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Written by Colin Murphy with Greta Baltika

The virtual, online world is a significant part of everyday life. As a reflection of modern society, it features a range of criminal behaviour. The internet is a complex system of interconnected computer networks allowing applications to communicate with one another. Through this complexity, it has a simplistic structure with a visible top layer, a deeper content layer and finally, a small but significant dark layer.
This dark layer, known as the dark web, is a less explored and understood part of the web. It contains content that is not searchable and is accessed using a process to maintain anonymity. There are legitimate and appropriate reasons for accessing the dark web, such as activists and whistleblowers avoiding identification. However, it has a reputation for illicit content and activity. This notoriety can be justified, as the dark web, while not unlawful in itself, does contain websites providing access to illegal content and services such as drugs, firearms, stolen data and child sexual abuse material. This online space is being progressively scrutinised by law enforcement agencies, who have become increasingly specialised in countering certain aspects of the dark web, with some notable successes in dismantling cybercrime infrastructure and bringing criminals to justice

Read the complete briefing on ‘Understanding the dark web‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Romuald Wadagni, président élu au terme de l'élection présidentielle du 12 avril 2026, s'est adressé à la Nation Béninoise dans la soirée de ce mardi 14 avril 2026. A travers un message publié sur sa page Facebook, le nouveau chef de l'Etat a réitéré son engagement à œuvrer au maintien de l'unité nationale.

Romuald Wadagni réagit après la proclamation des résultats provisoires de la présidentielle 2026 par la CENA. Dans un message publié sur sa page Facebook ce mardi 14 avril 2026, le président élu a salué le professionnalisme des instances ayant organisé le scrutin présidentiel du 12 avril dernier. Ces instances par leur professionnalisme, a-t-il félicité, ont permis aux Béninois de l'intérieur du pays comme de l'extérieur, d'accomplir leur devoir civique dans la ferveur, la convivialité et la discipline.

Saluant le sens républicain de son adversaire, Paul Hounkpè, Wadagni dit accueillir « avec humilité » ces résultats provisoires de la CENA qui, pour lui, relèvent non seulement de l'engagement de Béninoises et Béninois de toutes les contrées y compris de la diaspora, mais aussi, de l'investissement des partis politiques et mouvements de soutien, de diverses personnalités politiques ou civiles, ainsi que les centrales et confédérations syndicales.

« J'avais dit, en m'engageant dans la compétition électorale, que notre plus grande force, dans un monde actuellement instable, réside dans notre unité nationale. Les tendances annoncées par la CENA, en ce qu'elles traduisent une large victoire, me paraissent être le reflet de ce besoin d'unité nationale face aux défis qui sont les nôtres », a souligné Romuald Wadagni. Pour lui, ces tendances sont « la manifestation d'un consensus national », qu'il s'engage à tenir compte dans ses fonctions futures de président de la République.

« Je veux vous réitérer ma conviction que c'est ensemble, à la suite des bases solides posées par l'action du Président Patrice Talon, que nous irons encore plus loin dans la construction du Bénin, notre nation, pour en faire un pays moderne qui garantit le bien-être à ses enfants, quelles que soient leurs conditions et où qu'ils vivent », a conclu le candidat vainqueur de la présidentielle du 12 avril 2026 au Bénin.

F. A. A.

MLS-Meistertrainer Javier Mascherano verlässt Inter Miami per sofort aus persönlichen Gründen. Sein Nachfolger ist ein alter Bekannter von Miami-Star Lionel Messi.

In der Stadt St.Gallen stahlen drei Jugendliche und ein Zehnjähriger am Sonntagabend einen Dumper von einem Firmengelände. Dabei beschädigten sie Baufahrzeuge und ein Auto. Die Polizei fasste sie am Montag und zeigte sie an.

La fraude électorale, notamment les achat de voix, fait partie intégrante des usages électoraux en Bulgarie. Alors que les citoyens sont appelés aux urnes le 19 avril pour les huitièmes législatives en cinq ans, les irrégularités signalées se multiplient déjà.

- Le fil de l'Info / Une - Diaporama, Courrier des Balkans, GERB, Bulgarie, Politique

André Pfister will von Zürich nach Venedig fliegen – doch die Swiss will seinen elektrischen Rollstuhl nicht transportieren. Aus der Reise wird ein Streit mit der Airline.

The Leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, arrived at UN Headquarters by helicopter. A view of the helicopter, as it approached the North Lawn of the UN campus, on 13 November 1974. But Arafat was denied a US visa for a second visit to the UN in 1988, to address the General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo/Michos Tzovaras

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 15 2026 (IPS)

The United Nations faces two crucial elections later this year: the election of a new Secretary General, with no confirmed date for polling, and the election of a new President (PGA), scheduled for June 2, for the upcoming 81st session of the General Assembly.

In accordance with established geographical rotation, the president for the next session will be elected from the Asia-Pacific Group with two candidates in the running: Dr. Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh, currently serving as Foreign Minister, and Andreas S. Kakouris, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus. A third declared candidate, Riyad Mansour (Palestine), withdrew from the race.

The dual candidacy breaks a longstanding tradition of a single candidate running for the office of PGA from each geographical group.

According to one of the established rules, speeches before the General Assembly were limited to 15 minutes– but rarely enforced.

The longest speech –269 minutes–was credited to Fidel Castro of Cuba at a meeting of the General Assembly on 26 September 1960. But the longest speech ever made at the UN was by V.K. Krishna Menon of India. His statement to the Security Council was given during three meetings on 23 and 24 January 1957 and lasted more than 8 hours.

In a bygone era, the General Assembly was also the center of several politically memorable events in the history of the world body.

When Yasser Arafat was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva– perhaps for the first time in UN history– providing a less-hostile political environment and a platform, for the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement in Geneva by remarking: “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honorable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.

On his 1974 visit to address the General Assembly, he avoided the hundreds of pro and anti-Arafat demonstrators outside the UN building by arriving in a helicopter which landed on the North Lawn of the UN campus adjoining the East River.

When he addressed the General Assembly, there were confusing reports whether or not Arafat carried a gun in his holster—“in a house of peace” — which was apparently not visible to delegates.

One news story said Arafat was seen “wearing his gun belt and holster and reluctantly removing his pistol before mounting the rostrum.” “Today, I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand,” he told the Assembly.

Setting the record straight, Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and head of the former Department of Public Information told Inter Press Service (IPS) it was discreetly agreed that Arafat would keep the holster while the gun was to be handed over to Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then Foreign Minister and later President of Algeria (1999-2019).

Incidentally, when anti-Arafat New York protesters on First Avenue shouted: “Arafat Go Home”, his supporters responded that was precisely what he wanted—a home for the Palestinians to go to.

Although Arafat made it to the UN, some of the world’s most controversial leaders, including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, and North Korea’s Kim il Sung and his grandson Kim Jong-un never made it to the UN to address the General Assembly.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Minister of Industries of Cuba, addresses the General Assembly on Dec. 11, 1964. Credit: UN Photo/TC

Meanwhile, when the politically-charismatic Ernesto Che Guevara, once second-in-command to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was at the UN to address the General Assembly sessions, back in 1964, the U.N. headquarters came under attack – literally. The speech by the Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary was momentarily drowned by the sound of an explosion.

The anti-Castro forces in the United States, reportedly backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had mounted an insidious campaign to stop Che Guevara from speaking. A 3.5-inch bazooka was fired at the 39-storeyed Secretariat building by the East River while a vociferous CIA-inspired anti-Castro, anti-Che Guevara demonstration was taking place outside the U.N. building on New York’s First Avenue and 42nd street.

But the rocket launcher – which was apparently not as sophisticated as today’s shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades – missed its target, rattled windows, and fell into the river about 200 yards from the building. One newspaper report described it as “one of the wildest episodes since the United Nations moved into its East River headquarters in 1952.”

As longtime U.N. staffers would recall, the failed 1964 bombing of the U.N. building took place when Che Guevara launched a blistering attack on U.S. foreign policy and denounced a proposed de-nuclearization pact for the Western hemisphere. It was one of the first known politically motivated terrorist attacks on the United Nations.

After his Assembly speech, Che Guevara was asked about the attack aimed at him. “The explosion has given the whole thing more flavor,” he joked, as he chomped on his Cuban cigar.

When he was told by a reporter that the New York City police had nabbed a woman, described as an anti-Castro Cuban exile, who had pulled out a hunting knife and jumped over the UN wall, intending to kill him, Che Guevara said: “It is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun.”

Meanwhile, in 2004, when the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to the present African Union (AU), barred coup leaders from participating in African summits, Secretary-General Kofi Annan singled out the OAU decision as a future model to punish military dictators worldwide.

Annan went one step further and said he was hopeful that one day the General Assembly would follow in the footsteps of the OAU and bar leaders of military governments from addressing the General Assembly.

Annan’s proposal was a historic first. But it never came to pass in an institution where member states, not the Secretary-General, reign supreme.

The outspoken Annan, a national of Ghana, also said that “billions of dollars of public funds continue to be stashed away by some African leaders — even while roads are crumbling, health systems are failing, school children have neither books nor desks nor teachers, and phones do not work.” He also lashed out at African leaders who overthrow democratic regimes to grab power by military means.

Meanwhile, some of the military leaders who addressed the UN included Fidel Castro of Cuba, Col Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, Amadou Toure of Mali (who assumed power following a coup in 1991 but later served as a democratically elected President), and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana (who seized power in 1979, executed former heads of state but later served as a civilian president voted into power in democratic elections). As the International Herald Tribune reported, Rawlings was “Africa’s first former military leader to allow the voters to choose his successor in a multi-party election”.

In October 2020, the New York Times reported that at least 10 African civilian leaders refused to step down from power and instead changed their constitutions to serve a third or fourth term – or serve for life.

These leaders included Presidents of Guinea (running for a third term), Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana and Seychelles, among others. The only country where the incumbent was stepping down was Niger.

Condemning all military coups, the Times quoted Umaro Sissoco Embalo, the president of Guinea-Bissau, as saying: “Third terms also count as coups”

Back in 1977, a separatist activist/lawyer from London, Krishna Vaikunthavsan, who was campaigning for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, surreptitiously gate-crashed into the UN, and virtually hijacked the General Assembly when he walked to the GA podium ahead of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister ACS Hameed, the listed speaker, and lashed out at his government for human rights violations and war crimes.

When the President of the Assembly realized he had an interloper, he cut off the mike within minutes and summoned security guards to bodily eject the intruder from the hall. And as he walked up to the podium, there was pin drop silence and the unflappable Hameed, unprompted by any of his delegates, produced a riveting punchline.

“I want to thank the previous speaker for keeping his speech short,” he said, as the Assembly, known to tolerate longwinded and boring speeches, broke into peals of laughter.

Meanwhile, a security officer once recalled an incident where the prime minister from an African country, addressing the General Assembly, was heckled by a group of African students. As is usual with hecklers, the boisterous group was taken off the visitor’s gallery, grilled, photographer and banned from entering the UN premises.

But about five years later, one of the hecklers returned to the UN —this time, as foreign minister of his country, and addressed the world body.

This article contains excerpts from a book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That” authored by Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at Inter Press Service news agency. A former member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN General Assembly sessions, he is a Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, New York, and twice (2012-2013) shared the gold medal for excellence in UN reporting awarded annually by the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA). The book is available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

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Für die New Jersey Devils endet die NHL-Saison mit einer deutlichen Niederlage: Das Team mit drei Schweizern geht in der Nacht auf Mittwoch in Boston unter. Mehr Erfolg hat Pius Suter mit den St. Louis Blues.

Helvetia Baloise hat am Mittwoch die Geschäftszahlen für 2025 publiziert. Dabei gab der Versicherer auch neue Details zum geplanten Stellenabbau bekannt.

Barcelona scheitert im Champions-League-Viertelfinal an Atletico Madrid – und hadert dabei mit zwei strittigen Schiedsrichterentscheiden. Trainer Hansi Flick schluckt diesmal aber den Frust. Raphinha nicht.

Zweimal war Janis Jérôme Moser im Draft von den offenbar sehschwachen NHL-Teams übergangen worden. Jetzt zählt der Verteidiger zu den Besten der Liga und ist die Nummer 1 der Schweizer NHL-Stars, von denen sich nur vier für die Playoffs qualifiziert haben.

Die USA und Israel führen Krieg gegen den Iran. Der Nahe Osten steht unter Beschuss. Im Ticker halten wir dich über die neusten Entwicklungen auf dem Laufenden.

Viele Hotels bieten ihren Gästen am Morgen ein üppiges Zmorge-Buffet. Die Versuchung ist gross, sich dann auch gleich noch ein zusätzliches Sandwich fürs Zmittag bereitzumachen. Aber ist das überhaupt erlaubt?

Als einziges europäisches Land kennt Deutschland kein generelles Tempolimit auf Autobahnen. Die durch den Irankrieg gestiegenen Ölpreise heizen die Diskussion jetzt neu an. Eine Mehrheit der Deutschen würde ein Tempolimit befürworten, wie neue Umfragen zeigen.

Giovanni Franzoni ist der Ski-Shootingstar der letzten Saison. Der Italiener gehört zu den grössten Konkurrenten von Marco Odermatt. Auf – und nun auch neben der Piste.

Das Mandarin Oriental in Miami ist Geschichte. Das Luxushotel wurde am Wochenende kontrolliert gesprengt, um Platz für ein gigantisches Neubauprojekt zu schaffen – die grösste Sprengung in Miami seit über einem Jahrzehnt.

Jonas Lauwiner, der selbst ernannte König der Schweiz, hat den Rosenweg in Geuensee LU an einen Anwohner verkauft. Der Erlös geht an die Kinderkrebshilfe Schweiz.

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Oscarpreisträgerin Meryl Streep kehrt nach 20 Jahren als Modechefin Miranda Priestly zurück! Das Sequel von «Der Teufel trägt Prada» feiert am 30. April in der Deutschschweiz Premiere. Der Trailer hat bereits den Zahlenrekord gebrochen.