoras, predominantly led by women – mothers, wives and sisters of the disappeared – conduct search operations, comb remote areas for clandestine graves, perform exhumations and maintain secure databases to document findings.
Their courage comes at a terrible price. In May 2024, Teresa Magueyal was assassinated by armed men on motorcycles in Guanajuato state after spending three years searching for her son José Luis. She was the sixth mother of a disappeared person to be murdered in Guanajuato within a few months. Another mother, Norma Andrade, has survived two murder attempts. Despite knowing the risks, she and countless others continue their quest for truth and justice.
Years of pressure from civil society culminated in the 2017 General Law on Forced Disappearance, which formally recognised enforced disappearance in national legislation and established a National Search Commission. While a significant achievement, implementation has proven problematic, with inconsistent application across Mexico’s federal system, inadequate information systems, insufficient forensic capacity and minimal penalties for perpetrators.
Time for change
The discovery of the Jalisco extermination camp has generated unprecedented public outrage, sparking nationwide protests. President Claudia Sheinbaum has declared combating disappearances a national priority and announced several initiatives: strengthening the National Search Commission, reforming identity documentation, creating integrated forensic databases, implementing immediate search protocols, standardising criminal penalties, publishing transparent investigation statistics and enhancing victim support services.
For meaningful progress, Mexico must undertake comprehensive reforms that address the structural underpinnings of the crisis. Critical measures include demilitarising public security, strengthening independent prosecutors and forensic institutions, guaranteeing transparent investigations free from political interference and providing sustained support for victims’ families.
The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has announced the opening of an urgent procedure examining Mexico’s disappearance crisis – a step that could elevate these cases to the scrutiny of the UN General Assembly. International oversight is needed to ensure state compliance with human rights obligations.
This moment – with public outrage at its peak, presidential commitments on the table and international scrutiny intensifying – creates a potential inflection point for addressing this national trauma. If there was ever a time when conditions favoured substantive action, it’s now.
But whatever happens at the official level, one thing remains certain: Mexico’s mothers of the disappeared will continue their quest. They’ll keep searching abandoned buildings, digging in remote fields and marching in the streets carrying photos of their missing loved ones. They search not because they have hope, but because they have no choice. They search because the alternative is surrender to a system that would prefer they kept silent.
And so they continue, carrying their message to the disappeared and to a state that has failed them: ‘Until we find you, until we find the truth’.
Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
BERLIN, Germany, Apr 28 2025 (IPS) - For the first time ever in its history, the United Nations Peacekeeping Ministerial (PKM) will take place in Berlin from 13 to 14 May. The aim of the meeting is to discuss the future of UN peace missions. These biennial meetings serve as a gauge of the continuing political support for such missions, which are, of course, just one of the tools in the UN’s comprehensive ‘toolkit’ for handling conflict — alongside general conflict prevention, mediation missions and peacebuilding measures.
But the need for reform is clear: the planning, execution and successful completion of peace missions are beset with challenges. The last major UN peacekeeping mission to be initiated was the MINUSCA in the Central African Republic in 2014.
Although existing missions are regularly extended, other players are increasingly gaining in importance, particularly regional and sub-regional organisations. The success of UN missions continues to be limited, while the number of conflicts worldwide is on the increase.
Changes in conflict dynamics, for example as a result of new threats such as disinformation, provide additional complications for their work. Nevertheless, UN peacekeeping missions are regarded as one of the most cost-efficient and effective instruments in international conflict management. They are proven to reduce direct violence against civilian populations and therefore continue to be irreplaceable.
In light of the increasing challenges, the upcoming PKM in Berlin will discuss new, more flexible models for future peacekeeping. In the Pact for the Future in September 2024, the UN Member States had already tasked Secretary-General António Guterres with developing suggestions to reform UN peacekeeping. Such missions are therefore currently a hot topic. And it is worth taking a look at Germany’s role in all this.
A crucial role
The first National Security Strategy (NSS), published in 2023, emphasised Germany’s wish to assume responsibility for international crisis management. In practice, however, its commitment continues to be limited, especially when it comes to personnel. Russia’s attack on Ukraine has shifted security policy priorities towards defending the country and the alliance.
The lack of a substantive German commitment to UN peacekeeping would, however, be fatal. The country’s participation is crucial for several reasons — not only because of the need for well-trained staff and for logistics, transport and high-value skills and competencies, but also for political credibility.
Those who want to influence and have a say in the future of peace missions also need to take responsibility on the ground. The Final Report by the Afghanistan Commission of Inquiry calls for the UN system to be strengthened by better crisis management, more financial resources and realistic, prioritised mandates.
This can only succeed if ‘peace missions receive relevant support from Germany, in terms of both materials and people’. To date, however, personnel on the ground has been in short supply.
Until its withdrawal in 2023, the UN mission in Mali was Germany’s last substantial – albeit selective – peacekeeping engagement. Currently, Germany’s contribution is largely limited to the maritime components of the UNIFIL Mission in Lebanon.
Although Germany is traditionally a reliable participant in the financing of UN deployments, its field presence was always limited — with its political influence suffering as a result. On many occasions, the participation of German troops has paradoxically even declined when Germany was represented for two years on the UN Security Council.
There has therefore been a gap between ambition and reality for a long time now. This contradiction is also evident in the National Security Strategy. On the one hand, it claims: ‘The army’s core mission is to defend the country and the alliance; all tasks are subordinate to this mission.’
On the other hand, it declares that ‘we will strive to ensure that United Nations peacekeeping missions are endowed with a clear political mandate and the necessary resources.’ As it is, the foreign policy message remains ambivalent — and points to a continuing need for clarification in the political decision-making process.
Three key challenges
Overall, three key challenges are hindering Germany’s commitment to the UN.
Firstly, the German public remains fundamentally sceptical about Germany playing a more significant role in international crisis operations. Despite the mantra-like declaration of wanting to take more responsibility, the new government needs to provide more convincing arguments to justify such deployments.
As so many of these missions take place far away from the reality of people’s lives at home, there is a real need for open, clear communication on the importance of multilateral action — without ignoring critical voices. At all times, German participation must, of course, be carefully assessed and the chances of success evaluated together with national and international partners.
Secondly, the army continues to be underfunded despite the so-called ‘Zeitenwende’ (or turning point) and constitutional change. Any sustainable improvement requires stable financing commitments and structural reforms — also when it comes to personnel. For this to happen, the defence budget needs to grow in the long term and structures need to be adapted — also in view of the suspension of compulsory military service.
The new government should therefore do one thing without abandoning the other: the defence of the country and of the alliance needs to be considered in tandem with deployments in trouble spots. Ultimately, the NSS emphasises that German security ‘[is] linked to the security and stability of other regions of the world’.
Thirdly, the civil sector lacks the political will and suitable structures to play a more forceful role. Although the 2021 Coalition treaty promised that crisis prevention and civil crisis management would be strengthened, this aspiration has, in practice, remained largely unfulfilled. For example, in March only 12 German police officers were deployed in UN peace missions — despite long-standing targets for growth in this area.
Alongside diverging interests between the federal and state governments, career incentives for international deployments are also in short supply. As a comparison, more than 280 German police officers are currently deployed with Frontex — a clear sign of the political priorities.
Given the global changes in UN peacekeeping, Germany should participate fully in the upcoming reform discussions, contribute its own ideas and, in particular, provide concrete resources. The Peacekeeping Ministerial in May offers an important opportunity to lend visibility to Germany’s political engagement, to help shape the future of UN peacekeeping and to pledge binding contributions.
Ultimately, Germany must prove that it is serious about UN peacekeeping if it is to again apply in 2026 for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for 2027/2028 — and emphasise strengthening UN peacekeeping in its candidacy.
Yet, sustainable support may not be limited to ministerial or Security Council meetings. Germany should systematically push ahead with its commitment to peace and security within the whole UN architecture, for example in its current role as chair of the Peacebuilding Commission or in the General Assembly, whose presidency the country will assume in September.
Germany should generally continue to drive forward the closer integration of peace consolidation and peacekeeping — politically, structurally and operationally. The ministries involved should therefore define the goals of Germany’s participation in UN-led peace operations — with binding schedules and personnel and financial commitments.
These goals should also be coordinated with NATO and EU strategic processes to ensure international coherence and division of labour. Such voluntary commitments can also be included in the revised crisis guidelines (originally from 2017).
The new government needs to act urgently — not only on account of crises in peace operations but also because of the increase in cross-border security threats. In a period of multiple crises, Germany cannot afford to take a backseat when it comes to security policy. The impact of the current conflicts will be felt here sooner or later.
Dr Patrick Rosenow is editor-in-chief of the magazine Vereinte Nationen, published by the United Nations Association of Germany (UNA-Germany, DGVN). His work focuses on the United Nations, multilateralism, and peace and international security.
Kirsten Hartmann is a policy officer in the Europe and International Politics programme at the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung. She studied international relations and peace studies in Erfurt, Cali, Tübingen and Haifa.
Source: International Politics & Society (IPS), Brussels.
IPS UN Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 28 2025 (IPS) - The Trump administration’s hostile attitude towards Western Europe—and the threat to pullout of the 32-member military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – signifies the danger of losing the longstanding protection of the US nuclear umbrella over Europe.
Jana Puglierin, director of the German office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, was quoted as saying: “Trump may, or may not, want to leave NATO officially, but he has every means to undermine NATO”.
Trump’s antagonism towards NATO also extends to the 27-member European Union (EU), which he said, was created, “to screw the US.”
The widespread speculation, in the current political climate, is whether the UK and France could provide nuclear protection to Western Europe—or will countries like Germany, Poland and the Nordics be forced to go nuclear?
The New York Times said last month that Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland , with its long history of Russian occupation, might eventually develop its own nuclear weapon.
Of the world’s approximately 12,331 nuclear warheads, roughly 9,604 are in the military stockpiles for use by missiles, aircraft, ships and submarines. The remaining warheads have been retired but are still relatively intact and are awaiting dismantlement, according to FAS.
The world’s nine nuclear-armed states are the UK, US, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.
Both UK and France have only 515 warheads compared to about 3,700 in the American arsenal, with an additional 1,300 waiting to be de-activated.
Tariq Rauf (former Head of Verification and Security Policy, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told IPS “for some time now, I have believed that NATO’s European members have failed to integrate Russia into a common European security architecture”.
It is a concerning reality that some of the new members of NATO, former East bloc countries, have endeavoured to get some form of revenge for the wrongs inflicted upon them by the USSR, and have found ways to provoke Russia which in turn has led to bad behaviour by Russia.
“Now the proverbial chickens have come home to roost and a shooting war has been going on for three years. US pull back from Europe has long been on the books, President Trump is the latest US leader who seems to let the Europeans fend for themselves. Eighty years after the end of WW2, EU economies are thriving but their foreign policy remains confused and now there are concerns about “friendly proliferation”.
The Polish president, Rauf pointed out, has openly voiced interest in developing own nuclear weapons if the US does not station nuclear weapons in his country. Interestingly, this did not elicit any concerns from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or other countries as Poland is a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Both France and the UK still labour under delusions of being global powers and have pretensions of providing “extended deterrence” to their European friends as the US distances itself.
In the UK, Prime Minister Starmer is cutting support to pensioners and other social programmes, as well as overseas development assistance, to fund new nuclear-missile submarines and maintaining an arsenal of about 260 operational nuclear weapons.
In France, President Macron is reversing President de Gaulle’s policy and is openly offering to bring in EU countries under a French nuclear “umbrella”, even as the economy declines and social problems increase.
While France has about 300 operational nuclear warheads, it has permanently closed and dismantled it nuclear weapon test sites and facilities to make nuclear material for nuclear weapons.
Germany has reversed policy as well and will again host US medium-range nuclear-armed ballistic missiles; as will the UK which will bring back US nuclear-armed bombers.
The 55-year old NPT system is on the verge of collapse and it that happens the result will be a cascade of nuclear proliferation in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, warned Rauf.
Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation, Oakland, California, told IPS talk of a potential “Eurobomb” goes back decades, but it has escalated sharply since the Trump administration’s antipathy towards its NATO allies has caused some of them to question the reliability of the U.S. commitment to Article 5 of the 1949 NATO treaty.
Article 5, at the heart of the treaty, commits NATO states to help out any member that comes under armed attack, with the response they deem appropriate, including military responses, widely understood to include the U.S. ‘nuclear umbrella’.
In 2020, French President Macron called for a ‘strategic dialogue’ on ‘the role of France’s nuclear deterrent in [Europe’s] collective security.’ In an attempt to open discussions on this issue with Germany, France repeated the offer in 2022, but there were no takers.
Last month, Macron offered to ‘open the strategic debate’ with interested European countries to determine ‘if there are new co-operations that may emerge’.” Officials from Germany, Poland, Denmark, Lithuania, and Latvia have welcomed Macron’s call for a strategic dialogue, which would also aim to include nuclear-armed UK.
“Donald Trump’s wildly erratic pronouncements and behavior makes it impossible to predict how the U.S. will react. But clues might be found in Project 2025, widely seen as the playbook for the second Trump administration,” she said.
Project 2025 seeks to ‘Transform NATO so that U.S. allies are capable of fielding the great majority of the conventional forces required to deter Russia while relying on the United States primarily for our nuclear deterrent, and select other capabilities while reducing the U.S. force posture in Europe’.
While Trump threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO during his first term, the U.S. government as a whole is deeply committed to NATO, as is illustrated by the fact that in 2024 Congress passed, and President Biden signed, a law – supported by then Senator/now Secretary of State Marco Rubio, requiring that a withdrawal from NATO be approved by Congress.
“I think it’s unlikely, though not impossible, that the Trump administration will pull the U.S. out of NATO”, said Cabasso.
But, in light of the Russian Federation’s ongoing illegal war of aggression in Ukraine with its attendant drumbeat of nuclear threats, and a U.S. ally increasing seen as unreliable, a number of former and current European government officials and politicians have called for some form of an independent European nuclear force.
Such a development would violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and other applicable laws. But more alarming is the growing normalization of nuclear threats and legitimization of nuclear proliferation suggested by its proponents.
At a time when all of the nuclear armed states are qualitatively and, in some cases, quantitatively upgrading their nuclear arsenals, a new multipolar arms race is underway, and the dangers of wars among nuclear armed states are growing. Adding more nuclear-armed actors to the world stage is a truly terrifying prospect.
Germany and other NATO members should rebuff any suggestion of acquiring nuclear weapons and take the lead in rejecting reliance on nuclear weapons, use every diplomatic means at their disposal to lower the temperature with Russia and bring the Ukraine war to an end, and promote negotiations among nuclear-armed states to begin the process of nuclear disarmament.
Instead of engaging in a strategic dialogue about a potential Eurobomb, European leaders should be engaging in a dialogue to commence negotiations on a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Europe, ultimately to include Russia. It’s very difficult to imagine in these dark times, but as Albert Einstein said, ‘Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions’.
Elaborating further, Rauf also pointed out that the 1996 nuclear-test-ban treaty languishes and still is not in force, nuclear explosive testing moratoria seemingly are hanging by a thread. We are now in a much more precarious situation regarding accidental or deliberate nuclear war, than even in the worst times of the Cold War. Political leadership is absent – the challenges seem beyond the ken of today’s leaders who are desperately flailing for solutions.
It is well past time to dial back the confrontational rhetoric and heed the call of the UN Secretary-General addressing the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, “The nuclear option is not an option at all. It is a one-way road to annihilation. We need to avoid this dead-end at all costs. Humanity is counting on us to get this right. Let us keep working to deliver the safe, secure and peaceful world that every person needs and deserve.”
In an article published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) last January, Dr Wilfred Wan and Dr Gitte du Plessis, point out that in July 2024 Norway’s Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace signed a contract with the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency (NDMA) for the development of a next-generation ‘supersonic strike missile’, as part of a collaborative project between Norway and Germany first announced in November 2023. The plan is for the new manoeuvrable naval strike missile, dubbed the Tyrfing, to be operational in 2035.
This is just one of several recent high-profile efforts involving Nordic states that aim to enhance European conventional capabilities in order to deter aggression and maintain strategic stability.
Others include Finland’s announcement, in May 2024, that it is acquiring Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) weapons from the United States, which comes on top of its 2021 order of US F-35 combat aircraft. Around the same time, Sweden announced that it would provide Ukraine with early warning and control aircraft equipped with its Erieye radar system. This is expected to represent a ‘big force multiplier’ for Ukraine’s F-16 combat aircraft.
These moves in the Nordic region reflect broader European trends in the development and deployment of advanced conventional precision-strike capabilities. Investments in longer-range, manoeuvrable missiles and delivery systems—including the Tyrfing and the planned deployment on German soil of US hypersonic systems and ground-launched missiles that would have been prohibited under the now-defunct Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty)—contribute to the spectre of a ‘new missile crisis’ in Europe.
Planned upgrades to European global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) will further bolster the ability of these weapon systems to rapidly locate, target and ultimately destroy targets.
For the Nordic states, and especially for new NATO members Finland and Sweden, Russia’s war in Ukraine has provided clear justification for such developments. They are seeking both to demonstrate solidarity with other NATO members and to strengthen the alliance’s conventional capabilities in order to complement the extended US nuclear deterrent. But these decisions have many implications—and come with risks—that European policymakers may not have fully considered.
This article is brought to you by IPS Noram, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
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JEJU ISLAND, Apr 27 2025 (IPS) - Ahead of the 10th Our Ocean Conference, with the theme “Our Ocean, Our Action,” comes a global call to protect the world’s oceans.
The conference starts tomorrow (April 28) and ends on Wednesday and takes place in Busan, Korea.
On Jeju Island, situated south of the Korean Peninsula and west of southern Japan, a community of traditional women divers protects an ocean in crisis.
Haenyeo are highly skilled female divers who dive to significant depths of up to 15 meters, often without the aid of oxygen tanks or other breathing equipment, and can hold their breath for extended periods of up to 45 minutes. They use a distinctive whistling sound, sumbi sori, when resurfacing to clear their lungs of carbon dioxide.
“Some of the women are in their 80s. We dive until we can no longer move. I am 69 years old. Until five years ago, when my daughter became a haenyeo, I was the youngest diver for 45 years. The oldest diver alive is 95 years old. She retired at 90 years. My mother was a diver too,” says Chunsuk Son, in Iho-dong village in Jeju Island.
Jeju Island is surrounded by both sea and ocean, as it is located in the East China Sea and also faces the Pacific Ocean to the south. The island is in the Korea Strait, surrounded by the Yellow Sea and the East/Japan Sea. Jeju Island is a unique location where the northern and southern distributional limits meet, as all species have limited ecological distributions.
Myeonghyo Ko, her daughter, a diver, and a university graduate, says haenyeo have extensive knowledge of the sea’s topography, marine life, and weather patterns that help them choose the best time and locations for diving to collect seafood like abalone, sea urchins, and seaweed while avoiding overfishing, respecting seasonal restrictions, and utilizing traditional ecological knowledge to protect the ocean.
The culture of Jeju Haenyeo is recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. On the 10th anniversary of the Our Ocean Conference under the theme ‘Our Ocean, Our Action’, such actions from the community, governments, international organizations, leading corporations, NGOs, and academia will be highlighted and promoted towards sustainable oceans.
Sanghoon Yoon, expert advisor at Paran Ocean Citizen Science Centre, an NGO founded for citizens to research and gather data for eco-diversity, says climate change is altering Jeju’s aquatic ecosystem “as species we have not seen before are appearing to replace native species. For instance, tropical fish and colorful corals are appearing in Jeju waters in place of the native conch, brown algae, and abalone.”
Jeju Island is a unique location where the northern and southern distributional limits meet. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
“One-third of Jeju Ocean is devastated. It is no longer climate change but a climate crisis. But it is for us to really decide whether this is a crisis or a chance to restore and protect.”
As global warming takes a toll on the ecosystems of Korea’s seas, experienced divers say that slightly over a decade ago, coral reefs and sea anemones, whose natural habitat is in the subtropical waters, started appearing in the waters off the coast of Korea’s southern Jeju Island.
Sanghoon says the “average sea temperature of a subtropical ocean is 18 to 20 degrees Celsius. Even compared to the average change of the climate, the temperature of the Jeju Ocean is increasing 2.5 times. There is new sea life as others, such as the seaweed forest, disappear.”
Against this backdrop, decades of harvesting the seas have disrupted the delicate balance of marine ecosystems. Nearly 90 percent of global marine fish stocks are fully exploited or overfished. And even those like the haenyeo, whose sea harvesting practices are sustainable, are also reducing.
Ko, Seung-chul, the head of Beophwan Haenyeo School and chairperson of the fishing village committee, says in 1966 there were an estimated 24,000 traditional female divers, “but they had reduced to 14,000 in the 1970’s, and further reduced to 7,800 in the 1980’s, and to 6,800 in the 1990’s and as recently as 2023, there were only 2,800 haenyeo. Our haenyeo village school trains young female divers to keep the culture alive, especially because our haenyeo are getting old.”
Against a backdrop of numerous challenges, Choi Ji Myung, from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, told IPS that there is now an even greater need to expand marine protected areas (MPAs). These are designated areas where human activities are regulated or prohibited to protect marine resources and ecosystems from harm.
MPAs help restore fish stocks, protect sensitive habitats, and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Jeju Island is designated as a protected area at home and abroad. UNESCO designated Jeju Island as a biosphere reserve in 2002, a World Natural Heritage site in 2007, and a Global Geopark in 2010, and the Korean government and local governments have also designated the island with various protected areas.
In a press briefing, Dr. Young Nam Kim from the Korea Environment Corporation (KOEM) stated that the current status of designated MPAs in Korea is such that there is a total of 16 marine ecosystem protected areas on Jeju Island, three marine species protected areas, one marine scenic area, and 18 wetland protected areas.
But as the tour around Jeju Island revealed, in the backdrop of large-scale development projects and nearly 16 million visitors per year, the Jeju Sea is in a critical condition due to rapid increase in water temperature, coastal pollution, sea desertification, and changes in species due to climate change.
The Busan conference, about 306 kilometers away from Jeju Island, is expected to deliver lasting solutions to these pressing challenges by building on previous legacy and providing the global ocean community with a platform to build back better.
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CARACAS, Apr 25 2025 (IPS) - Reduced to a marginal oil producer over the past decade, Venezuela has suffered another blow as United States president Donald Trump ordered punitive measures to blockade and further restrict the country’s oil exports.
Venezuelan crude will likely navigate the fringes of global oil trade and finance, flowing toward Asian markets as the government seeks to avoid financial suffocation—possibly without ruling out new negotiations with Washington."Revenues will drop significantly because PDVSA will struggle to produce, obtain diluents, and won’t have the capacity to invest in projects." — Francisco Monaldi
“Venezuela has been very hostile to the United States and the Freedoms which we espouse. Therefore, any Country that purchases Oil and/or Gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a Tariff of 25% to the United States on any Trade they do with our Country,” Trump wrote on his media platform Truth Social on March 24.
Simultaneously, Trump revoked licenses allowing U.S. firms Chevron and Global Oil Terminals, Spain’s Repsol, France’s Maurel & Prom, India’s Reliance, and Italy’s Eni to operate in Venezuela.
The foreseeable outcome “will be a drop in oil production—possibly over 100,000 barrels per day—with lower revenues and difficulties in placing crude on the black market,” Francisco Monaldi, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute’s Center for Energy Studies, told IPS.
Venezuela, which once produced three million barrels (159 liters each) per day in the early 2000’s, has seen a decline since 2013, falling below 400,000 barrels in 2020.
Until the beginning of this century, Venezuela was a major oil producer and exporter, thanks to the vast reserves in the Maracaibo Lake basin in the west. Although underground reserves remain enormous, production has declined, and the country has lost its leading role in the global hydrocarbon market. Credit: Mdnava / Fe y Alegría
This is a stark contrast to its history as the world’s second-largest producer and top exporter a century ago, a co-founder of OPEC in 1960, and still home to the largest crude reserves—over 300 billion barrels.
The collapse of the industry and state-owned PDVSA resulted from a mix of dwindling investments, neglected maintenance, erratic management, and bad deals—all amid economic and social collapse and intense political strife.
Moreover, corruption has reached such heights that several former Energy Ministers and presidents of PDVSA have been imprisoned, while others are fugitives abroad. According to the Venezuelan chapter of Transparency International, the amounts that “evaporated” without ever reaching state coffers add up to tens of billions of dollars.
Additionally, Washington imposed escalating sanctions on Venezuelan political and military leaders, with severe effects on PDVSA’s supplies and operations, the Central Bank, and other state entities.
GDP shrank to a quarter of its early-2000s level, hyperinflation reached six digits, income-based poverty hit 90%, and eight million Venezuelans—one in four—left the country.
However, since 2022, Washington’s green light for Chevron and other foreign firms helped production recover to 760,000 barrels per day in 2023, 857,000 in 2024, and 913,000 in March 2025, according to OPEC’s secondary sources.
Chevron accounted for 25% of this output, with PDVSA handling the rest. The U.S. firm also facilitated the import of 50,000 barrels of diluent daily to blend with Venezuela’s heavy crude, In order to improve and facilitate refining.
“It is assumed PDVSA will take over Chevron’s fields, but a drop is inevitable,” Andrés Rojas, editor of Venezuelan oil journal Petroguía, told IPS.
An oil tanker docks at the Waidiao terminal in Zhejiang province, eastern China. The Asian giant is the primary destination for Venezuelan oil, and this flow may increase as Venezuela loses its U.S. market due to new sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump. Credit: Zhejiang Municipal Government
The impact
Monaldi explains that of Venezuela’s 700,000 daily exportable barrels, half went to “licensed destinations” (mainly the United States, Europe, and India), while the rest went to China (as debt repayment) and Cuba.
Economist Asdrúbal Oliveros, head of Ecoanalítica, consulting firm, estimates Venezuela will lose over US$3 billion this year from Chevron’s withdrawal, leaving external revenues at no more than US$13 billion for its 29 million people.
Government “revenues will plummet because PDVSA will struggle to produce (due to shortages of materials and spare parts), secure diluents, and invest in projects,” Monaldi said.
The expert explains that PDVSA will have to return to the black market, using practices such as transferring crude oil at sea or in the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia to vessels different from those originally dispatched.
This way, the oil reaches its destination, usually China, labeled as being produced in Malaysia or another part of the world.
However, these distant and complicated routes have the dual effect of increasing costs—including freight and insurance—and reducing revenue, as the oil must be sold at discounts of 30% or more compared to prices on the regular market.
Meanwhile, the trade, economic, and financial shock triggered by Trump’s tariff storm this month is driving oil prices down, with current benchmarks like West Texas Intermediate (WTI) at US$63 and North Sea Brent at US$67 per barrel.
Oil transfers between tankers take place offshore or near international trade hubs, such as the Strait of Malacca in Asia. This method, though riskier and costlier, is used as a black-market mechanism to evade sanctions like those imposed by Washington on Venezuela. Credit: Verdemar
Black market challenges
In April of this year, two oil tankers—the Bahamian-flagged Carina Voyager and the Marshall Islands-registered Dubai Attraction—loaded 500,000 and 350,000 barrels of crude, respectively, at Venezuelan terminals. The oil was initially meant to be transported by Chevron to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
However, the vessels had to turn around and return to Venezuelan ports after state-run PDVSA realized it would not be able to collect payment for the shipments due to Washington’s sanctions. The cargoes will now be diverted to Venezuela’s top Asian client: China.
“PDVSA has done this since 2019 with Russian and Iranian support, using two or three intermediaries to deliver the loads,” Rojas noted.
In addition to the higher costs stemming from intermediaries, longer distances, and increased risks, Rojas points out that Venezuelan crude is heavier than benchmark Brent and WTI oils, meaning its price per barrel is roughly US$10 lower.
Monaldi notes that even if China disregards Washington’s threat to hike tariffs on Venezuelan oil imports—or Malaysia, where much of this black-market trade flows—risk premiums will rise, and Venezuela will bear the brunt by receiving insufficient diluents for its heavy crudes.
The Carina Voyager, one of the Bahamian-flagged tankers chartered by Chevron in April to transport Venezuelan crude to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, had to turn around and return its cargo. PDVSA made the decision after realizing payment would be impossible due to Trump’s sanctions. Credit: Sun Enterprises
“The situation is extremely complicated, and this will likely push the Venezuelan economy—which had been experiencing modest growth in recent years (2.6% in 2023 and 5.0% in 2024, according to the Venezuelan Finance Observatory)—back into recession, possibly as early as 2025,” the expert warns.
Monaldi adds that the recession will come alongside a sharp depreciation of the bolívar against the dollar (already over 50% since January) and, consequently, higher inflation, which Ecoanalítica estimates could reach 189% this year.
In this new game, even American oil importers lose out—they had benefited from cheaper Venezuelan crude, which allowed them to free up United States oil volumes for higher-priced exports to third countries, Rojas noted.
He also points out that Chevron’s withdrawal “hurts communities like Soledad” (a town of 35,000 in southeastern Venezuela), where a health center relied on support from the corporation as part of its social responsibility program.
And, as a final blow to Venezuela’s setbacks, two South American neighbors—once net importers of its oil—have now joined the thriving club of exporters welcomed by Washington: Brazil, which produces 3.4 million barrels per day, and Guyana, now pumping 650,000 barrels daily.