Social issues

All the power to international institutions?

Handling Covid-19, a global cacophony

by Olivier Delacrétaz,* Lausanne

(10 June 2021) Mr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the “World Health Organisation” (WHO), has appointed an ”independent panel of experts” to review the states’ actions against the pandemic. Their report “Covid 19: Let's make this the last pandemic” is clear: states had sucked.

Their preparation was inadequate, the means committed were insufficient, and the warning systems were slow and weak. It was a real cacophony, explained by the experts with the absence of a global political leadership.

The "censorship" is back

How a free society is giving up freedom

by Robert Seidel

(10 May 2021) The brief explosive confrontation between the Russian media group “Russia Today Deutschland” (RT DE) and German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass (SPD) in mid-March highlighted the alarming state of press freedom in the EU, especially in Germany. Behind this controversy lies the creeping introduction of a dictatorship of opinion.
Germany

The Covid-19 Crisis and Privatization of the Health System

“The health of the population is the least of their concerns”

Interview with Werner Rügemer* by Reinhard Jellen**

(25 April 2021) It sometimes seems as if the health-care system and government offices have had to cut costs to such an extent that they do not have the capacity to cope with the Covid-19 crisis. Is this really the case? To find out, Telepolis talked to the privatization expert Werner Rügemer, who has studied this phenomenon for many years (see: Der Staat entmachtet sich selbst [The State disempowers itself] and has published several seminal works on the subject.

From Rossum’s Robots To Artificial Intelligence

by Leonid Savin*

(25 April 2021) The 25 January 2021 marked one hundred years since the première of Czech sci-fi writer Karel Čapek’s play “R.U.R.” (Rossum’s Universal Robots). The short work anticipated subsequent books on the subject, as well as cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic films like “The Terminator” and “Alien: Covenant”. Rossum’s universal robots were conceived as human helpers, but after a while they rebel and destroy the human race, with the exception of one factory worker, whom they need to recreate their own kind.

Ivermectin – a promising drug in the treatment of Covid-19

by Sabine Vuilleumier-Koch, M.D.

(6. April 2021) Research is being conducted worldwide into substances that could lead to prophylaxis and effective treatment of Covid-19. Its results are little known to the public – so far, the focus of media interest has been on the known protective measures, the lockdown and vaccination. Broader testing is now also permitted. From a medical point of view, it is urgently necessary to add the option of prophylaxis and therapy.

Journalistic research is time-consuming

In the “Navalny affair”, much media reporting is too simplistic – here’s what it takes to get more information

by Christian Müller

(21 March 2021) On February 13, 2021, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung published on its front page a lead story on the future of Navalny and Putin1 by journalist Andreas Rüesch. The words “opposition” and “opponents” appeared repeatedly through-out the article, but – whether intentionally or not – Rüesch never explained what this opposition actually entails in Russia.