War, Peace and Cake: The World in 2025

Summary

Inside Geneva: War, Peace and Cake — The World in 2025

Hosted by Imogen Foulkes | Produced by SWI swissinfo.ch | Release Date: June 24, 2025

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In this gripping episode of Inside Geneva, host Imogen Foulkes delves deep into the tumultuous global landscape of 2025, a year marked by escalating conflicts, significant policy shifts, and humanitarian crises. Joined by esteemed guests Gunilla Van Hall of Svenska Dagbladet and Nick Cumming-Bruce, a regular contributor to The New York Times, the discussion navigates through the complexities shaping international relations and aid.

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1. A Grim Outlook: Setting the Stage for 2025

Imogen Foulkes opens the episode with a stark portrayal of the year 2025, likening it to an apocalyptic scenario. She juxtaposes this grim reality with a touch of levity—"to comfort ourselves in this grim year so far, we even got some cake." This metaphor underscores the precarious balance between dire global events and the small comforts that persist amidst chaos.

2. Humanitarian Aid Cuts: A Global Setback

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the severe cuts to international humanitarian aid orchestrated by the Trump administration. Imogen highlights the abrupt suspension of U.S. foreign assistance:

• [05:09] Nick Cumming-Bruce: "Late today, the U.S. State Department suspended all foreign assistance around the world for at least three months."

These cuts have had devastating effects:

• [05:14] Imogen Foulkes: "For programs that extend from in Colombia. They've just had to lay off 200 staff that were doing the demining in the south of the country."

Gunilla Van Hall emphasizes the bleakness of the situation:

• [05:32] Gunilla Van Hall: "The Ukraine war will be over in 24 hours. Nothing happened. It just got worse."

Nick further elaborates on the broader implications:

• [03:43] Nick Cumming-Bruce: "We've watched essentially the unraveling of all the international frameworks that exist to try and mitigate the effects of conflict in the world."

3. The Gaza Humanitarian Crisis: Militarization of Aid

The episode shifts focus to the dire situation in Gaza, where the introduction of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has led to catastrophic outcomes:

• [19:06] Nick Cumming-Bruce: "Reports from Gaza say at least 26 Palestinians have been killed and many more wounded after Israeli tank fire hit people near a US Funded aid distribution center."

Imogen underscores the failure of traditional aid agencies:

• [25:04] Imogen Foulkes: "Chris Lockley of MSF made, is that they know how to deliver aid in conflict zones. That is what they are trained for. It's not a bring and buy Tennessee potluck, which seems to be a bit how it is, how it's being run."

Gunilla highlights the systemic issues:

• [23:31] Gunilla Van Hall: "This is creating here you see the images, people being filmed in Gaza and you hear kids screaming revenge, revenge. This will create a new, maybe more vicious Hamas. This is the big problem that I don't know if Israel is realizing but they're creating a monster."

4. Multilateral Aid Under Strain: The Role of the United States and Beyond

The conversation delves into the broader implications of U.S. withdrawal from multilateral aid systems:

• [07:08] Nick Cumming-Bruce: "There are much bigger swathes of humanitarian action which are dealing with more immediate crises in Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, wherever there is major conflict running. And these are suffering acutely."

Gunilla raises concerns about emerging power dynamics:

• [12:31] Gunilla Van Hall: "China, for example, they're going to see the chance to move in and take over in this power, financial, but also power vacuum."

Imogen critiques China's unilateral approach:

• [37:28] Imogen Foulkes: "They want to do it all bilaterally. I think they want to have control these countries, as the United States does over an aid project, so that it fits into their own view of what's in their interests."

5. The World Health Organization and Pandemic Preparedness

The episode touches on the critical state of global health institutions amidst geopolitical shifts:

• [26:36] Nick Cumming-Bruce: "When the most powerful country in the world takes these kinds of initiatives, there are going to be people who follow in the slipstream."

Discussion around the Pandemic Treaty reveals uncertainties:

• [27:06] Gunilla Van Hall: "Is it going to be the United States if there's another pandemic or is it going to be the rest of the world?"

Nick emphasizes the treaty's fragile status:

• [27:29] Nick Cumming-Bruce: "That annex is really key. It's critical. This will either give it some real muscle or leave it as a rather symbolic, wishful kind of let's get back."

6. Conflict and Diplomacy: The Ongoing Struggle for Peace

A significant portion of the episode examines the tangled web of conflicts and the challenges in diplomatic negotiations:

• [30:12] Nick Cumming-Bruce: "Tonight, in a radical break with the past, the US and Russia agreeing to work together, the two sides discussing how to end Russia's war in Ukraine, but doing so without any Ukrainian officials present."

Imogen questions the absence of key stakeholders:

• [32:26] Nick Cumming-Bruce: "How does that serve American interests, let alone the damage that it does to people who are on the receiving end of, of that massive aid program?"

Gunilla offers a perspective on Russia's stance:

• [33:36] Gunilla Van Hall: "Russia is winning because they have the weapons and they have the manpower, because they pay people coming from the regions and they just throw money on the problem."

7. The Future of Humanitarian Efforts: A Glimmer of Hope

Despite the pervasive gloom, the hosts maintain a thread of optimism regarding the resilience of humanitarian workers and future generations:

• [39:40] Gunilla Van Hall: "There's a whole generation now and there's a future generation and they consider themselves, they label themselves as humanitarians and that's not going to go away."

Imogen echoes this sentiment, highlighting the unwavering commitment of aid organizations:

• [40:19] Imogen Foulkes: "People see these crises. We see these wars, these civilizations suffering. People feel, you know, the generation coming after us, they're not just going to give up and say we're not going to do anything."

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Notable Quotes

• Nick Cumming-Bruce [03:43]: "We've watched essentially the unraveling of all the international frameworks that exist to try and mitigate the effects of conflict in the world."

• Gunilla Van Hall [12:31]: "China, for example, they're going to see the chance to move in and take over in this power, financial, but also power vacuum."

• Imogen Foulkes [25:04]: "Chris Lockley of MSF made, is that they know how to deliver aid in conflict zones. That is what they are trained for."

• Nick Cumming-Bruce [19:06]: "Reports from Gaza say at least 26 Palestinians have been killed and many more wounded after Israeli tank fire hit people near a US Funded aid distribution center."

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Conclusion: Navigating a Fractured World

As the episode draws to a close, Imogen Foulkes and her guests reflect on the resilience of humanitarian efforts amid escalating global tensions. While acknowledging the significant challenges—ranging from unilateral policies and funding cuts to intensified conflicts—the conversation underscores the enduring spirit of those dedicated to alleviating suffering worldwide. The hope lies in the commitment of a new generation of humanitarians who strive to restore and uphold the principles of peace and aid in an increasingly fractured world.

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Transcript

[Imogen Folks]

Foreign this is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, Imogen folks, and this is a production from Swiss Info, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's program, in the year 2525, if man is still alive. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.

[Imogen Folks]

We devastated the Iranian nuclear program. Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran's nuclear program and none could until President Trump.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

The world is watching with growing alarm.

[Imogen Folks]

We are not drifting toward crisis, we are racing toward it.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

The expansion of this conflict could ignite.

[Imogen Folks]

A fire that no one can control.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

We must not let that happen.

[Imogen Folks]

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 think we could say, pretty worrying, maybe even apocalyptic. So here we are inside Geneva's little studio in the United nations building. We're bringing you an analysis of the first six months of this year. I've got with me Gunilla Van hall of the Swedish daily Svenska Docbladet and Nick Cumming Bruce, regular contributor to the New York Times, all experts in what happens in Geneva. And to comfort ourselves in this grim year so far, we even got some cake. I was being a bit flippant and wondering if we should call this episode War and Cake. Let me ask you both first in this moment, before we reflect a whole lot on the first six months. I mean, dare we even eat cake? Is it the moment.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

We had the bloody cake?

[Gunilla Van Hall]

We had our cake. So we can't really regret that. But yeah, as you said, it all started downhill from 20th of January. That's when it started. And since then it's just, well, the Ukraine war will be over in 24 hours. Nothing happened. It just got worse. And right now it's just black and nothing hopeful on the horizon. And then we had Gaza, now we have Iran, Israel, and then we have the cut downs of world aid. And it's very bleak. I think we should just not give our hope. But it looks really, we have four years with Donald Trump and he is the one who doesn't want to be involved in supporting humanitarian aid or having multilateral diplomatic solutions to anything, it seems.

[Imogen Folks]

Well, you have given an excellent summary of where we're going to go in this podcast. But before we wind right back to January, Nick what about you? How are you feeling halfway through the year? I mean, what do you sense in Geneva?

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Nothing but unmitigated gloom at this point as compared to Canelo has just said. Really. We've watched essentially the unraveling of all the international frameworks that exist to try and mitigate the effects of conflict in the world. And instead we have intensifying humanitarian disasters on many continents, evisceration of international aid, which is already costing lives in ways that are probably never going to be fully counted. And the most powerful country in the world taking unilateral positions that are often at variance with international law, which has grim consequences for the rest of the international community.

[Imogen Folks]

Grim indeed. Let's start with a topic you both raised and what I should tell our listeners is we're going to play you a few highlights over the course of this episode of earlier podcasts we did. So you can find all of them 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 cuts to humanitarian aid agencies. So we were prepared. Still, I'm going to give you now a little flavor of the kind of things we heard then from a variety of aid agencies.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Late today, the U.S. state Department suspended.

[Imogen Folks]

All foreign assistance around the world for at least three months.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

It affects tens of billions of dollars.

[Imogen Folks]

For programs that extend from in Colombia. They've just had to lay off 200 staff that were doing the demining in the south of the country. So all of a sudden these families have no work. And the alternative in the area, you know what it is? Coca plants.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

So how is that in the US Interest?

[Imogen Folks]

The Trump administration has issued a halt to nearly all existing foreign aid, creating safe zones for Korean women in refugee camps, providing medical assistance to pregnant women in Burma. This is the type of action the UN Population Fund has led. The US has been one of the UN Agency's founders and main donors. It's now ceasing all contributions. Right now, a woman dies of a preventable form of maternal mortality every two minutes.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Okay, so that's unacceptable.

[Imogen Folks]

What is? One of the grants that the US Just cut is to support the training.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

And salaries for midwives.

[Imogen Folks]

The United nations is saying that there could be 2,000 new cases of HIV due to the USAID cuts. This as President Donald Trump puts millions of dollars of foreign aid on pause. We actually had something that was successful. We were one of the only 17 Sustainable Development Goals that was able to see the end in sight. We're so Close to ending AIDS full stop. And we could very well be turning back completely. Well, you heard a variety of aid agencies there. They really set out their stalls at the beginning of the year. We heard from UN Population Fund, they run maternal health clinics. We heard from unaids. Now we all know why it's important that that body continues to function. We heard from Demining. Did anybody listen to them? Six months on, as far as I understand it, that three month freeze has now become permanent.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

I think it's a mixed picture because some of the programs that were suspended are back in action. Some funding is coming back to demining programs that went through.

[Imogen Folks]

Of course, you work quite closely with demining programs.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Yeah, that were temporary, paused, but damage was done even to them. Opportunities were lost. Things that should have happened, didn't. People have been laid off in significant numbers who will probably never be rehired in a lot of different programs. The US Was the biggest funder of mine action in the world for many years. It may well continue to be, but significant damage has been done. And that's just one little kind of segment of one little corner of the international aid effort. There are much bigger swathes of humanitarian action which are dealing with more immediate crises in Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, wherever there is, you know, major conflict running. And these are suffering acutely. And then you have, of course, the loss of funds to institutions like the Human Rights office here, a lot of third, about one third of their budget this year, which will mean cuts in staff, which will mean cuts in their ability to support all sorts of programs that are not very high profile, but help states to implement legal reforms that basically help stabilize societies, and those are all suffering. So there's a lot of intangible costs as well as the very visible costs in terms of the loss of funding for the UN AIDS program, the loss of funding for the WHO, and the essential work it does fighting diseases like TB and polio. These are costs that are going to be weighed for years to come.

[Imogen Folks]

I think one of the things, Gunilla, is that when these things stop, it becomes also incredibly costly to restart them. I mean, you and I were at that, that evening last week in Geneva, that rather nice party where everybody from Geneva was there. And I don't know if you bumped into it. I bumped into the head of UN Humanitarian Affairs, Tom Fletcher. He's in town to basically say, I know we're not even going to get half what we need. So he's basically triaging now people who are suffering famine or caught up in conflict, I mean, very hard decisions it's really, really sad.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

And then the other aspect too is this, the cuts in money and helping people who are really in need. And then the other side is how the agencies are being told not to use to wash off on the websites. Basically words that has to do with equality, inclusion, diversity, climate change, women, women, you can say extreme weather, but they should not talk about climate change. This censoring of words that kind of is the basis for their work. I think that's also very, very scary. Then I think the cut downs are extreme. What is it? 83% of USAID programs cut down, meaning that in Sudan, 80% of all the community kitchens are now closed.

[Imogen Folks]

And let's remind our listeners that it's what, 12 million people are displaced, 13 million in Sudan in this appalling conflict because of all the other conflicts doesn't get nearly enough attention.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

No emergency food distribution in a country like Afghanistan. WFP says we have to close it, you have to stop it. We do not have the money. I mean, the suffering. And then this censoring of the work that they are doing and the ideas that they're building, this work on all agencies that is very ominous, which basically.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Feed into the whole sort of dynamic that's driving instability around the world. So in whose interests does this work? It certainly isn't in the long term best interests of any of the governments in the United States.

[Imogen Folks]

It's exactly the point that Tamar Gabelnick in that clip we heard there, she's the head of the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines. People will turn to farming coca in Colombia because, you know, they are de mining. I mean, Colombia is infested with mines. They are de mining with providing good livelihoods as well as doing good work.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

But it also raises the question of what is the rest of the world going to do about it. I mean, here has been the United States shouldering a massive percentage of the international humanitarian budget for many, many years. There are plenty of other rich states that could be contributing. What are they going to do about it? Everybody is very much focused on the damage that the United States is inflicting on the multilateral system and deservedly so. But what are other states going to do to protect it? The international humanitarian budget every year is funded by a large, largely by a very small group of Western states. So where is the second biggest economy in the world, China? Where is India? Where are rich countries like Singapore which like to sit on the sidelines of these kinds of debates? They have the resources. What are these states going to do to shore up and contribute to refashioning the international system, if that's what we're now doing in a more durable and sustainable way.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

But maybe that's where they're going to see their chance right now. China, for example, they're going to see the chance to move in and take over in this power, financial, but also power vacuum. It will be an opening. And we know for China, they're moving into a lot of international organizations. They want to have much more impact. And countries like Qatar, Qatar now tries to attract a lot of UN agencies. Come here, put up your head cheaper than you're cheaper and they give you.

[Imogen Folks]

A pre air conditioned building.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Yeah, it's a, you know, and it's a kind of a blue wash. So it's. We have to be these countries. Yes. Where are they? Well, they might see a chance now to come in and get the influence they wanted and they want for the future in this new world order.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Yeah. I think that the only caveat to that is that clear preference is for unilateral programs. The Saudi Arabia of this world, the Gulf states, China, they like to. It's not that they're not spending money, but they're not putting it through a system that basically reinforces international norms and standards. They're doing it unilaterally in ways that serve a national agenda.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Yeah, I just want to add one thing there. On the other hand, there is also in the UN there was a need to make things more efficient and to scale down and to. I mean there has to be said too that there is, it's not good. All his money is disappearing. But has the un, all the agencies functioned efficiently? Has money been wasted? Have there been, you know, has the work done, been done in an efficient way? I think there is a need. When you talk to people in the UN saying yes, this was needed, but it wasn't supposed to happen like this.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Can I just come back at that?

[Imogen Folks]

Yes. I mean, I want to come back at that too because I have a different opinion.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

But you first, Nick, because I think you're absolutely right. The UN system was grotesquely inefficient in all sorts of ways. But I think what is disturbing is the very casual destruction of international institutions and agreements that have been pulled together over many years, decades of work 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. And you know, I point to a story in the New York Times today which says that, you know, when Donald Trump sat down and signed his executive order 14169, pausing all humanitarian aid. It was in nobody's mind in the administration at that point to wrap up usaid. And it just unfolded in a kind of rather sort of shambolic process where Elon Musk rolls in and basically tosses a $35 billion program into the wood chipper. And so a program that Marco Rubio used to be a major supporter of is shuttered and abandoned, and all the soft power that goes with it is also cancelled. How does that serve American interests, let alone the damage that it does to people who are on the receiving end of, of that massive aid program? But at the same time, the United States has shouldered a huge share of the international aid burden over many years.

[Imogen Folks]

Well, not in proportion to its economy. European countries, no.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

But as a percentage of the total, it's been a major share. And as they pull back, the question then is, what are other countries in the world going to do to fight for the multilateral system and to fight for multilateral aid programs? How are they going to step forward? Multilateral aid has been funded by a small handful of European countries. So where are the Chinas? Where are the rich countries like Singapore? Where are the other big economies? Where is another aspiring global power, India, in supporting the multilateral system? It's time for us to see that and to see what they can do to reinvigorate a multilateral system and to give it the strength to really fight for all the values and legal advances that have been made since World War II, precisely to prevent the world slipping back into another major conflagration.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

But perhaps it wouldn't have happened otherwise. I spoke to someone who works at Opta the other day, is saying, yeah, it shouldn't happen like this, but if it wasn't this kind of extreme, wake up, maybe it would not have been done. He's not defending what's happening. Not defending, but just saying.

[Imogen Folks]

I just want to jump in on that because I think, I mean, like you, I've been reporting in Geneva for some years. When I came here, which was actually 20 years ago, we were having similar conversations about cuts. And there was a change to coordinate much more. And I would honestly say, and I've been in the field quite a lot with crisis zones, with humanitarian agencies. I'm not sure with humanitarian agencies that there's that much left to cut. And just coming back to China, when Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, we saw his withdrawal from the multilateral system. And Chinese diplomats came here to Geneva and said, that's okay, because we're here, we will step in. Did they invest more in humanitarian work? No, they didn't. You're right, Nick. They want to do it all bilaterally. I think they want to have control these countries, as the United States does over an aid project, so that it fits into their own view of what's in their interests. Which, of course is antithetical to the whole principle of humanitarian work. And that brings me on to another development which I think we could not have seen before 2025, and that is the utter humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the fact that the agencies with years of experience have been shut out, blocked for months on end. And then somehow our dear friend Donald Trump. I don't want to make this program a total criticism of Donald Trump. To be fair to him, he did notice that there was a crisis in Gaza and decided that the US Would do something about it with Israel. Enter the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. I'm going to play you a little bit of an excerpt of a podcast we did about that because I think to me, this development is really significant for how Geneva works.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

We're going to help the people of Gaza get some food. People are starving.

[Imogen Folks]

A US Backed aid organization aims to start work in the Gaza Strip by the end of May. This seems to be militarized, politicized, manipulated. People have to walk long distances through.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

The rubble to get aid. After more than 80 days of a.

[Imogen Folks]

Total blockade, Israel has started allowing a.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Limited amount 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 that requires years and decades and decades of experience to get where we've got to now.

[Imogen Folks]

Hunger and fear. Palestinians in Gaza say going to new food distribution sites comes with the risk of death.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Reports from Gaza say at least 26 Palestinians have been killed and many more wounded after Israeli tank fire hit people near a US Funded aid distribution center. It's an utter disaster.

[Imogen Folks]

The writing was on the wall from.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Quite a long time ago. All of the actors, the UN, the humanitarian agencies, the NGOs, have been saying that from the start, militarizing aid is not going to work.

[Imogen Folks]

Israeli forces have opened fire again on hungry Palestinians desperate for aid.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

It breaks my heart to say it, but it wasn't a surprise to see those horrendous images from the first day of operation of the GHF in Gaza.

[Imogen Folks]

Just ending that there. That was Chris Lock here, the Secretary General of Medicine Sans Frontiere, Doctors Without Borders. He has a team, a big team in Gaza. He Goes there regularly himself. And he's quite right. Delivering aid is not child's play. And my God, what have we seen since that foundation started?

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Well, according to one news report today, in the space of a little more than three weeks, up until around June 18th, there were 18 mass casualty events, more than 1800 casualties delivered to hospitals, the great majority of whom saying they were injured in the process of trying to collect food from one of these hubs. Israel denying point blank that it's shooting at civilians. We've got 1800 casualties, some of whom probably were victims of shots fired by other criminal gangs. But when you're talking about tank fire, drone fire, fire from, even from naval vessels, at these kinds of gatherings of people, there's very little doubt where the great majority of these casualties are being, how they're being caused.

[Imogen Folks]

Even if it wasn't, even if not a single IDF soldier fired a bullet that hit one of these people, the way they have set this up is designed to create this kind of catastrophe.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

I mean, when the UN had 400 points already set up and organized since a long time, where families and people would go and get in an organized way, the food and the medicine and whatever they needed, instead, now, and they can't do anything, they're paralyzed. You cannot go to these 400 places where people, where it's close, where people live. Instead, they have to go all the way to the end of the road, basically. And then they are pushed through these like cattle pushed through these metal corridors where they have to run with the bag on their back. Or people handicapped, people with disabilities. I mean, it's so humiliating. And then the un, meanwhile, I interviewed someone who was in Gaza the other day in Gaza City working for the UN and saying that all we can do, yeah, there's maybe one or two trucks coming in and we can deliver some medication to the hospital and bread to the bakery, but nothing else we can do. Nothing else.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Yes, but as WFP said, you know, since the beginning of the blockade on March 3rd, they've been able to deliver 9,000 tons of food, very little which has actually reached any distribution point. And 9,000 tons in itself is completely inadequate for the requirements of more than 2 million people who have been deprived of any real access to aid for the better part of several months.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

And the other thing is that this is creating here you see the images, people being filmed in Gaza and you hear kids screaming revenge, revenge. This will create a new, maybe more vicious Hamas. This is the, the big problem that I don't know if Israel is realizing but they're creating a monster.

[Imogen Folks]

Yeah, I mean, I don't. How. How are these. I can't. Sometimes I go home after a day in Geneva talking about this and listening to the aid agencies and I literally cannot watch the news. Yet another child screaming over the body of its mother. It's appalling. Appalling. The idea that the UN trying to bring aid, with all of its experience, has been somehow vilified in this and bypassed by an organization which has not filled the needs and has, by its strategy, caused the deaths of hundreds of people.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

And which, you know, given the effectiveness of the aid delivery, that did occur up until the point the blockade was introduced, which is evidence of how that system can work.

[Imogen Folks]

In February, we had the ceasefire. There was not looting, there was not people desperately struggling. The UN knows how to do this. I mean, I think this is a very important point that Chris Lockyer of MSF made, is that they know how to deliver aid in conflict zones. That is what they are trained for. It's not a bring and buy Tennessee potluck, which seems to be a bit how it is, how it's being. Being run.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

And even if there was, it's chaos. It's a country, it's a place that is in complete chaos. If some food is taken in a way it shouldn't be taken, maybe, okay, then let that be. Instead of having children starving to death, it has to be some proportionality. 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 from hunger.

[Imogen Folks]

I began pragmatic aid workers will tell you, yeah, sometimes something disappears. But I have been in the field with these kinds of distributions, not Gaza, but I see how they work it so that women with children don't get pushed aside, that they have gone into the community who can't come, who might be in a wheelchair, you know, all this kind of thing, they do it as Chris said, Chris Lockyer said, it's not child's play. There was another little subject I wanted to touch on related to this won't play any clips, but we have with the bypassing set of the traditional UN organizations, we've seen not just funding cuts and bypassing, we've seen actual leaving. So the US has left the World Health Organization. Another country, Argentina, has decided to do that too. What do you think? Is this a rush for the door or is this just some game playing which could be corrected in a few years?

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

It's hard to say. But I mean, when the most powerful country in the world takes these kinds of initiatives, there are going to be people who follow in the slipstream.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

It's difficult to believe that this would be the end of the World Health Organization often. We had the worst pandemic in this.

[Imogen Folks]

Century and we got the pandemic treaty.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

We got the treaty. Yeah, we got the treaty.

[Imogen Folks]

Without the US who's going to suffer most from that? Is it going to be the United States if there's another pandemic or is it going to be the rest of the world? I mean, they might get left out of stuff.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Exactly.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

I mean, I think, you know, the pandemic treaty was greeted with great celebration and rightly so. After three years are very difficult negotiations. You get 191 states to sign up to it. But you know, let's not get too carried away. It's very symbolic because nobody's actually signed it yet. Signatures won't happen until there has been an annex negotiated.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Yeah, that's right.

[Imogen Folks]

The detail, the devil is in the details.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

That deals with the very nitty gritty issues of sharing pathogen data and working out the mechanisms for delivering and sharing vaccines. That's got to be negotiated for over another year and then we've got to get 60 states to sign up to this thing for it to become an actual deal. So there's a lot of water yet to flow under the bridge before this becomes a reality. Nonetheless, on a positive note, it's a framework which provides an opportunity for a lot more to be built on. And the countries that are outside it are those that stand to lose from that agreement.

[Imogen Folks]

Yeah. 191 states, as you said, showed willingness.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

So it's not nothing.

[Imogen Folks]

Yeah, it's not nothing. I mean, I think if we're going to here in Geneva, we're going to talk about the benefits of multilateralism. That certainly could be one.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Yeah. And if countries like you said, if China, Brazil, India, South Africa would sign, that would give it clout, would give it weight. But then would China sign, you know, exchange? We know what happened during the pandemic and how hard it was to get any information about anything that happens in Chinese labs. So it's a long way to go.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

This annex is really key. It's critical. This will either give it some real muscle or leave it as a rather symbolic, wishful kind of let's get back.

[Imogen Folks]

Together when they are actually fine tuning that. Because I think it would be really interesting do a whole podcast just about that and why it is that countries have Hesitations, because it's not just China, obviously China does, but other countries too, the countries with big pharmaceutical industries, they have hesitations about how much sharing they should be doing. So, yeah, let's make a date for that to let our listeners know a bit more in detail what a treaty is and why it's not necessarily something to be frightened of, as apparently some ordinary people on the streets are. My last topic, because Geneva is called the City of Peace, is conflict and diplomacy. And we're just coming out of a day of intense diplomacy last week in Geneva between Europe and Iran. And I was reminded that we got together earlier this year to talk about the prospects for peace, that other conflict, Russia, Ukraine, which of course, again, the current President of the United States, he was really optimistic about being able to end it quickly. So, first of all, let's hear a little flavour of that show and then we can talk about where we think peace negotiations anywhere actually are.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Tonight, in a radical break with the.

[Imogen Folks]

Past, the US and Russia agreeing to.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Work together, the two sides discussing how to end Russia's war in Ukraine, but doing so without any Ukrainian officials present.

[Imogen Folks]

We couldn't have imagined a better result after this, after this session.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

But today I heard, oh, well, we weren't invited.

[Imogen Folks]

Well, you've been there for three years.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

You should have ended it.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. How are you approaching this? Do you want just to stop the war or do you want to win it? And that's the point. We don't know even what President Trump would think is a win. One suspects it's a win that would be purely transactional in US interests, which is bad news for Europe.

[Imogen Folks]

Returning to Ukraine's pre2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and and non European troops.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

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 the decisions together with Russia, with Putin. But then who is going to do the real work afterwards? It is Europe.

[Imogen Folks]

Can you assure this audience that Ukrainians.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Will be at the table and Europeans.

[Imogen Folks]

Will be at the table?

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

The answer to that last question, just.

[Imogen Folks]

As you framed it, the answer is no. It started before dawn. Ukraine woke to explosions around the capital, Kiev. And that's what people in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities have been hearing basically all year. There is no peace, certainly not in 24 hours. I mean, was there any merit in. Right, let's cut to the chase. Let's go straight to the aggressor alone and say, let's do a deal. Because it is the style of the United States at the moment. I mean, I've reported on a lot of tricky diplomatic negotiations here in Geneva. I've never seen it done like that.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Well, it's difficult to see that working to the benefit of neutral parties, parties to conflict, if you adopt the narratives and the playbook of one of the combatants, notably the combatant, who actually started this crisis by invading Ukraine. And what we have never really gotten away from is concern over where the Trump administration stands and its relationships with the Kremlin, because we see disdain for Ukraine in many statements, and we don't see the United States apparently using the leverage that it has got to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin and Russia, the pressure it supplied has really all been on Ukraine. So I don't know that this is really a formula that offers much prospect for a settlement that Europe would find comfortable and acceptable.

[Imogen Folks]

Settlement that's acceptable. I mean, Gunilla, you've been in Russia quite recently. Are they. Are they war weary? Are they happy that they've got somebody in Washington who's maybe going to.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Back in the beginning, when they started, when Trump and Putin had their newfound relationship, people were hopeful. They said, oh, Trump is our hope, he will end. Because people are so tired of this war, or the special military operation like it's called in Russia, they're really, really tired to hear about it. In Moscow, people are not so affected, but they are tired just of hearing about this operation every day. And they are scared because the suppression of people, the repression has really increased. So in the beginning, and then it didn't really happen. The war wasn't finished, I would say. Are they happy about having someone like Trump there right now on the battlefield? As we see, Russia is winning because they have the weapons and they have the manpower, because they pay. They pay people coming from the regions and they just throw money on the problem, so to speak, while Ukraine has a problem in getting manpower and getting soldiers. So it's looking very bleak. And I think in Russia, yes, some people still put their hope in Trump to perhaps somehow freeze the front lines or freeze the conflict to be negotiated perhaps later.

[Imogen Folks]

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 put pressure for a ceasefire, but then it all collapsed into even worse violence and deprivation. And now we have Iran I mean, and here, contrary to like, I'm a peacemaker, America has gone in on the side of Israel when Israel kind of unprovoked, attacked Iran. I mean, where do we go? I mean, I suppose we need to get back to the point of this. Is Geneva traditionally the home of diplomatic resolutions to conflicts, but it's also the original home of the League of Nations, which died in the 1930s precisely because it could not anymore resolve conflicts between states who basically just weren't interested in this kind of diplomacy. Do we have a feeling of the League of Nations now about Geneva a.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Little bit, don't we, today? Yes, perhaps. But things will change. You know, we are into three and a half more years with Donald Trump. And it's true we have three, if not more big wars in the world right now, while Trump said he's going to go into no more wars and it's going to be peace in the world. And this is not happening today. Looks bleak. But let's see. I mean, the world is waiting to see how Iran is going to respond after the attack from the bombing from the Americans. And I still believe that going to be some kind of sooner or later, everyone comes back to negotiation tables. That always ends with some kind of talks. And I think, and I might be in minority here, but I think that the EU has a role to play in Iran, Israel, US this conflict sooner or later, because Iran would not talk to Israel, would not talk to the US but, but they would probably still speak to the Europeans. And that could be a little light of hope.

[Imogen Folks]

What do you think, Nick? I mean, I'm just thinking there's conflict, there's the moving away from multilateral bodies, there's the cuts to humanitarian funding. And we should really, we can't really take the US out of the equation. It's so important. But there are other countries who are distancing themselves from humanitarian aid and to a certain extent from the multilateral effort as well.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

I think it's a very hard question to answer, though, at this point where the Iran conflict has the potential to escalate into something really very much bigger and far more sort of consequential, where it would take us into a whole new kind of ball game. And so I think we're in a very sort of testing and uncertain time where there are far more questions than answers. But I think rather like Gunilla, hopefully sooner rather than later, we're going to find people are wanting to get back to the process of diplomacy and negotiating tables. And it's very difficult to See how giving full reign to escalating conflict in Iran by the United States, for example, would in any way serve its own longer term interests, either in the region or globally. And so we've got three and a half more years of Mr. Trump. We've got an international system that is struggling to maintain its relevance. And we come back to again, the question about how effectively the UN can reform itself and to what extent states will support it in that process.

[Imogen Folks]

And I know you have a meeting to go to about precisely that. This UN80, which is apparently the Secretary General's plan to a leaner, fitter, more efficient, more relevant United Nations. So we should, we should probably do a program about that too. But we agreed that at the end of this program we would try not to be too bleak because these are hard times and people I think, are very anxious at the moment that 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're in Sudan, they're in Afghanistan. And we heard from some of them, from msf, from UN Population Fund, from the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Eglund, they are not giving up. So we should perhaps also try to maintain some faith in this international system.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

Yeah, I think they're going to be, I mean that you're talking about how they are in the field and so forth. There's a whole generation now and there's a future generation and they consider themselves, they label themselves as humanitarians and that's not going to go away. I think we're going to have that. Especially when we have these crises. We see these wars, these civilizations suffering, these images in Gaza, in Iran, in Israel, in Russia, in Ukraine. People see, people feel, you know, the generation coming after us, they're not just going to give up and say we're not going to do anything. I think there might even be more appetite to be wanting to help and be a humanitarian and wanting to work in these organizations and try and get.

[Imogen Folks]

Us out of the mess we're in. Maybe. The hope of youth. You look, you look skeptical, Nick. You're shaking your head.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

The hope of youth. I'll rest.

[Imogen Folks]

Okay, that brings us to the end. Thank you, Gunilla. Thank you, Nick. That's the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. Thanks all for listening. We hope you enjoyed it. Write to us if you have any comments at Inside GenevaissInfo. Cheer a reminder, you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes. How the International Red Cross Unites Prisoners of War with Their Families or why Survivors of Human Rights Violations Turn to the UN in Geneva for Justice. I'm Imogen folks, thanks again for listening. What would you do to protect your family? Becoming a parent definitely is a very emotional thing. How far would you go to protect them from future disease? You suddenly care about something more than you care about yourself. And we live in a world that is filled with things that can go wrong. And what if there was a solution? From the second your child is born, when you decide to preserve your baby's cord blood, you are making an incredible investment in the future of your entire family's health. They would all tell you you're doing this for your child. It will maybe help them later on. That's the promise of stem cell research. A future in which your baby's steady stem cells can be used to cure serious diseases. Today, newborn stem cells found in cord blood are being used to treat over 80 conditions. We'll keep those amazing cells safe for you. Frozen in time we saw a light.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

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[Imogen Folks]

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[Nick Cumming Bruce]

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[Gunilla Van Hall]

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[Imogen Folks]

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[Nick Cumming Bruce]

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[Imogen Folks]

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[Nick Cumming Bruce]

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[Imogen Folks]

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[Gunilla Van Hall]

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[Imogen Folks]

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[Gunilla Van Hall]

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[Imogen Folks]

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[Nick Cumming Bruce]

Which they were trying to protect them.

[Imogen Folks]

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[Nick Cumming Bruce]

I don't know if it was the.

[Gunilla Van Hall]

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[Imogen Folks]

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[Gunilla Van Hall]

Me, if I knew then I wouldn't have signed with them.

[Nick Cumming Bruce]

If you store money you can go on next day and take it out with stuff.

[Imogen Folks]

Stem cells is much more complicated. And then they said, well we don't have a legal department. And I just started laughing and they said don't worry, you will have one very soon. Lost Cells an original Swiss info podcast in collaboration with Piers Gloria Productions, Future Pro and studio orcenter Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.