Matthias Pintsch

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From 11 to 5

Nixie clock / Photo: Public domain, Wikipedia
Nixie clock / Photo: Public domain, Wikipedia

Russia is the largest country on the planet and as such faces special challenges. Who else has to organize such a vast territory that at the moment spans over 11 time zones? Did you know that the difference between Omsk Time and Magadan Time is exactly 5 hours?

To ease the burden of space and time, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed to actually reduce the number of time zones in the country from 11 to 5. Pointing to the economic advantages of the reduction, he underlined benefits for communication and traveling. It’s definitely an organizational challenge if a businessman in Kaliningrad in Russia’s far west is calling a business partner in Vladivostok, which is in the far east.

Yet, time is not only in Russia a political issue – also China decided after the Communist Revolution of 1949 to abolish the up until then existing 5 time zones in favor of only one zone, of course that of Beijing. Whether or not this has helped to strengthen the central leadership and to unify the national political movements no one can say, but one can imagine what that means for the inhabitants of western China.

Changing time and its measurement goes over the powers of most politicians, as the fate of the Soviet calendar as well as of its French Republican counterpart proves. So it remains to be seen how far Medvedev’s proposal will get.

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The Intricate Ways of Cybersecurity

crnThe CSS Expert Community “Crisis and Risk Network” (CRN) has just released a new report on strategies and policies in the field of Cybersecurity. Based on the cybersecurity strategies of the US, the UK, NATO and other actors, the paper explores what cybersecurity actually means, puts forward possible responses to the perceived threats and discusses that with a focus on the Swiss situation. The authors argue that the underlying problem to cybersecurity policies is that it remains unclear what is threatened, who is threatening, and what the potential consequences of cyberattacks could be.

The paper can be downloaded here.

Detours of Swiss Foreign Policy

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey / Photo: Wikipedia
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey / Photo: Wikipedia

A new analysis by the ISN’s mother organization Center for Security Studies (CSS), Swiss Foreign Policy 2009: Crises and Challenges, discusses current issues of Switzerland’s foreign policy. Before the backdrop of conflicts over banking secrecy and the infamous clash with Libya, it looks at corner stones of Swiss foreign policy. Daniel Möckli especially highlights the domestically unpopular issue of a possible future EU membership.

You can download the paper here.

The ISN @ EINIRAS

EINIRAS - European Information Network on International Relations and Area Studies
EINIRAS - European Information Network on International Relations and Area Studies

September is the great month of academic conferences. This also holds true for information and documentation specialist conferences. Members of EINIRAS, the European Information Network on International Relations and Area Studies are meeting 16-18 September in Madrid to discuss how the development of the internet and changing user behavior is affecting their work – and I have the opportunity to represent the ISN and its great achievements for this occasion.

EINIRAS is an association of research institutions dealing with information and documentation on international relations in research and political practice, bringing together institutions from 24 countries. The ISN plays a prominent role in it and is represented on the EINIRAS’ steering committee.

The topic of the conference is of great relevance for us and for our colleagues since nearly all of IR & security-related information services are delivered online nowadays. Technologies like RSS and GIS offer great opportunities to present information, mobile internet and e-book readers open up new delivery channels, and powerful new players in the market like Google are potential threats to the big shots in the field.

On the other hand, not all libraries, academic institutions or research bodies are known as early adoptors of the latest IT gadgets and features – sometimes for good reasons. Thus I look forward to seeing how my colleagues from all over Europe approach the issue and to learn what they see as valuable additions to our information services. More on that by the end of this week!