Inside Geneva SWI Podcasts

The world is marking 30 years since the Rwandan genocide. Inside Geneva talks to those who witnessed it. 
“We came to one village where there were a few survivors and a man came to me with a list and said ‘look, the names have been crossed out one by one, entire families, they were killing everybody from those families,’” says Christopher Stokes, from Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). 
Charles Petrie, former United Nations (UN) humanitarian coordinator, recalls: “She thought there was a good chance that the Interahamwe [militia] would find the kids, the children, and she said, ‘pray that they don’t hack them to death, pray that they shoot them’”. 
Why was it not prevented? 
“The paralysis of the UN system, the paralysis of all the major players to respond to what was pretty clearly a massive genocidal operation,” says Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister. 
Senior diplomats worked to make the UN stronger in the face of atrocities.  
 “Instead of talking about the right to intervene, we talked about the responsibility to protect. There are some kinds of behaviour which are just inconceivably beyond the pale, whatever country we live in, and just do demand this response,” says Evans. 
Has “responsibility to protect”, or R2P, worked? 
 “I don’t think there’s been significant progress. I would say actually that we went from perhaps a hope, an illusion that something would be done to actually not expecting anything at all now,” says Stokes. 
Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast. 
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. 
Get in touch!
Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

In Inside Geneva this week we get an eyewitness account of a mission to supply Gaza’s hospitals.
 Chris Black, World Health Organisation: ‘People have told me oh you must be very brave for going to Gaza. I don’t think so, I think what’s brave is the people who have been doing this work since early October, and who go back every day, to do it again and again and again.’


 Aid agencies say nowhere is safe in Gaza


 Chris Black, World Health Organisation: ‘A woman with her young child saying to me, are we safe here? And I wanted to say to her ‘You’re in the grounds a hospital, this is a protected space, you should be safe here’.  But I couldn’t say to her ‘you’re safe here.’’


And we hear from human rights defenders who have come to Geneva, hoping for support.


 Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, human rights defender, Belarus: ‘I really believe that the democratic, powerful world will its teeth and will show to dictators that they will not prevail. We are not asking you to fight instead of us, we are asking you to help us fight the dictators.’


 Are democracies letting human rights defenders in autocratic states down?

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production Assistant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. 
Get in touch!
Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

In 2024, four billion of us can vote in elections. Can democracy survive artificial intelligence (AI)? Can the UN, or national governments, ensure the votes are fair? 


“Propaganda has always been there since the Romans. Manipulation has always been there, or plain lies by not very ethical politicians have always been there. The problem now is that with the power of these technologies, the capacity for harm can be massive,” says Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for Social & Human Sciences & AI Ethics at UNESCO.


Analyst Daniel Warner continues: “I’m worried about who’s going to win. But I’m also worried about whether my vote will count, and I’m worried about all kinds of disinformation that we see out there now. More than I’ve ever seen before.” 


Are deep fakes the biggest dangers? Or just not knowing what to believe? 


“I think the problem is not going to be the content created, the problem is going to be the liar’s dividend. The thing that everything can be denied, and that anything can be questioned, and that people will not trust anything,” said Alberto Fernandez Gibaja, Head of Digitalisation and Democracy at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). 


Laws to regulate AI are lagging behind the technology. So how can voters protect themselves? 

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assistant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. 
Get in touch!
Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

Israel has accused the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) of being involved in the October 7th attacks. 


“October 7th was a game-changer. Because the involvement, direct involvement, of those 13 UNRWA employees in the October 7th attacks on Israel changed everything,” said Nina Ben-Ami, Head of Bureau, International Organizations and UN Division, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 


Inside Geneva looks at what’s at stake. 

For more stories on the international Geneva please visit www.swissinfo.ch/

Host: Imogen Foulkes
Production assitant: Claire-Marie Germain
Distribution: Sara Pasino
Marketing: Xin Zhang


Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. 
Get in touch!
Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

The war in Ukraine is two years old. Inside Geneva discusses the latest military developments in Ukraine, the chances of peace and where the war will go from here.
“Isn’t there a limit when there are so many civilian deaths so you as a state have a responsibility to stop?” asks journalist Gunilla van Hall. 
How will this war end? Ukraine, with the West’s support, is fighting a regime that poisons, imprisons, and kills its political opponents.
Inside Geneva host Imogen Foulkes says: “Putin's dream of getting the whole country, if that's what he wanted, doesn't seem that achievable, and yet Ukraine getting its entire country back doesn't seem achievable either.”
What chance is there of a peace agreement? Does the United Nations have any role to play?
“With this particular cast of characters, it's not going to happen. With Putin on the one side and [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky and his entourage. They’re committed to victory whatever that is,” says Jussi Hanhimäki, professor of international history at the Geneva Graduate Institute. 
Is the West’s support for Ukraine waning? What could that mean for international stability?
“Russia is basically independent as far as acting in this war, whereas Ukraine is dependent. And I think of the question of Western fatigue and the radar now is on the Middle East,” concludes analyst Daniel Warner. 
Join host Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast for the answers.
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. 
Get in touch!
Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.

It’s one year since devastating earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. Inside Geneva talks to search and rescue teams who were there:
 
Filip Kirazov, from Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters (SARAID) says: “Every member of SARAID is a volunteer. So no one gets paid for any of the work we do. Our sole aim is to minimize human suffering, due to the impact of natural or manmade disasters.”
 
And to local business leaders who had tried to prepare for such a disaster.
 
“We were expecting a big earthquake in Istanbul, and we were calculating the number of people that were going to lose their lives, and the number of economic losses. The role of businesses there was to be prepared before, and help the economic recovery afterwards,” says Erhan Arslan, Turkonfed (Turkisn Enterprise and Business Confederation). 
 
Can humanitarian organisations and business work together to respond? The United Nations (UN) have an initiative that tries to do just that. 
 
Florian Rhiza Nery, Connecting Business Initiative says: “We often times see the challenges that come from the differences, between the business community, the private sector, and humanitarian organisations, not just the UN.”
 
Can it work? Humanitarians and entrepreneurs don’t always think the same way…
 
“When I hear about private public partnerships, I always say about in terms of the private ‘what’s in it for them?’ And the question of a private company being totally neutral or altruistic, I still have my doubts,” concludes Daniel Warner, political analyst. 
 
Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection. 
Get in touch!
Email us at insidegeneva@swissinfo.ch Twitter: @ImogenFoulkes and @swissinfo_en Thank you for listening! If you like what we do, please leave a review or subscribe to our newsletter.