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Switzerland

Ideologies bring no solutions

Failure of the energy transition is predictable

by Ueli Gubler,* Engineer, Stettfurt, Switzerland

(16 March 2024) The “Energy Concept 2050” adopted in 2017 provides for the phasing out of nuclear energy and the abandonment of fossil fuels. In the Federal Council’s dispatch, the costs for a household of four were estimated at CHF 40 ($45) per year.

In June 2021, Federal Councillor Simonetta Sommaruga opened the referendum campaign on the CO2 Act with the remark that the energy transition would probably cost one hundred billion francs across Switzerland. That would be a total of CHF 48,000 per household for the conversion. It is to be feared that the federal government, and others as well, have no idea how great the technical costs of the energy transition will be.
Tanzania

A mega construction goes into operation in Africa

Julius Nyerere Dam supplies electricity for 60 million inhabitants

by Ruy Barbosa

(9 March 2024) The “Julius-Nyerere-Dam” in Tanzania is practically completed and is due to start generating electricity these days. The new dam is a genuine pan-African project. The construction costs of 2.9 billion US dollars were financed entirely by the Tanzanian government, and the dam on the Rufiji River was built as part of a partnership between two Egyptian companies: the state-owned “Arab Contractors” and “El-Sewedy Electric”.

Warmongers unwanted!

Speech by Jürgen Rose,* Germany

Dear participants,
dear friends of peace!

(9 March 2024) It is a great honour that so many of you have come here today to set an example for peace in the world, even though it takes a lot of energy and courage to stand up in these times of omnipresent and all-encompassing war and claims of victory and raise your voices against the mass murder on the “killing fields” of this world. Especially as people like us are often bluntly defamed as “shoddy pacifists” by numerous political and journalistic claqueurs of war, who conversely would probably be most aptly dubbed “rogue militants”.

Fredrik Heffermehl – Fighter for the ethics of the Nobel Peace Price

(11 November 1938 – 23 December 2023)

by Rainer Schopf,* Germany

(9 March 2024) Fredrik Heffermehl was born in Norway and studied in Oslo and New York. As a lawyer and author, he has written numerous books, given lectures, and campaigned for the legacy of Alfred Nobel. He was a staunch critic of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which in his opinion often failed to fulfil Nobel’s will when awarding the Nobel Peace Prize.

Accusation of anti-Semitism against the Berlinale

Open letter to Claudia Roth, German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media

by Shelly Steinberg, Germany

(9 March 2024) (Edit.) At this year’s Berlinale, an international film festival, the documentary film “No Other Land” was honoured with the Berlinale Documentary Film Award. The film deals with the expulsion of Palestinians in the West Bank. In his acceptance speech, the Palestinian co-director, Basel Adra, said: “It is very difficult for me to celebrate when tens of thousands of my people in Gaza are being slaughtered by Israel.” He demanded that Germany should not supply any more weapons to Israel. Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham spoke of “apartheid” in the West Bank. The audience applauded. Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) then raised the accusation of “disgusting open anti-Semitism”. In her letter to Mrs Roth, Shelly Steinberg rejects this accusation and characterises it.

The myth of Israel’s “democracy”

Israel cannot be a colonial power and a democracy

Interview by Chris Hedges* with Ilan Pappé**

(29 February 2024) Israeli historian Ilan Pappé reframes ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ as a colonising force that is inherently undemocratic due to its necessary subjugation of Palestinians.

Israel’s status as a bona fide democracy is often taken to be a self-evident truth, but a more critical look at the history and reality of Zionism calls this into question. After all, how can a democracy exist in a country constitutionally defined as an ethno state that can only exist through the suppression and gradual elimination of its Others?

Israeli historian Ilan Pappé joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on Israel as an inherently colonial, and therefore anti-democratic, project.