Stories from Quick Reads and Switzerland
An Election Film Week in Lebanon to Say #NoToExtension of Parliament Term
What better than the seventh art to mobilize? In another effort to push for Elections in Lebanon and prevent an extension of the Parliamentary term #NoToExtension, Lebanese NGO Nahwa Al Muwatiniya (meaning Towards Citizenship) held an “Election Film Week”. Six works from Chile, Iran, China, Ghana and the US, varying between documentaries...
Gold Medal Winner's Touching Gesture with Peruvian Skier at Sochi 2014
Swiss skier Darío Cologna was awarded the gold medal on the 15-kilometer freestyle cross country ski race in the 2014 Winter Olympics held in Sochi, Russia. But in Peru he made the news due to a moving and exemplary scene: he waited for more than 20 minutes at the finish...
Fukushima: No Place Like Home
‘No Time for Anger [de]’, a visualization journal by a team of Swiss media reporter and designers, illustrates Fukushima two years after the triple catastrophe of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami followed by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on March 11, 2011. Fearing radiation, some residents sought evacuation to other areas...
The Worst Companies of the Year
Here were the nominees for the Public Eye Awards, a contest listing the worst companies of the year, was published by the website Public Eye. Organized by the Berne Declaration and Pro Natura, since 2000, the awards is a counter-summit critique of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum...
Parallels Between Religious and Copyright Wars
Rick Falkvinge, the founder of Pirate Party, reinterprets the wars of religion that devastated Western Europe in the XVI and XVII centuries in terms of the current struggle to control information through overbearing legislation related to copyright and freedom of expression: The religious wars were never about religion as such....
A Traveling Exhibition to Expose Police Violence in Greece
A small team of Greeks in Zurich decided to expose Greek police brutality with a traveling photo exhibition in various European capitals. @Ypopto_mousi tweets a link to a poster in his blog, [el] which gives more information on his friends’ effort to bring this project to life, as well as...
Francophone Africa: The Important Literary Contributions from Former Colonies
The Genevan blog of Rémi Mogenet, Le Savoyard de la Tribune, explains with supporting examples that [fr]: “Mythological African traditional stories have made a remarkable entrance into francophone literature”. He quotes the Mandika epic tale of Soundjata, written and published in French by Guinean D. T. Niane, as well as, for...
Sierra Leone : Agrofuels versus Food Security
Michelle Nougoum, in a post published on on afrik.com [fr] points out another case of land leasing in Africa for the purpose of agrofuels in Sierra Leone : “[The Swiss firm] Addax et Oryx intends to exploit 57 000 hectares of lands that is home to 13 000 people for...
Russia-Switzerland: New magazine for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine
Gedankenbörsen Blog draws attention to [GER] a new magazine in Switzerland – Echo – about Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Global: Statistics on Countries Participating in World Cup
SRF from GeoCurrent Events blog writes about the economic geography of the 2010 FIFA World Cup participant countries.
Video: Pitch Your Cause to the World for Davos
There is time until January 4th, 2010 to send in your video pitch for your cause if you want a chance to participate in the World economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland. Read all instructions and Conditions to participate on the Davos YouTube Channel or on their site.
Poland: Sexual Crimes and Roman Polanski
Polandian writes about Poland's plans to legalize chemical castration for those who commit sexual crimes against minors – and about the arrest of Roman Polanski in Switzerland and the Polish foreign minister's intention to ask the U.S. president to pardon the film director: “Now, if the 1977 charge had been...
Celebrating National Days in Singapore and Switzerland
The Temasek Review has an article comparing the National Day celebrations in Singapore and Switzerland.
Egypt: Sawiris Takes on Switzerland
Cairo's Scene & Heard celebrated entrepreneur and hotelier Sameh Sawiris's new project in Switzerland saying: “Now that we're branching out into Europe…do you think we stand a chance next to the already existing competition?!?”
Europe: Football and Politics
Desmond McGrath of A Fistful of Euros writes about football and politics: “Part of the fun of football is the way in which it overturns the international order of power politics.”
Armenia/Georgia: Online Diasporan Communities
Social Science in the Caucasus examines the Internet presence of Armenian and Georgian communities in Switzerland. The blog of the Caucasus Research Resource Centers says that examining the extent of activity in online communities is one way of tracking how organized migrant communities abroad are.
Armenia: Election Differences
The Armenian Observer features a guest post by a Swiss ex-pat worker in Armenia who compares how elections are conducted in Europe with how they are conducted here in the South Caucasus.
Poland: More on the Election
A few more links on the Polish election: the beatroot explains Kaczynski's defeat; Dr. Sean's Diary sums up the results and notes a “a complete slaughter of minor parties“; Edward Lucas declares that the “era of the ‘terrible twins’ is over”; Yascha Mounk‘s general summary at Harvard International Review; Europhobia...
Bolivia: Following the Swiss Example
Carlos Gustavo Machicado of Guccio's [ES] comments on a recent speech by President Evo Morales, who stated his desire for Bolivia to follow the example set by Switzerland. Machiado writes, “The reactions have been favorable because it is good that we want to be like Switzerland, and not like Venezuela...
Tanzania: Swiss government removes all tariffs and quotas
Gillian writes about the decision by the Swiss government to remove all tarrifs on trade with Tanzania: “The Swiss government has removed all tariffs and quotas standing in the way of Tanzanian exports destined for Switzerland. The new regulations came into force in April 2007, and are expected to benefit...
Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea: Tell-all Biography of Slain Activist Félix Moumié's Widow
Says Le Pangolin [Fr]: “Marthe Moumié is the widow of Cameroonian nationalist Félix Moumié, assassinated in Geneva by the French Secret Service in 1960. Marthe writes a book prefaced by [Algerian President] Ahmed Ben Bella… In the book, Victime du Colonialisme Français [ i.e “Victim of French Colonialism”], Marthe explains...