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Lyse Doucet s'entretient avec Ebrahim Azizi, qui affirme que l'Iran « décidera du droit de passage » sur cette voie maritime cruciale.

Lyse Doucet s'entretient avec Ebrahim Azizi, qui affirme que l'Iran « décidera du droit de passage » sur cette voie maritime cruciale.

En Géorgie, la construction d’une nouvelle Trump Tower a été annoncée ce week-end. C’est le dernier exemple en date d’un rapprochement entre Washington et Tbilissi, malgré la dérive autoritaire et le gel des négociations d’adhésion à l’Union européenne. Au-delà du projet immobilier, c’est un intérêt géopolitique renouvelé que semblent porter les États-Unis à la Géorgie.

ATIGA review and industrial strategy in an age of geopolitical risk

Proponents of the policy shift argue that the change should further integrate Tokyo in the international defence supply chain

Next AFET committee meeting will be held on:

• Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 May 2026, room ANTALL 2Q2, Brussels
• Thursday 7 May 2026, room ANTALL 4Q1, Brussels - extraordinary meeting "in camera"

Meetings are webstreamed with the exception of agenda items held "in camera".

AFET - DROI calendar of meetings 2026
Meeting documents
Webstreaming
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Next AFET committee meeting will be held on:

• Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 May 2026, room ANTALL 2Q2, Brussels
• Thursday 7 May 2026, room ANTALL 4Q1, Brussels - extraordinary meeting "in camera"

Meetings are webstreamed with the exception of agenda items held "in camera".

AFET - DROI calendar of meetings 2026
Meeting documents
Webstreaming
Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Ces discussions controversées devraient se tenir dans un lieu neutre, comme un hôtel de la capitale belge, plutôt que dans les locaux de l'UE

The post EXCLUSIF : Bruxelles devrait accueillir les talibans pour des discussions sur les expulsions d’Afghans appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Injured civilians, having escaped the raging inferno, gathered on a pavement west of Miyuki-bashi in Hiroshima, Japan, at about 11 a.m. on 6 August 1945. Credit: UN Photo/Yoshito Matsushige

By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Apr 21 2026 (IPS)

It is hard to exaggerate the dire implications of Trump’s April 7 post on Truth Social, stating that a civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if no deal is reached with Iran. Such a damning statement implies that he would use ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ i.e., nuclear, to execute his threat.

Obviously, he cannot destroy such a huge country and annihilate a population of 95 million with conventional weapons. Even though Trump was unlikely to carry out his threat, what he said was not taken lightly by either Iran or much of the international community.

International Outrage Over Trump’s Threat

Trump’s outrageous statement has drawn an extraordinary wave of condemnation, from Tehran to the Vatican to international rights bodies.

Amnesty International’s Secretary General denounced Trump’s screed as an “apocalyptic threat,” warning that his vow to end “a whole civilization” exposes “a staggering level of cruelty and disregard for human life” and should trigger urgent global action to prevent atrocity crimes.

Pope Leo XIV called the language “truly unacceptable,” and UK Prime Minister Starmer condemned Trump’s threat, stating that “they are not words I would use — ever use — because I come at this with our British values and principles.”

Together, these reactions, among many others, underscore that Trump’s rhetoric is not being treated as mere bombast, but a genocidal threat that shreds basic norms of international law.

Iranian Officials’ Reaction to Trump’s Statements

The Iranian Embassy in Pakistan mocked the idea that Trump could erase a culture that survived Alexander and the Mongols, insisting that civilizations “are not born over a night and will not die over a night.”

Trump’s vows to “bring [Iranians] back to the Stone Ages” and to let “a whole civilization…die” have, indeed, landed in Tehran not as an outburst. Iranian leaders are treating this language as an open admission of an intent to commit war crimes—and they are already treating it as a narrative of existential struggle with Washington.

In the hands of the Revolutionary Guard, the “Stone Age” threat becomes a propaganda gift: it is proof, they claim, that the United States does not merely oppose the regime, but dreams of erasing an entire people.

The IRGC’s response has been defiant rather than cowed, promising “stronger, wider, and more destructive” retaliation and signaling that any American escalation will be met in kind.

To be sure, many Iranian leaders see Trump’s posts as desperate brinkmanship—a schoolyard bully bluffing nuclear annihilation he cannot deliver. That interpretation may calm nerves around the country, but it might also tempt Tehran to call his bluff, raising the risk of miscalculation.

Under any circumstance, Trump has provided Iran’s rulers the opportunity to claim that any concession wrung from Washington under such apocalyptic pressure is not capitulation. Still, Iran’s millennium-old history attests that these proud people with the richest civilization will not succumb to any threat.

The Iranian Public’s Reaction

Trump’s promise to “hit Iran extremely hard” also operates as psychological warfare against an already exhausted society. They place the threat of physical destruction on top of years of sanctions, economic meltdown, and repression.

For many Iranians, especially parents and the elderly, hearing a US president casually warn that “a whole civilization will die tonight” converts abstract geopolitics into an intimate dread they can imagine and quantify: hospitals without power, children without food and water, people starving to death, and cities lying in ruins.

This deepens their anxiety, concerns, and a sense that they are being collectively punished for decisions made by a mad authoritarian whose genocidal tone hardens a defensive nationalism. Even the Iranians who despise the regime still view the threat as an assault on a 3,000-year-old culture. They would rally around the flag, as they see their own lives as expendable in a struggle where the alternative, as Trump himself spells out, is civilizational extinction.

On the Iranian street and in the diaspora, one hears echoes of Trump’s rhetoric triggering a volatile mix of fear, fury, and contempt that the regime can readily weaponize. For some Iranians, talk of a “civilization” dying reopens the psychic wounds of crippling sanctions and war, making American threats feel dreadfully real, not figurative.

For others, it’s an insufferable insult to an ancient culture that predates the United States by millennia, reinforcing national pride and engendering support even among critics of the clerics.

Trump’s Fitness to Command American Power

These Iranian reactions rebound into US politics because a president whose threats are interpreted abroad as genocidal, unhinged, or clearly insane is not projecting resolve but publicizing volatility and strategic incoherence.

This inevitably undermines deterrence and hands Iran both a recruitment tool and a pretext for escalation if they must.

On the home front, the perception of a man on the loose feeds directly into already fierce debates over Trump’s mental fitness to command American power—arming critics who argue that his apocalyptic language is not just morally repugnant but operationally unthinkable.

This led even some Republicans and national security conservatives to ask whether a commander in chief who casually talks of destroying a “civilization” and whose finger is on the nuclear button can be trusted with the judgment, discipline, and national security on which the US ultimately depends.

When a president of the United States threatens that a whole civilization will die, the world must listen—not because the threat is necessarily credible, but because it exposes the peril of letting unrestrained rhetoric shape global realities.

Trump’s words are not the tantrum of a man out of power; they echo a worldview that wields extinction as diplomacy and gambles civilization itself for theatrical dominance and projection of raw power.

Trump’s declaration that millions might perish is not merely the ravings of an unbalanced mind—it is a chilling testament to how easily words can imperil peace when uttered by one who commands the world’s most formidable military.

His invocation of civilizational death transcends political recklessness; it reveals a moral collapse that renders him ominously unfit to wield influence over American power and global order.

There seems to be no level of disgrace that Trump will not embrace. One day, he threatens to wipe out a whole civilization and exterminate 95 million Iranians; the next, he portrays himself in an AI-generated image as Jesus Christ-like savior healing the sick—a blasphemy that only Trump can commit, debasing the exalted and sublime values of Christianity only to feed his sick soul.

What was once dismissed as bluster must now be recognized for what it is—a warning that when dangerous mendacity meets bottomless ego, humanity itself becomes collateral. The world cannot allow a madman’s narrative to become the language of statecraft.

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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« Je suis choqué, je pensais qu'elle avait du courage, je me trompais » a dit Donald Trump à propos de Giorgia Meloni qu'il qualifiait il n'y a pas si longtemps de « source d'inspiration ». La présidente du conseil italien vantait pourtant une relation « spéciale » avec Washington. Mais Rome a refusé de s'aligner avec les États-Unis sur la guerre au Moyen-Orient, très impopulaire, et qui coûte cher à l'Italie. Il y a eu aussi les attaques de Donald Trump contre le pape Léon XIV, « sacrilège » pour de nombreux Italiens. Vraie rupture diplomatique ou prise de distance stratégique pour Giorgia Meloni, fragilisée sur le plan intérieur ? Marc Lazar, professeur à Sciences Po et à l'université Luiss de Rome, est le grand invité international de Charlotte Idrac.

Le ministre congolais du Commerce extérieur, Julien Paluku Kahongya, et son homologue zambien du Commerce et de l’Industrie, Chipoka Mulenga, se sont réunis ce lundi 20 avril à Kinshasa. Au cœur des échanges : l'évaluation de leur accord commercial bilatéral et la mise en œuvre de projets d'infrastructures frontalières stratégiques.

Ungarn hat es geschafft: Ein autokratisches Regime wurde an der Wahlurne gestürzt. Deutschland muss daraus lernen und die AfD-Propaganda endlich entlarven., Die überwältigende Abwahl Viktor Orbáns bei der ungarischen Parlamentswahl ist ein Zeichen der Hoffnung – für Ungarn, für Europa und für die liberale Demokratie weltweit. Péter Magyar und seine Tisza-Partei haben mit einer Zweidrittelmehrheit und einer Rekordwahlbeteiligung von fast 80 Prozent ...

It clubbed an already passed amendment on women’s reservation with the controversial amendment to delimit electoral boundaries. The ploy flopped.

The region offers a market with untapped potential for streaming entertainment, and one where disposable income is likely to rise in the years to come.

Également dans l'édition de mardi : Anthony Whelan, la Bosnie, l'oléoduc Druzhba, le responsable belge de la lutte contre l'antisémitisme, la Russie, les nominations au gouvernement de Magyar

The post L’UE ouvre ses bras aux talibans appeared first on Euractiv FR.

DRAFT RECOMMENDATION on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of the Agreement between the European Union and Canada laying down the conditions for the participation of Canadian legal entities and products originating in Canada to procurement under the SAFE Instrument
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
Committee on Security and Defence
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Borys Budka

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

DRAFT RECOMMENDATION on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of the Agreement between the European Union and Canada laying down the conditions for the participation of Canadian legal entities and products originating in Canada to procurement under the SAFE Instrument
Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
Committee on Security and Defence
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Borys Budka

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Le vice-premier ministre, ministre de l'Intérieur, a convoqué d'urgence à Kinshasa le président de l'assemblée provinciale de l'Équateur, Delssy Mata. Cette décision intervient après une plénière mouvementée à Mbandaka, marquée par une divergence totale sur les poursuites judiciaires visant le gouverneur Bobo Biloko Bolumbu.

Le Premier ministre libanais, Nawaf Salam, a été reçu mardi à l'Élysée par Emmanuel Macron. Le président français a plaidé pour un accord entre Israël et le Hezbollah qui garantirait "l'intégrité territoriale du Liban", assurant qu'Israël devait "renoncer à ses visées territoriales". Le président français a ajouté que le Hezbollah devait être désarmé "par les Libanais".

Les journaux et media en ligne parus mardi 21 avril 2026 à Kinshasa se focalisent sur l’escalade de la violence dans l’Est de la RDC, malgré les avancées enregistrées dans les négociations à Montreux (Suisse)

Revue de presse du mardi 21 avril 2026