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On Swiss Neutrality

Austria – Neutrality under pressure

“As long as you join us in the war, we don’t care about your status”

by Gerald Oberansmayr,* Austria

(17 May 2023) (Edit.) In Austria, too, there are strong efforts to circumvent the country’s neutrality, which is deeply rooted in the population. A look beyond Switzerland’s borders can therefore be helpful for the discussion in our country. The starting points are different, but in both countries a part of the political establishment seems to be deeply annoyed by neutrality.
On Swiss neutrality

Mr Zelensky with video message in the Federal Assembly during the summer session

by Suzette Sandoz,* Lausanne

(16 May 2023) This news, the subject of a press release dated 5 May 2023 and mentioned by the French-speaking Swiss television RTS in the evening journal, makes one wonder and deserves an open discussion. However, it seems to have gone almost unnoticed.

Undermining the law becomes a problem

by Guy Mettan,* Geneva

(16 May 2023) What to do when the law is bent and is no longer the “law”? For the last 15 years or so, there has been a strong tendency to bend the law – international law, commercial law, and the higher law of nation states – in favour of interests that no longer have anything to do with justice and fairness.

19 nations ready to join BRICS

Among them five Arab states plus Iran

by The Cradle (News Desk)

(16 May 2023= As Global South nations continue to ditch the US dollar for trade, BRICS officials have said the bloc is working on developing a new currency.

From strategy paper to flop in daily school life

“The opposite of good is not bad, but well-intentioned” (Karl Kraus)

by Alain Pichard,* Switzerland

(11 May 2023) (Edit.) Cantonal governments and authorities draft strategy papers that practitioners in schools have to implement. Often, the planners have no idea about the lives of the schoolchildren they want to delight with their educational programmes. This is the case throughout the German-speaking world. Alain Pichard describes such a process using the example of a nutrition education programme in the city of Biel.

Sudan: Alignment of forces and players

by M. K. Bhadrakumar,* India

(10 May 2023) The worst-case scenario is coming to pass, apparently, in Sudan. That is, at any rate, the apocalyptic message streaming out of Khartoum in the western media.

President Biden lent credence to the alarmist perception by confirming that on his orders, the US military conducted an operation “to extract government personnel from Khartoum”.