One of the main contradictions of contemporary European integration is a question that extends far beyond demographic and social policy: can successful integration simultaneously mean the strategic weakening of individual states?
Dans le nord de Djibouti, l’arrivée de près de 4 000 personnes ayant fui les affrontements au Yémen en traversant la mer Rouge met à rude épreuve les ressources d’une population déjà frappée par la sécheresse et l’insécurité alimentaire. Face à cette situation, l’ONU appelle la communauté internationale à renforcer son soutien.
Hezbollah announced a yearlong housing-assistance program on October 13, offering eligible families displaced by the 2024 and 2026 wars with Israel up to $14,000 for rent and furniture. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also met separately with Hezbollah and allied Shiite Amal Movement lawmakers to discuss government-administered reconstruction projects in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
How Houthi military aggression in the Red Sea threatens Africa
Growing ties between the Houthis and al-Shabaab could turn Red Sea instability into a more dangerous security threat for Africa.
The United States-Israel February attack on Iran led to the Iran-backed Houthi militia of Yemen seizing territory at the entrance to the Red Sea, with grave potential consequences for Africa and the world.
Key Takeaways:
Yemen’s civil war has reignited with Saudi Arabia, backed by Turkish and Pakistani forces, fighting the Iran-linked Houthis, who have forged opportunistic ties with Al-Shabaab, Islamic State in Somalia, Somali pirates, and AQAP for weapons, training, and smuggling routes.
Non-state militant and criminal groups worldwide are building a crime-terror nexus of shared smuggling networks, drug trafficking, and temporary alliances—generating an estimated $6 trillion illicit economy in 2025—while proving resilient in conflicts from Sudan’s multi-faction war and Mali’s JNIM operations to Latin American cartels and Hezbollah-linked networks.
These partnerships complicate government control, private-sector avoidance, and traditional mediation, as groups exploit weak states, adapt to airstrikes and designations, and increasingly bypass formal authorities, eroding the primacy of states in shaping regional and global order.
Key Takeaways:
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij operate a state-embedded trafficking enterprise that exploits Afghan and Pakistani refugees, Iranian children, and women for military proxies, sex trafficking, and forced labor, generating cost savings and direct revenue while Iran ranks as a U.S. Tier 3 country and has not ratified the Palermo Protocol.
These activities include coercive recruitment into Fatemiyoun and Zainabiyoun brigades for Syria and Iraq, border “taxes” on smuggling networks that push migrants into debt bondage, and facilitation of sex trafficking to regional destinations, all subsidized by control of borders and security checkpoints.
Existing U.S. and EU sanctions, focused mainly on nuclear, missile, and terrorism grounds, leave trafficking proceeds largely untargeted because they are cash-based and laundered through hawala and front companies, prompting calls to apply tools such as the Global Magnitsky Act and anti-money-laundering rules specifically to IRGC trafficking networks.
Key Takeaways:
Bahrain has arrested scores of Shiite clerics accused of conspiring with Iran, sparking 125 solidarity demonstrations since May 9, threats from Iranian-backed militants to attack infrastructure unless 41 prisoners are freed, and 251 total arrests since the war began, heightening sectarian tensions.
In Iran, ethnic minorities comprising about 43% of the population face rising violence, including assassinations of pro-government Sunni Baloch and Kurdish clerics, pitched battles by the Popular Fighter Front against the IRGC in Sistan and Balochistan, and Taliban efforts to revive Jundallah, while Kurdish groups grow more vulnerable amid the impending full US withdrawal from Iraq.
Continued heavy-handed repression in Bahrain risks further protests that test government control, while ethnic unrest could threaten Iran’s domestic stability and territorial integrity if the US-Iran conflict escalates, with President Trump’s decisions on potential renewed war potentially determining whether minorities become involved in broader hostilities.
More than 492,000 Afghans have been deported from Iran since the beginning of 2026, accounting for 85% of all Afghan returns from the country this year, according to new figures from the UN refugee agency.
In a report published Thursday, UNHCR said 581,600 Afghans returned from Iran between Jan. 1 and Oct. 3, including 492,300 who were deported. Another 89,300 returned through other means.
Nearly 100,000 movements into Afghanistan from Iran and Pakistan were recorded over a two-week period, while more than 39,000 movements were recorded out of the country toward the two neighbors, according to new data from the International Organization for Migration. Almost three-quarters of the arrivals came from Iran.
Pour le reste du monde, l’oléoduc Est-Ouest constituait une police d’assurance. Avec quatre stations sur treize HS, le gisement de Ghawar touché & la mer Rouge sous contrôle, la garantie a expiré.
Lorsque le détroit d’Ormuz a été fermé fin février, l’Arabie saoudite disposait de ce dont presque aucun autre producteur du Golfe ne pouvait se prévaloir : une solution de contournement à grande échelle. L’oléoduc Est-Ouest, connu dans le secteur sous le nom de Petroline, acheminait du pétrole brut sur 1 200 kilomètres à travers le désert, depuis les champs pétroliers de la province de l’Est jusqu’à Yanbu, au bord de la mer Rouge. Sa capacité maximale est d’environ 7 millions de barils par jour. Pendant sept mois, c’est grâce à lui que le monde a pu continuer à s’approvisionner en pétrole saoudien. Cette bouée de sauvetage est désormais hors service.