June 24, 2025 • 44 mins
2025 has been a year of conflict, upheaval, and huge challenges to the international system.
Gunilla von Hall, Svenskadagbladet: "It all started downhill from 20th of January. Since then, it's just, well, ‘the Ukraine war will be over in 24 hours?’ Nothing happened. It just got worse. Then we had Gaza, then we have Iran, Israel. Then we had the cuts of all the aid. It's very bleak. I think we should just not give up our hope, but it looks really... We have four years."
The humanitarian work Geneva does has been decimated. Nick Cumming-Bruce, contributor, New York Times: "What is disturbing is the very casual destruction of international institutions and agreements that have been pulled together over many years, decades of works since World War II, and which for all their many imperfections are trying, with some cases significant success, to address the critical challenges that the world faces."
Is everything bleak? Or can we find some hope somewhere?
Imogen Foulkes, host of Inside Geneva: "These are hard times and people I think are very anxious at the moment. Maybe we should still pay tribute, hat tip, to the humanitarian work that comes out of Geneva. People who, they don't live peacefully here in this quiet city. They are in Gaza, they are in Sudan, they are in Afghanistan."
Listen to Inside Geneva for a review of the first six months of a momentous year.
Get in touch!
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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
This is Inside Geneva .
I'm your host, imogen Foulkes,and this is a production from
Swissinfo, the internationalpublic media company of
Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
In today's programme, In the year 2525, if man is
still alive.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Tonight I can report to the world that the strikes
were a spectacular militarysuccess.
Iran's key nuclear enrichmentfacilities have been completely
and totally obliterated.
We devastated the Iraniannuclear program.
Many presidents have dreamed ofdelivering the final blow to
(00:58):
Iran's nuclear program, and nonecould until President Trump.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
The world is watching with growing alarm.
We are not drifting towardcrisis, we are racing toward it.
The expansion of this conflictcould ignite a fire that no one
can control.
We must not let that happen.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva and, as
you heard in the introduction,we've got something a little
different for you today.
I know it's not actually 2525,but indulge me, because the year
2025 so far has felt, I thinkwe could say, pretty worrying,
maybe even apocalyptic.
So here we are, inside Geneva'slittle studio in the United
(01:55):
Nations building.
We're bringing you an analysisof the first six months of this
year.
I've got with me Gunilla vanHol of the Swedish daily Svenska
Darkbladet, and NickCumming-Bruce, regular
contributor to the New YorkTimes, all experts in what
happens in Geneva.
(02:15):
And to comfort ourselves inthis grim year so far, we even
got some cake.
I was being a bit flippant andwondering if we should call this
episode war and cake.
Let me ask you both first inthis, this moment, before we
reflect a whole lot on the firstsix months I mean, dare we even
(02:35):
eat cake?
Is it the moment?
We had we our cake, so we?
Speaker 6 (02:40):
can't really regret that.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
But, as you said, it all started downhill from 20th
of January.
That's when it started andsince then it's just well.
The Ukraine war will be over in24 hours.
Nothing happened, it just gotworse, and right now it's just
black and nothing hopeful on thehorizon.
And then we had Gaza, then wehave Iran, then we had Gaza,
(03:06):
then we have Iran, israel, andthen we have the cutdowns of all
the aid and it's very bleak.
I think we should just not givea hop our hope, but it looks
really we have four years.
Yeah, donald Trump, and he isthe one who doesn't want to be
involved in supportinghumanitarian aid or having
multilateral diplomaticsolutions to anything, it seems.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, you have given an excellent summary of where
we're going to go in thispodcast.
But before we wind right backto January, Nick, what about you
?
How are you feeling halfwaythrough the year?
I mean, what do you sense inGeneva?
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Nothing but unmitigated gloom.
At this point, as Gunilla hasjust said, really, we've watched
essentially the unravelling ofall the international frameworks
that exist to try and mitigatethe effects of conflict in the
world, and instead we haveintensifying humanitarian
(04:04):
disasters on many continents,evisceration of international
aid, which is already costinglives in ways that are probably
never going to be fully counted,and the most powerful country
in the world taking unilateralpositions that are often at
variance with international law,which has grim consequences for
(04:25):
the rest of the internationalcommunity.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Grim, indeed.
Let's start with a topic youboth raised, and what I should
tell our listeners is we'regoing to play you a few
highlights over the course ofthis episode of earlier podcasts
we did so you can find all ofthem.
Wherever you get your podcasts,I'll put the links to them also
in our show notes.
In January, even before January, we knew there were going to be
(04:53):
cuts to humanitarian aidagencies, so we were prepared.
Still, I'm going to give younow a little flavor of the kind
of things we heard then from avariety of aid agencies.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Late today, the US State Department suspended all
foreign assistance around theworld for at least three months.
It affects tens of billions ofdollars for programs that extend
from.
Speaker 7 (05:18):
In Colombia they've just had to lay off 200 staff
that were doing the demining inthe south of the country.
So all of a sudden thesefamilies have no work and the
alternative in the area you knowwhat it is Coca plants.
So how is that in the USinterest?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
The Trump administration has issued a halt
to nearly all existing foreignaid.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Creating safe zones for Syrian women in refugee
camps, providing medicalassistance to pregnant women in
Burma.
This is the type of action theUN Population Fund has led.
The US has been one of the UNagency's founders and main
donors.
It's now ceasing allcontributions.
Right now, a woman dies of apreventable form of maternal
(06:02):
mortality every two minutes.
Okay, so that's unacceptable.
What is one of the grants thatthe US just cut is to support
the training and salaries formidwives.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
The United Nations is saying that there could be
2,000 new cases of HIV due tothe USAID cuts.
This, as President Donald Trumpputs millions of dollars of
foreign aid on pause.
We actually had something thatwas successful.
This, as President Donald Trumpputs millions of dollars of
foreign aid on pause.
We actually had something thatwas successful.
We were one of the only 17sustainable development goals
that was able to see the end insight.
(06:34):
We're so close to ending AIDSfull stop and we could very well
be turning back completely.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, you heard a variety of aid agencies there.
They really set out theirstalls at the beginning of the
year.
We heard from UN PopulationFund.
They run maternal healthclinics.
We heard from UNAIDS.
Now we all know why it'simportant that that body
continues to function.
We heard from demining.
Did anybody listen to them sixmonths on?
(07:03):
As far as I understand it, thatthree-month freeze has now
become permanent.
Speaker 6 (07:08):
I think it's a mixed picture, because some of the
programs that were suspended areback in action.
Some funding is coming back todemining programs that went
through.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Of course you work quite closely with demining
programs.
Speaker 6 (07:19):
Yeah, that were temporarily paused, but damage
was done even to them.
Opportunities were lost, thingsthat should have happened
didn't.
People have been laid off insignificant numbers who will
probably never be rehired.
In a lot of different programs.
The US was the biggest funderof mine action in the world for
many years.
It may well continue to be, butsignificant damage has been
(07:43):
done.
And that's just one little kindof segment of one little corner
of the international aid effort.
There are much bigger swathes ofhumanitarian action which are
dealing with more immediatecrises in Sudan, somalia,
afghanistan, wherever there is amajor conflict running, and
(08:07):
these are suffering acutely.
And then you have, of course,the loss of funds to
institutions like the HumanRights Office here, a loss of
about one third of their budgetthis year, which will mean cuts
in staff, which will mean cutsin their ability to support all
sorts of programmes that are notvery high profile but help
(08:28):
states to implement legalreforms that basically help
stabilise societies.
And those are all suffering.
So there's a lot of intangiblecosts as well as the very
visible costs in terms of theloss of funding for the UNAIDS
programme.
The loss of funding for theUNAIDS programme, the loss of
funding for the WHO and theessential work it does fighting
diseases like TB and polio.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
These are costs that are going to be weighed for
years to come.
I think one of the things,gunilla, is that when these
things stop, it becomes alsoincredibly costly to restart
them.
I mean, you and I were at thatevening last week in Geneva,
that rather nice party whereeverybody from Geneva was there,
and I don't know if you bumpedinto it.
I bumped into the head of UNHumanitarian Affairs, tom
(09:16):
Fletcher.
He's in town to basically say Iknow we're not even going to
get half what we need.
So he's basically triaging now.
People who are suffering famineor caught up in conflict, I
mean very hard decisions.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It's really, really sad.
And then the other aspect, too,is this the cuts in money and
helping people who really need.
And then the other side is howthe agencies are being told not
to use to wash off on thewebsites, basically words that
have to do with equality,inclusion, diversity, climate
(09:52):
change.
Speaker 9 (09:52):
Women.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Women.
You can say extreme weather,but they should not talk about
climate change.
This censoring of words, thatkind of, is the basis for their
work.
I think that's also very, veryscary.
Then I think the cutdowns areextreme.
What is it?
83% of USAID programs cut down,meaning that in Sudan, 80% of
(10:16):
all the community kitchens arenow closed.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
And let's remind our listeners that it's what 12
million people are displaced, 13million in Sudan.
This appalling conflict,because of all the other
conflicts, doesn't get nearlyenough attention.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
No, Emergency food distribution in a country like
Afghanistan, wfp says we have toclose it, we have to stop it,
we do not have the money.
I mean the suffering and thenthe censoring of the work that
they are doing and the ideasthat they're building.
This work on all agencies.
That is very ominous.
Speaker 6 (10:56):
Which basically feed into the whole sort of dynamic
that's driving instabilityaround the world.
So in whose interests does thiswork?
It certainly isn't in thelong-term best interests of any
of the governments in the UnitedStates.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It's exactly the point that Tamara Gabelnik in
that clip we heard there she'sthe head of the international
campaign to ban landmines.
People will turn to farmingcoca in Colombia because they're
demining.
I mean, colombia is infestedwith mines.
Speaker 6 (11:25):
Their demining was providing good livelihoods as
well as doing good work but italso raises the question of what
is the rest of the world goingto do about it?
I mean, here has been theUnited States, shouldering a
massive percentage of theinternational humanitarian
budget for many, many years.
There are plenty of other richstates that could be
contributing.
What are they going to do aboutit?
(11:45):
Everybody is very much focusedon the damage that the United
States is inflicting on themultilateral system, and
deservedly so, but what areother states going to do to
protect it?
The international humanitarianbudget every year is funded
largely by a very small group ofWestern states.
So where is the second biggesteconomy in the world, china?
(12:09):
Where is India?
Where are rich countries likeSingapore, which like to sit on
the sidelines of these kinds ofdebates?
They have the resources.
What are these states going todo to shore up and contribute to
refashioning the internationalsystem, if that's what we're now
doing, in a more durable andsustainable way?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
But maybe that's where they're going to see their
chance right now China, forexample.
They're going to see the chanceto move in and take over in
this power financial, but alsopower vacuum.
It will be an opening and weknow for China that they're
moving into a lot ofinternational organizations.
They want to have much moreimpact and countries like Qatar
(12:51):
Qatar now tries to attract a lotof UN agencies.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Come here, put up your headquarter here, cheaper
than Geneva, cheaper, and theycan pay.
We'll give you a free,air-conditioned building.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah, and it's kind of a blue wash.
So we have to be thesecountries.
Yes, where are they?
Well, they might see a chancenow to come in and get the
influence they wanted and theywant for the future in this new
world order.
Speaker 6 (13:14):
Yeah, I think that the only caveat to that is that
clear preference is forunilateral programs.
The Saudi Arabias of this world, the Gulf states, china, they
like to.
It's not that they're notspending money, but they're not
putting it through a system thatbasically reinforces
international norms andstandards.
They're doing it unilaterallyin ways that serve a national
(13:36):
agenda.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, I just want to add one thing there.
On the other hand, there isalso in the UN.
There was a need to make thingsmore efficient and to scale
down and to I mean there has tobe said too that there is.
It's not good all this money isdisappearing, but has the UN,
all the agencies, functionedefficiently?
Has money been wasted?
Have there been, you know?
(13:56):
Hasn't the work that been donein an efficient way?
I think there is a need whenyou talk to people in the UN
saying, yes, this was needed,but it wasn't supposed to happen
like this.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
Can I just come back at that?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yes, I mean, I want to come back at that too,
because I have a differentopinion, but you first, nick.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
Because I think you're absolutely right, the UN
system was grotesquelyinefficient in all sorts of ways
.
But I think what is disturbingis the very casual destruction
of international institutionsand agreements that have been
pulled together over many years,decades of work since World War
(14:33):
II, and which, for all theirmany imperfections, are trying
with some cases, significantsuccess to address the critical
challenges that the world faces.
And you know, I point to a storyin the New York Times today
which says that, you know, whenDonald Trump sat down and signed
his executive order 14169,pausing all humanitarian aid, it
(15:00):
was in nobody's mind in theadministration at that point to
wrap up USAID and it justunfolded in a kind of rather
sort of shambolic process whereElon Musk rolls in and basically
tosses a $35 billion programinto the wood chipper and so a
program that Marco Rubio used tobe a major supporter of is
(15:22):
shuttered and abandoned and allthe soft power that goes with it
is also cancelled.
How does that serve Americaninterests?
Let alone the damage that itdoes to people who are on the
receiving end of that massiveaid programme.
But at the same time, theUnited States has shouldered a
(15:43):
huge share of the internationalaid burden over many years.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Well, but not in proportion to its economy.
European countries pay more.
Speaker 6 (15:53):
No, but as a percentage of the total it's
been a major share, and as theypull back, the question then is
what are other countries in theworld going to do to fight for
the multilateral system and tofight for multilateral aid
programs?
How are they going to stepforward?
Multilateral aid has beenfunded by a small handful of
European countries, so where arethe Chinas?
(16:14):
Where are the rich countrieslike Singapore?
Where are the other bigeconomies?
Where is another aspiringglobal power, India, in
supporting the multilateralsystem?
It's time for us to see thatand to see what they can do to
reinvigorate a multilateralsystem and to give it the
strength to really fight for allthe values and legal advances
(16:36):
that have been made since WorldWar II, precisely to prevent the
world slipping back intoanother major conflagration.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
But perhaps it wouldn't have happened otherwise
.
I spoke to someone who works atOptra the other day and he's
saying, yeah, it shouldn'thappen like this, but if it
wasn't this kind of extremewake-up maybe it would not have
been done.
He's not defending what'shappening.
Not defending, but just saying.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I just want to jump in on that because I think I
mean, like you, I've beenreporting in Geneva for some
years.
When I came here, which wasactually 20 years ago, we were
having similar conversationsabout cuts and there was a
change to coordinate much more.
And I would honestly say andI've been in the field quite a
(17:18):
lot with with in crisis zones,with humanitarian agencies I'm
not sure, with humanitarianagencies, that there's that much
left to cut.
And just coming back to China,when Donald Trump was first
elected in 2016, we saw hiswithdrawal from the multilateral
(17:39):
system and Chinese diplomatscame here to Geneva and said
that's okay, because we're here,we will step in.
Did they invest more inhumanitarian work?
No, they didn't.
You're right, nick, they wantto do it all bilaterally.
I think they want to havecontrol of these countries, as
the United States does, over anaid project, so that it fits
(18:00):
into their own view of what's intheir interests, which, of
course, is antithetical to thewhole principle of humanitarian
work.
Utter humanitarian catastrophein Gaza and the fact that the
agencies with years ofexperience have been shut out,
(18:30):
blocked for months on end, andthen somehow, our dear friend
Donald Trump.
I don't want to make thisprogramme a total criticism of
Donald Trump to be, fair to me,he did notice that there was a
crisis in Gaza and decided thatthe US would do something about
it with Israel enter the GazaHumanitarian Foundation.
(18:51):
I'm going to play you a littlebit of an excerpt of a podcast
we did about that because Ithink to me this development is
really significant for howGeneva works.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
We're going to help the people of Gaza get some food
.
People are starving.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
A US-backed aid organization aims to start work
in the Gaza Strip by the end ofMay.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
This seems to be militarized, politicized,
manipulated.
People have to walk longdistances through the rubble to
get aid.
Speaker 9 (19:26):
After more than 80 days of a total blockade, Israel
has started allowing a limitedamount of supplies into some
parts of the Strip.
This is not child's play.
It is not a military operation.
It is a different thing thatrequires years and decades and
decades of experience to getwhere we've got to now Hunger
and fear.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Palestinians in Gaza say going to new food
distribution sites comes withthe risk of death.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
Reports from Gaza say at least 26 Palestinians have
been killed and many morewounded after Israeli tank fire
hit people near a US-funded aiddistribution center.
Speaker 9 (20:08):
It's a not-so-disaster.
The writing was on the wallfrom quite a long time ago.
All of the actors the UN, thehumanitarian agencies, the NGOs
have been saying that from thestart.
Militarizing aid is not goingto work.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Israeli forces have opened fire again on hungry
Palestinians desperate for aid.
Speaker 9 (20:27):
It breaks my heart to say it, but it wasn't a
surprise to see those horrendousimages from the first day of
operation of the GHF in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Just ending that there, that was Chris Locke here
, the Secretary General ofMédecins Sans Frontières Doctors
Without Borders.
He has a team, a big team, inGaza.
He goes there regularly himself, and he's quite right.
Delivering aid is not child'splay and, my God, what have we
seen since that foundationstarted?
Speaker 6 (20:59):
Well, according to one news report today, in the
space of a little more thanthree weeks, up until around
June 18, there were 18 masscasualty events, more than 1,800
casualties delivered tohospitals.
More than 1,800 casualtiesdelivered to hospitals, the
(21:23):
great majority of whom sayingthey were injured in the process
of trying to collect food fromone of these hubs, Israel
denying point blank that it'sshooting at civilians.
We've got 1,800 casualties,some of whom probably were
victims of shots fired by othercriminal gangs.
But when you're talking abouttank fire, drone fire, fire even
(21:43):
from naval vessels at thesekinds of gatherings of people,
there's very little doubt wherethe great majority of these
casualties have been caused.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Even if it wasn't, even if not a single IDF soldier
fired a bullet that hit one ofthese people.
The way they have set this upis designed to create this kind
of catastrophe.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I mean when the UN had 400 points already set up
and organised since a long time,where families and people would
go and get organ in anorganized way, the food and
medicine and what they needed.
Instead now, and they can't doanything, they're paralyzed.
You cannot go to these 400places where people, where it's
close, where people live.
(22:27):
Instead they have to go all theway to the end of the road,
basically, and then they arepushed through this like cattle,
pushed through these metalcorridors where they have to run
with the bag on their back, orchildren, women, handicapped,
people with disabilities.
(22:47):
It's so humiliating.
And then the UN.
Meanwhile, I interviewedsomeone who was in Gaza the
other day, in Gaza City, workingfor the UN, and saying that all
we can do there's maybe one ortwo trucks coming in and we can
deliver some medication to thehospital and bread to the bakery
, but nothing else.
We can do nothing else.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
Yes, but as WFP said, you know, since the beginning
of the blockade on March the 3rd, they've been able to deliver
9,000 tons of food, very littleof which has actually reached
any distribution point.
And 9,000 tonnes in itself iscompletely inadequate for the
requirements of more than 2million people who have been
deprived of any real access toaid for the better part of
(23:30):
several months.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
And the other thing is that this is creating.
You see the images of peoplebeing filmed in Gaza and you
hear kids screaming revenge,revenge.
This will create a new, maybemore vicious, Hamas.
This is the big problem that Idon't know if Israel is
realizing, but they are creatinga monster.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, I mean.
Sometimes I go home after a dayin Geneva talking about this
and listening to the aidagencies and I literally cannot
watch the news.
Yet another child screamingover the body of its mother.
It's appalling, appalling theidea that the UN, trying to
bring aid with all of itsexperience, has been somehow
(24:12):
vilified in this and bypassed byan organisation which has not
filled the needs and has, by itsstrategy, caused the deaths of
hundreds of people.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
And which you know, given the effectiveness of the
aid delivery that did occur upuntil the point the blockade was
introduced, which is evidenceof how that system can work.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
In February, we had the ceasefire.
There was not looting, therewas not people desperately
struggling.
The UN knows how to do this.
I think there's a veryimportant point that Chris
Lockyer of MSF made is that theyknow how to deliver aid in
conflict zones.
That is what they are trainedfor.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
It's not a bring-and-buy Tennessee potluck,
which seems to be a bit howit's being run and even if it's
chaos, it's a country, it's aplace that is in complete chaos.
If some food is taken in a wayit shouldn't be taken, maybe
okay, then let that be, insteadof having children starving to
(25:18):
death, it has to be soproportionality.
You know you may take risks,there might be some things that
don't work exactly as planned,but you can't let people die in
the streets and kids die fromhunger pragmatic aid workers
will tell you, yeah, sometimessomething disappears.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
But I have been in the field with these kinds of
distributions not Gaza, but Isee how they work it so that
women with children don't getpushed aside that they have gone
into the community.
Who can't come, who might be ina wheelchair.
You know all this kind of thing.
They do it.
(25:56):
As Chris said.
Chris Lockyer said it's notchild's play.
There was another littlesubject I wanted to touch on,
related to this.
I won't play any clips, but wehave with the bypassing of the
traditional UN organisations.
We've seen not just fundingcuts and bypassing, we've seen
(26:17):
actual leaving.
So the US has left the WorldHealth Organisation.
Another country, argentina, hasdecided to do that too.
What do you think?
Is this a rush for the door oris this just some game playing
which could be corrected in afew years?
Speaker 6 (26:37):
It's hard to say, but I mean, when the most powerful
country in the world takes thesekinds of initiatives, there are
going to be people who followin the slipstream.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
It's difficult to believe that this will be like
the end of the World HealthOrganization, after we had the
worst pandemic in this century.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And we got the pandemic treaty.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
We got the treaty, yeah.
We treaty, yeah, without the US.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Who's going to suffer most from that?
Is it going to be the UnitedStates, if there's another
pandemic, or is it going to bethe rest of the world?
I mean, they might get left outof stuff.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
Exactly.
I mean, I think you know thepandemic treaty was greeted with
great celebration, and rightlyso.
After three years of verydifficult negotiations, you get
191 states to sign up to it.
But you know, let's not get toocarried away.
It's very symbolic becausenobody's actually signed it yet.
Signatures won't happen untilthere has been an annex
(27:28):
negotiated yeah, that's rightthe detail.
The devil is in the detail thatdeals with the very nitty-gritty
issues of sharing pathogen dataand working out the mechanisms
for delivering and sharingvaccines.
That's got to be negotiated forover another year, and then
we've got to get 60 states tosign up to this thing for it to
(27:49):
become an actual deal.
So there's a lot of water yetto flow under the bridge before
this becomes a reality.
Nonetheless, on a positive note, it's a framework which
provides an opportunity for alot more to be built on, and the
countries that are outside itare those that stand to lose
from that agreement yeah, 191states, as you said, showed
willing.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
So, yeah, nothing.
Yeah, it's not nothing.
I mean I think if we're gonnahere in geneva, we're going to
talk about the benefits ofmultilateralism, um, that
certainly could be won.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, and if countries like you said, if
china, brazil, india, southafrica would sign, that would
give it clout, would give itweight, but then would china
sign?
You know you exchange, we knowwhat happened during the
pandemic and how hard it was toget any information about
anything that happens in Chineselabs.
So it's a long way to go.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
This annex is really it's key, it's critical.
This will either give it somereal muscle or leave it as a
rather symbolic, wishful kind of.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Let's get back together when they're actually
fine-tuning that, because Ithink it would be really
interesting to do a wholepodcast just about that and why
it is that countries havehesitations, because it's not
just China Obviously China doesbut other countries too, the
countries with the bigpharmaceutical industries.
They have hesitations about howmuch sharing they should be
(29:15):
doing, how much sharing theyshould be doing.
So, yeah, let's make a date forthat, to let our listeners know
a bit more in detail what atreaty is and why it's not
necessarily something to befrightened of, as apparently
some ordinary people on thestreets are.
My last topic because Geneva'scalled a city of peace is
conflict and diplomacy, andwe're just coming out of a day
(29:39):
of intense diplomacy last weekin Geneva between Europe and
Iran, and I was reminded that wegot together earlier this year
to talk about the prospects forpeace of that other conflict
Russia, ukraine which, of course, again the current president of
the United States.
He was really optimistic aboutbeing able to end it quickly.
(30:03):
So first of all, let's hear alittle flavour of that show and
then we can talk about where wethink peace negotiations
anywhere actually are.
Speaker 8 (30:12):
Tonight, in a radical break with the past, the US and
Russia agreeing to worktogether, the two sides
discussing how to end Russia'swar in Ukraine, but doing so
without any Ukrainian officialspresent.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
We couldn't have imagined a better result after
this session.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
But today I heard oh well, we weren't invited.
Well, you've been there forthree years, you should have
ended it.
Three years, you should havenever started it, you could have
made a deal.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
How are you approaching this?
Do you want just to stop thewar or do you want to win it?
And that's the point we don'tknow even what President Trump
would think is a win.
One suspects it's a win thatwould be purely transactional in
US interests, which is bad newsfor.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Europe Returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an
unrealistic objective.
The United States does notbelieve that NATO membership for
Ukraine is a realistic outcomeof a negotiated settlement.
Instead, any security guaranteemust be backed by capable
European and non-European troops.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Europe is expected to be responsible for the
reconstruction of Ukraine,having troops on the ground to
oversee a ceasefire.
So the US will take thedecisions together with Russia,
with Putin, but then who isgoing to do the real work
afterwards?
It is Europe with Putin, butthen who is going to do the real
work afterwards?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
It is Europe.
Can you assure this audiencethat?
Speaker 9 (31:37):
Ukrainians will be at the table and Europeans will be
at the table.
Speaker 7 (31:39):
The answer to that last question just as you framed
it the answer is no.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
It started before dawn.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Ukraine woke to explosions around the capital
Kiev capital, kiev, and that'swhat people in Kiev and other
Ukrainian cities have beenhearing basically all year.
There is no peace, certainlynot in 24 hours.
I mean, was there any merit inright?
(32:10):
Let's cut to the chase.
Let's go straight to theaggressor alone and say let's do
a deal, because it is the styleof the united states at the
moment.
I mean, I've reported on a lotof tricky diplomatic
negotiations here in geneva.
I've never seen it done likethat well.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
It's difficult to see that working to the benefit of
neutral parties and parties toconflict if you adopt the
narratives and the playbook ofone of the combatants, and
notably the combatant whoactually started this crisis by
invading Ukraine.
(32:48):
And what we have never reallygotten away from is concern over
where the Trump administrationstands in its relationships with
the Kremlin, because we seedisdain for Ukraine in many
statements and we don't see theUnited States apparently using
the leverage that it has got toincrease pressure on Vladimir
(33:10):
Putin and Russia.
The pressure it's applied hasreally all been on Ukraine, so I
don't know that this is reallya formula that offers much
prospect for a settlement thatEurope would find comfortable to
live with An acceptablesettlement that's acceptable.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I mean, Gunilla, you've been in Russia quite
recently.
Are they war-weary?
Are they happy that they've gotsomebody in Washington who's
maybe?
Speaker 3 (33:36):
going to bat for them .
Speaker 4 (33:37):
In the beginning.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
when they started, when Trump and Putin had their
newfound relationship, peoplewere hopeful.
They said, oh, trump is ourhope, he will end.
Because people are so tired ofthis war, or the special
military operation, like it'scalled, in Russia, they're
really, really tired to hearabout it.
In Moscow, people are not soaffected, but they are tired
(34:00):
just of hearing about thisoperation every day and they are
scared because the suppressionof people, the repression, has
really increased.
So in the beginning and then itdidn't really happen, the war
wasn't finished.
I would say, are they happyabout having someone like Trump
there Right now on thebattlefield?
(34:21):
As we see, russia is winningbecause they have the weapons
and they have the manpower,because they pay.
They pay people coming from theregions and they just throw
money on the problem, so tospeak, while Ukraine has a
problem in getting manpower andgetting soldiers.
So it's looking very bleak andI think in Russia, yes, some
people still put their hope inTrump to perhaps somehow freeze
(34:48):
the front lines or freeze theconflict to be negotiated
perhaps later.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
And in the meantime we've got no resolution really
in Sudan, no resolution in Gaza,a ceasefire which, to be fair,
apparently America did putpressure for a ceasefire, but
then it all collapsed into evenworse violence and deprivation.
And now we have Iran.
(35:14):
I mean and here, contrary tolike I'm a peacemaker America
has gone in on the side ofIsrael when.
Israel kind of unprovokedattacked Iran.
I mean, where do we go?
I mean, I suppose we need toget back to the point of this.
Is Geneva traditionally thehome of diplomatic resolutions
(35:36):
to conflicts?
But it's also the original homeof the League of Nations, which
died in the 1930s preciselybecause it could not anymore
resolve conflicts between stateswho basically just weren't
interested in this kind ofdiplomacy.
Do we have a feeling of theLeague of Nations now about
Geneva?
Speaker 3 (35:56):
A little bit, don't we Today?
Yes, perhaps, but things willchange.
You know, we are into three anda half more years with Donald
Trump and it's true, we havethree, if not more, big wars in
the world right now, while Trumpsaid he's going to go into no
more wars and it's going to bepeace in the world, right now,
while Trump said that he's goingto go into no more wars and
there's going to be peace in theworld, and this is not
happening Today.
It looks bleak, but let's see.
(36:18):
I mean, the world is waiting tosee how Iran is going to
respond after the attack fromthe bombing from the Americans,
and I still believe that it'sgoing to be some kind of sooner
or later.
Everyone comes back tonegotiation tables.
That always ends with some kindof sooner or later.
Everyone comes back tonegotiation tables.
That always ends with some kindof talks.
And I think and I might be inminority here, but I think that
(36:40):
the EU has a role to play inIran, israel, us in this
conflict sooner or later,because Iran would not talk to
Israel, would not talk to the US, but they would probably still
speak to the Europeans and thatcould be a little light of hope.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
What do you think, nick?
I mean, I'm just thinkingthere's conflict, there's the
moving away from multilateralbodies, there's the cuts to
humanitarian funding, and weshould really we can't really
take the US out of the equation.
It's so important, but thereare other countries who are
distancing themselves fromhumanitarian aid and, to a
(37:23):
certain extent, from themultilateral effort as well.
Speaker 6 (37:27):
I think it's a very hard question to answer, though,
at this point, where the Iranconflict has the potential to
escalate into something reallyvery much bigger and far more
sort of consequential, where itwould take us into a whole new
kind of ball game, and so Ithink we're in a very sort of
(37:47):
testing and uncertain time wherethere are far more questions
and answers.
But, but I think, rather likeGunilla, hopefully sooner rather
than later, we're going to findpeople are wanting to get back
to the process of diplomacy andnegotiating tables, and it's
very difficult to see how givingfull reign to escalating
(38:10):
conflict in Iran by the UnitedStates, for example, would in
any way serve its own longerterm interests, either in the
region or globally.
And so we've got three and ahalf more years of Mr Trump,
we've got an internationalsystem that is struggling to
maintain its relevance, and wecome back to again the question
about how effectively the UN canreform itself and to what
(38:32):
extent states will support it inthat process.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
And I know you have a meeting to go to about
precisely that, this UN80, whichis apparently the Secretary
General's plan to a leaner,fitter, more efficient, more
relevant United Nations.
So we should probably do aprogramme about that too.
But we agreed that at the endof this programme we would try
(38:56):
not to be too bleak, becausethese are hard times and people
I think are very anxious at themoment that maybe we should
still pay tribute.
Hat tip to the humanitarianwork that comes out of Geneva,
people who they don't livepeacefully here in this quiet
city.
They are in Gaza, they're inSudan, they're in Afghanistan
(39:20):
and we heard from some of them,from MSF, from UN Population
Fund, from the Norwegian RefugeeCouncil, jan Eglund they are
not giving up.
So we should perhaps also tryto maintain some faith in this
international system.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Yeah, I think they're going to be.
I mean, as you're talking abouthow they are in the field and
so forth, there's a wholegeneration now and there's a
future generation and theyconsider themselves, they label
themselves, as humanitarians andthat's not going to go away.
I think we're going to havethat, especially when we have
these crises.
We see these wars, thissuffering, these images in Gaza,
(40:01):
in Iran, in Israel, in Russia,in Ukraine.
People see, people feel youknow the generation coming after
us.
They're not just going to giveup and say we're not going to do
anything.
I think there might even bemore appetite to be wanting to
help and be a humanitarian andwanting to work in these
organisations.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
And try and get us out of the mess we're in.
Yeah, the hope of youth.
You look sceptical, Nick.
You're shaking your head.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
The hope of youth.
It's going to get worse, okay.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
That brings us to the end.
Thank you, gunilla, thank you,nick.
That's the end of this editionof Inside Geneva.
Thanks all for listening.
We hope you enjoyed it.
Write to us if you have anycomments at insidegeneva, at
swissinfoch a reminder you'vebeen listening to inside geneva,
(41:00):
a swiss info production.
You can subscribe to us andreview us wherever you get your
podcasts.
Check out our previous episodeshow the international red cross
unites prisoners of war withtheir families, or why survivors
of human rights violations turnto the UN in Geneva for justice
.
I'm Imogen Folks.
Thanks again for listening.
This is Inside Geneva .
I'm your host, imogen Foulkes,and this is a production from
Swissinfo, the internationalpublic media company of
Switzerland.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
In today's programme, In the year 2525, if man is
still alive.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
Tonight I can report to the world that the strikes
were a spectacular militarysuccess.
Iran's key nuclear enrichmentfacilities have been completely
and totally obliterated.
We devastated the Iraniannuclear program.
Many presidents have dreamed ofdelivering the final blow to
(00:58):
Iran's nuclear program, and nonecould until President Trump.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
The world is watching with growing alarm.
We are not drifting towardcrisis, we are racing toward it.
The expansion of this conflictcould ignite a fire that no one
can control.
We must not let that happen.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva and, as
you heard in the introduction,we've got something a little
different for you today.
I know it's not actually 2525,but indulge me, because the year
2025 so far has felt, I thinkwe could say, pretty worrying,
maybe even apocalyptic.
So here we are, inside Geneva'slittle studio in the United
(01:55):
Nations building.
We're bringing you an analysisof the first six months of this
year.
I've got with me Gunilla vanHol of the Swedish daily Svenska
Darkbladet, and NickCumming-Bruce, regular
contributor to the New YorkTimes, all experts in what
happens in Geneva.
(02:15):
And to comfort ourselves inthis grim year so far, we even
got some cake.
I was being a bit flippant andwondering if we should call this
episode war and cake.
Let me ask you both first inthis, this moment, before we
reflect a whole lot on the firstsix months I mean, dare we even
(02:35):
eat cake?
Is it the moment?
We had we our cake, so we?
Speaker 6 (02:40):
can't really regret that.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
But, as you said, it all started downhill from 20th
of January.
That's when it started andsince then it's just well.
The Ukraine war will be over in24 hours.
Nothing happened, it just gotworse, and right now it's just
black and nothing hopeful on thehorizon.
And then we had Gaza, then wehave Iran, then we had Gaza,
(03:06):
then we have Iran, israel, andthen we have the cutdowns of all
the aid and it's very bleak.
I think we should just not givea hop our hope, but it looks
really we have four years.
Yeah, donald Trump, and he isthe one who doesn't want to be
involved in supportinghumanitarian aid or having
multilateral diplomaticsolutions to anything, it seems.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, you have given an excellent summary of where
we're going to go in thispodcast.
But before we wind right backto January, Nick, what about you
?
How are you feeling halfwaythrough the year?
I mean, what do you sense inGeneva?
Speaker 6 (03:43):
Nothing but unmitigated gloom.
At this point, as Gunilla hasjust said, really, we've watched
essentially the unravelling ofall the international frameworks
that exist to try and mitigatethe effects of conflict in the
world, and instead we haveintensifying humanitarian
(04:04):
disasters on many continents,evisceration of international
aid, which is already costinglives in ways that are probably
never going to be fully counted,and the most powerful country
in the world taking unilateralpositions that are often at
variance with international law,which has grim consequences for
(04:25):
the rest of the internationalcommunity.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Grim, indeed.
Let's start with a topic youboth raised, and what I should
tell our listeners is we'regoing to play you a few
highlights over the course ofthis episode of earlier podcasts
we did so you can find all ofthem.
Wherever you get your podcasts,I'll put the links to them also
in our show notes.
In January, even before January, we knew there were going to be
(04:53):
cuts to humanitarian aidagencies, so we were prepared.
Still, I'm going to give younow a little flavor of the kind
of things we heard then from avariety of aid agencies.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Late today, the US State Department suspended all
foreign assistance around theworld for at least three months.
It affects tens of billions ofdollars for programs that extend
from.
Speaker 7 (05:18):
In Colombia they've just had to lay off 200 staff
that were doing the demining inthe south of the country.
So all of a sudden thesefamilies have no work and the
alternative in the area you knowwhat it is Coca plants.
So how is that in the USinterest?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
The Trump administration has issued a halt
to nearly all existing foreignaid.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Creating safe zones for Syrian women in refugee
camps, providing medicalassistance to pregnant women in
Burma.
This is the type of action theUN Population Fund has led.
The US has been one of the UNagency's founders and main
donors.
It's now ceasing allcontributions.
Right now, a woman dies of apreventable form of maternal
(06:02):
mortality every two minutes.
Okay, so that's unacceptable.
What is one of the grants thatthe US just cut is to support
the training and salaries formidwives.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
The United Nations is saying that there could be
2,000 new cases of HIV due tothe USAID cuts.
This, as President Donald Trumpputs millions of dollars of
foreign aid on pause.
We actually had something thatwas successful.
This, as President Donald Trumpputs millions of dollars of
foreign aid on pause.
We actually had something thatwas successful.
We were one of the only 17sustainable development goals
that was able to see the end insight.
(06:34):
We're so close to ending AIDSfull stop and we could very well
be turning back completely.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, you heard a variety of aid agencies there.
They really set out theirstalls at the beginning of the
year.
We heard from UN PopulationFund.
They run maternal healthclinics.
We heard from UNAIDS.
Now we all know why it'simportant that that body
continues to function.
We heard from demining.
Did anybody listen to them sixmonths on?
(07:03):
As far as I understand it, thatthree-month freeze has now
become permanent.
Speaker 6 (07:08):
I think it's a mixed picture, because some of the
programs that were suspended areback in action.
Some funding is coming back todemining programs that went
through.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Of course you work quite closely with demining
programs.
Speaker 6 (07:19):
Yeah, that were temporarily paused, but damage
was done even to them.
Opportunities were lost, thingsthat should have happened
didn't.
People have been laid off insignificant numbers who will
probably never be rehired.
In a lot of different programs.
The US was the biggest funderof mine action in the world for
many years.
It may well continue to be, butsignificant damage has been
(07:43):
done.
And that's just one little kindof segment of one little corner
of the international aid effort.
There are much bigger swathes ofhumanitarian action which are
dealing with more immediatecrises in Sudan, somalia,
afghanistan, wherever there is amajor conflict running, and
(08:07):
these are suffering acutely.
And then you have, of course,the loss of funds to
institutions like the HumanRights Office here, a loss of
about one third of their budgetthis year, which will mean cuts
in staff, which will mean cutsin their ability to support all
sorts of programmes that are notvery high profile but help
(08:28):
states to implement legalreforms that basically help
stabilise societies.
And those are all suffering.
So there's a lot of intangiblecosts as well as the very
visible costs in terms of theloss of funding for the UNAIDS
programme.
The loss of funding for theUNAIDS programme, the loss of
funding for the WHO and theessential work it does fighting
diseases like TB and polio.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
These are costs that are going to be weighed for
years to come.
I think one of the things,gunilla, is that when these
things stop, it becomes alsoincredibly costly to restart
them.
I mean, you and I were at thatevening last week in Geneva,
that rather nice party whereeverybody from Geneva was there,
and I don't know if you bumpedinto it.
I bumped into the head of UNHumanitarian Affairs, tom
(09:16):
Fletcher.
He's in town to basically say Iknow we're not even going to
get half what we need.
So he's basically triaging now.
People who are suffering famineor caught up in conflict, I
mean very hard decisions.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It's really, really sad.
And then the other aspect, too,is this the cuts in money and
helping people who really need.
And then the other side is howthe agencies are being told not
to use to wash off on thewebsites, basically words that
have to do with equality,inclusion, diversity, climate
(09:52):
change.
Speaker 9 (09:52):
Women.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Women.
You can say extreme weather,but they should not talk about
climate change.
This censoring of words, thatkind of, is the basis for their
work.
I think that's also very, veryscary.
Then I think the cutdowns areextreme.
What is it?
83% of USAID programs cut down,meaning that in Sudan, 80% of
(10:16):
all the community kitchens arenow closed.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
And let's remind our listeners that it's what 12
million people are displaced, 13million in Sudan.
This appalling conflict,because of all the other
conflicts, doesn't get nearlyenough attention.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
No, Emergency food distribution in a country like
Afghanistan, wfp says we have toclose it, we have to stop it,
we do not have the money.
I mean the suffering and thenthe censoring of the work that
they are doing and the ideasthat they're building.
This work on all agencies.
That is very ominous.
Speaker 6 (10:56):
Which basically feed into the whole sort of dynamic
that's driving instabilityaround the world.
So in whose interests does thiswork?
It certainly isn't in thelong-term best interests of any
of the governments in the UnitedStates.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
It's exactly the point that Tamara Gabelnik in
that clip we heard there she'sthe head of the international
campaign to ban landmines.
People will turn to farmingcoca in Colombia because they're
demining.
I mean, colombia is infestedwith mines.
Speaker 6 (11:25):
Their demining was providing good livelihoods as
well as doing good work but italso raises the question of what
is the rest of the world goingto do about it?
I mean, here has been theUnited States, shouldering a
massive percentage of theinternational humanitarian
budget for many, many years.
There are plenty of other richstates that could be
contributing.
What are they going to do aboutit?
(11:45):
Everybody is very much focusedon the damage that the United
States is inflicting on themultilateral system, and
deservedly so, but what areother states going to do to
protect it?
The international humanitarianbudget every year is funded
largely by a very small group ofWestern states.
So where is the second biggesteconomy in the world, china?
(12:09):
Where is India?
Where are rich countries likeSingapore, which like to sit on
the sidelines of these kinds ofdebates?
They have the resources.
What are these states going todo to shore up and contribute to
refashioning the internationalsystem, if that's what we're now
doing, in a more durable andsustainable way?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
But maybe that's where they're going to see their
chance right now China, forexample.
They're going to see the chanceto move in and take over in
this power financial, but alsopower vacuum.
It will be an opening and weknow for China that they're
moving into a lot ofinternational organizations.
They want to have much moreimpact and countries like Qatar
(12:51):
Qatar now tries to attract a lotof UN agencies.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Come here, put up your headquarter here, cheaper
than Geneva, cheaper, and theycan pay.
We'll give you a free,air-conditioned building.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah, and it's kind of a blue wash.
So we have to be thesecountries.
Yes, where are they?
Well, they might see a chancenow to come in and get the
influence they wanted and theywant for the future in this new
world order.
Speaker 6 (13:14):
Yeah, I think that the only caveat to that is that
clear preference is forunilateral programs.
The Saudi Arabias of this world, the Gulf states, china, they
like to.
It's not that they're notspending money, but they're not
putting it through a system thatbasically reinforces
international norms andstandards.
They're doing it unilaterallyin ways that serve a national
(13:36):
agenda.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, I just want to add one thing there.
On the other hand, there isalso in the UN.
There was a need to make thingsmore efficient and to scale
down and to I mean there has tobe said too that there is.
It's not good all this money isdisappearing, but has the UN,
all the agencies, functionedefficiently?
Has money been wasted?
Have there been, you know?
(13:56):
Hasn't the work that been donein an efficient way?
I think there is a need whenyou talk to people in the UN
saying, yes, this was needed,but it wasn't supposed to happen
like this.
Speaker 6 (14:06):
Can I just come back at that?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yes, I mean, I want to come back at that too,
because I have a differentopinion, but you first, nick.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
Because I think you're absolutely right, the UN
system was grotesquelyinefficient in all sorts of ways
.
But I think what is disturbingis the very casual destruction
of international institutionsand agreements that have been
pulled together over many years,decades of work since World War
(14:33):
II, and which, for all theirmany imperfections, are trying
with some cases, significantsuccess to address the critical
challenges that the world faces.
And you know, I point to a storyin the New York Times today
which says that, you know, whenDonald Trump sat down and signed
his executive order 14169,pausing all humanitarian aid, it
(15:00):
was in nobody's mind in theadministration at that point to
wrap up USAID and it justunfolded in a kind of rather
sort of shambolic process whereElon Musk rolls in and basically
tosses a $35 billion programinto the wood chipper and so a
program that Marco Rubio used tobe a major supporter of is
(15:22):
shuttered and abandoned and allthe soft power that goes with it
is also cancelled.
How does that serve Americaninterests?
Let alone the damage that itdoes to people who are on the
receiving end of that massiveaid programme.
But at the same time, theUnited States has shouldered a
(15:43):
huge share of the internationalaid burden over many years.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Well, but not in proportion to its economy.
European countries pay more.
Speaker 6 (15:53):
No, but as a percentage of the total it's
been a major share, and as theypull back, the question then is
what are other countries in theworld going to do to fight for
the multilateral system and tofight for multilateral aid
programs?
How are they going to stepforward?
Multilateral aid has beenfunded by a small handful of
European countries, so where arethe Chinas?
(16:14):
Where are the rich countrieslike Singapore?
Where are the other bigeconomies?
Where is another aspiringglobal power, India, in
supporting the multilateralsystem?
It's time for us to see thatand to see what they can do to
reinvigorate a multilateralsystem and to give it the
strength to really fight for allthe values and legal advances
(16:36):
that have been made since WorldWar II, precisely to prevent the
world slipping back intoanother major conflagration.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
But perhaps it wouldn't have happened otherwise
.
I spoke to someone who works atOptra the other day and he's
saying, yeah, it shouldn'thappen like this, but if it
wasn't this kind of extremewake-up maybe it would not have
been done.
He's not defending what'shappening.
Not defending, but just saying.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I just want to jump in on that because I think I
mean, like you, I've beenreporting in Geneva for some
years.
When I came here, which wasactually 20 years ago, we were
having similar conversationsabout cuts and there was a
change to coordinate much more.
And I would honestly say andI've been in the field quite a
(17:18):
lot with with in crisis zones,with humanitarian agencies I'm
not sure, with humanitarianagencies, that there's that much
left to cut.
And just coming back to China,when Donald Trump was first
elected in 2016, we saw hiswithdrawal from the multilateral
(17:39):
system and Chinese diplomatscame here to Geneva and said
that's okay, because we're here,we will step in.
Did they invest more inhumanitarian work?
No, they didn't.
You're right, nick, they wantto do it all bilaterally.
I think they want to havecontrol of these countries, as
the United States does, over anaid project, so that it fits
(18:00):
into their own view of what's intheir interests, which, of
course, is antithetical to thewhole principle of humanitarian
work.
Utter humanitarian catastrophein Gaza and the fact that the
agencies with years ofexperience have been shut out,
(18:30):
blocked for months on end, andthen somehow, our dear friend
Donald Trump.
I don't want to make thisprogramme a total criticism of
Donald Trump to be, fair to me,he did notice that there was a
crisis in Gaza and decided thatthe US would do something about
it with Israel enter the GazaHumanitarian Foundation.
(18:51):
I'm going to play you a littlebit of an excerpt of a podcast
we did about that because Ithink to me this development is
really significant for howGeneva works.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
We're going to help the people of Gaza get some food
.
People are starving.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
A US-backed aid organization aims to start work
in the Gaza Strip by the end ofMay.
Speaker 5 (19:12):
This seems to be militarized, politicized,
manipulated.
People have to walk longdistances through the rubble to
get aid.
Speaker 9 (19:26):
After more than 80 days of a total blockade, Israel
has started allowing a limitedamount of supplies into some
parts of the Strip.
This is not child's play.
It is not a military operation.
It is a different thing thatrequires years and decades and
decades of experience to getwhere we've got to now Hunger
and fear.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Palestinians in Gaza say going to new food
distribution sites comes withthe risk of death.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
Reports from Gaza say at least 26 Palestinians have
been killed and many morewounded after Israeli tank fire
hit people near a US-funded aiddistribution center.
Speaker 9 (20:08):
It's a not-so-disaster.
The writing was on the wallfrom quite a long time ago.
All of the actors the UN, thehumanitarian agencies, the NGOs
have been saying that from thestart.
Militarizing aid is not goingto work.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
Israeli forces have opened fire again on hungry
Palestinians desperate for aid.
Speaker 9 (20:27):
It breaks my heart to say it, but it wasn't a
surprise to see those horrendousimages from the first day of
operation of the GHF in Gaza.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Just ending that there, that was Chris Locke here
, the Secretary General ofMédecins Sans Frontières Doctors
Without Borders.
He has a team, a big team, inGaza.
He goes there regularly himself, and he's quite right.
Delivering aid is not child'splay and, my God, what have we
seen since that foundationstarted?
Speaker 6 (20:59):
Well, according to one news report today, in the
space of a little more thanthree weeks, up until around
June 18, there were 18 masscasualty events, more than 1,800
casualties delivered tohospitals.
More than 1,800 casualtiesdelivered to hospitals, the
(21:23):
great majority of whom sayingthey were injured in the process
of trying to collect food fromone of these hubs, Israel
denying point blank that it'sshooting at civilians.
We've got 1,800 casualties,some of whom probably were
victims of shots fired by othercriminal gangs.
But when you're talking abouttank fire, drone fire, fire even
(21:43):
from naval vessels at thesekinds of gatherings of people,
there's very little doubt wherethe great majority of these
casualties have been caused.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Even if it wasn't, even if not a single IDF soldier
fired a bullet that hit one ofthese people.
The way they have set this upis designed to create this kind
of catastrophe.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I mean when the UN had 400 points already set up
and organised since a long time,where families and people would
go and get organ in anorganized way, the food and
medicine and what they needed.
Instead now, and they can't doanything, they're paralyzed.
You cannot go to these 400places where people, where it's
close, where people live.
(22:27):
Instead they have to go all theway to the end of the road,
basically, and then they arepushed through this like cattle,
pushed through these metalcorridors where they have to run
with the bag on their back, orchildren, women, handicapped,
people with disabilities.
(22:47):
It's so humiliating.
And then the UN.
Meanwhile, I interviewedsomeone who was in Gaza the
other day, in Gaza City, workingfor the UN, and saying that all
we can do there's maybe one ortwo trucks coming in and we can
deliver some medication to thehospital and bread to the bakery
, but nothing else.
We can do nothing else.
Speaker 6 (23:07):
Yes, but as WFP said, you know, since the beginning
of the blockade on March the 3rd, they've been able to deliver
9,000 tons of food, very littleof which has actually reached
any distribution point.
And 9,000 tonnes in itself iscompletely inadequate for the
requirements of more than 2million people who have been
deprived of any real access toaid for the better part of
(23:30):
several months.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
And the other thing is that this is creating.
You see the images of peoplebeing filmed in Gaza and you
hear kids screaming revenge,revenge.
This will create a new, maybemore vicious, Hamas.
This is the big problem that Idon't know if Israel is
realizing, but they are creatinga monster.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, I mean.
Sometimes I go home after a dayin Geneva talking about this
and listening to the aidagencies and I literally cannot
watch the news.
Yet another child screamingover the body of its mother.
It's appalling, appalling theidea that the UN, trying to
bring aid with all of itsexperience, has been somehow
(24:12):
vilified in this and bypassed byan organisation which has not
filled the needs and has, by itsstrategy, caused the deaths of
hundreds of people.
Speaker 6 (24:24):
And which you know, given the effectiveness of the
aid delivery that did occur upuntil the point the blockade was
introduced, which is evidenceof how that system can work.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
In February, we had the ceasefire.
There was not looting, therewas not people desperately
struggling.
The UN knows how to do this.
I think there's a veryimportant point that Chris
Lockyer of MSF made is that theyknow how to deliver aid in
conflict zones.
That is what they are trainedfor.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
It's not a bring-and-buy Tennessee potluck,
which seems to be a bit howit's being run and even if it's
chaos, it's a country, it's aplace that is in complete chaos.
If some food is taken in a wayit shouldn't be taken, maybe
okay, then let that be, insteadof having children starving to
(25:18):
death, it has to be soproportionality.
You know you may take risks,there might be some things that
don't work exactly as planned,but you can't let people die in
the streets and kids die fromhunger pragmatic aid workers
will tell you, yeah, sometimessomething disappears.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
But I have been in the field with these kinds of
distributions not Gaza, but Isee how they work it so that
women with children don't getpushed aside that they have gone
into the community.
Who can't come, who might be ina wheelchair.
You know all this kind of thing.
They do it.
(25:56):
As Chris said.
Chris Lockyer said it's notchild's play.
There was another littlesubject I wanted to touch on,
related to this.
I won't play any clips, but wehave with the bypassing of the
traditional UN organisations.
We've seen not just fundingcuts and bypassing, we've seen
(26:17):
actual leaving.
So the US has left the WorldHealth Organisation.
Another country, argentina, hasdecided to do that too.
What do you think?
Is this a rush for the door oris this just some game playing
which could be corrected in afew years?
Speaker 6 (26:37):
It's hard to say, but I mean, when the most powerful
country in the world takes thesekinds of initiatives, there are
going to be people who followin the slipstream.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
It's difficult to believe that this will be like
the end of the World HealthOrganization, after we had the
worst pandemic in this century.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And we got the pandemic treaty.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
We got the treaty, yeah.
We treaty, yeah, without the US.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Who's going to suffer most from that?
Is it going to be the UnitedStates, if there's another
pandemic, or is it going to bethe rest of the world?
I mean, they might get left outof stuff.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
Exactly.
I mean, I think you know thepandemic treaty was greeted with
great celebration, and rightlyso.
After three years of verydifficult negotiations, you get
191 states to sign up to it.
But you know, let's not get toocarried away.
It's very symbolic becausenobody's actually signed it yet.
Signatures won't happen untilthere has been an annex
(27:28):
negotiated yeah, that's rightthe detail.
The devil is in the detail thatdeals with the very nitty-gritty
issues of sharing pathogen dataand working out the mechanisms
for delivering and sharingvaccines.
That's got to be negotiated forover another year, and then
we've got to get 60 states tosign up to this thing for it to
(27:49):
become an actual deal.
So there's a lot of water yetto flow under the bridge before
this becomes a reality.
Nonetheless, on a positive note, it's a framework which
provides an opportunity for alot more to be built on, and the
countries that are outside itare those that stand to lose
from that agreement yeah, 191states, as you said, showed
willing.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
So, yeah, nothing.
Yeah, it's not nothing.
I mean I think if we're gonnahere in geneva, we're going to
talk about the benefits ofmultilateralism, um, that
certainly could be won.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, and if countries like you said, if
china, brazil, india, southafrica would sign, that would
give it clout, would give itweight, but then would china
sign?
You know you exchange, we knowwhat happened during the
pandemic and how hard it was toget any information about
anything that happens in Chineselabs.
So it's a long way to go.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
This annex is really it's key, it's critical.
This will either give it somereal muscle or leave it as a
rather symbolic, wishful kind of.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Let's get back together when they're actually
fine-tuning that, because Ithink it would be really
interesting to do a wholepodcast just about that and why
it is that countries havehesitations, because it's not
just China Obviously China doesbut other countries too, the
countries with the bigpharmaceutical industries.
They have hesitations about howmuch sharing they should be
(29:15):
doing, how much sharing theyshould be doing.
So, yeah, let's make a date forthat, to let our listeners know
a bit more in detail what atreaty is and why it's not
necessarily something to befrightened of, as apparently
some ordinary people on thestreets are.
My last topic because Geneva'scalled a city of peace is
conflict and diplomacy, andwe're just coming out of a day
(29:39):
of intense diplomacy last weekin Geneva between Europe and
Iran, and I was reminded that wegot together earlier this year
to talk about the prospects forpeace of that other conflict
Russia, ukraine which, of course, again the current president of
the United States.
He was really optimistic aboutbeing able to end it quickly.
(30:03):
So first of all, let's hear alittle flavour of that show and
then we can talk about where wethink peace negotiations
anywhere actually are.
Speaker 8 (30:12):
Tonight, in a radical break with the past, the US and
Russia agreeing to worktogether, the two sides
discussing how to end Russia'swar in Ukraine, but doing so
without any Ukrainian officialspresent.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
We couldn't have imagined a better result after
this session.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
But today I heard oh well, we weren't invited.
Well, you've been there forthree years, you should have
ended it.
Three years, you should havenever started it, you could have
made a deal.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
How are you approaching this?
Do you want just to stop thewar or do you want to win it?
And that's the point we don'tknow even what President Trump
would think is a win.
One suspects it's a win thatwould be purely transactional in
US interests, which is bad newsfor.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Europe Returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an
unrealistic objective.
The United States does notbelieve that NATO membership for
Ukraine is a realistic outcomeof a negotiated settlement.
Instead, any security guaranteemust be backed by capable
European and non-European troops.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Europe is expected to be responsible for the
reconstruction of Ukraine,having troops on the ground to
oversee a ceasefire.
So the US will take thedecisions together with Russia,
with Putin, but then who isgoing to do the real work
afterwards?
It is Europe with Putin, butthen who is going to do the real
work afterwards?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
It is Europe.
Can you assure this audiencethat?
Speaker 9 (31:37):
Ukrainians will be at the table and Europeans will be
at the table.
Speaker 7 (31:39):
The answer to that last question just as you framed
it the answer is no.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
It started before dawn.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Ukraine woke to explosions around the capital
Kiev capital, kiev, and that'swhat people in Kiev and other
Ukrainian cities have beenhearing basically all year.
There is no peace, certainlynot in 24 hours.
I mean, was there any merit inright?
(32:10):
Let's cut to the chase.
Let's go straight to theaggressor alone and say let's do
a deal, because it is the styleof the united states at the
moment.
I mean, I've reported on a lotof tricky diplomatic
negotiations here in geneva.
I've never seen it done likethat well.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
It's difficult to see that working to the benefit of
neutral parties and parties toconflict if you adopt the
narratives and the playbook ofone of the combatants, and
notably the combatant whoactually started this crisis by
invading Ukraine.
(32:48):
And what we have never reallygotten away from is concern over
where the Trump administrationstands in its relationships with
the Kremlin, because we seedisdain for Ukraine in many
statements and we don't see theUnited States apparently using
the leverage that it has got toincrease pressure on Vladimir
(33:10):
Putin and Russia.
The pressure it's applied hasreally all been on Ukraine, so I
don't know that this is reallya formula that offers much
prospect for a settlement thatEurope would find comfortable to
live with An acceptablesettlement that's acceptable.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
I mean, Gunilla, you've been in Russia quite
recently.
Are they war-weary?
Are they happy that they've gotsomebody in Washington who's
maybe?
Speaker 3 (33:36):
going to bat for them .
Speaker 4 (33:37):
In the beginning.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
when they started, when Trump and Putin had their
newfound relationship, peoplewere hopeful.
They said, oh, trump is ourhope, he will end.
Because people are so tired ofthis war, or the special
military operation, like it'scalled, in Russia, they're
really, really tired to hearabout it.
In Moscow, people are not soaffected, but they are tired
(34:00):
just of hearing about thisoperation every day and they are
scared because the suppressionof people, the repression, has
really increased.
So in the beginning and then itdidn't really happen, the war
wasn't finished.
I would say, are they happyabout having someone like Trump
there Right now on thebattlefield?
(34:21):
As we see, russia is winningbecause they have the weapons
and they have the manpower,because they pay.
They pay people coming from theregions and they just throw
money on the problem, so tospeak, while Ukraine has a
problem in getting manpower andgetting soldiers.
So it's looking very bleak andI think in Russia, yes, some
people still put their hope inTrump to perhaps somehow freeze
(34:48):
the front lines or freeze theconflict to be negotiated
perhaps later.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
And in the meantime we've got no resolution really
in Sudan, no resolution in Gaza,a ceasefire which, to be fair,
apparently America did putpressure for a ceasefire, but
then it all collapsed into evenworse violence and deprivation.
And now we have Iran.
(35:14):
I mean and here, contrary tolike I'm a peacemaker America
has gone in on the side ofIsrael when.
Israel kind of unprovokedattacked Iran.
I mean, where do we go?
I mean, I suppose we need toget back to the point of this.
Is Geneva traditionally thehome of diplomatic resolutions
(35:36):
to conflicts?
But it's also the original homeof the League of Nations, which
died in the 1930s preciselybecause it could not anymore
resolve conflicts between stateswho basically just weren't
interested in this kind ofdiplomacy.
Do we have a feeling of theLeague of Nations now about
Geneva?
Speaker 3 (35:56):
A little bit, don't we Today?
Yes, perhaps, but things willchange.
You know, we are into three anda half more years with Donald
Trump and it's true, we havethree, if not more, big wars in
the world right now, while Trumpsaid he's going to go into no
more wars and it's going to bepeace in the world, right now,
while Trump said that he's goingto go into no more wars and
there's going to be peace in theworld, and this is not
happening Today.
It looks bleak, but let's see.
(36:18):
I mean, the world is waiting tosee how Iran is going to
respond after the attack fromthe bombing from the Americans,
and I still believe that it'sgoing to be some kind of sooner
or later.
Everyone comes back tonegotiation tables.
That always ends with some kindof sooner or later.
Everyone comes back tonegotiation tables.
That always ends with some kindof talks.
And I think and I might be inminority here, but I think that
(36:40):
the EU has a role to play inIran, israel, us in this
conflict sooner or later,because Iran would not talk to
Israel, would not talk to the US, but they would probably still
speak to the Europeans and thatcould be a little light of hope.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
What do you think, nick?
I mean, I'm just thinkingthere's conflict, there's the
moving away from multilateralbodies, there's the cuts to
humanitarian funding, and weshould really we can't really
take the US out of the equation.
It's so important, but thereare other countries who are
distancing themselves fromhumanitarian aid and, to a
(37:23):
certain extent, from themultilateral effort as well.
Speaker 6 (37:27):
I think it's a very hard question to answer, though,
at this point, where the Iranconflict has the potential to
escalate into something reallyvery much bigger and far more
sort of consequential, where itwould take us into a whole new
kind of ball game, and so Ithink we're in a very sort of
(37:47):
testing and uncertain time wherethere are far more questions
and answers.
But, but I think, rather likeGunilla, hopefully sooner rather
than later, we're going to findpeople are wanting to get back
to the process of diplomacy andnegotiating tables, and it's
very difficult to see how givingfull reign to escalating
(38:10):
conflict in Iran by the UnitedStates, for example, would in
any way serve its own longerterm interests, either in the
region or globally.
And so we've got three and ahalf more years of Mr Trump,
we've got an internationalsystem that is struggling to
maintain its relevance, and wecome back to again the question
about how effectively the UN canreform itself and to what
(38:32):
extent states will support it inthat process.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
And I know you have a meeting to go to about
precisely that, this UN80, whichis apparently the Secretary
General's plan to a leaner,fitter, more efficient, more
relevant United Nations.
So we should probably do aprogramme about that too.
But we agreed that at the endof this programme we would try
(38:56):
not to be too bleak, becausethese are hard times and people
I think are very anxious at themoment that maybe we should
still pay tribute.
Hat tip to the humanitarianwork that comes out of Geneva,
people who they don't livepeacefully here in this quiet
city.
They are in Gaza, they're inSudan, they're in Afghanistan
(39:20):
and we heard from some of them,from MSF, from UN Population
Fund, from the Norwegian RefugeeCouncil, jan Eglund they are
not giving up.
So we should perhaps also tryto maintain some faith in this
international system.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
Yeah, I think they're going to be.
I mean, as you're talking abouthow they are in the field and
so forth, there's a wholegeneration now and there's a
future generation and theyconsider themselves, they label
themselves, as humanitarians andthat's not going to go away.
I think we're going to havethat, especially when we have
these crises.
We see these wars, thissuffering, these images in Gaza,
(40:01):
in Iran, in Israel, in Russia,in Ukraine.
People see, people feel youknow the generation coming after
us.
They're not just going to giveup and say we're not going to do
anything.
I think there might even bemore appetite to be wanting to
help and be a humanitarian andwanting to work in these
organisations.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
And try and get us out of the mess we're in.
Yeah, the hope of youth.
You look sceptical, Nick.
You're shaking your head.
Speaker 6 (40:29):
The hope of youth.
It's going to get worse, okay.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
That brings us to the end.
Thank you, gunilla, thank you,nick.
That's the end of this editionof Inside Geneva.
Thanks all for listening.
We hope you enjoyed it.
Write to us if you have anycomments at insidegeneva, at
swissinfoch a reminder you'vebeen listening to inside geneva,
(41:00):
a swiss info production.
You can subscribe to us andreview us wherever you get your
podcasts.
Check out our previous episodeshow the international red cross
unites prisoners of war withtheir families, or why survivors
of human rights violations turnto the UN in Geneva for justice
.
I'm Imogen Folks.
Thanks again for listening.
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