Stockholm, Sweden (GenevaLunch) - The Swedish public prosecutor has issued an international arrest warrent for Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, over alleged rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion charges filed by two women who attended a seminar he gave in Stockholm in August 2010. Marianne Ny, the prosecutor, says in a statement she issued 18 November that “the reason for my request is that we need to interrogate him. So far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogations.”
Assange is Australian and he was visiting the country where his servers are located. He has denied the charges and said they are trumped-up. He was also applying for residence during his visit, a request turned down in October 2010 by Swedish authorities. Assange said during a visit to Geneva in early November that he is considering applying to Swiss authorities for asylum and moving Wikileaks to Switzerland.
Wikileaks has most recently made the news for releasing a massive number of classified documents in October 2010, 400,000, on the US was in Iraq. He was in Geneva in early November as a witness during the US Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council. A press conference he held at the Geneva Press Club drew an uncharacteristically large number of journalists, local and foreign.
Video, TSR (Swiss public television), interview by Dariel Rochebin with Assange, 4 November 2010
Hillary Clinton, Geneva, March 2009
Update 16:12 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State and Sergey Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, have said after meeting in Moscow that the two countries are very close to an agreement on the Start talks. Clinton was in Moscow for a meeting of the Middle East Quartet.
The announcement by the pair comes just after the publication of a lengthy interview of Clinton by New Times, a Russian magazine, where she says the US and Russia are “close” to an agreement on reducing their arsenals of nuclear weapons. “I’m optimistic that we’ll be able to complete this agreement soon.”
Clinton and Lavrov agreed in Geneva in March 2009 to seek a new Start treaty by the end of 2009, and while both sides said in December that good progress had been made, the year-end goal was not achieved. Few details of the talks have escaped the total news blackout which both sides have respected.
Nigeria’s President Umaru Yar’Adua has told the BBC that he hopes to make good progress and be back home and in office soon, in his first interview since he was last seenin November. He was hospitalized with a heart condition in Saudi Arabia at the time but in recent days his long silence has focused public attention on his ability to return to the job.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s debt has fallen CHF 2.6 billion in the past three years to CHF 10bn, according to canton Geneva finance minister, David Hiler, in an interview with the Tribune de Genève 17 August. In 2007, Hiler says, the canton’s debt was CHF12.6bn. The reduction was possible thanks to several good years for tax receipts, a change in the law to allow public companies to put their debt on their books, and more efficient state administration, he argues. Hiler nevertheless foresees a gradual increase in the debt until 2011.
Keynote speaker,World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda
The University of Geneva, together with five co-sponsors, kicked off the inaugural programme of the Geneva Forum on Social Change (GFSC) Friday 5 June. Keynote speakers include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Prize Laureate and Honorary Doctor 2009 of the University of Geneva, World YWCA General Secretary Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, and Speak-it.org Director, Nick Francis.
The Forum combines documentary film screenings, workshops and panel discussions of the complex social, political and economic challenges presented in the films. The event is organized by the University of Geneva International Organizations MBA (IOMBA) Programme. Geneva Lunch spoke with Forum on Social Change Chair and IOMBA degree candidate, Patrick Huber.
GL: Can you provide some background information on how the Forum was imagined and over what time period?
Maverick Architect Michael Reynolds in Oliver Hodge's "Garbage Warrior." Photo courtesy GFSC and Oliver Hodge
Patrick Huber (PH): This came out of an event last year in Monterrey, California hosted by Independent Television Service (ITVS) out of San Francisco. The Forum was conceived in November of 2008 when ITVS approached the University of Geneva about co-sponsoring a film screening and dialogue.
I was approached as president of the Geneva University chapter of the NetImpact network, an industry network of MBA professionals and students interested in promoting corporate social responsibility. Last year the chapter sponsored a forum on sustainable development which created momentum to discuss what other advocacy efforts the network might promote.
Film reviews from Visions du Réel
For writer and director Shen Ko-Shang, character development is fundamental to movie making. “I have seen many nice films here [at the Visions du Réel Film Festival] but for me to really like a movie, the characters have to have heart,” Ko-Shang explained through an interpreter. Shen Ko-Shang, whose documentary “Baseball Boys” and film short ”Fading” were screened this week at the Visions du Réel Film Festival, shared with GenevaLunch his impressions of the festival and thoughts on filmmaking.
Film characters have to "have heart"
A native of Taipei, Taiwan, Ko-Shang travelled “half-way” around the world for the premier of “Baseball Boys.” The documentary is based in a rural area of Taiwan, characterized by its native inhabitants and traditional lifestyle.
It was this unique background which interested Ko-Shang, and inspired him to document the trials and tribulations of an aspiring Little League boy’s team in Hulien Province on Taiwan’s East Coast. “These kids are unique due to their background and rural heritage. This way of life is very distinct from my reality in Taipei and I find their experiences interesting.”
Jerry White
Updated 16 October 2008
Given the times and the title of Jerry White’s book, I Will Not Be Broken, you could be forgiven for thinking it is about financial markets’ victims; as he writes in the book, “We hate to call bad news normal, but it is.” (GL book review, 16 October 2008)
White, an American who lost his leg to a landmine in Israel at age 20 while out hiking with friends, is promoting the book in Geneva while visiting the office of Survivor Corps. He co-founded the group, which before 2008 was called Landmine Survivors Network. White is also known as a leader of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines
White is addressing a group hosted by GWIT, Geneva Women in International Trade, Tuesday noon. The day before the meeting White, who is a frequent public speaker, reflected on why people attend his talks about five steps to overcoming a life crisis. Some, of course, are facing or have recently faced a crisis and are looking for guidance. But in a city like Geneva, he says, where many people work for non-profit groups and NGOs (non-governmental organizations), he is likely to “find people in the audience who come because they’ve said to themselves ‘Let me see how one of my peers talks about this.’”
Their response often catches them by surprise, he says. Some of them may not fully understand their motivation for being involved in their work but during the course of the conversation about life crises “you get closer to identifying with survivors” and their own particular wounds start to surface.
White’s talks help spread the word about the work of Survivor Corps, which is known for its peer support programme that encourages survivors to help others recover from war injuries and trauma. His goal in talking to the public “is to have you identify yourself as a survivor. I don’t think we can really ask people to care about some unknown girl in Phnom Penh.” He is looking for more than just an emotional connection to survivors: he wants people to better understand that we all have crises, we are all survivors. As such, we can provide effective support as part of a survivor movement.
The organization changed its name, despite having a clear reputation with the earlier name, partly because “if you’re trying to mobilize people and build bridges, you have to make sure there are not lines drawn around them” that define but also set apart landmine victims, rape victims or other groups.
Survivor Corps works with war survivors in particular, but White’s book is aimed at a much larger audience. He writes that “Experience has taught me that happy endings can never be taken for granted. They must be chosen.” No matter what the personal crisis, whether it’s a lost limb, an illness that carries a death sentence, the loss of a loved one, a painful divorce, he argues that “we have to tap inner sources and develop some emotional muscle. It’s both a discipline and our responsibility.”
Five key steps to doing this, White says, are:
- face facts
- choose life
- reach out
- get moving
- give back.
Jerry White’s presentation 14 October: details, GWIT
“My philosophy is simple: I like the world of music, and there I think global because you have to let yourself think big enough. But I drink “local,” Daniel Rossellat smiles, raising a glass of very good Chasselas from the vineyards near Paleo, the festival he founded more than 35 years ago. “I always taste the local wines. In 30 years I’ve been to pretty much every country that makes it.” He travels internationally year-round to listen to and find music groups.
Daniel Rossellat is still the boss at Paleo, which has grown from its first crowd of 1,800 to an annual sellout of 225,000 tickets for 120 concerts, and his stamp clearly marks it. But he says he is gradually making way for his successor. Or successors, for the team that is in charge has already shown their mettle, he believes, led by Jacques Monnier, who has co-responsibility for the festival’s programme. [Ed.note: see the 23 July Le Temps interview with Monnier on YouTube, about his favourite groups, at the end of this interview - in French]
Rossellat, who is known in local circles as a wine cognoscente, agreed to talk to GenevaLunch about his favourite bottles, at a hotel in Nyon where afterwards he would be glad-handing local business leaders in his role as would-be candidate for the town council in Nyon. While some people have expressed surprise at his shift from music festival man to politician, for Rossellat it’s a logical evolution. “We’re lucky to be a European model. We could be arrogant about our success but we believe we must continue to innovate. And we have to use our authority to encourage our employees and the public – and the region – to assume social responsibility.” Paleo won a Midem Green award in 2008, the latest in a string of awards for its environmental efforts.
The interview with Philip Marcovici will run on GenevaLunch Tuesday 8 July.
Part one: Why a family goes to school
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Last Friday 37 family business students at IMD in Lausanne, one of Europe’s top business schools, packed up and headed home with new ideas about moving the family company into the future. The group was the latest to follow a week-long programme for "global leading family businesses," according to IMD-Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch Family Business Research Center co-director Joachim Schwass.
In an era of giant multinationals and publicly-owned companies family businesses may seem like an anachronism, but nothing is further from the truth, argues Schwass. The public corporation as we know it goes back to the early 1900s, he says. At that time two Harvard professors wrote about the need to separate ownership from management.
These new public companies powered business through the 20th century but in the last 5-10 years we have been seeing constraints on the corporate system, he believes, with demands for limits on huge salaries and boards being called to greater accountability. UBS, for example, today announced the immediate implementation of new governance rules that draw a clear line between its executive board and its management.
"Families don’t need this heavy board structure. You trust yourself, you know what risks to take and you get to know your business over time. And your thinking is very long term, the next generation and beyond – you want to give back and you have a knowledge base. So we’re really coming back to the roots of our capitalist system. The rewards are higher for everyone. Family businessses are taking back the role that governments are finding increasingly difficult to manage.
"The problem is that family businesses bring the family and the business together and if they think ahead, plan ahead, their system can work, but it doesn’t happen automatically."
Age 50 is a critical time for many company founders, Schwass points out, the moment when the owner starts to see the next generation as just power-driven, and that can cause problems. "The first generation needs to be able to say, ‘here is a platform and it’s your choice’ and then motivate them." Schwass laughs at a common scenario, where for years a parent "comes home every night and complains about the unions or this and that, someone stealing business – and then they turn to the children and say, ‘and some day this will all be yours!’ Too many conversations are badly handled."
The lessons learned by families who turn to IMD for help apply equally well to most family businesses, he says. For a start, such firms tend to follow a predictable development pattern. Typically, one person founds the company and he or she remains the indispensable "I" at the centre. The second generation is often the children, siblings: a small family that functions as a team, marked by a need for equality. By the third generation, the family has grown to include cousins, and an "Us and them" attitude has developed, where inequality becomes part of the company’s operating system.
"You’ve got built-in conflicts and about 80% of family companies fail" when the founder passes on the company, says Schwass. "In the second generation, the team is characterized as very close" but by the third generation, with cousins, differences stand out. This is hard for families to deal with because "in an ‘Us’ culture you’re punished if you’re different but in ‘Us and them’ it’s good to be different. A company by this stage needs that wider pool of more diversified talent and personalities. Another 10% of companies fail at this point, says Schwass. "Once the cousins are brought in you have to have governance." IMD tries to help them make what Schwass calls a paradign shift. "Where a family sees names and history, we see structures, strategy."
Schwass himself is part of a family business so his input is based on
both academic work and personal experience. "Globalization and the
Internet have done a lot to every company. I was doing business in
Australia, China and elsewhere and I constantly travelled. I always had to go to them, but now
clients are brought to us." This impact of a changing world, coupled
with new research, might make it seem that family businesses are facing
new challenges, but Schwass says this is not at the root of problems.
"Underneath,
fundamentally, the needs of family-owned businesses have not changed
because they are based on human issues, values and behaviour. The
problems arise because you are directly involved, either as an owner,
or family member or manager."
IMD starts by helping its family business students understand why they need to avoid building their companies around an individual. At the outset it may be normal for the company’s capital to be primarily the person who founded it, so a "revolution" is needed to make that one person-centred approach "redundant." The business needs to shift, using "evolution" to create a system that will replace the individual, at the same time making a strong commitment to solid growth. A new programme focuses on helping families make the generational transition.
The 20-year-old Family Business Center uses its research base and
case studies to help companies understand this. Schwass says the
research is far richer than it was even 5-10 years ago, and it is
increasingly international.
IMD worked closely, for example, with an Indian company, the Murugappa Group based in Chennai, India, which rethought its structure. "If you look at the Indian family-owned business model there might be six sons, so the founder sets up six businesses." Trust and equality are important in Indian society and this structure reflects it, he believes. But typically, once the founder is gone the companies, previously closely linked, start splitting up. In Mulogappa’s case, the family’s success has led to it winning one of IMD’s family business awards.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – "Writing is a lonely business," says Susan Tiberghien, who speaks from rich experience.
She is the author of numerous articles and stories, as well as four books. She is also president of the Geneva Writers’ Group, which will soon hold the sixth Geneva Writers’ Conference. "People come for encouragement. They come to find other writers," she says.
Some 200 writers will meet at Webster University in Bellevue, Geneva, the weekend of 2-3 February for the conference. About 75% come from Switzerland, with the others coming mainly from Europe but the group is a mix of expatriates from 25 countries. There is a good blend of published writers, who make up about half of the group, people who are hoping to have something published, and those who write for the private satisfaction of it. They have in common their love of writing. It might be fiction or non-fiction or both. It can be writing for print, stage or media.
One change in recent years is the growing number of self-published authors, thanks to the rise in the print-on-demand publishing. "This is no longer a no-no," she says firmly. She herself had two books published by a mainstream publisher, then self-published a third. An agent who saw the third one worked with her on the fourth, published by a mainstream house. "It just goes to show self-publishing is no longer a taboo."
Tiberghien notes that the conference pulls in people who are looking for three key things: encouragement, to learn and refine their craft, inspiration. "It’s like a painting workshop," she says, "where people sharpen their craft and listen to others talk about different techniques." A 12-person committee of writers pitches in to make the event happen, fueled by their own enthusiasm and need for the end product.
Experienced writers such as Tiberghien look forward to conferences because they still find inspiration and continue to learn there. "We all write from within," she points out, and finding inspiration by focusing on writing with those who share the passion can nourish the process. "I’ve been going to Skidmore for years. It’s every June and I wouldn’t miss it!" she laughs, recalling that it has not always been easy, between writing and family commitments. She is the mother of six adult children. Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA, hosts the annual International Women’s Writing Guild conference, a set of workshops attended by more than 400 women.
She will be giving one of the Geneva workshops, on memoir writing. "Writing has helped me live more deeply," says Tiberghien, who enjoys sharing that path with others who want to follow it.
It’s never too late to start, she points out: she began writing at 50, published her first book at age 60, and now, at 73 has four books to her credit.
The Geneva Writers’ Conference has a limited number of places left, but usually ends up with a waiting list, so don’t wait: Online registration. Cost: CHF170.
Féchy, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Ring out the new, bring in the old*! Winemakers have been singing this verse for centuries, almost as long as they have been making wine.
The world in a glass of wine: nature, your friends, the food on your table, history, your surroundings. Vinea 2007, Sierre, Valais.
The love of a fine old wine is a thread that runs through every wine-producing culture, but ask a winemaker to tell you why old wines matter – why don’t we simplify life and drink them all young? – and you’ll be paid with a look of astonishment, even if you’re quick to add that you, too, love a fine old wine. But you wonder why, precisely.
"Every European winemaker thinks he knows why." Raymond Paccot of La Colombe winery in Féchy barely pauses before he passionately offers a litany of reasons why we love to age our wines. "There’s so much wine out there today wearing a lot of makeup. Just as with people, finding real character is more interesting."
High on the list is complexity. "A wine that is complex is one that goes off in different directions and continues to open like a thousand delicate leaves unfolding: this perfume, then that, and then that. This is a noble wine! real wine."
He ends with a sudden grin and the remark that in reality, no one can say precisely why we love older wines because there are too many answers.
I had put the question to Paccot as a fitting close to GenevaLunch’s series on "A year in the life of a Swiss winemaker." Paccot, who is widely considered one of Switzerland’s finest winemakers, is a member of the select Mémoire des vins suisses (MDVS) group which was created in 2002 to build a bank of the best Swiss wines with good aging potential.
The project was started by four wine journalists in Zurich who invited 26 of the country’s top producers to each contribute CHF4,000 a year and 40 bottles of their best wines. Some of the wines are sampled every year, with the producers comparing one of their young wines with an older version of the same.
Comparing La Colombe’s Chasselas le Brez, Mémoire des vins suisses, during Vinea 2007 in Sierre, Valais.
Dominque Rouvinez, also a MDVS member, told GenevaLunch that the MDVS project has already shown the very good aging potential of some Swiss white wines, eroding the popular notion that only red wines age well. Some of Switzerland’s white wines have excellent aging potential, an observation with which Paccot agrees.
For Paccot, history offers the most basic explanation for why we love to let wines mature. "Wines were historically made specifically for keeping, which gave them real economic value. So there’s always been this sense in wine-producing countries that good wines represent wealth."
The only wines that age well are those made from grapes, which accounts for the economic value placed on grapevines. Tartaric acid is found naturally in quantity only in raisins and it’s the backbone of wine made from grapes, as it plays a major role in the way these wines age and keep. It also is one of the keys to a wine’s overall balance. Too little of it and a wine is insipid. Too much and the wine can taste sour. Working with it is at the heart of the winemaker’s art. "It’s an acid that is fresh and aggressive," Paccot points out. "But in fine wines it makes all the difference in helping them become better, in developing their complexity as they age."
Perfecting a wine that will improve with age is far from an exact science despite modern methods of winemaking. Not all wines have good aging potential. The winemaker who has any chance of success must start with a strong marriage of grapes, land and climate, the mix to which the French word terroir refers. He or she must have good winemaking skills, but there is also that indefinable flair that comes from sensing the point at which chemistry meets poetry.
Marie-Thérèse Chappaz, whose Cave Liaudisaz, Fully, Valais is known for the perfection of her sweet wines, is a member of the MDVS held in high regard by fellow vignerons. Here with Raymond Paccot, Vinea 2007.
"A good winemaker wants to leave something to posterity, leave a trace behind," Paccot believes. "He wants to create a wine that will last as long as possible. It’s a bit like leaving a message for people who will find it later. You want to believe it will end up people whose philosophy lets them admire the wine and enjoy it."
That brings us to the wine drinker. The problem, and the challenge, is knowing when a wine is at its best. "That is the problem for all of us," says Paccot. "You never know when you’re at your peak until you’ve passed it. It’s a bit like the stock market. You have to like the game."
The process is not random, however, and a starting point, he suggests, is to familiarize yourself with wine’s aromatic families and how they work.
Wine courses help train your nose to recognize them. There are several private ones in the Lake Geneva region as well as
those offered by the Swiss Federal University of Applied Science at Changins in Nyon. An at-home option is an aromas wine game, of which Le Nez du Vin, available in English as well as French, is one of the best-known.
France’s national agricultural research institute, INRA, recently announced that its researchers have extracted purified concentrations of the various aromas, normally found mixed with others. The databank INRA is building and new techniques make it possible to detect "aroma precursors" in wines even before the grapes are harvested, which will have an impact on how winemakers decide which of their wines will age well.
The old and the new: Chateau Lichten from the Rouvinez brothers in Sierre, 2001 and 2005, compared at the annual MDVS meeting during Vinea 2007
Patricia Briel of Le Temps points out that while Swiss winemakers, long known for their young wines, are moving towards creating fine aged wines, the French, ironically have been trying to create wines that can be drunk younger, to reach out to a larger market.
Paccot concedes that today’s wine market poses a problem. "The question for us is: are there going to be enough consumers who are ready to invest their time in older wines? Today people look for quality and character in their wines, but at the same time we’re living in a world where people want instant gratification. To make good wine and to learn to appreciate it you need time and patience, so we have a paradox." Initially, people tend to buy from producers they know and whom they learn to trust, but with time, wine drinkers should develop confidence in their own ability to judge.
"This isn’t the Olympics," Paccot cautions. "It isn’t just a question of the one that wins, the good one. There can be many good ones."
When the tasting is finished, winemakers relax: Jacques Perrin, founder of CAVE SA in Gland, Violaine Paccot, Marie-Thérèse Chappay, Raymond Paccot.
To complicate the learning process, add in culture and acquired tastes. When he was in his early twenties Paccot visited the grandfather of a friend from France, a family that produced one of the famous Jura vins jaunes. When the old man took him on a tasting tour, Paccot thought the first bottle was barely acceptable, leaving the grandfather shaking his head sadly. By the last and oldest bottle the young guest and would-be vigneron declared it undrinkable, but the old man proudly proclaimed it a great wine. Paccot laughs now, but says he wasn’t ready for vin jaune then.
"We evolve, just like wine." And that’s what makes it all so interesting.
* A twist on Tennyson’s famous poem
Additional reading:
- Wineanorak (Jamie Goode) on the Mémoire des vins suisse project from the perspective of a British wine writer
- A review of the September 2007 wines tasted at the annual Mémoire des vins suisses meeting, by Swiss wine writer Alexandre Truffet
- History of tartaric acid from Linan Euro-China Company and the Origins and Ancient History of Wine from the University of Pennsylvania both address the role of tartaric acid in aging wine.
- Jancis Robinson, notes for beginners on which wines age well.
Earlier articles in the series, starting with the first:
Raymond Paccot talks about how it all starts with the grape 9 October 2006
Up come the old vines 18 December 2006
Raymond Paccot seeks the perfect vineyard 14 March 2007
Chez Paccot, pruning for the next great wine 26 March 2007
Sealed with a kiss: bottling the wine 20 April 2007
A time to plant, 30 June 2007
Cutting back, for more 17 July 2007
Wine for sale 19 August 2007
Visiting the cellar 26 August 2007
Related blog post: "When grapes get underfoot," 12 October 2006
Veerle Vanwauwe, founder of Transparence
Dardagny, Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A quiet revolution has hit the diamond industry, in Geneva. One woman with the drive and professional experience to make it happen, Veerle Vanwauwe, opened a business to show that consumers want, and therefore should have, traceable diamonds. Her company, Transparence, was launched Friday 9 November to ensure that the Kimberley Process, which was set up to regulate the rough diamond trade in conflict areas, doesn’t break down at the point where diamonds move beyond the export stage. "I want to show manufacturers that it’s possible to sell traceable diamonds for a premium, that consumers are willing to pay for this," she told GenevaLunch. "My argument with them is always that if you can do it for a banana you can do it for a high-end product like a diamond."
Tracing diamonds through the entire mining to end buyer process is a key step in moving towards fair trade diamonds, she argues. "Unfortunately, there are still a lot of dubious practices out there." The Washington Post in a December 2006 article, citing Global Witness, noted that while a tiny 1% of diamonds come from conflict areas, about 20% of the world’s diamonds are produced under conditions many buyers would consider unacceptable.
For Vanwauwe traceability too often disappears mid-process. Diamonds are traded as a commodity, she points out, with the Kimberley Process covering mining, export and import, but the industry does little during the second half of the process, from import to manufacturing to retail, to trace diamonds for consumers.
Transparence was born of her frustration as a consultant to the industry in Antwerp, where companies hired her to help them manage "consumer credibility" when they began to fear the damage the 2006 Hollywood movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, "Blood Diamond" could cause, shortly before it came out. Antwerp was long the world diamond cutting centre, home to the cutters who work with giants like De Beers, a group that sells nearly half of the world’s rough diamonds. India now cuts many of the world’s diamonds, but much of the high end of the market is still in Antwerp. Vanwauve produced strategic reviews in Antwerp showing that tracing diamonds and using indigenous designers would give added value, but the smaller companies said they could not afford to do it unless the larger ones did, and the large ones said consumers were not demanding it.
[Ed. note: Managing Director Gareth Penny of the De Beers Group in October 2007called on the industry to support diamond cutting and polishing in Africa, saying that political stability would help safeguard the industry and future supplies.]
"I’d never worked in a world where there was such a lot of fluff!" Vanwauve says bluntly. She had moved into consulting after seven years as a marketing manager at Procter & Gamble, a job she left for a short break from work after her second of three children was born. "At P&G you always have your facts when you’re marketing. You have research behind you. If you have detergent, it has to wash."
In the diamond industry, clear information to back up marketing claims often simply does not exist, she points out. As a result, diamond marketing just doesn’t cut with many potential buyers, especially those able to afford larger, well-cut gems.
Transparence’s jewelry online reaches out to that buying group. Prices range from just under CHF1,000 to 50,000 for finished jewelry. Each piece of jewelry comes with a passport and each jewel has a certificate from Respect Inside, which monitors corporate conduct.
The shop also accepts custom-made work. Vanwauve has regrouped independent, established designers who work only with traced materials. Two are hot contemporary Italian designers, Alex Ball and Garavelli, one is a noted Australian designer, Jason Ree, and Cred from the United Kingdom is known worldwide as a pioneer in fair trade gold. She is working to extend the network to include designers from less developed countries, a demanding and complex task that involves helping them see what the world market will take. Many companies have donated equipment and funded training, she says, but "what these designers now need is to sell, and the only way for them to do that is to give them honest feedback."
Transparence is using its site to profile the designers and pieces with the advantage that people can shop at leisure with no sales pressure, says Vanwauwe. "But for now we want them to contact us so we can discuss what they really want and help them find it. If they want the help of a gemologist we can put them in contact with one. If they want help shopping for a gem, we can give them that." A key goal for Vanwauwe is education: to help people learn more about the trade that lies behind the jewelry they buy.
Transparence
sells online but it opened for business Friday night with an elegant in-person event at the Domaine de Coully in Satigny and the tag line "luxury with a conscience."
Despite the glamour of the product and the event, the focus was sharply
on fair trade in an industry pilloried by controversy fed by the Oscars-nominated Hollywood
"Blood Diamond" and the successful 2006 Emmy-winning documentary "Blood Diamonds," which ran on the History Channel in the US.
"I hope Transparence will open the doors to people who previously
had reservations about buying jewelry because they weren’t
comfortable," unhappy at not knowing where the gold and diamonds come
from and how they are mined and traded, says Vanwauwe.
Diamonds are in the news at the moment, but as is so often true where precious gems are concerned it is the large and spectacular that draw the most attention. The world’s largest diamond goes on sale in Geneva 14 November and crowds are expected by Sotheby’s for the public showing. Meanwhile, the Kimberley Process held its annual summit starting 7 November (BBC report) in Brussels, readmitting Congo Republic (Reuters report).
For Vanwauwe, "diamonds have always been an expression of affection, there is always strong emotion attached to giving them and people don’t want to buy them knowing that they have caused harm." Whether it is mining and trading in conflict areas or using child labour or working on the diamonds in unhealthy settings, she believes the real work is just starting: for consumers to support efforts to make diamonds symbols of hope not just for the buyer, but for those who work on them.
GenevaLunch recommended background reading
- "Have you ever tried to sell a diamond," The Atlantic, EJ Eptstein, February 1982
- DeBeers, wikipedia
Ed. note: Expat-expo 2007 is 7 October at Palexpo in Geneva, 11:00 to 17:00. Admission is free.
Photo, reproduced with permission, Ed McGaugh, 2007
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – "I see myself as kind of a diplomat," Ed McGaugh says. McGaugh, who is both Swiss and American, is the founder and manager of expat-expo, which promotes expatriate-owned businesses for the English speaking community in Switzerland, mainly through events. "The idea is to make things easier for people. To make Switzerland more approachable."
Reaching out to the expat community in Switzerland has long been a part of McGaugh’s life. He grew up in Switzerland, the Middle East, and the US, and McGaugh says he learned early on the importance of adapting to life in a new country. "Some people just don’t adapt," he believes. His goal is to help people make the adjustment, using resources within the community. "The expat community is very close-knit," he says.
McGaugh wondered when he created expat-expo about using the word "expat" in the name.
[Update 7 September: link to list of teams added]
The event: 30+ teams of 12 paddlers, one drummer and one steersperson each, mostly unskilled amateurs, racing 250-300 metres in colourful Chinese dragonboats. Many other activities, including a mini-regatta for children, facepainting, and food stalls to help families make a day of it. The tourism office has several great ideas to add to your outing. The event leads up to activities for breast cancer awareness month in October.
When and where: Lac de Joux (map) in the Jura, Sunday 9 September, all day
Who’s doing it: The English Speaking Cancer Association of Geneva with volunteer racing teams from local schools, companies and organizations. The crowd: 1,500 are expected from around the Lake Geneva region
Why: To raise awareness about breast cancer in particular, cancer in general (and to raise money)
How does it work: The Paddle for cancer web site for the races has details about the sport, the day and more
The weather: forecast is for undiluted sunshine and 25 degrees, perfect for paddlers!
Photos of the lake, Vallée de Joux Tourisme, 2007
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The combination at first surprises and puzzles: breast cancer, Chinese dragonboats, a Swiss lake in the Jura and a crowd of hundreds, mostly speaking English, to cheer on the boat paddlers. Patsy Allen, president of the English Speaking Cancer Association (ESCA) in Geneva, promptly sets the record straight. "There is a huge link between dragonboat racing and breast cancer."
Allen smiles at the women whose heads poke through the door every few minutes at ESCA’s small, busy volunteer office in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, which is home to the World Council of Churches and dozens of small non-profit organizations. She explains that 10 years ago (continued . . .)
Hats off! post on killing a business hour at the Kempinski
Patrick Mossu, general manager, Grand Hotel Kempinski, Geneva
"We want to give the hotel back to Geneva," says Patrick Mossu, general manager of the new Grand Hotel Kempinski Geneva, a five-star hotel which 1 December 2006 took over the old Noga Hilton. "We want to give it back to Genevans, not just expats," he insists.
The old hotel was a familiar haunt to many in the English-speaking community, a place where international schools often held their balls or graduation dinners and families celebrated baptisms and weddings. Mossu believes that for several years it was perceived locally as one of Geneva’s two international hotel chains (the other was the Intercontinental) that catered in large part to an American clientele and beyond that it generated little local interest.
One of his first jobs as director of the new hotel, in late 2006, was to ask Genevans what came to mind when the hotel was mentioned. The answer was: mostly a blank. Mossu intends to change that. He spent hours meeting people at the hotel’s large corporate accounts in Geneva to find out what they thought should be changed. "The product," they told him.
Mossu, for this interview, sat in what will soon be the conference and meeting rooms wing of
the hotel, an area that the third week in July still had workers
scurrying around putting the finishing touches on floors and walls. Some were adding sinks to a large bathroom. The signs of coming
elegance were everywhere and marble-polishing rags were out in force,
but a bit of tweaking was still needed. The elevators from the parking area had just been moved but there were no signs for them, nor for the toilets. An energetic Mossu said he was not fazed by the minutae of the remaining tasks for the hotel makeover, even if
his wife was about to give birth to their third child and he had just moved into a new home days before.
Initial reports in the hotel industry media in early December 2006 said the new Kempinski
would be up and running in two stages, by February 2007 and May, but the refurbishing project took slightly longer. The hotel was closed in October 2006 when the makeover, which began before Kempinski’s mandate, reached the demolition stage. Staff were sent home for the three months the hotel was closed but received full pay, which Mossu believes is a Geneva first.
The Noga Hilton, famously owned by Nessim Gaon, was in 1984 the subject of a lengthy legal tussle between Gaon and Swiss television over TV reports of a possible sale. A year later the hotel received a boost when diplomatic and media teams poured in for a month during the Reagan-Gorbachev summit that signalled the end to the Cold War.
The hotel was eventually put into receivership, however, and purchased in 2001 by a UBS asset management company which then sold it in 2004 for a reported €192 million (Download HotelInvestmentHighlights.pdf) to a private investor, who remains discreetly in the background (and who is the source of much speculation). The new owner(s) gave Kempinski the mandate to manage the hotel. Kempinski’s Leading Hotels of the World trademark might serve as an indication that the priority would be attracting foreigners who are willing to pay a premium for a top hotel.
Mossu doesn’t deny the hotel is going for this group. The top floors’ Geneva double suite of 700m2
London, England - You grow up in Vaud with a British passport and you think in some way you’re basically English, but a trip to London can set you straight. My first clue should have been that I went for the special Swiss deal rather than an Easyjet flight, thinking Swiss is always a little nicer and if the price is the same, why not? I went to London to see the British Open wushu competition and to interview Master Wu Bin for my martial arts blog. Wu Bin taught film star Jet Li most of what he knows about wushu but more importantly the 70-year-old master is considered one of the world’s wushu experts.
Wu Bin congratulates winning Dutch wushu team.
Getting to the Open, which was in London’s Docklands area, was easy since Swiss flies to City Airport and it just meant a five-stop train ride. The £1.50 seemed a lot to pay for a short ride, but London isn’t known to be cheap, I thought. The Open was exactly that: open to everyone, including dozens of kids, which meant that the level of competition was not always high. Europeans are still far behind the Chinese when it comes to competing in a sport which will be a demonstration Olympic sport for the first time in Beijing in 2012. During the 2008 Olympics in Beijing the Olympic Committee has announced there will be a Wushu Tournament, although it will not be an official or demonstration sport.
Wu Bin is the national coach for the Chinese team and he’s also chairman of the technical committee for the International Wushu Federation. He diligently watched more than 100 British wushu athletes, spending most of the day in the stands at the ExCel centre. There were also competitions, demos and commercial stands for several other martial arts. At the other end of London thousands of football fans were watching the FA Cup final at Wembley stadium.
It’s great to have friends in London, but mine happened to be pretty far north in Waltham Cross. Try to take a train to a part of London you don’t know, realizing that your grew-up-in-Switzerland accent doesn’t match any of those you hear. The information desk seemed a good starting point. Asked how to find the train to Waltham Cross: "I don’t know. Read the panel with all the trains." The panel showed a crazy, dense list of trains which seem to change their schedule every day. I began to appreciate the Swiss train and city bus schedules.
Ask another man and he whips out a thick book with tiny print and thumbs it before finally finding my town. Whatever happened to computers?
Eventually I got on the train only to find it was an Express and I ended up at Stansted Airport. It was dark, late, and Ian and his father had warned me, "Don’t talk to anyone!" They thought my accent, definitely not North London, could mean trouble. I didn’t have any choice, since I had a dead cell phone and no instructions for finding the house.
Flying wushu man
The man I asked about a phone booth sent me to the nearest KFC but to get there I had to take an underpass with about 200 local guys hanging around, the kind who drop out of school at 15 and look fairly menacing at night. Or perhaps I just chose to take the underpass, being interested by the strange group. My martial arts are not bad, but they are not up to that, and I was walking along with a neat little laptop bag and camera.
Someone said "Who’s that," and I decided to speed up, walk a little faster. KFC call made, I ducked into Ian’s house for the night.
Getting back to the Docklands area was easier. The huge centre filled with people shouting and punching and kick-boxing and wielding swords seemed calm and peaceful compared to the streets of London. It only got better. Liu Li, who organized the Wushu Open, invited me to lunch with Wu Bin and Cao Yue, one of China’s top wushu competitors. We were joined by Shaolin master Shi HengLong.
Left to right, Cao Yue, Shi HengLong, Wu Bin, Liu Li, Liam Bates
London has some great Chinese food and having a Chinese host is the best way to find it. Our table groaned under the weight of dishes of delicious steamed buns, fried rolls, fried noodles, and of course a healthy serving of phoenix claws, a.k.a. chicken feet. Despite having athletes’ appetites the platters were not empty when they were taken away.
Wu Bin told us he started learning kung fu when he was 10, but not as a sport. "I wanted to be able to hit people," he said. "Who?" I asked. "Other kids!" he said. I thought about the boys in North London and could appreciate why people want to learn self-defense moves. It’s hard to imagine Master Wu Bin, 60 years later and ready with words of wisdom, as a scrappy little fighter.
Part two: Wu Bin takes wushu from its Communist Party days to the Olympics, with his "best student" Jet Li in the middle.
Ed. note: Liam Bates, who grew up in St. Prex, Vaud, writes World of Wushu, a blog for martial artists, published on Bridges to China (BtoC). He is a founding partner of BtoC, a company that organizes Chinese and martial arts courses in Beijing.
Previous travel articles by Liam Bates:
- China’s cutting edge, 5 February 2007
- Xtreme cool at Whistler Mountain, 27 February 2007
Wushu video on YouTube, by Liam Bates
Ed. note: this is the second of two articles by Liam Bates. See also: Taking refuge in Wu Bin’s London.
Dutch team performance
From my home in Switzerland I made a trip over to the UK to attend the London Wushu Open 19-20 May, supervised by Master Wu Bin. Wu Bin is known to many for being film star Jet Li’s coach, but he holds a number of other achievements and titles to his name. In addition to forming the Beijing wushu team in 1963 and leading them on to 10 years of national victories, Wu Bin is now chairman of the International Wushu Federation’s technical committee and China’s national coach. My plans were simply to interview Wu Bin, but I found myself with the good fortune of enjoying lunch with him, along with Chinese champion Cao Yue, Shaolin master Shi HengLong and Liu Li, the organizer of the Wushu Open. The meal consisted of a variety of Chinese dishes: delicious steamed buns, fried rolls, fried noodles, and of course a healthy serving of phoenix claws, a.k.a. chicken feet. Wu Bin, who likes to refer to himself as Old Man Wu, spoke over lunch, and in Chinese, about the changing world of wushu.
Broom form: traditional style
Liam Bates: Master Wu Bin, when did you yourself start studying wushu?
Wu Bin: At age 10, in Shanghai
And what style of wushu did you study?
Gong Li Quan, a very traditional southern style, that my uncle taught me.
What made you start wushu?
I wanted to be able to beat people up.
Like who?
Other kids!
So it wasn’t for competition? Or because you wanted a healthy body or healthier mind?
No, I just wanted to be able to hit others.
But you did compete?
I started competing when I went to Beijing Sports University. The coaches there told me I had to compete, so I did. Lots of styles, but they were all traditional, fanziquan, chaquan, etc. I truly liked the traditional styles much more than the modern competition wushu.
Tai chi sword
Yet you graduated to become a coach of modern wushu?
Yes, well, although what I really like is traditional, at that time in China, once you graduated, the government assigned you a job. I was assigned to be a wushu coach. Today, the government is trying to promote standardized competition wushu, so it is my job to do that. I want to eat, after all!
So, what do you see as the main difference between wushu today and when you were young?
Everything is quite different now. Wushu is a sport, and all the changes it has gone through are because it is a competitive sport now, not what it used to be. To make wushu into an effective competition sport it needed to be standardized and streamlined. Some styles have been combined, movements have specific regulations and guidelines, and the number of styles is limited. All this makes judging wushu competitions easier. In fact, I never really learned wushu, I learned gong fu. Wushu as a sport came into existence in 1953, thanks to the [Chinese] government. The purpose of wushu is different: it is no longer for fighting, so the movements have changed.
Could you give examples of how movements have changed because wushu has become a sport?
Take the butterfly kick or tornado kick, for example. In traditional wushu, the butterfly exists because it has a purpose, it is a kick that you aim at someone, with the intent to hit them. Now people in competition perform butterfly twists, or 720 butterfly twists to demonstrate their ability. It’s no longer about being practical, but about demonstrating skill.
So do today’s wushu athletes not learn about fighting? Would they be unable to fight?
Wushu teams around China such as the Beijing wushu team, Shanghai wushu team or the Chinese national team only learn competitive wushu. Some of the sports universities and martial arts schools teach both.
What tips or training advice would you give foreigners learning wushu?
Wushu has several functions. For example, people train to be performers, to compete, become security guards, work in movies. There is any number of uses of wushu training. You should learn wushu keeping in mind what your goal is. Also, remember ChangQuan. Children should learn Changquan, but so should everyone in wushu. Changquan, particularly the basics of Changquan, is the base of all wushu. Once you are proficient in that, learning to use a weapon is easy. After all, a sword is simply used as a deadly extension of your arm.
To know wushu, one of the most important things is to understand Chinese culture. Morals for example, are a big part of wushu, and play an important role in Chinese culture. Respect your teachers (all of them, not just your wushu teacher!). Train hard, as the hardships of training will make you learn a lot for your future, more than just for wushu.
Wu Bin’s London seminar drew a crowd
Finally, remember that when you do a stance or a pose, it isn’t just a pose. It’s a real attack or a real defense. Be earnest and true when performing wushu, but do so in all aspects of life too – don’t just put on an imitation.
Always be earnest, modest and be true.
Ed. note: this article is reproduced on the World of Wushu blog, published by Bridges to China. The blog also carries a video of the wushu form taught by Wu Bin during the London Open.
