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Planetary themes for International Switzerland, Europe and Beyond. | | Newsletter, Friday, 30 October, 2020 | |
Global Geneva's new print & e-edition | | SCROLL DOWN for new and recent articles, photography & videos. Cartoons at the top and bottom of this newsletter by Jeff Danziger, a member of Global Geneva media partner Cartooning for Peace. Also see our useful news from unusual but reliable sources: NUSEREAL. | |
We urgently need to raise funds (20,000 USD/CHF still needed for 2020) to finance public interest reporting worldwide and our Youth Writes initiative. Please join the Jan Michalski and Aventinus Foundations who have been helping us this year. Plus all individual contributors who believe in what we are doing. Our content is available for free in the public interest worldwide, including schools. Your backing is crucial. | | Dear Friends: I have just returned to the Lake Geneva region from seven months in Thailand, a Covid-free country as with other Southeast Asian neighbours. (People are reading Global Geneva there, too.) I now find myself in lockdown on the French side. But at least France is taking the pandemic seriously. In a televised address this week, President Macron talked about ethical responsibility, notably how France's values do not sacrifice vulnerable groups, such as the elderly.
Switzerland, which has the highest infection rate in Europe, is still pretending that all is well and that a few counter-measures will take care of the matter. The Bern government, which has consistently refused repeated requests for an expansive background interview by Global Geneva and other journalists representing the international community, continues to 'recommend' rather than 'impose'. I am shocked to see how many people on the Swiss side still do not grasp the need to wear masks at all times, if not for themselves, then at least for others. Switzerland needs to take lessons from Asia, and even Africa. Hard questions need to be put to the country's Minister of Health Alain Berset.
Could better-funded journalism have prevented the pandemic? Covid-19 has already cost American, European, African and other economies billions of dollars. This can expect to rise to well over one trillion worldwide by the time the virus is contained, if at all. These are the figures bandied about by groups such as the World Bank and the UN's Trade and Development Agency (UNCTAD). So has the world made an extremely short-sighted choice by not investing in local and international public interest journalism? See our article.
Global Geneva - as with many other news organizations - is struggling to find the funding needed to finance quality journalism. We need this for our planned reporting on wildlife conservation, tourism and climate change across the globe as well as urban planning in the age of Covid. Equally crucial, our popular Youth Writes initiative.
Nevertheless, despite such gloom, we are persevering. We will continue to provide highly relevant insight articles in the public interest to our readers worldwide. We are also developing media partnerships with groups such as Who, What, Why in North America to share articles, plus youth internship programmes such as Nexstep in Southeast Asia as well as Partners for a Better World in Geneva.
Take our latest cover story: Why climate change matters to your security, health and wealth written by contributing editors explorer Paul Mayewski and marine/arctic legal expert Charles Norchi with climate change specialist Alexander Hope. This is an important article which clearly shows how such key issues, such as conflict and water shortages, are interlinked with climate change. And we are running out of time to do something about it.
Then there is one of our 2020 Youth Writes entries (we have received over 80 stories by high school students worldwide for this year's competition) which we have chosen to publish now because of its newsworthiness. Thailand-based 18-year-old graduate Maisie Wynd Smith courageously wrote about how the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) has betrayed tens of thousands of IB students slated to take the 2020 exams earlier this year. Despite our repeated requests for a response, the IBO management has preferred to say nothing, despite the enormous financial investment so many parents have placed into the IB education of their children.
As usual, we have other relevant pieces, such as the Civitas Maxima Jungla Jabbah oped explaining why a Swiss court in the Italian part of Switzerland will be trying a Liberian war criminal this November. Just scroll down below. Plus Nusereal with useful news items from around the world.
As always, keep safe - and good reading. With best regards, Ed Girardet, editor, and the Global Insights Magazine team. For more inflormation, please contact: editor@global-geneva.com | | Scroll down for latest articles, photography & cartoons | | | |
DOWNLOAD OUR SPECIAL SUMMER EDITION 2020 IN PDF HERE OR OUR PAGE-TURNING ONLINE FORMAT HERE
| | | | Why Climate Change matters to your security, health & wealth. Climate change poses poses immediate and long-term threats to our security, health, and wealth. Contributing editors Charles Norchi and Paul Mayewski, together with Alexander More of the Climate Change Institute, have prepared this highly useful and illustrative insight to what is happening to our planet - and why. Global Geneva recommends that this be used in schools and universities. It also serves as a pertinent quick read for general audiences. Article | by Paul Mayewski, Charles Norchi & Alexander More | | | | Geneva's Palais des Nations scandal. October 24 was the day for the United Nations to celebrate its 75th anniversary, and many U:N. buildings, including Geneva's, lit themselves up in blue light to mark the celebration. To provide a contrast to the self-congratulations, we offer a story about the Palais des Nations and its all too familiar history under the League of Nations of international politicking and chicanery. Article | | | | Could better-funded journalism have prevented the pandemic? The Covid-19 pandemic has already cost national economies ranging from the United States to Sri Lanka billions of dollars. This can expect to rise to well over one trillion worldwide by the time the virus is contained, if at all. So has the world made a hazardous choice by not investing in local and international public interest journalism? Article | | | | YOUTH WRITES: The 2020 IB: an institution that betrayed its students. Globally, over 150,000 high school students were supposed to take their IB exams in May 2020. They were denied this opportunity by the pandemic, but also the manner with which the exam regulators mishandled it. The exams were simply not held. Instead, students were awarded their diplomas based on coursework and not the hard study they had put into their exam preparations. Broadly lambasted by parents, teachers and students as unfair, the IBO decision has put into question the Geneva-based organization's ability to run the IB. The IBO has refused to respond. One of our Youth Writes entries by an 18-year-old graduate explores the issue. Article | | | | Jungla Jabbah and the fight against impunity. A Philadelphia court's recent upholding of the conviction of Liberian war criminal Jungle Jabbah has led to the next step in November 2020 of a fight against impunity both in Liberia and Switzerland. In this oped, Nikil Bieri of the Geneva-based NGO Civitas Maxima explains the background of this case coupled with an appeal for stronger action to punish those responsible for crimes against humanity. Article | | | | Chappatte and the stifling of graphic satire – 2020 Geneva Foundation Laureate. The Swiss Foundation for Geneva this week honoured the globally-acclaimed Lebanese-Swiss cartoonist Patrick Chappatte as its 2020 Award laureate for his "exceptional contribution toward the promotion of Geneva and his engagement with human rights issues worldwide." The following updated profile by Luisa Ballin was first published by Global Geneva in June 2019. Article | | | | Letter from Thailand: Tourism and the pandemic – until we're back. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Thailand has confronted the pandemic head on by shutting its borders. This has proven disastrous for tourism, which represents 15-20 per cent of the economy. Numerous hotels, restaurants and the ubiquitous massage parlours have closed. Many expatriate business people and residents have also left. Nevertheless, with less than 5,600 reported cases and only 59 deaths, the country has apparently succeeded in curtailing the coronavirus offering significant lessons for elsewhere, such as Switzerland and the United States, both which have failed miserably in containing the virus. Article | | | | What If? A deeper look at America's vice-presidential debate. It says a lot about where we are now that the most dramatic moment in the U.S. vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence involved a large fly landing on Pence's snow-white hair and clinging there, immobile, for at least two minutes. Our Americas Editor William Dowell comments in this collaboration article with Who, What, Why as part of his regular Tom's Paine column. Article | | Articles you may have missed. Plus another incisive Jeff Danziger cartoon at the end of this newsletter. | | | | FOCUS Wildlife & Pandemics: COVID-19, bushmeat and poaching in Africa. As Covid-19 continues to spread across the globe, it is crucial not to forget the highly destructive role that | | | | | | |
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