International Geneva
— The appeal trial against former lieutenant–colonel and spokesperson Gibril Massaquoi of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) – a Sierra Leonean group that had close ties with Charles Taylor – began on 10 January in Turku, Finland. In April 2022, a lower court had dismissed charges against Massaquoi for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including homicide, sexual violence, and the recruitment of child soldiers, arguing "reasonable doubt" that he took part in those acts.
The appeal trial is set to continue in Liberia on 6 February and will probably go until June. Civitas Maxima and its Liberian sister NGO, the Global Justice and Research Project, had submitted the initial information about Massaquoi's alleged involvement to the Finnish authorities.
Meanwhile, a Liberian former rebel commander is seeking to overturn Switzerland's first–ever war crimes ruling. Alieu Kosiah, former United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) commander was convicted to twenty years in prison in June 2021 by the Swiss Federal Criminal Court for war crimes, which included, ordering and committing the murder of civilians, rape and cannibalism, during the first Liberian civil war that ran between 1989 and 1997. Kosiah is the first Liberian to be tried for war crimes perpetrated during the conflict. Another Liberian rebel leader was found guilty of crimes against humanity and torture by a court in Paris in November 2022.
Kosiah's appeal trial opened in Bellinzona on 11 January and is expected to end on 3 February. Alain Werner, director of Civitas Maxima, is representing four of the plaintiffs who came to Switzerland to testify.
Jungle Jabbah, Alieu Kosiah and the fight against war crimes impunity (LINK)
Culture, History, Lifestyles
— The archaeological site of Combe-Grenal in France was inhabited by Neanderthals for many millennia throughout the Middle Paleolithic from around 150,000 to 45,000 years ago. These inhabitants hunted local animals whose remains are also found at the site. During the Neanderthals' occupation, the region experienced numerous oscillations of climate and environmental conditions which are known to have impacted the habits of local fauna. The Neanderthals in Combe-Grenal (France) preferred to hunt in open environments, and their hunting strategies did not alter during periods of climatic change, according to a study just published. These results put into perspective the link generally established between the evolution of the production of lithic tools and the adaptation of hunting strategies of human populations in response to environmental changes.
Global Sarlat: From prehistory to tomorrow's world (LINK)
Literature
Tolkien’s Switzerland — and much more — is in jeopardy (LINK)
WorldWideWeb
Tim Berners-Lee, a SOLID defender of Internet users (LINK)
Lifestyles
Digital nomads, Caribbean revolutionaries and making the best of lockdown through NBN (LINK)
Environment
—Interestingly, the minister of trade and commerce of a European country has just suggested that all households together each saving 10% energy could resolve the country's energy crisis, very close to Ostrom's ideas. Sanctioning does not help reach the target: it also hits the fair contributors and provokes them to reduce their further share neutralizing the positive effect of sanctioning.
The Swiss commune that changed ecology (LINK)
Culture
Chantal Akerman – In search of lost culture (LINK).
Cities
Getting smarter in Geneva about cities — and meetings (LINK
Lifestyles
Digital nomads, Caribbean revolutionaries and making the best of lockdown through NBN (LINK)
Coffee
Coffee with a mission — from Switzerland, where else? (LINK).
Environment
Coral Vita has raised more than $4 million in funding from a roster of investors including Sustainable Ocean Alliance, Apollo Projects and Builders Initiative. It planted corals for the first time earlier this year. The company has grown its team to more than a dozen people. Coral Vita signed its first restoration contracts with the Bahamian government and the Grand Bahama Port Authority in 2021. paying visitors can take an educational tour of the farm. Coral Vita also has an adopt-a-coral program, through which individuals and corporations can sponsor anything from small fragments to entire tanks. Last year the coral adoption program brought in more than $60,000. The company was recognized in 2021 as one of five inaugural Earthshot Prize winners, an environmental award established by Britain's Prince William that gives awardees a million pounds (about $1.07 million in today's dollar) each to fund their work.
Coral Vita: Making reef rescue fun — and a business (LINK).
Environment
Letter from Maine's 'Oyster Lady': The comeback of a mollusk healthy for food and the planet (LINK).
Swiss
'Roger Federer, welcome home!': When Roger is on form, even the ball seems to take on its own balletic path across the court (LINK).
Swiss creators
—including "probably the best typeface ever designed": Akzidenz-Grotesk by H. Berthold, plus Avenir and Univers by iconic Swiss designer Adrian Frutiger.
HELVETICA: Swiss Style and 60 years of font war (LINK). This notes that many designers consider Frutiger "the best general typeface ever". It features on Swiss road signs and Dutch railway stations.
Culture
— His family apparently said he died peacefully at home and there will be no funeral service, only a cremation. New York Times
— Godard's 12 Best Films: A Beginner's Guide to the Great Filmmaker's Work indiewire, but not this:
Made in U.S.A. — Godard spills the beans on politics and atrocity in a fantasy that seems more and more realistic (LINK)
Media
"Why I prefer my news from AI…" (LINK)
Lifestyles
— scmp —
28 February 2021"There is even a new online booking platform for resorts offering monthly packages that will allow guests to continue working while at the beach."
Digital nomads, sCaribbean revolutionaries and making the best of lockdown through NBN (LINK)
Swiss icons
What makes the Swiss army knife so special? The U.S. soldier (LINK)
Food etc.
Coffee with a mission – from Switzerland, where else? (LINK)
Counterpoint
Perfumed toilets: going round the S-bend? (LINK)
From the field: Okinawa
The Continuing Battle for Okinawa (LINK)
Culture: Films
Understanding the hysteria over Hillbilly Elegy (LINK)
P.S. Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 83 percent. Critics' score: 25 percent.
History: Holocaust
Remembering Anne Frank — and Buddy Elias, guardian of a teenage legacy (LINK)
Environment
Tolkien's Switzerland — and much more — is in jeopardy (LINK)
Environment
The winning project is a scheme paying local citizens to restore natural ecosystems that has led to a revival of the rainforest.
Another winner: Coral Vita, Bahamas: A project run by two best friends who are growing coral in the Bahamas, designed to restore the world's dying coral reefs. Using special tanks, they have developed a way to grow coral up to 50 times faster than they normally take in nature.
Coral Vita: Making reef rescue fun — and a business — (LINK)
(LINK)
Agenda 2021: a youth cure for the UNOverfishing
Overfishing: The greatest threat to our oceans (LINK)
Bahamas
Caribbean Dreams – Economic Nightmares (LINK)
Travels in Switzerland
(LINK)
Tolkien's Switzerland – and much more – is in jeopardyInternet
Tim Berners-Lee, a SOLID defender of Internet users (LINK)
From the Field
At the Edge of the World (LINK)
Coral Reefs
"The postponement of this first mission is due to the prolonged immobilisation of the sailing vessel Fleur de Passion following an incident in the Gulf of Aqaba on July 21st."
Transnational Red Sea project to save coral reefs launched in Aqaba (LINK)
The Last Great Coral Reef Wilderness (LINK)
Coral Vita: Making reef rescue fun – and a business (LINK)
Digital Switzerland
A Swiss initiative to redo the Internet: crypto scepticism abounds (LINK)
International
"No mitigating circumstances were taken into account in the sentencing. A deportation from Switzerland was also ordered for a period of 15 years," the said. Kosiah was also ordered to pay compensation to seven plaintiffs. Human Rights Watch called the sentencing a "landmark".
Jungle Jabbah, Alieu Kosiah and the fight against war crimes impunity (LINK)
WTO
Pan(dem)ic policies: what WTO can do (LINK)