Africa

President Mnangagwa's term in office is due to end in 2028 but a bill could open the way for him to extend that time.

The items stolen in the late 19th Century by British troops will officially be returned to Nigeria.

The High Court judgement says Dalitso Lungu, 39, failed to show they were acquired lawfully.

All 55 people on board survived after the plane failed to land on the runway near the shoreline.

Depuis Oran, une initiative née d’une coopération algéro-japonaise prend de l’ampleur et s’apprête à transformer durablement la pêche artisanale sur l’ensemble du littoral algérien. Lancée […]

L’article Du poisson frais et en abondance : cette initiative algéro-japonaise testée depuis 2021 se généralise est apparu en premier sur .

La Banque d'Investissement et de Développement de la CEDEAO (BIDC) a nommé M. Baba Malick Ba au poste de Directeur Régional en charge de la supervision de la Côte d'Ivoire, du Sénégal, de la Gambie, du Burkina Faso, du Cap-Vert et de la Guinée, à compter du 1er février 2026.

Baba Malick Ba est un professionnel chevronné de la finance qui possède une vaste expérience dans les secteurs public et privé, dans divers domaines : gestion des risques, financement de projets, banque, marchés de capitaux, financement des exportations, analyse de crédit, gestion de portefeuille, marchés financiers et partenariats public-privé.Avant de rejoindre la Banque, M. Ba a travaillé pour le gouvernement sénégalais au ministère de l'Économie, du Plan et de la Coopération en tant que Directeur du financement et des partenariats public-privé et Coordonnateur de l'unité PPP du Sénégal (UNAPPP).

De plus, M. Ba a occupé le poste de Conseiller Senior auprès du ministre de l'Économie, du Plan et de la Coopération du Sénégal sur des questions financières et stratégiques. Il a joué un rôle important dans la mobilisation de capitaux pour financer degrands projets d'infrastructure dans de nombreux secteurs tels que les transports, la santé, l'assainissement, l'énergie et l'éducation. M. Ba a également occupé divers postes stratégiques au sein d'entreprises publiques canadiennes (Exportation et développement Canada et Société canadienne d'hypothèques et de logement) et a travaillé comme banquier pour JP Morgan Chase et Bank of America aux États-Unis et au Canada.M. Ba est parfaitement bilingue (français et anglais) et titulaire d'un Executive MBA de l'Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) ainsi que d'une licence en finance et en administration des affaires de l'Université Franklin de Columbus, dans l'Ohio (États-Unis).

En outre, M. Ba a siégé au conseil d'administration de plusieurs banques multilatérales telles que la Banque Islamique de Développement, la BOAD et la BIDC.Dans le cadre de ses nouvelles fonctions à la BIDC, il soutiendra les opérations régionales de la Banque, renforcera les partenariats et fera progresser la mission de la BIDC en faveur du développement économique durable dans la région de la CEDEAO. Il sera basé au bureau régional de la Banque à Abidjan.

À propos de la BIDC

La Banque d'Investissement et de Développement de la CEDEAO (BIDC) est l'Institution de Financement du Développement des États membres de la Communauté Économique des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (CEDEAO). Basée à Lomé, en République togolaise, la Banque s'engage à financer des projets et programmes de développement portant sur diverses initiatives dans les secteurs des infrastructures et des services sociaux de base, du développement rural et de l'environnement, de l'industrie ainsi que des services sociaux, à travers ses guichets dédiés aux secteurs privé et public. Les interventions de la BIDC se font sous forme de prêts à long, moyen et court terme, de prises de participation, d'octroi de lignes de crédit et mise en place d'accords-cadres de refinancement, des opérations d'ingénierie financière et services connexes.

Plus de 40 tonnes de marijuana ont été saisies en Macédoine du Nord, une semaine après une importante opération en Serbie. Les autorités évoquent des cultures légales détournées vers le trafic.

- Le fil de l'Info / Courrier des Balkans, drogues, Macédoine du Nord, Serbie, Défense, police et justice, Relations régionales

Moderate socialist António José Seguro will be Portugal's next president after defeating his right-wing populist rival André Ventura (Chega party) in the runoff election and securing around 67 percent of the vote. Conservative Prime Minister Luís Montenegro congratulated him on his victory and said he hoped they would be able to collaborate effectively. The constitution gives the president the right to veto laws, dissolve parliament and call new elections.

Nairobi says it has shut down illegal recruiters and will urge Moscow to sign a deal banning conscription.

Eswatini says the talks were part of regional diplomacy and not an attempt to interfere.

New Zealand make it two wins from two matches at the T20 World Cup after they thrash the United Arab Emirates by 10 wickets in Chennai.

La présidente de la Commission européenne estime que les États membres devraient pouvoir avancer par groupes restreints plutôt que d’attendre un consensus des Vingt-Sept, alors que l’Union peine à relancer sa croissance.

The post Pour relancer la croissance, Ursula von der Leyen propose une Europe à deux vitesses appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Every morning before sunrise, 10-year-old Amina Adan walks away from school and toward a shrinking water pan on the outskirts of Rhamu, Mandera County. By the time her classmates would be opening exercise books, Amina was already balancing a yellow jerrycan almost half her size. Her mother, Fatuma Adan, says the choice is no longer […]

Des millions de documents liés à Epstein publiés par le ministère américain de la Justice mentionnent les noms de personnalités riches et puissantes du monde entier.

Dans l'édition de mardi, également : Euronews, migration, OTAN, commerce américain, ETS

The post L’essor d’une Europe ad hoc appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Millions of children are at risk of facing exploitation and abuse through exposure to and having their images being manipulated through generative AI tools. Credit: Ludovic Toinel/Unsplash

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 10 2026 (IPS)

New findings from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reveal that millions of children are having their images manipulated into sexualized content through the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI), fueling a fast-growing and deeply harmful form of online abuse. The agency warns that without strong regulatory frameworks and meaningful cooperation between governments and tech platforms, this escalating threat could have devastating consequences for the next generation.

A 2025 report from The Childlight Global Child Safety Institute—an independent organization that tracks child sexual exploitation and abuse—shows a staggering rise in technology-facilitated child abuse in recent years, growing from 4,700 cases in the United States in 2023 to over 67,000 in 2024. A significant share of these incidents involved deepfakes: AI-generated images, videos, and audio engineered to appear realistic and often used to create sexualized content. This includes widespread “nudification”, where AI tools strip or alter clothing in photos to produce fabricated nude images.

A joint study from UNICEF, Interpol, and End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT) International examined the rates of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) circulated online across 11 countries found that at least 1.2 million children had their images manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes in the past year alone. This means roughly one in every 25 children—or one child in every classroom—has already been victimized by this emerging form of digital abuse.

“When a child’s image or identity is used, that child is directly victimised,” a UNICEF representative said. “Even without an identifiable victim, AI-generated child sexual abuse material normalises the sexual exploitation of children, fuels demand for abusive content and presents significant challenges for law enforcement in identifying and protecting children that need help. Deepfake abuse is abuse, and there is nothing fake about the harm it causes.”

A 2025 survey from National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) studied the public’s attitudes toward deepfake abuse, finding that deepfake abuse had surged by 1,780 percent between 2019 and 2024. In a UK-wide representative survey conducted by Crest Advisory, nearly three in five respondents reported feeling worried about becoming victims of deepfake abuse.

Additionally, 34 percent admitted to creating a sexual or intimate deepfake of someone they knew, while 14 percent had created deepfakes of someone they did not know. The research also found that women and girls are disproportionately targeted, with social media identified as the most common place where these deepfakes are spread.

The study also presented respondents with a scenario in which a person creates an intimate deepfake of their partner, discloses it to them, and later distributes it to others following an argument. Alarmingly, 13 percent of respondents said this behavior should be both morally and legally acceptable, while an additional 9 percent expressed neutrality. NPCC also reported that those who considered this behavior to be acceptable were more likely to be younger men who actively consume pornography and agree with beliefs that would “commonly be regarded as misogynistic”.

“We live in very worrying times, the futures of our daughters (and sons) are at stake if we don’t start to take decisive action in the digital space soon,” award-winning activist and internet personality Cally-Jane Beech told NPCC. “We are looking at a whole generation of kids who grew up with no safeguards, laws or rules in place about this, and now seeing the dark ripple effect of that freedom.”

Deepfake abuse can have severe and lasting psychological and social consequences for children, often triggering intense shame, anxiety, depression, and fear. In a new report, UNICEF notes that a child’s “body, identity, and reputation can be violated remotely, invisibly, and permanently” through deepfake abuse, alongside risks of threats, blackmailing, and extortion from perpetrators. Feelings of violation – paired with the permanence and viral spread of digital content – can leave victims with long-term trauma, mistrust, and disrupted social development.

“Many experience acute distress and fear upon discovering that their image has been manipulated into sexualised content,” Afrooz Kaviani Johnson, Child Protection Specialist at UNICEF Headquarters told IPS. “Children report feelings of shame and stigma, compounded by the loss of control over their own identity. These harms are real and lasting: being depicted in sexualised deepfakes can severely impact a child’s wellbeing, erode their trust in digital spaces, and leave them feeling unsafe even in their everyday ‘offline’ lives.”

Cosmas Zavazava, Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), added that online abuse can also translate to physical harm.

In a joint statement on Artificial Intelligence and the Rights of the Child, key UN entities, including UNICEF, ITU, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Commission of the Rights of the Child (CRC) warned that among children, parents, caregivers and teachers, there was a widespread lack of AI literacy. This refers to the basic ability to understand how AI systems work and how to engage with them critically and effectively. This knowledge gap leaves young people especially vulnerable, making it harder for victims and their support systems to recognize when a child is being targeted, to report abuse, or to access adequate protections and support services.

The UN also emphasized that a substantial share of responsibility lies with tech platforms, noting that most generative AI tools lack meaningful safeguards to prevent digital child exploitation.

“From UNICEF’s perspective, deepfake abuse thrives in part because legal and regulatory frameworks have not kept pace with technology. In many countries, laws do not explicitly recognise AI‑generated sexualised images of children as child sexual abuse material (CSAM),” said Johnson.

UNICEF is urging governments to ensure that definitions of CSAM are updated to include AI-generated content and “explicitly criminalise both its creation and distribution”. According to Johnson, technology companies should be required to adopt what he called “safety-by-design measures” and “child-rights impact assessments”.

He stressed however that while essential, laws and regulations alone would not be enough. “Social norms that tolerate or minimise sexual abuse and exploitation must also change. Protecting children effectively will require not only better laws, but real shifts in attitudes, enforcement, and support for those who are harmed.”

Commercial incentives further compound the problem, with platforms benefitting from increased user engagement, subscriptions, and publicity generated by AI image tools, creating little motivation to adopt stricter protection measures.

As a result, tech companies often introduce guardrails only after major public controversies — long after children have already been affected. One such example is Grok, the AI chatbot for X (formerly Twitter), which was found generating large volumes of nonconsensual, sexualized deepfake images in response to user prompts. Facing widespread, international backlash, X announced in January that Grok’s image generator tool would only be limited to X’s paid subscribers.

Investigations into Grok are ongoing, however. The United Kingdom and the European Union have opened investigations since January, and on February 3, prosecutors in France raided X’s offices as part of its investigation into the platform’s alleged role in circulating CSAM and deepfakes. X’s owner Elon Musk was summoned for questioning.

UN officials have stressed the need for regulatory frameworks that protect children online while still allowing AI systems to grow and generate revenue. “Initially, we got the feeling that they were concerned about stifling innovation, but our message is very clear: with responsible deployment of AI, you can still make a profit, you can still do business, you can still get market share,” said a senior UN official. “The private sector is a partner, but we have to raise a red flag when we see something that is going to lead to unwanted outcomes.”

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Les Kurdes de Turquie se mobilisent alors que l'armée syrienne a repris la quasi-totalité des territoires administrés par les forces kurdes dans le nord-est de la Syrie. Manifestations, appels humanitaires et prises de parole politiques se heurtent à une répression accrue, visant aussi les journalistes.

- Articles / Courrier des Balkans, Balkans Syrie, Turquie, Erdogan, Médias, Relations régionales, Populations, minorités et migrations, Relations internationales, Une - Diaporama