Politics » Justin Häne

Save swissinfo.ch

News, Politics, Switzerland, Work No Responses »

May 312010

Politicians in Switzerland have recently concluded it would be a good idea to cut funding for swissinfo.ch, the successor to Swiss Radio International and the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC).

swissinfo.ch, an online multimedia news service, is also my former employer.

The decision is wrongheaded. swissinfo.ch is currently supported 50 percent by the SBC and 50 percent by the government. No international service? For a country that punches far above its own weight - home to the United Nations, some of the world's biggest banks and pharmaceutical companies - it seems like a very shortsighted proposition.

Over the past decade, funding for the SBC's international service has already been dramatically cut- from around CHF50 million to CHF26 million currently. The Swiss abroad, English-speakers in Switzerland and anybody with an interest in comprehensive coverage of Switzerland deserve better.

I'd encourage you to add your name to the petition to save swissinfo.ch.

Below is a letter I wrote in support:

It was with great dismay that I read of plans by Switzerland’s cabinet and parliament to cut funding for swissinfo, the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, from 2012 on.

swissinfo and its predecessor organization, Swiss Radio International, have for decades played a formative and decisive role in projecting Switzerland’s image abroad. In a world in which the availability of information is proliferating rapidly, but in which the reliability and comprehensiveness of privately-owned news services becomes increasingly in jeopardy, the elimination of a robust international service for the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is nothing short of wrongheaded.

I speak from a unique perspective. As a Swiss abroad, I have a strong interest in keeping up-to-date with news from my homeland. Major international news services report on Switzerland occasionally- perhaps on a hot button issue like bank scandals or the recent referendum to ban minarets. If that’s all that happened in our great country, there wouldn’t be a problem.

Fortunately, it’s not. I had the privilege of having been employed as a journalist in swissinfo’s English section between 2008 and 2010. Only swissinfo reported in nine languages, explaining clearly and coherently news and political events, sport and our country’s diverse culture. Only swissinfo reported on what the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation is doing to restore infrastructure in war-torn West Africa and to rebuild livelihoods in Bangladesh. Only swissinfo carried an exclusive interview with UBS whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld and only notwithstanding Switzerland’s domestic media, which does not carry reports in English, Chinese, Arabic or Japanese, only swissinfo comprehensively explained the political and legal nuances surrounding banking secrecy.

The media landscape around the world is changing rapidly and at the same time, governments face enormous fiscal challenges. I am not unaware of this, nor are my former colleagues in Bern, Geneva, Lugano and Zurich. Governments are naturally seeking to save money. But this is the wrong place. Both public and private broadcasters are increasingly expanding their online operations. It’s the medium of the future.

What sense does it make to cut this service? Who benefits? Who loses?

Switzerland is a small country but it punches far above its own weight. It is an international centre of finance and business, attracting thousands of high-calibre foreign employees. We are home to some of the world’s biggest banks, pharmaceutical companies, particle accelerators and tennis players. Three of our cities are ranked among the top ten in the world to live. The beauty of our landscape is as renowned as our neutrality and our humanitarian traditions.

Rather than cutting swissinfo, Switzerland’s politicians ought to be making plans to expand the service- in particular the departments telling Switzerland’s stories in the world’s major languages. Imagine no BBC World, no Voice of America or no Deutsche Welle. What league should Switzerland be in?

I implore you to stand strongly with swissinfo, the Swiss abroad and anybody with an interest in our country, and to oppose the shortsighted decision to cut funding to the international service of Switzerland’s public broadcaster.

Numbers, numbers, numbers

Europe, Politics, Work No Responses »

Apr 102010

I've spent much of the day writing, editing and updating copy on the plane crash that killed Poland's president and other top leaders. The numbers have been a little iffy, ranging from 88 to over 130.

It seems we've settled on 96... or is that 97? Even Yahoo wasn't sure this afternoon.

Silver lining for Göldi’s concessions?

Africa, Europe, News, Politics, Switzerland No Responses »

Mar 302010

Not yet. Switzerland says the EU will continue to assist in helping release Max Göldi, a businessman held in Libya since July 2008 and now serving a prison term for immigration violations. He and another Swiss were picked up after Geneva police arrested a son of Moammar Gaddafi.

So far the Swiss have apologised, made overtures about compensation and dropped a pan-European travel ban on top Libyan officials. It's been fruitless.

Experts I spoke with today say there's not much leverage. Göldi’s prison term is up in 12 weeks.

The whole story is here.

Oink: animal lawyers

Animals, Europe, News, Politics, Switzerland, funny No Responses »

Mar 142010

Pigs with wigs? Last week I appeared on WakeUp Sydney, which to state the obvious, is a morning show down under. The assignment: help explain why Swiss voters defeated a national referendum that would have appointed animal lawyers in each of the country's 26 cantons.

To be clear: it would have been lawyers for animals... as opposed to, you know.

In any case, it the idea was rejected by about 70 per cent of the population. That doesn't mean we're not animal lovers. People take their dogs everywhere. They're allowed everywhere. The Swiss also have quite strict rules for the keeping of fish and rodents.

Getting back to the story, I had arrived on Wednesday morning fresh off an overnight from Toronto. I appeared in the office a few hours later and was asked do the interview. I spent a couple of hours brushing up on comparative animal rights around the world.

We ended up talking about kangaroos, tuna and kayaks, elephants and hamsters for rent. Have a listen.

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"Swiss Irrationality Drags EU into Dispute with Friendly Libya"

Africa, Europe, News, Politics, Switzerland No Responses »

Feb 242010

I suppose being copied and pasted should be considered a compliment. Today in my Google News update, I happened upon an article in the Tripoli Post entitled "Swiss Irrationality Drags EU into Dispute with Friendly Libya".

This has all to do with the case of two Swiss businessmen who were picked up in Libya in July 2008 after Geneva police arrested a son of the colonel for beating hotel workers. That touched off a diplomatic storm between the two countries, basically because you don't mess with Moammar.

It also gave journalists in these parts a break from writing about cheese, chocolate and banks.

Curious, I clicked the link. Unsurprisingly, the top of the article read pro-Libya. I continued.

About ten paragraphs in, came this line:

There is a possibility that the negotiations to solve the dispute that entangled the rest of Europe will continue in Berlin on Friday.

Odd, I thought. I had used the "entangled" just a few days ago in one of my own pieces. And those negotiations were last Friday, not two days from today.

The further I read, the more I felt a sense of déjà vu. Hmmm, I mused. This writer is really improving in the bottom half of his piece. Really. Amazing. Prose. Strong finish, mate.

And then this:

A move by Switzerland to impose Europe-wide visa restrictions against nearly 200 prominent Libyans may have backfired, a Geneva-based expert tells swissinfo.ch.

Followed by:

The Swiss decision, made last autumn, was one of many salvos in a two-year bilateral dispute and sparked Tripoli to bar citizens of Schengen zone nations from entering the country.

Marcelo Kohen, a professor of international law at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, said that Bern chose the wrong strategy.

In late 2008, the Swiss ban would have produced few ramifications outside its own borders.

But since entering the 25-country Schengen Area, Switzerland and its neighbours have been able to restrict the ability of people from outside the area to move freely within it.

That's exactly what Switzerland did. The Libyans alleged to be on the Swiss list are still permitted to enter other Schengen countries but must apply for individual visas.

That of course, was lifted directly from a Q&A I did last week with a Geneva-based professor.

The original article is here. A follow-up, describing the reaction of the Swiss media is here.

I've got news...

Africa, Middle East, News, Politics, Switzerland No Responses »

Feb 172010

January can be a drag. The days are short and the temperatures are cold.

Things generally get better in February. After a busy autumn and pre-Christmas - complete with trips to the Middle East, Bangladesh and a couple of hops to Canada - 2010 has settled in quite nicely.

On the news front, it's been interesting: we've had a very anticlimactic sailing race (overshadowed by those pesky Olympics), a surprise escalation in Switzerland's spat with Libya and I took a closer look at whether Twitter is a useful tool for journalists.

Swiss billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli lost the America's Cup after years of legal wrangling. Bertarelli, a biotech scion, had matched his team, Alinghi, against Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison. Both teams probably spent hundreds of millions on massive multi-hull yachts, that as I wrote a couple of weeks ago "look like insects and are the size of apartment buildings". Really. They had 50-metre sails.

Bertarelli, unfortunately, sailed with a traditional sail. Ellison built a carbon fibre wing 80 percent longer than the one attached to a Boeing 747. It allowed BMW Oracle to decisively win two races in a row.

Switzerland has annoyed Italy by blocking certain Libyan citizens from obtaining Schengen visas. They've taken advantage of a solidarity clause, which allows them to essentially block people from travelling within the 26-nation bloc. Libyans can still enter Schengen countries but need individual visas.

The Italians are upset and say Switzerland has dragged them into a bilateral dispute. The Swiss aren't saying much at the moment.

I spoke with a Swiss journalist a week ago who took part in an experiment. She and four other journalists holed themselves up in a French farmhouse and tried to report the news using Facebook and Twitter. The results were less than successful.

Part of the problem, and I'm hardly the first to point this out, is that Twitter is saturated with useless information. Useful things do pop up but are buried under mountains of repetition and less-than-insightful commentary. One of the blogs I read likened the situation to pre-Google search, in that there's a lot out there but no means of sorting through everything.

I'm still undecided about how Twitter can help me. Breaking news, perhaps. And trends. But there's no clear indication to me that there's a lot of value, at least easily-accessible value, for people who want to find out useful things about the world.

One of the experts I spoke with suggested I take off my journalist hat when thinking about the value of information- think of it as a tool for people to keep track of what's important to the people who are important to them.

I'm reminded of the fact that I personally know few people I follow, or that follow me.

Climate change and Bangladesh

News, Politics, Science No Responses »

Dec 082009

A couple of weeks ago I began a week-long reportage to Bangladesh to look at how climate change is affecting one of the world's most vulnerable countries.

I spent time in Dhaka, the capital, travelled north to Sunamganj district and then to the south, on the edge of the Sundarbans mangrove forest.

A few interesting things: first, very few people had any confidence the UN climate summit in Copenhagen would accomplish much.

In the south, people are acutely aware of how climate change is changing their lives.

In the north, the story was different. Agricultural diversification programs, combined with a shorter monsoon and a longer dry season have actually made life easier for many. That story is coming up.

More photos from the trip are here.

Minaret... madness?

Europe, News, Politics No Responses »

Dec 042009

On November 29, Swiss citizens voted to ban the construction of new minarets on mosques. The country has four mosques with relatively inauspicious spires.

As in other parts of Europe, the Swiss right found a symbol around which to rally opposition for what it, and apparently 57.5 per cent of voters, perceive to be a symbol of radical Islam.

Coverage from swissinfo.ch, The New York Times, LA Times, Turkey's Hürriyet and The Jerusalem Post.

On Thursday, I took part in a discussion on the Kojo Nnamde Show on Washington, DC's NPR station, along with American University's John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

The conversation is here:

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The Big Bang(ladesh)

News, Politics, Science, Travel, Work No Responses »

Nov 222009

Last week, I had a three-day stretch that went like this: Zurich to Toronto to London to Bahrain to Dhaka. Never mind Lebanon the week before.

Then two days in Dhaka, a short flight to Sunmanganj, in northern Bangladesh, three nights there and back to Dhaka. Waiting for a flight to Jessore, which will be my gateway to the magnificent Sundarbans, an enormous mangrove forest by the sea.

On Tuesday, it's back to Dhaka and the next day, back to Zurich via Bahrain and London.

It's the cool season here and the fields in northern Bangladesh are no longer flooded. In a couple of months, the monsoon's waters will have given way to endless stretches of brilliant green and much of the country's vast rural population will be harvesting their crops - then waiting for monsoon.

Bangladesh is one of the countries most often mentioned as being vulnerable to shifts in climate. A one-metre rise in sea level threatens to wash away one-third of the population in the Sundarbans. But according to just about everybody, the people here have little leverage at the global climate negotiating table.

They're still flying about 80 people to Copenhagen and many senior climate bureaucrats have Copenhagen on their minds. But apart from making a moral case for rich countries and the dirty developing countries to cut their emissions, there's not much leverage.

Bangladesh is responsible for a very small percentage of the pollution that is affecting its climate.

And for some people I spoke with in the north of the country, changing weather patterns may not be so bad at all.

In Sunamganj, many are quite happy that there's a little less rain during monsoon and that the dry season lasts a little longer: more time to grow crops.

But for the most part, any evidence of climate change is more anecdotal than scientific. A senior UNDP official told me a few days ago that they're relying on the UN models. Let's hope (or perhaps not) they're right.

My first impression (and an opinion shared my everybody I've spoken with) is that climate change is not the most significant development challenge the people here are facing. At least in certain parts hugging the Indian border, they're more concerned about fortifying their raised villages and ensuring waves don't enter their houses and wash away their children.

They're building floating vegetable gardens, diversifying their crops and they spend roughly one-third their annual income raising the dirt their villages are built upon.

I'll probably have some more thoughts in the next week or so as I work on the three stories I have planned. Pictures to be uploaded too.

"Go to Basel and you will find your way"

News, Politics No Responses »

Sep 242009

A couple of weeks ago I sat down with a 20-year-old asylum-seeker from Afghanistan who wanted to tell his story. He asked for his face to be hidden and for minor details of his story to be changed for the protection of his family.

His account was compelling. It's difficult to imagine the thoughts of a young man who has traded two decades for the chance to live freely and to practice his religion.

"It's really hard for me. I really miss the voice of my mother," he says. He speaks of the past in deliberate English, occasionally punctuated with the German he has learned in the nine months that have passed since he arrived in Switzerland as an asylum seeker.

"My grandfather was very famous, and after that my father. They're rich and they have connections," he says of his family, with which he no longer has contact.

After developing political enemies at an unusually young age and converting to Christianity, Karim fled the country. His fate now lies in the hands of Switzerland's immigration officials.

...

As a boy Karim did not like rules. "When I was a child, my parents sometimes told me that I was a little different from the other children around me. I was more quiet and sometimes I did things they did not wish I would do."

He recalls playing foil to the family circumciser. "When the doctor came to do this to my cousin, I did not know what he was going to do. When I saw the knife, I picked it up and chased the doctor." He chuckles.

Apart from a year spent studying in Pakistan, he had seen nothing of the world. "It was a closed society. I didn't visit Europe and I didn't have any plans to leave my country."

...

"When I didn't accept this programme, I had to leave the station," he said. He did not mention that he had left Islam for Christianity. The decision was made after reading a book about world religions.

"I told them I was a free person. I am always free." He was 18 years old.

Karim was baptised several months ago by an evangelical church in Bern. "It was a day I cannot forget," he said. He describes the decision as both a blessing and a burden; there are rumours in the mosques that one Afghan converted.

...

After two days, he arrived. The container was driven two hours outside of the city and he was unloaded. He was passed off to another smuggler, a Pashto- and Urdu-speaker with an Italian passport.

The man provided Karim with a change of clothing and an order to head north. "I chose Switzerland because there are not many Afghans here," he said.

The instructions were simple: get on the train, act normally, keep your headphones on and show your ticket when the conductor comes. "Go to Basel," the smuggler said. "And you will find your way."

The rest of the story is here.

Older Entries

Save swissinfo.ch

Numbers, numbers, numbers

Silver lining for Göldi’s concessions?

Oink: animal lawyers

"Swiss Irrationality Drags EU into Dispute with Friendly Libya"

Climate change and Bangladesh

Minaret... madness?

The Big Bang(ladesh)

"Go to Basel and you will find your way"

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