Diamonds and Rust

Last year approximately 100,000 tons of grain was used to make biological fueI.
I love the colour green, but I love a fresh loaf of bread more.

1 Swiss Frank per day, per person.

Worldwide at least a billion people must live on this amount. That hardly pays for basic food.

The price for grain is exploding because it is being used for bio fuel.

The price of rice rose by 75% in the last two monthes. The price of corn rose over the last twelve monthes by 120%. One of the causes being merchant speculation.

It takes 200 kilo of corn to manufacture enough Ethanol to fill a 95 Liter tank. With this amount of corn a person could feed themselves for a year.

2102 Million tones of grain was harvested in the world in 2007. Half of it was used for animal food and biological fuel.

Work the rest of it out for yourselves.

Can we let this go on?

For such a small country Switzerland certainly has a knack at getting themselves into trouble.
Or maybe I should say our women do.

Only last month our Foreign Ministerin,Micheline Calmy-Rey,took a trip to Iran,donned a head scarf and shook hands on a deal with their President to supply us in future with enough natural gas to keep us warm in Winter. Just in case the Russians play around with their tap,she said.
The Swiss didn’t like the head scarf,and the USA and Israel didn’t like the deal.
“When in Rome” she said about the scarf.
It seems now we weren’t the only country to do business with the Iranians,but at least she did it openly and with charm.

Carla Del Ponte is at the moment Swiss Ambassadress to the Argentine.
It won’t be for long, if a lot of men in our Parliament have their way.
She opened her mouth to wide,not at all the done thing in the Diplomatic Corps, she even wrote it down and believe it or not published it.

In case you have not heard of her before,Carla Del Ponte was the Chief Prosecutor of the War Crimes Tribunal for Ex-Yugoslavia in Den Haag. Netherlands.
She saw and heard of unbelievable atrocities towards mankind during the the civil war.
But there was no atonement.The war criminals are still there.

It must have been impossible for her to come to terms with it all. She has now written a book.
“The Hunt. I and the War Criminals.
She was forbidden by the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs to attend the presentation of her book,

A delicate diplomatic situation,especially as she among other things, accused the Kosovo Rebel Army UCK (members of which are now leading Kosovo) of trading with the organs of people in their hands.
and found the cooperation of Serbia and Kroatia with the Tribunal after the war insufficient.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is calling for her resignation.

Is it just that women allow their emotions to run away with them,that sometimes their hearts rule their heads.
Or is it that women are less afraid then men to say what they think.
Maybe they are just more honest.

If I were an American Citizen I think Hillary Clinton would get my vote.

59% of the people who were asked this question in Switzerland last week said yes. It won’t help of course.It wouldn’t help if most of the world said yes. The only thing that would help is that the athletes themselves refused to take part. But they are not going to do that,because it is all a matter of gain. Advantage, whether it is personal merit, or business profit. Human suffering, is just something that gets in the way. They knew it would. And they still chose China.

A State Visit to England always entails a lot of work when it comes to getting the brass polished, but what was shown yesterday for the visit of President Sarkozy of France and his new wife,- more well known for nude portraits, seemed to me as a Brit, and despite everything a Royalist, a little over the top.

Not that I have anything against La Grande Nation.Not more than the average Brit. We just seem to have been at loggerheads with them for the last thousand years.

Luckily after William the Conqueror we always came out on top, and I can’t help thinking that was what the message was about yesterday.
Up until now Nicolas Sarkozy hasn’t had too many admirers. Angela doesn’t care for him, and I don’t think even George was flattered by his dripping charm.

HRH The Prince of Wales showed that even an Englishman could outdo him,when it came to hand kissing.

HRH The Prince Phillip,seemed to really win over Madame Bruni- Sarkozy, but then he always had a way with women,and doesn’t seem to have lost it even at his age.

HM The Queen got out the Golden Coach,and put on so many jewels of immense worth that her head and neck must really ache today.

Even the great hall at Windsor Castle was used as dinner venue-everyone has Palaces.

“I have the ambition to work hand in hand with the English” President Sarkozy told us.

Does he indeed.

I don’t think Gordan Brown will be bowled over.

The Royal Family probably have not amused themselves so much in a long time.

And the crowds only came to look at Carla.

The President certainly has one thing the others haven’t

For a Sunday the Bahnhofstrasse was surprisingly busy this afternoon.

The weather was cold, but sunny so we thought everyone was out taking advantage of the Spring like day.

We heared the tooting of car horns and at first thought it was coming from supporters of a football derby being played in the Hardturm,but then as we reached the first crossroad we saw that this was something rather different.

Passengers of cars were hanging red and black flags out of the windows while the drivers seemed to have their hand continually on the horns causing an almost deafening noise.

The peaceful Sunday afternoon in the city was over.

It’s Kosovo I said.They have declared their independence whether Vladimir Putin likes it or not.

Kosovo and Serbia have been fighting against each other for the last 800 years. They endured many aggressors,and took on the faith of the Ottoman Empire. They are still fighting the Serbs in the north of their country but the tables have been turned.
After the last war the estimated loss of lives in Kosovo was 12,000.

In August 2000 the International Criminal Tribunal exhumed 2,788 bodies from mass graves. 3368 civilians have never been been found.

Many of the refugees came to Switzerland, it is said a third of the male population looked for work in Switzerland and Germany. We harboured their shadow Prime Minister Bujar Bukoshi too, and much of the work and funding of the Kosovo Liberation Army came from exiles here.

From today they are on their own. Judging by the cars flying the Albanian flag ” they made it here,” the ones I saw were all big and shiny. One of the reasons maybe why they aren’t particularly liked. The average Swiss can’t afford that kind of car,to say nothing of the average refugee.

The question is what will happen in the Balkans now , and will the Kosovo Albanians leave their good life here and go back to Pristina where they are needed.

Although I do sometimes get homesick for England but I think I would probably go mad if I lived there.

It was bad enough that England decided they needed an Italian to show them how to play football, but now the Archbishop of Canterbury, of all people rants on about how we should accept the idea that the Muslim communities are allowed their Sharia Courts of Justice. His Grace is truly well read of course and knew that there were several different types of Sharia Courts. Although he didn’t say so I’m sure he didn’t mean the acceptance of the Sharia criminal courts. The media and other people could see them hacking hands off up on Tower Hill if it were allowed, and the shouting began.
So England is the home of the Magna Carta,and Habeas Corpus, and the people wanting the Sharia mostly have British citizenship but I can’t help thinking all this takes the proverbial cake.

Over the last years British traditions have had to be put aside so as not to hurt or affront the mimosa like dispositions of people from other cultures who chose and are allowed to live in our country.

Has no one heard of the saying “When in Rome do as the Romans do”

I know the Middle East and you certainly better do it there.

If people cannot except the law, customs and traditions of a country why don’t they just pack up and go to one that meets their cultural needs. I don’t think the UK sent anyone a written invitation to stay.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was probably last in trouble in England during the reign of King Henry II. I wonder what this ones fate will be?

The Club of Rome has indeed been rather quiet lately, they have been reshuffling ideas and goals, one of which I hope is to speak up a bit.They would also like to transfer their headquarters from Hamburg in Germany to Zürich.

On the 24th of February,we now have a referendum in Zürich as to whether the people want to give the Club of Rome 1,82 Million Francs and allow them to move here. The money would be used as a financial help until 2012. Who is paying the rent for the partial use of one of the historic buildings of the city direct on the Limmat River I do not know, it doesn’t really matter anyway 1,82 Million seems like peanuts to me for the possible prestige it could bring us. Think of Davos.!

Naturally they would be profiting from us too; our University with its renowned Environmental Science Department, our Banks, just down the road if they needed a little more support of that kind. An Airport that is an international hub and such a good public transport system so they could say they didn’t need their Mercedes.

On paper the work that the Club of Rome does reads very nicely. I hope that as an International think tank they will have success in Zürich.

I am going to vote yes,and I hope we hear more of them.

“Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new “

John Milton,1638.

The question from my non Swiss friends was how could the far right wing SVP (Swiss Peoples Party) with Christoph Blocher holding the Banner, have such success in last weeks Parliamentary Elections, and how could the SP (Socialist Party) loose so miserably?

Felix Müller in the “Neue Zürich Zeitung on Sunday” gave us his opinion and he might quite be right.

The voting results showed us all that the Socialist Party is finished,and who is to blame? The ‘68′ers

The popularity of the right wing parties is not just in Switzerland, it is a dangerous trend that is occurring all over Europe for many reasons, but Felix Müllers opinion was particularly applicable here.

For twenty years the generation of socialists have dominated and influenced the situation in our country.

Very quickly, protesting middle and upper middle class sons and daughters arose from the campus after 1968 to take over positions of political influence in our democratic society.

The march was easy for them because they were all intelligent, well educated , aggressive and determined. In a short time they had taken over the power in politics,in the media,and in economics.

The socialist party transformed from the party of the “workers” and “underdogs” to the party with the highest education, highest income average ,highest number of civil servants, and with the highest consummation of expensive foreign red wine. The upper and upper middle class of ‘68 hadn’t forgotten their roots.

Having come to power the Hedonistic upbringing of the ‘68ers wanted to ensure their select and cultured lifestyle.They lived in areas that a prolatarian could only dream of.

From the heights they looked after the weak, and engaged themselves for social circles of which they personally had often no contact with: The Foreigners ,the Unemployed, and the Reciprients of social security funds. The ‘68ers were now only interested in keeping the Status quo.

The negative aspects of their politics- the drug problems, the generous rules of asylum, uncontrolled squandering of social funds, the soaring criminal offences, a huge administrative machine, and neglect of urban areas which brought slums for the first time to Switzerland, had consequences.

With the solving of these problems another party as we all know ran a highly successful election campaign . SP voters flocked to Christoph Blocher and the SVP.

Political logic today should in fact lead us to lean more to the left and to become enviromently fundamental not to the right.
The SP have marched themselves up a dead end street.

Intellectually and for the development of Switzerland it will be interesting to see what course the 68ers will now take.

My Sarie Marais is so far from my heart, and I’m longing to see her again.
She lived on a farm on Mooi’s River bank, before I left on this campaign

Oh,bring me back to the old Transvaal

That’s where I want to be,

Way yonder ‘mongst the meelies (Corn),by that great thorny tree,

Sarie is waiting for me.

Cricket wasn’t the same without the South Africans, Rugby wasn’t either.

I painted a plate in a competition at school and even won. It showed the Cape Fruit which we couldn’t buy in England any more.

Later in London I often heard homesick South Africans singing the haunting song- Sarie Marais and the seed was planted.

South Africa, one of the most beautiful and richest countries in the world was bleeding.

The Black South Africans suffered terribly under the Apartheid regime, and some white people who had lived there even longer than the blacks were ashamed to tell others abroad where they came from.

There were many whites who without fear fought against it, there were a lot of white people who supported black families.But they didn’t shout loud enough, and we didn’t hear too much about that.

But we heard about Nelson Mandela at last, and the others who didn’t live to see the day.
People who suffered particularly under the regime have been, and will be in the future compensated. (can something like that be compensated?)

People and Firms responsible for upholding the Apartheid in South Africa will be brought to justice, so says the United States Court of Apeal
As I read today they will support this.

Somehow I find the anouncement terribly funny. When will America’s black people be compensated?

As a post script I must say that the words and lyrics of the Sarie Marais were taken from an old US Civil War folk song called Elli Rhee, and the Transvaal was then Tennessee.

The Swiss flag has been flying outside the United Nations Organisation’s Building in New York since September 2002.

Our joining was very controversial here. “What for,they don’t realize anything anyway and it will just cost money” was the most heard argument

The vision of a stable,secure, and prosperous world, won the day.

Today the United Nations Organisation reminds me of a young mother in a Supermarket who says in a kindly voice to her screaming and stamping child that has just devastated the cake shelf “Oh, but you mustn’t touch those darling”

It is obvious that the strongest of the 192 members will always be able to veto resolutions in the security council in one way or another. Russia and China have showed us again how it’s done.

What has Switzerland gained from joining the UNO?

The UNO Headquarters in Geneva employ 1600 people,and service 8000 meetings a year.

And with our flag flying outside the UNO building in New York people now think it houses the Red Cross.