Abdul Haq: the Afghan commander who could have led to peace
FOCUS on Afghanistan: 40 years of war. This is part of a special Global Geneva series on Afghanistan to be published in the November, 2018 - January 2019 print and e-edition.
I had called Abdul Haq from Washington D.C....
Letter from Islamabad: Afghanistan from Past To Present To Past Again
Focus on Afghanistan: 40 years of war.
This article is part of Global Geneva's special series exploring 40 years of war in Afghanistan. It is scheduled to be published in our November 2018-January 2019...
African Leaders Who Abuse Power – A Select List
YOWERI MUSEVENI UGANDA
As with so many African leaders, Museveni started off in 1986 with hope for real change. But now, with corruption widespread, he just can’t leave it. Last February, he embarked on his...
Saying Goodbye to Afghanistan’s Ghosts and Dreams
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- Sitting on the sun-drenched patio of Le Bistro, eating freshly baked croissants, it is hard to think of leaving Afghanistan. This is a country where I have lived for more than...
Can Hunting be a Viable Conservation Tool? Is it Time to Bite not Ban...
It is easy to see why at first sight the idea that a rich trophy hunter paying tens of thousands of dollars to shoot an elephant, a lion or an endangered rhino seems in...
Afghanistan: Struggling to preserve a country’s heritage
THE STONE STUPA AT TOPDARA IN THE FOOTHILLS above the Koh-e Daman plain north of Kabul is testament to the rich cultural heritage of the region. It is one of a string of sites...
Is a legal trade the only way to save Africa’s remaining rhinos?
The air buzzed with the sound of an electric saw. Next to me a 2,000kg white rhino slumped on the ground. When the saw fell silent, I was handed a heavy, greyish brown lump...
Mike DuBose: A photojournalist’s journey
This article was first published in the Oct/Nov 2017 print and e-edition of Global Geneva magazine.
FOR AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER MIKE DUBOSE, a former news agency and newspaper staffer, who was inspired by his father, an...
Nur-Sultan: International Geneva’s challenge in Central Asia
Some liken landing in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan's capital, to touchdown in the film set of a futuristic sci-fi movie in Central Asia. It's one of the most space-age looking of the world's capitals. It lies...
The Yazidis : Life after Genocide
Hajji Mirza is from Tel Azar. Now he and his family are condemned to live in a tent in Khanke, a refugee camp with over 16,000 people near Dohuk in northern Iraq. “For 20...
Bangkok is Sinking, but so are other Southeast Asian megacities…
Somneuk
Atipanyo, a Buddhist abbot, stands in front of his temple south of Bangkok
looking out to sea. Here, he says, pointing to the waves lapping at the
shoreline, 20 years ago there was an...
Coronavirus Stories: My Verbier Covid-19 Experience
It all started with a get-together in the 1,500 metre-high Swiss alpine resort of Verbier. Perhaps it started even before then; I will never know. My closest friends and I from here, there,...
Rex Tillerson and the ‘Art’ of the Oil Business
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A rock about the size of a fist sits on the...
Palau: At the Edge of the World
Just beyond the vibrant coral reefs on the eastern rim of Palau’s island archipelago, the clear blue of the Western Pacific suddenly becomes even bluer, both on the map and in reality, as it...
The Hans Hass Fifty Fathoms Award: Communicating the oceans
Tear Drop in the Sea - By Gardner Young (a diver)
I tell you mate, we all tempt fate when we dive beneath the sea
For a man’s a fool, to break the rule, that nature meant...
Letter from Cox’s Bazar: Burma’s Rohingya – A people in need of citizenship, not...
The following article is made possible by a grant from the Fondation Alcea as part of Global Geneva's 'Youth Writes' (Young Journalists & Writers Programme). This seeks to promote young writers among high school...
Coral Vita: Making reef rescue fun – and a business
Gator Halpern, recently named 2018 Young Champion, and his project Coral Vita, founded in 2015 with one-time fellow student Sam Teicher, have already received many awards. Among them: Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2018...
Afghanistan Today: Is Russia back to old tricks?
The Red Army suffered a humiliating defeat and retreated from Afghanistan in February, 1989. Now the Kremlin is clawing its way into a diplomatic thicket in which Pakistan, India and Iran are also vying...
Lions in Conflict
MOST OF THESE REPORTS INVOLVED LIONS IN SMALL safari parks in South Africa attacking people. One concerned a young woman killed by a lion that had been habituated to the so-called “lion whisperer”, Kevin Richardson,...
LETTER FROM GHAZNI: The Palace in the brush
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, IN SEPTEMBER 2003, I journeyed to Ghazni, whose name means “jewel,” situated on Highway 1 south of Kabul. A trading and transit hub for central-eastern Afghanistan, it is now a city of...
Coronavirus Stories: Letter from London. On the NHS Frontline with COVID fatigue
Working in healthcare is never easy; but working through the Covid-19 pandemic takes all the usual stresses, strains and anxieties and amplifies them by a factor of ten. The...
Peacekeeping: When all seemed lost …
Monrovia, Liberia, August 5, 2003: General Cobra sat behind a wooden desk, bare but for an elephant carved from rosewood, a porcelain figurine of a bucking bronco, and an abacus. He sported a scarlet...
Letter from Maine’s ‘Oyster Lady’: The comeback of a mollusk healthy for food and...
The following is part of Global Geneva's ongoing Focus on Oceans series.
As an extraordinary oblong-shaped bivalve, oysters offer a low-carb, low-fat, protein punch packed with essential vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. Hence its new...
PolarQuest2018: Voyage to the edge of the North Pole
Travel & Science
Published in Global Geneva's Winter 2018/19 print and e-edition, this article is part of our ongoing coverage on polar regions. Our first Polar Special Focus was published in the Summer, 2018 edition.
OUR...
Bosnia-Herzegovina: Revisiting life after genocide.
The following article was published in the June-September 2018 Summer print & e-edition of Global Geneva.
FOR 43-YEAR-OLD KRISTIAN SKEIE, “Life After Genocide” is a general headline that he has been using for the past...
Letter from Sicily: The Mediterranean – the World’s most Deadly Anti-Refugee ‘Wall’
This article is part of Global Geneva’s Focus series on Oceans.
In January 2019 I had the good fortune to finally get to Sicily, or at least to the ancient town of Palermo and other...
Peter Jouvenal: Held – and released – by the Taliban
Now back in the United Kingdom with his Afghan wife and three daughters, Peter Jouvenal shows few signs of his six months incarceration by the Taliban. Smiling and confident, Jouvenal, 64, sports...
Botswana’s rhino poaching crisis: COVID-19 increases the pressure
Any thought that the coronavirus outbreak and supposed clampdowns in China and other East Asia countries on illegal wildlife trade and markets will cut demand for rhino horn is misplaced. Chinese traditional...
France’s crumbling chateaux: Not the only cultural heritage under threat.
It’s a noble concern that will appeal to many. President Macron’s aim is to use the lottery – quickly - as a means of mobilizing private money to avoid raising taxes and leaving a...
Northern Reindeer: Adapting to survive
Listening to Polar regions. A Special Series by Global Geneva in media partnership with JONAA.
LOOKING TOWARDS SÁPMI (OR LAPLAND), we find the cultural homeland of the Sámi people, Europe’s northernmost indigenous population. Sápmi stretches from the Barents...
Libya’s Worsening Turmoil – Bad for Everyone
Five years ago this February I was among the first foreign journalists to arrive in Benghazi, the city in eastern Libya that had just birthed the uprising that would eventually bring an end to...
Law in Afghanistan: The Crooked Path from Custom to Code
The following is part of Global Geneva's ongoing FOCUS series on Afghanistan.
On this, the final hour of the final day, the most bearded and revered man in the room who had always occupied the...
POLAR FOCUS – Earth’s sentinels for our climate future are essential.
Listening to Polar regions. A Special Series by Global Geneva in media partnership with JONAA.
FOR CENTURIES, THE POLAR REGIONS were considered the most timeless, unchanging parts of the earth. A common belief was that they...
Polar Polarity: A Letter from Iceland
Listening to Polar regions. A Special Series by Global Geneva in media partnership with JONAA.
THE SNOW IS RECEDING FROM THE HILLS OF AKUREYRI along with the darkness and clicks of crampons on the ice-covered sidewalks. The northern lights...
Focus on Afghanistan: Peter Jouvenal – A journalist veteran held by the Taliban
Peter Jouvenal was visiting a western-style house that he was considering to rent in Kabul when he was seized on Saturday morning, 11 December 2021 by a group of armed Taliban. The...
The Mort Report: Extra! French Poodle Bites Puffed-Up Yank in the Ass
The following column by contributing editor Mort Rosenblum is from his regular comment The MortReport.
WILD OLIVES, France: -– Just back from America, I lit up the TV to hear a presidential president, in complete English...
FOCUS on Wildlife Trafficking & Pandemics: Bushmeat – The Background
Before the European occupation of Africa and the building of colonial empires, including in Asia and the Americas, and the banning by the imperial powers of hunting by indigenous communities, pastoralists, farmers...
Dominica: Coping with disaster
THE MASSIVE DESTRUCTION CAUSED BY MARIA is immediately visible as you fly in from the Caribbean Sea to Douglas-Charles Airport. Huge swathes of trees stand pale and naked, or lie felled across the mountainsides, like...
Afghanistan: the abandonment of a nation
In autumn 2001, having returned from Afghanistan just prior to the 9 September assassination by Al Qaeda of northern Afghan resistance commander Ahmed Shah Massoud and before its World Trade Center attacks,...
Militarization of conservation: an army of occupation, not protection
In February 2018, the United Kingdom’s Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson announced that 20 British soldiers would be deployed in Malawi to help train game rangers to combat poachers. And at the end of May, Williamson was pictured with British soldiers and rhinos at the...
The Global Reef Expedition: A mission to assess the health of coral reefs around...
This article is part of a special Global Geneva Focus series on Oceans.
IN 2011, scientists from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation set out on a mission to explore the remote coral reefs...
The Geneva Film Festival & Censored Chinese History: The Story of Chi Xiaoning and...
Before the 1980s, documentary films in China were mostly propaganda made to serve the ideological purposes of the Communist Party. Views critical of the party were prohibited. Only one official voice could...
Focus on Afghanistan: How the Afghan president helped his brother secure lucrative mining deals...
A longer version of this article was originally published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Afghanistan’s crags and valleys hold at
least a trillion dollars’ worth...
Coronavirus Stories: Lessons from the roller coaster life of an Italian ICU nurse
Tears do not roll easily from the eyes of veteran journalists who have covered death and destruction in many parts of the world. I have reported war and catastrophe in Africa,...
Focus on Afghanistan: The West’s abandonment of Afghanistan: A story of arrogance, ineptitude, and...
Political cartoon by Jeff Danziger, contributing editor to Global Insights and a member of our media partner Cartooning for Peace. See additional articles on Afghanistan in Global...
The Continuing Battle for Okinawa
Despite opposition by many Okinawans, the U.S. is holding on to its military power in these nominally Japanese islands. Once resistance to the invading U.S. forces had completely collapsed by the end...
The Third Pole: Letter from a critical observer in the Himalayas
KUSUM GURUNG’S LIFE TOOK A TRAGIC TURN in April 2015. An earthquake destroyed most of her village’s houses along with all their meagre property. It also took the lives of friends and family members....
The Hindu Kush Himalaya: An endangered “water tower” in a warming world
Mountain systems have long played a vital
role for ensuring replenishable water resources for both human survival and
natural ecosystems, for drinking, farming, hydroelectrical power, irrigation,
transportation and fishing, among other human activities. Inhabitants of...
Bruno Barbey: Disappearance of a photographic great
For over five decades, Bruno Barbey photographed across five continents for major international magazines, such as TIME-LIFE, Paris Match and Stern. He also published over 30 books. What he has left is...
The Balkans Wars: Return to Slavonski Brod
Mladen Vladetić is standing in his old local park. It is called the “blue field” and it is surrounded by grim-looking tenements, their outer walls still scarred by shell impacts with great...
