Tag Archives: Politics

The Conference on Afghanistan on November 28, 2018. With the exception of a few organisations and institutions that continue to operate in person, such as the UN Human Rights Council, which is currently conducting its Universal Periodic Review process, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the WHO and some permanent missions to the United Nations, most day-to-day business and multilateral activities are conducted online. March 2020 marked a major...

Interview with Theodore Dalrymple After a year of lockdowns, social isolation, financial uncertainty and extreme political polarization, a lot of people are finding it very difficult to remain optimistic and to see a way back to some kind of normalcy. While the economic, social and political impact of the covid crisis can be easily identified and frequently discussed, the unseen, psychological pressures that millions of people are struggling with often go...

Interview with Theodore Dalrymple After a year of lockdowns, social isolation, financial uncertainty and extreme political polarization, a lot of people are finding it very difficult to remain optimistic and to see a way back to some kind of normalcy. While the economic, social and political impact of the covid crisis can be easily identified and frequently discussed, the unseen, psychological pressures that millions of people are struggling with often go undiscussed. Even when...

Increasingly over the past decade, but infinitely more so over the last year, we’ve been hearing politicians, mainstream media and all kinds of experts urging, and often sternly demanding, citizens, voters and taxpayers to “follow the science”. This demand usually accompanies various new policies, regulations and mandates. Very often, those tend to have passed into law with very little public debate and most of the time, they require some type of sacrifice on the part of the...

e-id-referendum.ch Lawyer and parliamentarian Sibel Arslan explains why she is against the proposed new law on digital identity (eID) and why rejecting it would be an opportunity for digitisation. The government and parliament have drafted a national law on digital identity to regulate the identification of people on the internet. The vote booklet advises that the law would provide a sound basis for simple, safe and government-approved digital identities. On March 7,...

Interview with Karim Taleb Part II of II Claudio Grass (CG): Part and parcel of that same institutional “strategy”, especially in its current form, is the idea that deficits and debt don’t matter. Basically, after 2020, it can be argued that we’re all Modern Monetary Theorists now, as nobody in any position of authority has expressed any real concern over the actual costs of all this “free money”. Given the undeniable political advantages of such a “Magic Money Tree”, do you think...

Interview with Karim Taleb Part I of II:  A lot has been said and written about the impact of the Covid crisis on the global economy and on the prospects of a strong recovery in 2021. Especially since the start of the year, there seems to be a consensus among government officials, institutional leaders and mainstream market analysts and pundits, pointing to an extremely positive outlook. And yet, many investors and market observers who understand monetary history, who have...

Like Switzerland, Iceland – whose leaders are pictured here with German Chancellor Angela Merkel – is not a member of the European Union and has no current plans for a future membership. Keystone / Str With Brexit done, Switzerland is hoping it can restart negotiations on its framework agreement with the European Union. The experience of other non-member states offers some valuable lessons on how it can engage with Brussels, though no blueprint exists. SWI...

Looking for answers at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2018. Keystone / Laurent Gillieron The World Economic Forum should put global leaders in the audience to listen to social workers, virologists and reporters, argues Simon Kuper. We don’t know yet what will happen in 2021, because the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos has been called off. Normally at this time of year, political and business leaders gather in the Swiss ski resort to reveal the future....

Interview with Martin A. Armstrong, founder AE Global Solutions Inc. As we stand at the beginning of the new year, there’s a lot of hope by investors, business owners, citizens, all of us, that 2021 will be better than its predecessor. We all wish for an end to the pandemic, a return to normalcy, to social interactions and to productive life. However, as we all know, “wishing doesn’t make it so”, and being prepared for the risks and challenges ahead is a far more effective...