GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Carlos Fuentes, one of Latin America’s most prolific and eloquent authors, died Tuesday 15 May, aged 83, following a heart attack.
Fuentes, born in Panama to Mexican parents, was a frequent critic of governments and a defender of human rights. His novel “The Death of Artemio Cruz” focused on the excesses of the former Mexican ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Together with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Julio Cortazar, Fuentes belonged to part of a new Latin American literary movement in the 1960s and 1970s known as the “boom”, which often used a non-linear style and changing perspectives.
“The Old Gringo”, written in 1985, was the first Latin American book to reach the New York Times bestseller list.
As the son of a diplomat, Fuentes spent his childhood in several Latin American countries, before moving to Washington. Fuentes later studied at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. He began a career in diplomacy, followed by work as a journalist.
Update 18:05 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland in 2010 exported CHF640.5 million in “war materials” to 69 countries, down 12 percent from the previous year (CHF727.7m), compared to overall Swiss export, which rose by 8 percent, Bern announced Tuesday 22 February.
Arms exports accounted last year for less than half a percent of the country’s exports, 0.32 percent but with governments in several Arab nations using arms against their own citizens, observers in Switzerland are likely to look more closely this year at the details of Swiss arms exports.
Bern is putting the accent on transparency, pointing out that it remains high on the annual barometer for transparency established by the Small Arms Survey, which is attached to Geneva’s Graduate Institute. Small arms and light weapons account for only about CHF24 million of the total CHF640.5m arms exported by Switzerland last year, however. They fall under legislation covering arms and war materials.
Change in Swiss arms exports, 1983-2010 (source, Seco)
Top, Swiss arms exports in francs. Bottom, Swiss arms exports as a percentage of all exports. Source: Seco (click on image to view larger)
Air defense system sold to Saudi Arabia in 2006 covered 2010 delivery
One of the largest arms exports in 2010 was to Saudi Arabia, a partial delivery of an air defense system worth CHF132.6, which Bern is quick to point out was authorized in 2006.
Environmental research becomes more visible thanks to new database
Business and environmental education, non-voting “votes” for foreigners, teacher training in int’l education part of the action
Business and the environment: no longer unnatural bedfellows in Switzerland
Geneva and Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Researchers worldwide will now be able to connect more easily with Swiss researchers in environmental studies thanks to a new database hosted by the Federal Office for the Environment. The database, officially online as of Monday 8 November, regroups more than 1,000 projects at 10 universities, the two EPFs (polytechnic institutes in Lausanne and Zurich), 7 specialized graduate schools and 30 private and public institutions involved in the field. The publicly available information can be searched by institution, canton or research area (or by key words) in English, French, German and Italian.
Geneva’s Graduate Institute opens new international environmental centre
One of the newcomers to the group is the Graduate Institute’s Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) in Geneva, launched 3 November with a packed house at the opening day lecture.
Roger de Weck, new SSR CEO in January 2011
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss Public Broadcasting Corporation, SSR, will be tightening its belt in January by streamlining its administrative structure. The company will be acting on the advice of Roger de Weck, who takes over in January as chief executive officer, to reduce the senior management team from nine members with four “paticipants” to seven members, with the four participants used as consultants on an occasional basis.
SSR owns TSR television, RSR radio, WRS radio and the swissinfo web site in the Lake Geneva region as well as several other media, in several languages, throughout Switzerland.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A financial study centre and a park where tourists and students can sit and reflect on “International Geneva”: retired banker Ivan Pictet’s 18-month-old foundation is offering the city funding for two new projects designed to embellish its reputation as an international centre.
Pictet, who retired as a senior partner from bank Pictet & Cie in Geneva, set up a foundation in early 2009. The Fondation Pictet pour developpement, Thursday 16 September announced it would finance two new projects, but in order to ensure they will move ahead quickly he has set a deadline of 2013 for the city to accept the park project.
The first would be a CHF13 million partnership with the Graduate Institute in Geneva to fund three or four chairs, starting in 2011, on themes related to developing countries’ access to financial markets, microfinance and other alternative forms of financing, international aid and sustainable development. The courses would be part of the masters and doctoral programmes, but Ivan Pictet insists the possibility of carrying out mandates for private business must also be part of the programme.
The CHF12m park would be developped on the site of the Rigot Park, next to the United Nations and would serve as a meeting place and centre of information about Geneva’s international role.
Links to other sites: Graduate Institute, Le Temps (Fre), Tribune de Geneve
Roger de Weck, new head of Swiss public broadcasting
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Roger de Weck has been named the new head of SSR, Swiss Public Broadcasting, the group announced Tuesday.
De Weck, 56, succeeds Armin Walpen 1 January 2011, upon Walpen’s retirement. The new director is a well-known journalist in Switzerland but he is particularly well-known in Geneva as the president of the Graduate Institute.
Roger de Weck has a multilingual, multicultural Swiss background that will stand him in good stead as he leads a monopoly organization that has been operating in the red for some time.
He is based in Zurich but works in Geneva, was born on the language divide in Fribourg, grew up in Geneva and Zurich, took an economics degree in Saint Gallen, then studied business and publishing in Hamburg, Germany. He later earned a doctoral degree from the University of Lucern.
He has worked for Edipresse’s Tribune de Genève and 24 heures, as well as the German-language publications Weltwoche and Die Zeit. He was later editor-in-chief of Tages-Anzeiger and a member of the management team at Tamedia, also editor-in-chief at Die Zeit, then worked independently before being named to his position at the Graduate Institute.
SSR press release (Fre)
Title: Lecture: Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: With Manfred Nowak Professor of Law at Vienna University, Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, Vienna, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Member of the UDHR60 Panel of Eminent Persons and Former Swiss Chair of Human Rights, Geneva.
Date: 2010-03-10
Title: Human rights investigations and their methodologies
Location: Geneva, Graduate Institute
Link out: Click here
Description: Lecture by Navanethem Pillay, UN high commissioner for human rights
Start Time: 18:30
Date: 2010-02-24
Bern and Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s Graduate Institute has been officially recognized as an institution of higher learning at the university level, according to the federal state secretariat for education and research (SER). The recognition means that the institute can receive federal subsidies for higher education, and the diplomas granted are officially recognized.
Ruth Dreifuss, former Swiss president, who grew up in the Secheron district in Geneva, attended a December 2008 presentation on the development of the international Geneva project, near the WTO.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The proposed extension to the World Trade Organization’s building at Centre William Rappard will be decided this Sunday 27 September by the city of Geneva’s voters. The vote is a strictly municipal affair, and the outcome is not binding on the canton, which has the final say on city planning decisions. But this vote is being seen as a test of the city’s commitment to the concept of Genève internationale, host to the European headquarters of the UN and to more than 30 specialized UN organizations, as well as to a large number of non-governemental organizations (NGOs).
A strong “no” vote by the citizens of Geneva would seriously weaken that commitment. Pierre Vanek, leader of the project’s opponents, points out in an interview published in Le Temps that the canton can ignore the result of a refusal, but “people wouldn’t understand why it was going against a popular vote.”
The cantonal authorities approved the building extension because the WTO urgently needs the extra space.
Title: The Obama US foreign policy: The view from Washington
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Part of the Graduate Institute Lectures. Speaker: Michael Brown Dean, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Washington, DC.
Date: 14 Sep 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Peter Tschopp, right-wing politician who represented Geneva in the Swiss Parliament until 1999, has died, age 69, after being stung by a wasp, his family has told journalists. Tschopp was also the dean of the social and economic sciences faculty at the University of Geneva, then briefly, starting in 1999, president of what is today the Graduate Institute in Geneva, the former HEI.
Title: “Asian Diplomacy” book presentation
Location: Geneva, Graduate Institute, rte de Lausanne
Link out: Click here
Description: Kishan Rana, former Ambassador of India and author of the book, presenting. Organized by Diplomatic Book Circle and the Centre for Asian Studies
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 02 Feb 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – IPAS Architects in Neuchatel have been selected to build the new Maison de la Paix in Geneva, although the jury’s decision needs final approval by the Board of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, known in French as IHEID.
Title: Violence and reconstruction after peace agreements
Location: Graduate Institute, Auditorium Jacques Freymond, 132 rue de Lausanne, 1202 Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Lecture organized by the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding. John Darby, Professor of Comparative Ethnique Studies, The Joan C. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, USA
Start Time: 18:30
Date: 15 Oct 2008
