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by Guy Mettan,* Geneva
(7 December 2023) Is war a good deal? Seeing the increase in conflicts in recent times, one might think so. The reality, as one can imagine, is different. The answer can be summed up in four words: it depends for whom.
(7 December 2023) We write as journalists, artists, authors, activists, technologists, and academics to warn of increasing international censorship that threatens to erode centuries-old democratic norms.
Coming from the left, right, and centre, we are united by our commitment to universal human rights and freedom of speech, and we are all deeply concerned about attempts to label protected speech as ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation,’ and other ill-defined terms.
by Jeffrey D. Sachs,* USA
(7 December 2023) It is urgent to free the hostages in Gaza; stop the bloodshed in Israel and Palestine; establish lasting security for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples; achieve the aspiration of the Palestinian people for a sovereign state; and establish a process of true sustainable development in the “Eastern Mediterranean – Middle East” (EMME) region. This can be set in motion by immediately welcoming Palestine as a UN member state.
A detailed reconstruction by General (ret.) Harald Kujat* and Professor Hajo Funke**
by Michael von der Schulenburg***
This is a detailed reconstruction of the Ukrainian-Russian peace negotiations in March 2022 and the associated mediation attempts by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, supported by President Erdogan and former German Chancellor Schröder.
It was drawn up by retired General H. Kujat and Professor Emeritus H. Funke, two of the initiators of the recently presented peace plan for Ukraine. And it is also in connection with their peace plan that this reconstruction is so extremely important.
by M. K. Bhadrakumar,* India
(30 November 2023) A massive US naval deployment in a wide arc of the so-called Greater Middle East is under way – stretching from Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean, into the Red Sea and the Bab el Mandeb and into the Gulf of Aden and all the way into the Gulf of Oman. This deterrent display may transform as large scale offensive operations and aims to rework the geopolitical alignments and bring them back to the traditional grooves of intra-regional rivalries in the Gulf region.
by Guy Mettan,* Geneva
(30 November 2023) Neutrality has always been a source of debate in Switzerland, and that’s a good thing. Two centuries after it was formalised by the Congress of Vienna, neutrality served us well during the two world wars and the Cold War. In the last three decades, which have been characterised by US hegemony, it has simply no longer served us, as Switzerland has adopted American views without any problems, as there was no alternative.