The McKay Interview

On this week's McKay Interview: As we are based in Geneva, we are well aware of its long-standing multilateral reputation and its unrivalled position as the city of peace, negotiation and reconciliation. In neutral Switzerland, Geneva has no military credentials. Just the opposite - being home of the Disarmament Talks since the early 1930s, the United Nations and its predecessor the League of Nati...

Two years ago in Paris, I recorded a roundtable McKay Interview with people whose fingers were very much on the Parisienne pulse. Very recently, in this year of Covid19, I have done something similar in Geneva, a city struggling to get back on its feet after the lockdown/confinement. My Guests, to discuss a wide range of relevant and very hard issues in Geneva’s hotel and hospitality industry, are...

This week Michael McKay speaks to Professor Bill Durodie - chair of Risk and Security in International Relations at the University of Bath in the UK. As Michael discovers, there's a lot more to risk than you may think.

On the return of the McKay Interview after the summer break - no matter where you were on the 4th August, you must surely have been aware of the huge explosion in Beirut. According to Lebanon’s team at the United Nations, the explosion was like 15 years of war in 15 seconds, comparing its impact to the devastation from the country's civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990. We all know that Lebanon...

This week, Michael is talking to Bill McCormish. He will  be well-known to many of you. Whether you are Genevois, Christian,  Protestant or just from the UK, you will probably know, or know of, the  Rev. Dr William (Bill) McComish. He is wise and ubiquitous and always a  pleasure to be with. And he has been in Geneva a long time. He was  born in the United Kingdom, in Nort...

Michael McKay's guest is Professor Didier Pittet. He is  an infectious diseases expert of global reputation and the director of  the Infection Control Programme and WHO Collaborating Centre on Patient  Safety at the University Hospital of Geneva, known locally as the HUG. For  the past 15 years, he has also been the External Lead of the World  Health Organization (WHO) Glo...

Jo Hemmings is Michael's guest this week. She is a  celebrated Behavioural Psychologist and a registered member of the  British Psychological Society and the Association of Clinical  Psychologists, specialising in media and celebrity analysis, as well as a  being a dating and relationship coach and, on top of that, a TV and  radio personality. Jo is the Consultant Psycholo...

On this week's McKay Interview, Michael speaks to Professor Simon Heffer  from the University of Buckingham in the UK on the media's role in  covering the Covid-19 crises.

Michael's guest this week is the Secretary-General of  the world’s largest police organization, Dr Jürgen Stock, of INTERPOL,  or to give it its full name, the International Criminal Police  Organisation. It is based in Lyon, France. Dr Stock has been  Secretary General since 2014, and is now serving his second term. Prior  to that he was Vice-President of the German Feder...

The Covid-19 pandemic is the worst in 100 years. Apart  from the great tragedies inflicted upon many, many families all over the  world, it has thrown up a number of conundrums. Puzzles like the  scientific, the medical, the spiritual, the economic and many others. Today, the 2nd June 2020, Michael is looking at COVID-19 through the prism of Economics. Michael's  guest is Profe...

Michael's guest is a brilliant and very thoughtful  member of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy faculty who has made a  study of global risk and resilience. In fact, that is his title. He has  been on the McKay interview before – two years ago - to explain what he  does. But this visit is different. Dr Jean-Marc Rickli is a Swiss and I am delighted that he is able to join m...

On this week's McKay Interview, Michael  speaks to Dr David Heymann, one of the most prominent, contemporary,  epidemiologists in the world. He also knows Geneva well, having spent 22 years at the World Health  Organization on secondment from the Centers for Disease Control &  Prevention, in Washington, D.C. He now works in London.

Michael McKay's guest this week is Pierre Ruetschi who  has many years of experience in the field of journalism, especially in  “international” Geneva, where he was for many years the Editor-in-Chief  of Geneva’s own newspaper, the Tribune de Genève. Nowadays, he is the  Director of the Geneva Press Club; and still writes for various journals  and appears regularly on radi...

Many European countries are now lifting lockdowns. The economic impact of the pandemic has been huge - and is still going on. The  Director-General of the Geneva based International Labour Organisation,  Guy Ryder, spoke to Michael McKay about jobs, business and the ongoing  crises which will be with us for sometime to come.

Michael's guest this week is a distinguished academic and scientist  with more than half a century’s experience of his discipline behind him.  Today is the 30th April 2020 and Dr. Charles Jefford, Professor  Emeritus of Organic Chemistry at the University of Geneva, is at the  other end of a Zoom microphone and screen because we are still in  COVID-19 lockdown mode and can...

This is the second in the mini-series,  recorded on the 22nd April, and devoted to a broader and fuller  understanding of the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic which has beset us  all for the past few months. Michael McKay speaks to someone with hard and proven experience in  another country that had been affected quite seriously by the SARS  epidemic some 17 years ago. Mario...

In this new COVID-19 series of McKay  Interviews, Michael will be asking different experts their views on the  pandemic and how it will develop - and ultimately defeated. This week,  Michael is speaking to Bob Bishop. He has been on the show before. He is  the Founder & President of the International Centre for Earth  Simulation Foundation, ICES, and a former Chairman...

David Bennett, Global Chairman of Sotheby’s Jewellery Division. 9th September 2019

Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley CH, British information technology pioneer, businesswoman and philanthropist. 30th July 2018.

Mary Robinson, former President of the Republic of Ireland; former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; and Founder of The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. 27th October 2017.

Sir Peter Marshall KCMG CVO, Veteran British Diplomat and formerly UK Ambassador & Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva. 2nd August 2017.

Kate Adie OBE DL, BBC Chief News Correspondent, 1989 – 2003. 1st February 2016

Konji Sebati, the Republic of South Africa’s former Ambassador to Switzerland & Liechtenstein, the Holy See, France, UNESCO and the OECD. This interview is the first in a mini-series of six based loosely on Winston Churchill’s “A History of the English-speaking Peoples”.

Ivan Pictet - on the modern significance of the 200th anniversary of La Restauration genevoise 1814 – 2014 and Geneva joining the Swiss Confederation

Baroness Ariane de Rothschild, Vice-Chairwoman of Edmond de Rothschild Group. 19th February 2014.