Côte d'Ivoire 2025 election

 

President Ouattara, 83, to seek fourth term in Côte d'Ivoire

Veteran Côte d'Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara said Tuesday he will seek a fourth term in the west African country, as tensions rise over the exclusion of many opposition candidates. Ouattara, 83, has led Côte d'Ivoire since 2011. He is described as the overwhelming favourite to win the 25 October vote. 

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Alassane Ouattara announced this week that he would be a candidate for re-election in a filmed address on Tuesday evening.

Ouattara had already been nominated by his ruling Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) party, but he waited until now to confirm he would run.

"I am a candidate because the constitution of our country allows me to run for another term and my health permits it," he said in a public broadcast, adding that the country was "facing unprecedented security, economic, and monetary challenges, the management of which requires experience".

For the past decade Ouattara has steered Côte d'Ivoire to relative stability, in a turbulent region which has seen a rash of military coups. Yet, critics accuse him of tightening his grip on power.

The opposition already argues a fourth Ouattara term would be unconstitutional.

Upset opponents

Opponents have also accused the authorities of using courts to exclude opponents, as the two main opposition parties have had their leaders barred from running forthe election. They launched a joint campaign to demand their reinstatement.

The government insists the judiciary acts independently.

 The African People's Party of Ivory Coast (PPACI), led by former president Laurent Gbagbo, and the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI), the country's largest opposition force, headed by former international banker Tidjane Thiam, have formed an alliance.

Gbagbo, his former right-hand man Charles Ble Goude and ex-prime minister Guillaume Soro have been struck from the electoral register due to criminal convictions.

Thiam was also excluded by the judiciary over nationality issues.

"The announcement made today by Mr Ouattara constitutes a violation of our constitution and a new attack on democracy," Thiam said in a statement.

Pascal Affi N'Guessan, who will run to unseat Ouattara for the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), called it "a candidacy as illegal as his third".

Critics had already questioned the legality of Ouattara's third mandate as the law limited him to two, until the adoption of a new constitution in 2016 reset the term counter to zero.

And the opposition boycotted the 2020 vote when Ouattara won by a landslide, with at least 85 people killed in the ensuing unrest. 

Long road to power 

Ouattara entered politics when Côte d'Ivoire's founding president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, appointed him to chair a body on economic recovery in the midst of an economic crisis. Then as Houphouet-Boigny's health worsened, Ouattara assumed increasing responsibility for the country's affairs.

When the president died in December 1993, Ouattara was embroiled in a brief power struggle with Henri Konan Bedie, the speaker of parliament, and then left Côte d'Ivoire to join the IMF.

In 1995, he joined the Rally of the Republicans (RDR) party and planned on running as their presidential candidate, but he was barred from doing so following new laws requiring both parents of a candidate to be of Ivorian birth and for the candidate to have lived continuously in the country prior to an election.

He was barred again from polls in 2000 on the same grounds.

Two years later, a failed coup led to a civil war that divided the country into rebel-held and predominantly Muslim north, where Ouattara drew much of his support, and the government-controlled Christian-majority south.

Ouattara was subjected to violence during the unrest, and left the country again, but returned to run in the 2010 election, that he won.

But then-president Gbagbo refuse to concede defeat, which led to more unrest. More than 3,000 people were killed in fighting, before Ouattara became president in 2011.

Gbagbo was acquitted of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in The Hague but still has a conviction in Ivory Coast stemming from the post-election crisis that ended his rule.

 

A home in France for some Gaza journalists?

 As the situation in Gaza is worsening.. We're trying to help journalists and their families to get out. 

A corridor has been opened towards France, but only for people who have a flat or a promise to be hosted... 

Anybody can help with a summer house/flat? for few months?

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La situation à Gaza se dégrade ; nous essayons d'aider des journalistes et leurs familles à sortir. 

Un couloir a été ouvert vers la France, mais uniquement pour les personnes disposant d'un appartement ou d'une promesse d'hébergement… 

Quelqu'un peut-il aider? a un logement pour quelques mois ?

Over 600 000 join new UK left-wing party in just a few days

 

It's not reported much.

But it has gathered 500 000 people and counting in the first few days, then 600 000 people before the end of July. 

The new party initiated by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana already surpass the membership of any existing political party in Britain. 

Former Britain's Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn attends a pro-Palestinian protest outside Downing Street, a demonstration featuring the banging of pots and pans to honour the Palestinians shot while queuing for food in Gaza, in London, Britain, July 25, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes

According to the rare news agencies reporting on it, the appetite for a left alternative to Labour has long been clear, but even supporters of the project had expected a response on this scale.

On Thursday 24 July, Corbyn finally confirmed the creation of a new left-wing party in Britain. 

The party will now hold an inaugural conference this autumn.

The success seems links to the fact that many workers and young people have lost faith in the Labour party under the leadership of Keir Starmer,  due to a right-wing shift, pro-business stance and denial of the genocide in Gaza.

The new party’s brief launch statement, signed by Corbyn and Sultana, declared, “It’s time for a new kind of political party. One that belongs to you.” 

It points to the millions living in poverty as “giant corporations make a fortune” and the government provides “billions for war”, and to “the government’s complicity in crimes against humanity”.

The statement also calls for a “mass redistribution of wealth and power”, for the defence of “the right to protest against genocide”, and opposes the scapegoating of migrants and refugees and the “fossil fuel giants putting their profits before our planet”. It is “ordinary people who create the wealth,” it continues, “and it is ordinary people who have the power to put it back where it belongs.”

 

Famine is 'playing out' in Gaza, warns global hunger monitor

 

Famine is 'playing out' in Gaza, warns global hunger monitor

IPC alert is not formal classification of famine in Gaza

Israel controls access to Gaza, began implementing daily humanitarian pauses in military operations on Sunday

IPC says mounting evidence shows widespread starvation, malnutrition, disease driving rise in hunger-related deaths

IPC says famine thresholds reached for food consumption in most of Gaza and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City

By Michelle Nichols and Olivia Le Poidevin

UNITED NATIONS/GENEVA, July 29 (Reuters) - Famine is "playing out" in the Gaza Strip, a global hunger monitor said in an alert issued on Tuesday as international criticism of Israel intensifies over rapidly worsening conditions in the Palestinian enclave.

"The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip," said the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) alert. "Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths."

The IPC alert does not formally classify Gaza as being in famine. Such a classification can only be made through an analysis, which the IPC said it would now conduct "without delay."

The IPC is a global initiative that partners with 21 aid groups, international organisations, and U.N. agencies, and assesses the extent of hunger suffered by a population.

War has raged in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas for the past 22 months. Facing global condemnation over the humanitarian crisis, Israel said on Sunday it would halt military operations for 10 hours a day in parts of the Palestinian enclave and allow new aid corridors.

For an area to be classified as in famine, at least 20% of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

"Immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response. This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering," the IPC alert said.

The latest data indicated that famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption in most of the war-torn Palestinian enclave - where some 2.1 million people remain - and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City, the alert said.

"Formal famine declarations always lag reality," David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee aid group, said in a statement ahead of the IPC alert.

"By the time that famine was declared in Somalia in 2011, 250,000 people - half of them children under 5 - had already died of hunger. By the time, famine is declared, it will already be too late," he said.

STARVATION, MALNUTRITION 'RAPIDLY ACCELERATING'

The IPC has classified areas as being in famine four times: Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and Sudan in 2024. The IPC says it does not declare famine, but instead provides an analysis to allow governments and others to do so.

The IPC's independent Famine Review Committee - which vets and verifies IPC findings that warn of or identify a famine - endorsed the Gaza alert on Tuesday.

The last IPC analysis on Gaza, issued on May 12, forecast that the entire population would likely experience high levels of acute food insecurity by the end of September, with 469,500 people projected to likely hit "catastrophic" levels.

"Many of the risk factors identified in that report have continued to deteriorate," the Famine Review Committee said in the alert on Tuesday. " 

Although the extreme lack of humanitarian access hinders comprehensive data collection, it is clear from available evidence that starvation, malnutrition, and mortality are rapidly accelerating."

Israel controls all access to Gaza. After an 11-week blockade, limited U.N.-led aid operations resumed on May 19 and a week later the obscure new U.S.-based Gaza Humanitarian Foundation - backed by Israel and the United States - began distributing food aid.

The rival aid efforts have sparked a war of words - pitting Israel, the U.S. and the GHF against the U.N., international aid groups and dozens of governments from around the world. Israel and the U.S. accuse Hamas of stealing aid - which the militants deny - and the U.N. of failing to prevent it. The U.N. says it has not seen evidence of mass aid diversion in Gaza by Hamas.

The IPC alert said 88% of Gaza is under evacuation orders or within militarized areas. "People's access to food across Gaza is now alarmingly erratic and extremely perilous," it said.

The IPC and the Famine Review Committee were both critical of the GHF efforts in the alert issued on Tuesday.

The IPC said most of the GHF "food items are not ready-to-eat and require water and fuel to cook, which are largely unavailable." The Famine Review Committee said: "Our analysis of the food packages supplied by the GHF shows that their distribution plan would lead to mass starvation."

The GHF says it has been able to transport aid into Gaza without any being stolen by Hamas and that it has so far distributed more than 96 million meals.

The IPC alert said an estimated minimum of 62,000 metric tonnes of staple food is required every month to cover the basic food needs of the Gazan population. But it said that according lk;;m;.;lkl;' to COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, only 19,900 MT of food entered Gaza in May and 37,800 MT in June.

The war in Gaza was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took some 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel's military campaign has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

Second UN Food Systems Summit

 

Participants at UN Food Systems Summit call for urgent investment in agriculture

The UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) wrapped up on Tuesday, after three-day summit, co-hosted by Italy and Ethiopia in its capital Addis Ababa. As hunger and food insecurity deepen worldwide, all participants called for increased effort to support agriculture, especially in the most vulnerable countries, plagues by war and climate disruption.

The summit took place against the backdrop of aid cuts by the United States and other Western nations that are badly affecting much of the developing world.

Co-hosted by Ethiopia and Italy in Addis Ababa, the meeting took place four years after its first edition, which was held in Rome in July 2021.

For all participants, it was an opportunity to take stock of global food security and review the ambitious goal they set for themselves in 2021: to eradicate hunger on Earth by 2030.

But by 2024, the world will have reached a record high of 295 million people affected by acute food insecurity and child malnutrition.

“Are we doing enough? The answer is no," said Amina Jane Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, who is herself from Nigeria. "Food systems are still under pressure, there is an urgent need for transformation, and investments in food are still falling short of expectations."

She added she was particularly concerned about the situation in Gaza and Sudan.

"The UN has already spoken out several times on access to food for residents. For Gaza and Sudan, this is a matter of international humanitarian law, it's as basic as that," Mohammed added. "The only thing we can do is continue to raise our voices and, in Sudan, to speak to leaders, with the commitment of the African Union (AU). Famine must not be the reason that pushes us towards peace."

Millions going hungry

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Monday said food must not be used as a weapon of war as world leaders gathered for a food summit in Africa, where 280 million people face hunger and starvation.

"Hunger fuels instability and undermines peace. We must never accept hunger as a weapon of war," Antonio Guterres told the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa via video link.

"Climate change is disrupting harvests, supply chains and humanitarian aid," he said.

Sudan is "the largest humanitarian catastrophe facing our world and also the least remembered", Othman Belbeisi, the regional director of the UN's migration agency, IOM, told reporters last week.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than seven million people.

"At this crucial moment, how many children and mothers on the continent are sleeping on an empty stomach? Millions, certainly. The urgency of the situation is beyond doubt," said Mahamoud Ali Youssouf, the chairperson of the AU Commission, who was more generally concerned about the urgency of the situation throughout Africa.

"Conflict continues to spread hunger from Gaza to Sudan and beyond," Guterres warned amid a severely deteriorating crisis in Gaza, whose population of more than two million is facing famine and malnutrition.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned malnutrition in the occupied Palestinian territory has reached "alarming levels" since Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March.

In late May, it began allowing a small trickle of aid to resume but more than 100 NGOs have warned that "mass starvation" was spreading in the besieged territory.

In this rather bleak picture, the UN Deputy Secretary-General nevertheless wished to acknowledge the limited progress made in recent years in terms of food security. "One hundred and thirty countries now have their own programmes aimed at transforming their food systems," Amina Jane Mohammed said.

Need for investments

As a call for responses, the African Union urged donors to provide greater support for the world's poorest continent, which is struggling with poverty, unrest and the effects of climate change.

Youssouf said food insecurity was on the rise across Africa, blaming "climate shocks, conflicts and economic disruptions".

"At this crucial moment, how many children and mothers on the continent are sleeping hungry?" he asked. "Millions, certainly. The urgency of the situation is beyond doubt."

Youssouf said that more than 280 million Africans were malnourished, with "nearly 3.4 million... on the brink of famine".

Roughly 10 million people had been displaced due to drought, floods and cyclones, he added.

Youssouf urged AU member states to devote 10 percent of their gross domestic product to agriculture to help foster "nutritional resilience".

"But we cannot do this alone. We call on our partners to honour their commitments to finance and support African solutions," he said.

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Read also my pieces on food and hunger for RFI:

Food prices rise worldwide due to climate extremes, according to new report

More than 110 aid and human rights groups denounce Gaza 'mass starvation'

Over 600 malnourished children die in six months in Nigeria: MSF

 

A few words on settler colonialism

 

I would like to see more European people reconsider and see how deeply, deeply colonial the United States is. 

And I think for anyone who's from a former colony, those decolonised more recently - like I've lived in Kenya, my family's from Algeria... - it's something that's so obvious. 

But I was talking about this with British friends, who said they didn't like the 'colonial feel' in Malta or Cyprus, and they didn't see and colonial heritage or feel in 'New' England or 'New' York State... 

I think about the the US of A. as a settler colony all the time, on the contrary. 

In anything America does politically, internationally, diplomatically, visually, cinematically, photographically, in it, I see a land that's been squared up by powerful men who had stolen it and the ghosts of the people they exterminated. And I'm really, really surprised that British people have completely put that in a tiny box in the back of their mind.

Reminder:

-The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel — these are the victorious settler colonies. The settlers didn’t just occupy; they became the state, buried the indigenous populations politically and culturally, and rewrote history to legitimise their presence.

-Algeria, by contrast, is one of the very rare examples where settler colonialism was defeated — where the colonised not only regained their land but also forced the settlers to leave. And they had to leave because they had no real claim to citizenship or belonging in a liberated Algeria.

So... Settler Colonies are, mostly the colonies that won...

Not every colony with European settlers qualifies as "settler colonies". Maybe the term is misunderstood or used too broadly. . 

A settler colony is not just a place where settlers arrived; it's a place where the settler population came with the intent to stay, to replace or dominate the native population permanently, and to build a state that reflects their interests and identity. Crucially, it's a colonial project that won.

The clearest examples of successful settler colonialism are the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and, more recently, Israel. In these places, the settler population didn't just occupy territory—they became the state. They pushed out or subdued Indigenous populations, erased or appropriated local cultures, and rewrote history to legitimise their presence. These are not merely post-colonies; they are settler states built atop the near-total marginalisation of native peoples.

By contrast, countries like Algeria represent rare examples of failed settler colonialism. The French in Algeria attempted to create a "French Algeria," complete with mass European migration and the granting of French citizenship to settlers. But after a brutal war of liberation, the colonised population forced the settlers out. Independence came not only with sovereignty but also with the end of the settler project.

In comparison, in Kenya, while there were British settlers, their numbers were relatively small. They exploited land and labour, ruled through racial hierarchy, and brought in people from the Indian subcontinent... But the settler population never became demographically dominant. Nor did they succeed in reshaping the country into a British homeland. 

What distinguishes settler colonialism is not merely the presence of settlers, but the establishment of a state by and for the settlers, at the expense of the original inhabitants. When that project succeeds, it carries a unique legacy. 

Settler states often portray themselves as innocent democracies, even as they continue to marginalise Indigenous peoples, other immigrants (like enslaved then later liberated Africans) and deny the foundational violence of their creation.

Meanwhile, the former 'metropoles'—France and Britain, for instance—struggle with national narratives clinging to imperial nostalgia, even as they insist that their colonial pasts were more benign.

This distinction matters. It helps us understand global power dynamics of today. 

The victorious settler colonies are heavily invested in the Western liberal world order and often speak with the greatest moral authority—all while sitting atop unresolved histories of dispossession. They are part of 'The West' and the 'G7', the first seven economies (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US). They sit at the table of the victors... 

Remembering this is not just a history nerds' point. It is key to any honest reckoning with colonialism and its ongoing consequences.

'Dreaming'

 

My relationship with music has always been intense; I like very emotional songs... 

But I also need it to bring hope. 

No more words about abandonment, not being able to survive betrayals... 

We need to be stronger than that! The planet is burning; people are being starved by the richest economies, on purpose.

If only we had more allies... That's what I dream about. 

The National - Dreaming 

You're always where you leave yourself
Six feet in the sky
True love at your fingertips
Engineered for life

You can stop dreaming
You can stop dreaming

You're just the way you like yourself
Social, bright and promising
A perfect personality
Beyond imagination

You can stop dreaming, I'll dream for you
You can stop dreaming, it'll all come true
You can stop dreaming, I'll dream for you
You can stop dreaming

Sleep for an hour, I'm up for an hour
All this makes me think of you with numbers in your eyes
I sleep for an hour, I'm up for an hour
I hate to count explosions but I do it all night

You personalize everything
Everyone's emotions
It's always all about you
It's always self-devotion

You can stop dreaming, I'll dream for you
You can stop dreaming, it'll all come true
You can stop dreaming, I'll dream for you
You can stop dreaming, it'll all come true
You can stop dreaming, I'll dream for you
You can stop dreaming

A lit student, a thesis, a supervisor... what could go wrong?

 

We saw... 'Sorry, Baby'...

Inspired by a dark period of the life of the writer-director-actor Eva Victor, the film follows a grad student-turned-professor navigating the disorienting aftermath of sexual assault by her own advisor. That she trusted, read and valued...

As Victor, 31, told in interviews, “It's not such a simple thing to have people connect to a film like this.”

It probably depends on the viewers...

I was a literary student myself in my youth, and I was a lecturer and worked with very sensitive and vulnerable women students.

I also know women who have been through similar stories, meeting an older man and trusting them as a mentor, and they... only saw them as pieces of meat or convenient mirrors to their ego.

Eva has read her supervisor / professor's first book, she has admired it. and he has just divorced, and thinks he feels good to receive compliments from his best student... But instead of leaving at that, compliment, reading, advice... he crossed a line.

But when assault happens in such a situation, women do not only feel violated in their body, but also in their trust, in their beliefs, and in that sort of invisible space that is a protection between them and a person of the opposite sex that they really respect. And they really didn't imagine that this space could be broken, reduced, and annihilated by someone they trusted. And that's really difficult to overcome.

Obviously, society makes us think that women victims of assault, harassment or ambiguous and confusing feeling led by an older, more powerful men are 'penetrated' or betrayed, that it's violent acts, but they can heal quickly because it's a physical thing, like breaking a bone. But it's actually very much more of a trauma in the brain, it's like surviving a car crash; your sense of safety disappears.

And I think, obviously, the fact that it happens in a world full of ideas and literature adds a layer of depth...

I'm still haunted by it. A very profound film...

I hope male university lecturers will watch it.

Bravo Eva Victor!

 

Newsletter - new post

https://melissa.substack.com/p/three-main-stories-of-the-week

Three main stories of the week

This week in our world, beyond Trump... A selection of urgent stories that should make the headlines, whether they did or not.

Melissa Chemam

Jul 26, 2025

Three main stories of the week

This week in our world, beyond Trump... A selection of urgent stories that should make the headlines, whether they did or not.

Melissa Chemam

Jul 26, 2025