« 7 minutes avec » Jean Musy

The Geneva Press Club (Club Suisse de la Presse—CSP) has chosen APES President Jean Musy to serve as one of its committee members. Musy was elevated to the position in the spring of 2024. In the video interview (above), which CSP released on July 20, Musy answers questions posed by Isabelle Falconnier, Executive Director of the CSP, presenting APES (© CSP / 2024).
Isabelle Falconnier, CSP’s Executive Director, in a filmed interview with the Club released on 20.07.24, where he presents the APES

Link to the interview

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New : Swiss Tech meets the Press with GIGA Project

Connecting Every School to the Internet 

On May 2nd, APES launched the first event of its new 2024-2026 project: Swiss tech meets the Press, at the university of Geneva.

It was therefore a world premiere she presented the GIGA Project (UNICEF/ITU) : “How to connect all the schools in the World to Internet”, to APES journalists and a few invited Swiss colleagues.

Switzerland and Spain are at the origin of the financing campaign for the 400 billions US dollars planned for GIGA.

www.apes-presse.org/en/giga-project-2

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Condolence notice: Death of the winner of the “APES Prize”, Cornelio Sommaruga

APES expresses its deep regrets on hearing of the death at the age of 91 of Cornelio Sommaruga, the 2004 APES Prize Laureate on February 18.

Sommaruga was a leading Swiss figure as the former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross for 12 years before taking charge of the Mine Clearance Center in Geneva. The former Swiss diplomat was charismatic and held strong convictions, symbolizing humanitarian Switzerland at its best.

His commitment to seeking resolutions in conflict areas often reaped concrete results due to belligerent protagonists responding to his skills and stature.

APES sends the deepest condolences of our committee and of our members to his entire family, particularly to his sons, Federico and Carlo Sommaruga.

Jean Musy, President of APES

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The Foreign Press Association in Switzerland and Liechtenstein (APES) deeply regrets to inform you of the death on Sunday August 6, 23, at the age of 92, of our journalist colleague, dean of our association

Eric Albert REYHL

Former correspondent for German media in Switzerland
Honorary member of the APES
Member of the association since 1954
Member of our Executive Committee on several occasions

We offer our condolences to his family and loved ones.

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APES Presidential Luncheon 2022

Committee members of APES welcome the President of the Swiss Confederation, Ignazio Cassis, at the annual Presidential luncheon and press conference at the Bellevue Palace Hotel in Bern on 14 November 2022.

Guest ambassadors

Among the guests surrounding the Swiss President Ignazio Cassis at the APES Presidential Lunch, on 14.11.22, in Bern (from left to right), the ambassadors: Doris Frick (Liechtenstein /BE), Tatiana Molcean (Moldova UNOG) , Tatiana Valovaya, UNOG Director General, Fuad Isgandarov (Azerbaïdzan), Revaz Lominadze (Georgia), Ignazio Cassis, Peter Kenny, APES President, Artem Rybchenko (Ukraine/BE) and Yevheniia Filipenko, (Ukraine/UNOG), Jürg Lauber (Swiss MIssion/UNOG) and Isabel Saco, Vice-President of APES. 

View photo gallery

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Swiss host foreign journalists annual lunch after COVID break

More than two years after the COVID-19 pandemic smote the world, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) hosted a lunch in Geneva for foreign correspondents where top officials offered support to journalists carrying out their craft.

Jürg Lauber, who heads the Swiss mission to the United Nations in Geneva, said society needs journalism, and it needs people in the profession who have a critical ability.
He said following Switzerland’s decision to support EU sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the FDFA was working hard to explain that the country could remain neutral after taking its human rights stance.
Foreign Press Association in Switzerland and Liechtenstein (APES) president, Jean Musy, said the association always appreciates the Swiss government’s support of the rights of journalists and access to information.
Musy urged the FDFA to resume its investment and support for the mobility of foreign journalists in Switzerland by reinstating the issuance to APES members of half-tariff vouchers for Swiss Rai

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The APES regrets to inform members of the death on Monday 7 March, 2022 in Cairo, Egypt, of our dear journalist colleague

Ms. Hedayat Abdel-Nabi.

From 1999-2010, she worked as a correspondent for the Kuwait News Agency (Kuna) covering the United Nations and international organizations in Geneva after working as an information officer for UNHCR.

APES is grateful to her for her commitment to the association as an account verifier (2001-2005) and served as a member of our Committee (2005 – 2007). We offer our deepest condolences to Hedaya’s family and loved ones.

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Dear Colleagues,
Dear Friends of APES,
We hope and wish that you are all in good health.
And we hope you have a great holiday season over the Christmas and New Year period.
All our Best Wishes for all of you in 2022 in your work and lives.

Sincerely,
The APES Committee

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Swiss President Guy Parmelin addresses members of APES (Foreign Press Association in Switzerland and Liechtenstein) on relations between his country and the European Union on 14 October in Bern (Photo: © Peter Kenny)

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APES regrets to inform you of the death of
Dr. iur. Peter C. Matt
Ambassador of the Liechtenstein Mission UNOG
(5.4.1966 – 8.3.2021)
APES is grateful for the support he gave our association and offers his family and loved ones our deepest condolences.

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The APES leadership continued in 2020 to strive for a diverse foreign media with open access to information in Switzerland and at United Nations’ agencies. We continued engaging with Swiss and Geneva authorities to expedite the issuance of permits to APES members, scoring successes.

During 2020, APES President Jean Musy and Vice-President Peter Kenny met the Geneva Director of UN Information Services to express concern about the accreditation system for journalists to work in the Palais des Nations. We believe this favours big State-run media organizations and those affiliated with big business while discriminating against those working for small players.

To follow-up, we wrote to the UN Secretary General. On UN’s 75th anniversary he spoke out on the need for diversity in a speech on World Press Freedom Day, May 3.

COVID-19 arrived in early 2020, causing global havoc. It also impacted press freedom and media access to information. Some institutions manipulated media access. The World Health Organization started blind webinars for its bi-weekly press encounters, and APES launched a letter campaign to get the WHO to open-up. Its press webinars remain blind.

JOURNALISM’S FUTURE

The only certainty from this debate is the uncertainty embedded in journalism’s future. It’s a profession considered noble by its practitioners, those who strive for freedom of expression and thought and the right of the public to know what goes on around them.

On its 90th Anniversary, the Foreign Press Association in Switzerland and Liechtenstein (APES) presents a succinct summary of a two-hour debate, condensed into 15 minutes. Each of the six speakers is a professional veteran and their key point is included with cogent arguments about their craft.

The debate was held at the University of Geneva on 28 February 2019 (APES org.), with Christian Campiche (Impressum/Switzerland), Jamil Chade (O Estado de Sao Paulo/Brazil), Daniel Cornu (Tamedia Romandie/Switzerland), Renske Heddema (Netherlands press), Peter Kenny (South African journalist and APES vice-president), Brij Khindaria (Business India/India) — and Moderator : Jean Musy (Radio Zones/France and APES president)

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APES regrets to inform you of the death of Mr Walter Emil BUSER (14.04.1926 – 17.08.2019)
Former Chancellor of the Swiss Confederation (1981 – 1991)
and an Honorary member of APES
APES is grateful for the support he gave our association and offers his family and loved ones our deepest condolences.

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APES Presidential Lunch in Bern 2018 with Alain Berset President of Confederation

The Foreign Press Association in Switzerland and Liechtenstein (APES), founded in 1928, organizes every year since 1948 its traditional Presidential Dinner with the President of the Confederation. The opportunity to allow its journalists members to meet some fifty prestigious guests, spokespersons of the great bodies of the State to the leaders of the economy, the finance, politics, personalities of science, of culture and sport, which have marked the past year. In Bern, November 5, 2018, APES inaugurated with this event the cycle of celebrations of its 90th anniversary.

An APES production by Christian and Patricia Peschken.

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Partnership : APES receives Vietnamese Journalists’ Association

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Radio China International interviews APES President

Listen to the interview in French :

Listen to the interview in Chinese :

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2018 APES trip to Kosovo

Click to view the video conference

On the 10th anniversary of Kosovo’s independence, six APES journalists made a trip to Prishtina, Prizren, Gračanica and Mitrovica, from February 7th to 10th.

Prishtina, Feb. 7 2018. Jean Musy, President of APES, interviewed by Arbresh.info

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2017 APES Travel in Vietnam

Cliquer pour voir la vidéoconférence

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Doris Leuthard says to APES journalists : “Switzerland is ready to mediate in North Korea crisis”

Bern, Sept. 4 — Swiss President Doris Leuthard has said Switzerland is ready to act a mediator and use the special role it has carved out in international diplomacy to host talks to help solve the current crisis over North Korea.
Leuthard was speaking at a press conference in the Swiss capital hosted by APES on September 5 and she asked if more sanctions are the answer to a missile crisis involving North Korea after its latest nuclear missile test.
“We live now for many years with sanctions. It did not change many things. The population suffers for all these sanctions, but they stay with their government, with their president. So, I think, it is really time for dialogue.
“We are ready to offer our good services now as a mediator,” she said noting that Switzerland has hosted peace talks on Syria and other conflicts.
Leuthard said that in the upcoming weeks a lot would depend on how the United States and China can influence the crisis while she cautioned that it would be dangerous to have overactions.
“It is really time now to sit at a table. The big powers have a reputation and a responsibility. Switzerland and Sweden can have a role behind the curtain” she observed saying they have done so before.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had spent some time as a high school student in Bern, but Leuthard could not say how this might influence any talks.

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2017 APES Presidential Luncheon with Swiss President Doris Leuthard

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APES in the Chinese Media about President Xi Jinping’s visit to Switzerland

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Chinese and Swiss Media Round Table in Geneva : APES calls for more cultural exchanges

During the First Chinese and Swiss Media Roundtable, launched in Geneva on January 10th, during the state visit of President Xi Jinping to Switzerland, the President of the APES, Jean Musy, underlined before the Chinese Minister Jiang Jianguo, the need for journalists to “build bridges” between cultures. He said communication services are not convincing. “The public wants to know more and above all the truth .  For our credibility, we must go, see and know,” he added.

He recalled the major role of the renowned Swiss reporter Fernand Gigon, the first to communicate about Communist China to the world. That was when Switzerland had just recognized the Mao regime, the first among Western nations, January 17 1950. Sixty seven years later, Musy said there is still too much misunderstanding. Only a good flow of independent information from the field can improve this, he said.

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Swiss Banking Association meets with APES

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Yearly APES Presidential Lunch with the President of the Confederation

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Solar Impulse : Technology for the environment