Ellen's Swiss News World
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Switzerland and Germany 24-27 May is being talked up in Chinese English-language media as the start of a push for a free trade agreement with the European Union. Li will visit Switzerland to sign China’s first free trade agreement with a European country, to which the [...]
UPDATE – LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Researchers at the EPFL in Lausanne have shown that some common antibiotics increase longevity, with improved fitness and energy, in simple worms. The work, under the direction of Johan Auwerx, who holds the Nestlé metabolic energy chair at the university, offers promise for new research into solutions to human diseases [...]
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Luxembourg insisted after an EU summit 22 May in Brussels that a revision of the European Union’s tax agreement on cross-border savings must wait until the EU has negotiated deals on information exchanges with Switzerland and other countries, reports Bloomberg. The duchy recently agreed to some automatic information exchanges by 2015, giving [...]
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – An 18-year-old woman died Wednesday morning in Pully, near Lausanne, as she crossed train tracks and failed to notice an oncoming high-speed train. Police investigations indicate that she probably did not notice the train due to earphones she was wearing at the time. Investigations into her death, including a number of eyewitness [...]
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Ernesto Bertarelli and Hansjoerg Wyss are putting up the money to buy the old Merck Serano site, 45,000 square metres that they want to see become the new “Campus Biotech” in Geneva. They announced Wednesday afternoon that they have now purchased the property, a key step in bringing to life the project [...]
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Federal Tribunal is reviewing today, 22 May, the application of a law approved by Swiss voters 11 March 2012, to limit the construction of new second homes. In a first ruling Wednesday the court says the law is officially applicable 11 March 2012, in other words immediately after the vote. [...]
BERN, SWITZERLAND – “Politically exposed persons”, those in political offices and people close to them, might do well to avoid stashing illegally obtained funds in Switzerland in the future, as the country moves to put into effect the world’s first law covering freezing and restitution of potentates’ (dictators) assets. The law came about largely as [...]
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / EDITOR’S NOTEPAD – RTS and the Times in London carried stories one week ago about one of the more baffling (to the public) police cases of the moment, that of a Coutts banker, Swiss, age 55, who was arrested in the US when he landed in New York, moved to Florida, held [...]
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The European Union and Switzerland are strengthening their ties to combat cartels and other efforts to skirt competitive pricing, with a new agreement that the Federal Council approved Wednesday 22 May. The year-long negotiations for the agreement led to a deal whereby authorities from each will have better access to documents and [...]
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Jakob Kellenberger, who headed the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) until June 2012, has been named president of swisspeace (Swiss Peace Foundation), effective 10 September. The independent research organization, based in Bern, is funded mainly by the Swiss Confederation’s foreign office, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the UN. It [...]
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