Swiss, Belgian heads of state in Sion to try to understand crash, help families
World media flock to small city in mid-Alps to register the shock
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Mid-March is the time when Sierre, known as Switzerland’s sunshine city, steps out of its winter clothes. Spring is in the air despite the still snowy peaks surrounding this Alpine town. Read more…
The bus came from the south, bottom of image, entered the roundabout (centre of image), then headed west into the tunnel, shown with dotted lines, bottom left
SIERRE / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The cause of the Tuesday night 13 March bus crash that killed 28 in Sierre could remain a mystery for some time, with the two drivers dead and no immediate explanation for an accident in good weather, at the start of a trip, in a relatively new and well-lit tunnel.
The group was from two towns in Belgium, and was mostly children, who had been at a ski camp in the Val d’Anniviers.
Correction: The bus entered the 13-year-old Gamsen tunnel, which is 2km long, shortly after a roundabout at the end of the road coming down the mountain from the Val d’Anniviers in canton Valais.
Near the end of the tunnel, towards the A9 west exit for Sierre, heading in the direction of Sion, the bus veered to the right and crashed head-on into an emergency area wall.
The tunnel will be familiar to anyone who goes to resorts in the upper Valais area, including Zermatt, Saas Fee and Leukerbad, or from western Switzerland to Italy via the Simplon pass or tunnel, since it links the end of the autoroute and the cantonal highway that is the main artery to these areas.
Gamsen tunnel (photo, 2002, ©2012 Swiss Federal Highway Department)
It was inaugurated in 1999 and is part of a project to complete the autoroute to Italy via the Simplon, planned for 2019. The stretch to be completed is 31.8km, of which 15.8km will be tunnels, in part to protect the eco-system along the Rhone River and the Pfyn forest, the region’s first national forest.
There are several stretches of the road from Sierre to Brig that are under construction, but the area around the Gamsen tunnel, in the direction of Sion, does not have any roadworks at the moment.
EU, Japan and US China officially open trade dispute with China over rare minerals
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The seven-year old battle between the USA and the European Union over possible subsidies for Boeing appears no closer to resolution following Monday’s decision by the WTO (World Trade Organization) to uphold its previous decision that Boeing did indeed receive illegal government subsidies. Both sides are calling the decision a victory and the tussle is widely expected to continue.
The WTO “court” or appellate body, ruled that from 1989 to 2006 the federal government and several states had indeed subsidized aircraft manufacturer Boeing, but it calculated the amount as $5.3 billion rather than the $19.1b that the EU has argued was spent, to the detriment of its own Airbus company. The appellate body reviewed a number of contentious issues that include tax rate reductions and benefits from research for the US Department of Defense and Nasa, the space programme. (WTO: summary of key findings)
Obama argues that China is hoarding essential technology materials
Tuesday 13 March a new trade dispute that has been brewing was officially opened at the WTO in Geneva by the EU, Japan and the US. The three countries separately filed “requests for consultation”, WTO parlance for opening a dispute, covering restrictions on exports from China of various forms of rare earths, tungsten and molybdenum.
US President Barack Obama fired the opening salvo by making a widely publicized speech Tuesday in the White House Rose Garden, addressing the issue of fair trade.
“We’re bringing a new trade case against China – and we’re being joined by Japan and some of our European allies. This case involves something called rare earth materials, which are used by American manufacturers to make high-tech products like advanced batteries that power everything from hybrid cars to cell phones.
“We want our companies building those products right here in America. But to do that, American manufacturers need to have access to rare earth materials – which China supplies. Now, if China would simply let the market work on its own, we’d have no objections. But their policies currently are preventing that from happening. And they go against the very rules that China agreed to follow.”
China holds a large to very large share of the Earth’s supplies of a number of rare earth materials, several of which are considered essential for technology. AP reported, and it was widely carried by newspapers, that Obama’s speech signals that the new WTO is part of what he sees as a larger field of unfair trade practices by China.
China’s official news agency Xinhua reports that
“the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement posted on its website that it will properly deal with the issue. China, the statement said, has no intention of protecting domestic industries by distorting its foreign trade.
“Earlier in the day, Chinese Minister of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei told Xinhua that the Chinese side would prepare to defend itself if a complaint was filed with the WTO. Miao said China’s rare earth export policy is drawn up out of concern for the development of resources and environmental damage. Some rare earth metals would last only 20 years if China does not stop excessive mining, Miao added.
“China’s rare earth export restriction was not targeted at any specific country, nor was it a kind of trade protectionism, the minister said.”
Background, OECD paper for the WTO on limiting exports of strategic raw materials
Nyon's rivers tumble down from the Jura and into Lake Geneva, but their passage through the urban area is weaking their role as key ecological corridors
NYON, SWITZERLAND – The Asse and the Cossy, two rivers that run through Nyon, are getting a tree-trimming this week, part of a larger project to return the waterways to a natural state.
Helicopters were operating last week and will return to the job Tuesday 13 March to remove dense tree growth in the wooded corridors by the rivers. The tree-cutting is designed to rejuvenate the woods by encouraging younger growth.
The “renaturalization” project involves finding ways to help the rivers sidestep the built-up urban area, which includes concrete that stops the natural link between the lake and the rivers’ sources.
Local Nyon television and the commune have gone to some lengths to explain to town residents that clearing logs by helicopter is cheaper and reduces the nuisance to the population because the job can be done more quickly.
The Asse runs 12km from its source at the foot of the Jura in Bonmont’s Marais des Bœufs des bois. It is a main ecological corridor between the Jura and Lake Geneva, but just as it enters Nyon its ecomorphology is poor and fish are unable to head upstream because of the concrete.
The Cossy is also over-urbanized, say Nyon authorities, with more than half of its length in tubing. It is not a fishing area but a more natural state will encourage small fauna in the area, who are a key to maintaining the overall ecological balance in the region.
The project’s three objectives:
safety against flooding
to make the rivers as natural as possible between the route de Signy and la Môrache
to restore the wooded corridors that accompany the rivers through a programme that encourages younger growth.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A rundown of some of this week’s news highlights:
Nestlé charged with lack of protection, death of former worker
Charges were filed against Vevey-based multinational Nestlé in Zug by a Colombian trade union and a human rights group for not adequately protecting a former employee, Luciano Romero, who was murdered in Colombia by paramilitaries in 2005. The case could have broad implications according to Germany-based human rights group ECCHR (European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights) because it is the first filed against a Swiss company in Switzerland for a crime committed outside the country. ECCHR – Nestle, Newsletter French, pdf (Fr)
The charges come as world media are focused on the safety of foreign multinational workeres in conflict areas, notably in Nigeria, with the deaths Thursday 8 March of two foreigner workers in Nigeria. In separate news, Nestlé announced Friday morning that it is offering scholarships to a number of its trainees in Nigeria, to bring them to Switzerland to see home office operations.
Solar Boat evades pirates, navigates way to world record
PlanetSolar, the world’s only entirely solar-powered boat, whose home is Yverdon, made it through the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden. The MS Tûranor PlanetSolar is now navigating the waters of the Red Sea and expects to arrive 4 May 2012 in Monaco, at which point it will become the first solar boat to circumnavigate the globe.
Crans-Montana says yes to Women’s World Cup in 2013 in a turn-about (correction)
World Cup in Crans-Montana, 2012
The Valais resort of Crans-Montana said Monday it would not be hosting the 2013 Women’s World Cup in skiing, despite the success and nearly 50,000 visitors to the men’s event in late February.
A turn-around was announced Thursday 8 March after a meeting Wednesday night when the concerns of some players about hosting the event at the height of the ski season, which could mean closing to the public the popular Nationale run for several days.
The group of communities in the region, ACCM, has thrown its support behind not only a bid for the Cup next year, but an investment of CHF400,000 a year to keep Crans-Montana on the World Cup circuit. The funds require final approval, but the signal at the end of the week was clear: the resort is ready to fight to get the events.
Also under discussion are the re-creation of two or three significant runs.
One former Swiss president gets pie in face, another joins Rousseau protesters in NY
Micheline Calmy-Rey, who completed her year as president of Switzerland in December 2011, was shocked, as were many in the political world, by a pie that was shoved in her face earlier this week by a man angry over her role in the losses incurred by bank BCGE several years ago. The incident, outside the human rights film festival in Geneva, appeared to be more a form of aggression than a humorous incident.
Another former Swiss president, Pascal Couchepin, joins a group in New York Friday 9 March, for Occupy Rousseau, to hold up the Geneva philosopher’s example of fighting inequality and social injustice.
Cern technology behind Geneva airport’s solar panels
The airport in Geneva Friday received delivery of the first of some 300 high-temperature solar thermal panels that will cover a surface of 1,200m2 on the roof of the main terminal building. The panels will be used to heat the buildings during winter and cool them in summer. Their vacuum technology was developed at Cern for particle accelerators.
Nuclear power plant told by judge it must close early
Muehleberg, Switzerland’s aging nuclear power plant that has been the focus of protesters’ calls for closure because of the high cost of keeping it safe, was told it must shut down by June 2013. Safety issues were cited as the reason. The decision was made by the Swiss Administrative Court 1 March but announced the 7th, Wednesday. It is one of five nuclear power plants in the country and was scheduled to be phased out as Switzerland gets rid of its nuclear energy programme, but the decision speeds up the process by several years.
New Swiss collector's stamp issued 8 March as a regular CHF1 stamp, showing the red Jungfraubahn train, with the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau mountains behind
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss Post’s new centenary stamp to celebrate the creation of the rail line up to “the roof of Europe”, on the Jungfrau mountain, went on sale Thursday 8 March.
“The cog wheel railway to Jungfraujoch is still an impressive piece of engineering 100 years after its opening,” notes the post office, which also released three other philately stamps Thursday: the beaver, the 100-year anniversary of the Pro Juventute Foundation, and “one of the cornerstones of life in Switzerland, the Swiss Civil Code”.
The post office provides a short history of the rail line, one of Switzerland’s most popular tourist attractions:
“The route, which is just over 9 kilometres, takes you up 1,393 metres in altitude from the station at Kleine Scheidegg, cuts through the Eiger and the Mönch, and offers fantastic views before stopping at Jungfraujoch, the summit of the Jungfrau. At 3,454 metres above sea level, it is the highest railway station in Europe. At the end of the 19th century, the construction of the railway was merely a dream envisaged by Adolf Guyer-Zeller, an entrepreneur from Zurich. Thanks to his perseverance, it became a reality. After much work the tunnel finally broke through at the beginning of 1912, and on 1 August of the same year, the cog wheel railway began operating.”
A number of events will be taking place in Switzerland during 2012 to celebrate the centenary.
The amazing comeback of the Swiss beaver
Beavers are rodents seldom seen because of their nocturnal lives. They died out in Switzerland 50 years ago, but reappeared and thanks to better protection today there are now about 1,600 of them in Switzerland.
Two more centenaries
Pro Juventute and Swiss Post have a long history of collaboration; the foundation advocates the rights and and concerns of children and young people, and the post office has created a number of stamps in its honour. This year, to mark the centenary of the group, a special stamp has been created, with CHF.50 going to the foundation for each stamp sold.
Another centenary is that of the Swiss Civicl Code, the basis of Swiss civil law.
Swiss beaver, back again!
100 years anniversary for Swiss foundation that advocates for children and youth
Geneva Motor Show 2011 by Mr Kio, www.facebook.com/IdefixPhotography
BASEL / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Three of western Switzerland’s biggest commercial fairs open Thursday 8 March to Saturday, the watch show in Basel, the car show in Geneva, with each expected to pull in tens of thousands of visitors, and Habitat & Jardin, a favourite with apartment dwellers but especially homeowners and wannabes.
The Lausanne show, which attracts 100,000 people, starts in Lausanne Saturday 10 March and the best deal in town is a CFF rail ticket with travel and entry reductions.
This is definitely not a weekend to complain there is nothing to do!
Geneva Motor Show 2012, smaller cars but enough glamour for a quick fix
Lamborghini and Ferrari are putting their fancy wares on display, as usual, for this show that opens the car year in Europe.
Lamborghini’s not-so-subtle press release notes that the company “is presenting the most uncompromising open super sports car of its entire history. The Lamborghini Aventador J is a force of nature on wheels — supremely powerful and supremely open. The Aventador J offers its pilot and co-pilot an utterly indescribable experience of power and dynamics. At the same time, the 515 kW / 700 hp two-seater is a first class technology showcase.”
Ferrari is unveiling its 599 GTB Fiorano replacement, the F12berlinetta.
Geneva Motor Show 2011 by Mr Kio, www.facebook.com/IdefixPhotography
For the more conservative, electric cars are looking increasingly mainstream, with General Motors’s two extended range electrics, Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera, jointly named car of the year.
Here’s what world auto industry media are saying about this year’s show as it opens:
“European crisis sheds light on automakers’ excess capacity”, Detroit Free Press“More bad news for midprice carmakers in Europe”, NY Times
“Sexy cars at the Geneva Motor Show”, CBS News Money Watch
“Volkswagen creates more oddball Up! concepts for Geneva show”, Motor Show.
Of course, some people go to see the hostesses (sneak preview in a series of photos by Philippe Tabouriech).
Details on visiting the show are available in English at the Geneva Motor Show site. Hours are 10:00-20:00 Monday to Friday and 09:00-19:00 Saturday and Sunday. Tickets: CHF9 for children to CHF16 for adults. Public transport options are excellent, so while you might have cars on the brain, take the train.
BaselWorld celebrates 40 years with a record watch year for Swiss industry
BaselWorld attracts 100,000 people; it runs from 8 to 15 March and features not just watches but luxury jewelry. This is the 40th year of the fair, with 1,800 exhibitors. The fair kicked off with a statement that 2011 was a record year for the Swiss watch industry “with 30 million
watches exported. Turnover increased by 19.2 percent to CHF 19.3 billion,” announced Jacques Duchêne, president of the exhibitors’ committee, with Asia as “a driving force in the growth of the luxury goods industry. More than half of the exports of the Swiss watch industry are to the Far East.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – International Women’s Day 2012, 8 March, is being marked in Switzerland by a number of events this week, which highlight a shift from recognizing problems to taking significant action in coming decades. They include:
- A high-level bilateral Swiss-American conference in Bern. “Sister Republics: building bridges”, that is drawing up an action plan to mutually benefit from each country’s experience with what works and what doesn’t in several areas: gender equity certification programmes and benchmarks; flexible work and partnership models; childcare structures; mentoring and sponsoring; quotas
- the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is drawing attention to the problems of rural and migrant women with a special factsheet and a call to action on a number of points, including including the prevention of trafficking in human beings, as well as the facilitation of rural women’s access to reliable legal migration information, identity and travel documents.
- FEI, International Equestrian Federation in Lausanne, signed the Brighton Declaration on Sport. “Equestrian sport is one of the few Olympic sports in which women compete on equal terms with men. Signing the Brighton Declaration today shows the ongoing commitment of the FEI to equality in our sport,” said FEI President Princess Haya of Jordan, one of only two women who are sports federation presidents.
- Care, in Geneva, points to a startling success in Souhardo, Bangladesh, in women’s empowerment, where in just four years some remarkable strides have been made in reducing malnutrition.
- The Swiss Federal Statistical Office this week published its annual Swiss Statistical Atlas, with a wealth of detail about the country, including charts and tables showing various models of family/work balance in Switzerland.
- The UN Information Service in Geneva invited journalists to a roundtable discussion on women in the media, a subject the office described as not often discussed at the UN, to seek ways for the UN to better use media, including social media, to draw attention to issues that affect women.
A number of women from the US government were in Bern Wednesday and Geneva Thursday to take part in "Sister Republics: building bridges", including Acting Deputy Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank, left
Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The second annual “Women and Children First” award given by the US Embassy in Bern to honour leaders “who make a difference for women and girls” was given to Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold Tuesday evening 6 March.
Vermot-Mangold is an expert in African development issues, a former member of the Swiss parliament (1995-2007) and of the Council of Europe, and she is currently the co-chair of 1000 PeaceWomen Across the Globe.
The organization was a driving force behind the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 to three women: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman, following its action in 2005 to collectively nominate 1,000 women for the Nobel Prize. The group pointed out that since the creation of the prize in 1909 only 12 women had received it.
“Recognition of women’s important role in conflict situations has long been overdue. The fact that three women won this year is a harvest for Ruth, who has been tireless in working for unsung women heroes for years,” noted Megan Beyer in handing over the award.
Beyer, a journalist, is wife of US Ambassador to Switzerland Donald Beyer. The award is named after his grandmother, Clara Mortensen Beyer, who worked for the first woman in the US cabinet, US Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. Grandmother Beyer in her later years studied child labour worldwide and helped create US child labour laws.
The award was given at a dinner in Bern that opened a 7 March bilateral women leaders conference, “Sister Republics: Building Bridges – an action plan for women’s leadership”.
Ertherin Cousin
Private sector and government leaders from the two countries will look at the situation of women in the workplace in particular, comparing the Swiss and US experiences to create an action plan for improvement.
The group includes several ambassadors, a number of women who have held top White House positions, the Swiss federal chancellor, women CEOs and women in top positions in non-governmental organizations.
Ertharin Cousin, who 17 January was named director of the World Food Programme, the largest humanitarian aid organization in the world, spoke at the awards ceremony, noting that 925 million people do not have enough to eat and 98 percent of them live in developing countries.
The figure is daunting, she said, but it can be reduced, if women create a movement to do it.
Swiss Parliament, Bern
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The lower house of the Swiss parliament Monday 5 March voted strongly in favour of an amended US-Swiss tax treaty, 116-52, thus backing a vote by the upper house in December 2011.
Some foreign media coverage of the vote implies that the treaty is designed to help out 11 Swiss banks under investigation by the US Justice Department for illegally assisting Americans in the US to hide money offshore from the IRS, the tax arm of the US.
But the treaty was in fact agreed to in June 2011 by both governments. Credit Suisse announced in June 2011 that it was being investigated by the US Department of Justice and the cantonal bank in Basel nearly a year ago, while other banks, whose names were announced only in January 2012, apparently became aware of the investigations late in 2011.
The revised treaty grew out of negotiations that had been going on since the 2009 debacle where the Swiss government approved UBS turning over data on thousands of bank clients as part of a deal with the US.
The death of banking secrecy greatly exaggerated?
The right-wing UDC has been vocal in opposing the treaty, arguing that it signals the death of banking secrecy and is financial suicide, while some Swiss-German media have been making dire predictions for months, often reported as news from unnamed sources, about the impact of such a vote. Both have been picked up widely outside Switzerland as a sign that the treaty signals the end of banking secrecy, a view not held by many middle of the road politicians and the government, as well as the Bankers Association, which 22 February came out in favour of a regulation that would require offshore banking clients to make tax self-declarations. RTS, public broadcasting, says there has been a significant shift in banking secrecy since 2009, but Switzerland continues to support it as part of a broader respect for privacy. Today’s vote, it notes, should allow US-Swiss talks over American investigations into Swiss banks to move ahead.
The treaty is designed to replace a 1996 treaty, currently in effect. Both provide for judicial assistance in cases of tax fraud, but the new treaty defines the framework for this more precisely and admits tax evasion as well as fraud, in some cases, as grounds for a request for assistance.
Tax evasion is a crime, but not a penal offense in Switzerland, whose list of allowable tax deductions is far shorter than those of the IRS, and evasion has until now not been accepted as grounds for assistance.
New agreement amended in November
The June agreement was amended in November after a parliamentary commission recommended, 7-3, that this addition be made: it allows for group requests covering several financial accounts to be made together and, significantly, bank data could be given to US authorities without the US first providing a name and account number, although this assistance would be provided in a very limited number of cases. The change was initially expected to face stiff opposition in Parliament, but in the end it passed with a strong majority.
Switzerland and the US have been discussing, in separate talks, the case of the 11 Swiss banks under investigation by the US Department of Justice. The Swiss government in late January approved the delivery of coded bank data to the US as a goodwill gesture, with President Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf noting that the data could be decoded once the two countries reach a “global agreement”: “We will only decode when we have found a solution with the United States on all the banks that are under discussion.”
UK, Germany should revise part of agreements with Swiss, says EU tax head
European Union Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta said in a letter to Denmark’s prime minister 5 March that the UK and Germany will need to revise part of the tax agreements they have negotiated with Switzerland since last summer. Bloomberg reports that “when countries make bilateral tax agreements with other nations, EU policy calls for them to leave out any areas covered by a common European framework, Semeta said. In the case of savings income, the bloc has existing information-exchange rules and is working on additional measures related to interest payments, ownership stakes and the 27-nation EU’s relationship with Switzerland, he said.”
Semeta’s remarks were more positive than earlier EU threats to sue Switzerland for working out bilateral deals with two of its member countries.
Background story, GenevaLunch, “Swiss government raises the ante for banks, other countries”, 22 February 2012
Coupe du Monde 2012 in Crans-Montana
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The ups and downs of the financial world are the language of daily news, but in 10 days there will be a literal twist to it, with one of the top winter networking events in the financial world moving to Switzerland from its Italian home of the past 12 years. The resort of Crans-Montana, which just hosted the Men’s World Cup championship races on its National run, has tugged the City Ski Championships from Courmayeur, across the border.
Some 250 financial industry workers from 40 Swiss and European financial institutions, including virtually all of the big names in the business, will compete and party from 15-18 March in Crans-Montana.
The celebrities attending include Antoine Dénériaz, 2006 Torino Olympic downhill champion, stars’ chef Heston Blumenthal, former British skiers Konrad Bartelski and Graham Bell, actor Nick Doody and BBC presenter Matt Schilton.
The event is co-sponsored by the Financial Times and for the resort, this implies that long-term plans to build the event into a major attraction and increase visibility in the UK will have strong support.
“Thanks to the partnership with the Financial Times, the Valais region is assured to have great media coverage in the most important British media in the economic world,” says Bruno Huggler, assistant director and marketing manager at Valais Tourism, a sponsor. “Additionally, we are expecting the 20 best British reporters specialized in the winter season.”
Crans-Montana in a statement about the event, notes that “It is still possible to subscribe to the event; for Friday and Saturday, daily cards can be bought for CHF 190 per person including ski pass, ski competition, lunch and entrance to the Après-ski Festival”
The news comes on the heels of a decision by the resort not to host the 2013 Women’s Ski World Cup races, which were moved to February, in the middle of the Swiss school holidays. The decision provoked criticism from some quarters, but hotel keepers and others in the tourism industry were reluctant to block all the beds in the resort for the event, during what is normally their peak time. The women’s event doesn’t draw the same crowds as the men’s, which pulled in 45,000 visitors for a three-day weekend at the end of February.
A postage stamp to honour 100 years of Swiss laws
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland has a reputation for being a nation of tidy, law-abiding citizens, at least until the clichés abroad about secret bank accounts for foreigners get into the act; it is hard to imagine the country without laws to abide. This week the centenary of the Swiss civil code’s creation is being celebrated by another Swiss institution, the postal system, with a special issue stamp.
The civil code is known as the Swiss Civil Code of 10 December 1907, when it was approved, but it went into effect 1 January 1912. It was based primarily on the German civil code but borrowing from the French one at the time.
The underlying principle: “Every person must act in good faith in the exercise of his or her rights and in the performance of his or her obligations.”
European consortium establishes cloud computing system
Cern's computing storage needs were huge even before the LHC in 2008 began to require the data storage equivalent of a stack of CDs 20 km tall, per year. To handle this amount of data, Cern developed the Grid, allowing processing power to be shared between computer centres around the world. The time has come for Helix Nebula, the next step in storage space solutions.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Three major European science organizations are joining forces to build a heavy-duty cloud computing systems that will bear the weight of their scientific research data, Cern in Geneva announced 1 March.
Cern (European Centre for Nuclear Research) will be the first to use it, to have more computing power to process data from its international Atlas experiment at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider).
“Helix Nebula”, or the science cloud, “will support the massive IT requirements of European scientists, and become available to governmental organizations and industry after an initial pilot phase”, says Cern.
Two-year pilot projecct
Helix Nebula will be deployed and tested during two years, based on three flagship projects proposed by Cern, EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) and ESA (European Space Agency): to accelerate the search for the elusive Higgs particle, to boost large-scale genomic analyses in biomedical research and to support research into natural disasters.
The partnership is looking to establish a sustainable European cloud computing infrastructure. Industry will be called on to support it in order to provide “stable computing capacities and services that elastically meet demand”, but the names and commitments of these partners were not revealed Thursday.
From Higgs to genomes to earthquakes, all in the cloud
The EMBL is setting up a new service to simplify the analysis of large genomes, such as those from mammals. “The quantities of genomic sequence data are vast and the needs for high performance computing infrastructures and bioinformatics expertise to analyse these data pose a challenge for many laboratories,” says Rupert Lueck, head of IT services at the EMBL. Its cloud-based whole-genome-assembly and annotation pipeline relies on expertise from the Genomics Core facility in Germany, the EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute, and its Heidelberg’s IT Services.
The ESA is partnering with the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is collaborating with the National Research Council (CNR) in Italy, to create an Earth observation platform focusing on earthquake and volcano research.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The lower house of the Swiss parliament Wednesday gave its blessing to a new US-Swiss tax treaty that calls for Switzerland to provide blocks of data to the US on clients suspected of not just fiscal fraud, but of tax evasion. In a 116-51 vote a large majority backed the treaty, but a final vote was adjourned until Monday, after several right-wing UDC proposed amendments are debated.
The treaty would allow the US to make a request for judicial assistance without supply the names and addresses of the US residents suspected of offshore tax evasion if there is clear evidence that a bank or its employees are suspected of encouraging such evasion or fraud.
In all other cases, bulk requests will not be accepted, as in the past, and the names and addresses of those responsible for accounts under suspicion will be required.
Philipp Mueller, speaking for the commission that examined the treaty for the lower house, told the lawmakers that backing the treaty would allow negotiations to go ahead with the US over 11 banks under suspicion by the US Justice Department of helping US-based clients evade American taxes.
The UDC has fought the treaty, arguing that the treaty unfairly gives concessions to the US that other nations are not provided, and that it weakens bank secrecy. ATS news agency reports that the UDC also argued against the treaty Wednesday because it does not provide a global solution.
The arguments against the US being treated separately were also supported by some Greens. The Socialists are looking to an agreement with the European Union that could in the end provide the same kind of grouped requests. And politicians in the centre rested pragmatic, saying that while the US hardly has an unblemished record itself when it comes to offshore accounts, some concessions are necessary.
Myret Zaki, assistant managing editor of Bilan, was outspoken on Swiss television Wednesday evening, voicing the sentiment of many in the political and business community that no matter whether the treaty is supported or not, the driving force behind it is commercial and not judicial, with the US seeking to expand its share of the market dominated by Swiss banks.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Denmark comes top and Israel second, with Switzerland coming in with an unremarkable if adequate 15th place in a new ranking of world cleantech industries.
The report published 27 February, “Coming Clean: The Cleantech Global Innovations Index 2012″ by consultants Cleantech Group was mandated by WWF. It looks at 38 countries, seeking those that has been most innovative and that promise to do very well in this rapidly growing market in the next 10 years.
Switzerland is applauded for innovation in general, but the report notes that its performance in the area of cleantech is below average. Two key ingredients for young cleantech businesses to succeed are lacking in Switzerland: an inadequate amount of risk capital and a home market that relies heavily on clean energies, thus providing opportunities for young entrepreneurs.
India and China both rank higher than Switzerland.
Denmark, head of the class, was rewarded with the top ranking for its legal encouragement of cleantech as well as the number of research mandates; risk capital is also “generously available”, notes WWF in a statement about the new report.
$35.6 million needed for 85,000 refugees fleeing Mali fighting
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Fighting that flared up in northern Mali 17 January continues and is causing an exodus of refugees, the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) said Friday 24 February in an appeal for funds. It is seeking $36.5 million to cover emergency expenses to July 2012 for the need of 85,000 uprooted people.
“An estimated 130,000 people have been uprooted within and outside Mali since the resumption of clashes between the Malian army and Tuareg rebels of the Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA)–breaking the 2009 peace deal that had formally ended the Tuareg rebellion in Mali,” the UNHCR says. “In the surrounding countries, the largest influx has so far been recorded in Niger with 28,858 arrivals. In Mauritania, 22,958 Malian refugees have been registered so far. Another 17,499 Malian refugees have found refuge in Burkina Faso. More daily arrivals are being recorded in the neighboring countries as attacks continue throughout northern Mali, where an estimated 60,000 Malians are also internally displaced and in need of humanitarian assistance.
The funds will be used by the Geneva-based organization “to provide emergency assistance to the displaced in Mali and neighboring countries. The UNHCR is to establish camps further away from the Mali border in all three countries to allow refugees to receive help in safer locations.”
UNHCR seeks solution for small group of N Koreans
The UNHCR also announced Friday that it is in contact with Chinese authorities concerning a group of 25 N Koreans who have been held in China since Februay, without providing details of when or why or where they are being detained. The Geneva organization is working to ensure that China respects the international principle of no forced return.
Albert Einstein in 1921, the year he won the Nobel Prize for physics
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The uproar in the physics world was almost as loud Wednesday 22 February as in September 2011: the American Association for the Advancement of Science said Wednesday that a loose wire was suspected as being responsible for what may have been incorrect readings of neutrinos announced in September in 2011 by Cern’s Opera project.
Scientists at Gran Sasso labs in Italy said in November that their colleagues working with Cern had been mistaken, adding to the confusion. The September announcement had called into question a basic tenet of physics, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Thursday morning Cern issued an unusually short statement to clarify the situation:
“The Opera collaboration has informed its funding agencies and host laboratories that it has identified two possible effects that could have an influence on its neutrino timing measurement. These both require further tests with a short pulsed beam. If confirmed, one would increase the size of the measured effect, the other would diminish it. The first possible effect concerns an oscillator used to provide the time stamps for GPS synchronizations. It could have led to an overestimate of the neutrino’s time of flight. The second concerns the optical fibre connector that brings the external GPS signal to the Opera master clock, which may not have been functioning correctly when the measurements were taken. If this is the case, it could have led to an underestimate of the time of flight of the neutrinos. The potential extent of these two effects is being studied by the Opera collaboration. New measurements with short pulsed beams are scheduled for May.”
The neutrinos in question travelled from Cern to Italy’s Gran Sasso research centre and Bob Evans reports for Reuters that “physicists at the Cern research institute near Geneva appeared to contradict Albert Einstein’s 1905 Special Theory of Relativity last year when they reported that sub-atomic particles called neutrinos could travel fractions of a second faster than light.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – France, as viewed from just across the border, has finally bowed to the inevitable: 200 years or more of paying homage to the motto that includes “égalité” has finally resulted in women being reduced to just one label.
A man is a man is a Monsieur and now a woman is a woman is a Madame, with Mademoiselle being gently buried. The little girl/old maid title was officially dropped by the French government Tuesday 21 February by a government circular, reports Le Monde.
In these days of cautious government spending current documents with the old labels will be used before new ones that take note of the death of “Mademoiselle” are printed.
Feminist groups in France have been fighting the use of the label, particularly in official documents, arguing that it involves a subtle form of discrimination, often implying information about a woman’s marital status when it is not required.
The campaign to step up the fight began in earnest in September 2011 on the web site madameoumadame.fr, and in November 2011 Solidarity Minister Roselyne Bachelot asked Prime Minister François Fillon to ban the title of “Mademoiselle”.
“Maiden name” is being buried alongside its twin, Mademoiselle.
RIP.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – ‘Tis the season for cool exhibits and Geneva has an intriguing new one based on population movements as measured by cell phones.
You can’t miss it if you’re near the train station: a large-screen display above the entrance to the Metro Shopping area is the linchpin for the display called “Genève, ville vivante“, which includes 8 large explanatory panels along the rue du Mont-Blanc.
The large screen shows 15 million “movements” that are measurable from 2 million cell phone calls made on the Swisscom system during one day in the city. Geneva’s point in showcasing this is that the measurable urban movements provide a wealth of information that can be exploited to help residents or to help the city plan and to give companies useful information.
But the city points out that there is a flip side to this and the exhibition, which is linked to the 22-24 February Lift conference (theme: “What can the future do for you?”), is also designed to provoke reflection and discussion on privacy issues. “This data prompts the question of its impact in terms of data protection and privacy. It’s clear that the population is legitimately worried, with people feeling they are being watched, even if, in this case, for example, the data used is totally anonymous.”
Laurent Haug, the founder of Lift, commented on the show on Facebook, “Geneva is the first Swiss city to research how people are really using its public space, one of the first in the world. Check the data and the vizualizations, it is seriously amazing.”
The project was carried out with the city, Swisscom, Interactive Things and the Lift conference joining forces.
Asia fastest growing area for them, but Europe remains home to most
A young Swiss attracts attention in China, one of the growing number of Swiss heading to Asia (photo, Liam Bates)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss living abroad now make up more than 10 percent of the Swiss population, growing to 703,640 in 2011, with 62 percent of them living in Europe and 97 percent of those living in European Union countries.
France has the largest Swiss community, 183,754, accounting for about one-quarter of all the Swiss abroad. Germany has 79,050 and the US 75,637.
Three of four Swiss nationals living abroad have dual nationality.
The population abroad increased by 8,517 or 1.23 percent in 2011.
Asia saw the greatest growth, 4.49 percent, to 1,861 Swiss persons. Swiss living in the Americas grew by only 0.27 percent, or 462 persons.
The Federal Foreign Affairs Department notes that “this year for the first time the statistics on the Swiss abroad were centrally collated in Bern using a new computer programme of the Consular Directorate of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. In the past, the embassies and general consulates gathered the statistics for Swiss nationals registered with them and transmitted the information to the FDFA, which then calculated the total. The new procedure has increased the efficiency and precision of the statistics.”
Rush is on to get owners of encrypted pages to switch to new keys
EPFL's Arjen Lenstra in 2006, professor, algorithm cryptology laboratory (photo ©2012 EPFL / Alain Herzog)
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A very high percentage of secured web pages, those “https” URLs we look for when we make payments, for example, are indeed secure, 99.8 percent. But the assumptions behind the SSL certificates system may be ill-founded, a group of researchers at EPFL, the Swiss federal polytechnic institute, has shown. And that leaves many sites unprotected, according to Bit-Tech, which notes that “while a 99.8 per cent security rating may seem impressive, the RSA public key cryptography system is incredibly widespread.”
The researchers, a team led by EPFL’s Arjen Lenstra, write in their abstract, that they “performed a sanity check of public keys collected on the web. Our main goal was to test the validity of the assumption that different random choices are made each time keys are generated. We found that the vast majority of public keys work as intended. A more disconcerting finding is that two out of every one thousand RSA moduli that we collected off er no security. Our conclusion is that the validity of the assumption is questionable and that generating keys in the real world for “multiple-secrets” cryptosystems such as RSA is significantly riskier than for “single-secret” ones.”
SSL certificates work by using encryption. Verisign‘s one of the world’s main SSL certificate providers, explains how the system works at the consumer level: “Each SSL Certificate consists of a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt information and the private key is used to decipher it. When a Web browser points to a secured domain, a level of encryption is established based on the type of SSL Certificate as well as the client Web browser, operating system and host server’s capabilities.”
The findings have set alarm bells ringing in the industry. Bit-Tech reports that the system “underpins the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) used by almost every secure website in the world. It’s used by banks, online shops, digital distribution services and even voice-over-IP (VoIP) systems to protect credit card details, passwords and other personal data.”
The potential damage is huge, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group that has been defending free speech, privacy, innovation, and consumer rights in the digital world since 1990, before most people had heard the word digital. “The consequences of these vulnerabilities are extremely serious. In all cases, a weak key would allow an eavesdropper on the network to learn confidential information, such as passwords or the content of messages, exchanged with a vulnerable server. Secondly, unless servers were configured to use perfect forward secrecy, sophisticated attackers could extract passwords and data from stored copies of previous encrypted sessions. Thirdly, attackers could use man-in-the-middle or server impersonation attacks to inject malicious data into encrypted sessions. Given the seriousness of these problems, EFF will be working around the clock with the EPFL group to warn the operators of servers that are affected by this vulnerability, and encourage them to switch to new keys as soon as possible.”
The EPFL authors, in their report, took the precaution of pointing out the difficulty of contacting the owners of all affected pages, noting that some page owners need to take precautions.
“Publication of results undermining the security of live keys is uncommon and inappropriate, unless all aff ected parties have been notifi ed. In the present case, observing the above phenomena on lab-generated test data would not be convincing and would not work either: tens of millions of thus generated RSA moduli turned out to behave as expected based on the above assumption. Therefore limited to live data, our intention was to confi rm the assumption, expecting at worst a very small number of counterexamples and affected owners to be noti fied. The quagmire of vulnerabilities that we waded into makes it infeasible to properly inform everyone involved, though we made a best eff ort to inform the larger parties and contacted all email addresses recommended (such as
ssl-survey@eff.org5) or speci fied in valid aff ected certi cates. The fact that most certi ficates do not contain adequate contact information limited our options. Our decision to make our findings public, despite our inability to directly notify everyone involved, was a judgment call.”
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Montreux Jazz Festival likes to surprise and this year’s poster will startle more than one concert-lover. American photographer Greg Gorman has created the first MJF poster to feature a photographic image since 1967, the first year of the festival.
This year’s poster, says Gorman, focuses on the contemplative experience of listening to music.
The Montreux Jazz Festival takes place 29 June to 14 July 2012.
“The model’s pose should suggest movement, as he is turning his head as if he had heard something and wants to hold onto it – a fleeting moment. It is perhaps a voice, a noise or sound. The sand dune in the background also plays an important role. The sheer height and depth of the dune evokes a sense of emptiness and in its simplicity presents a stage for contemplation, a central experience when listening to music. The open background also provides literal space for the viewer’s own interpretation. The subject is placed in a non cluttered open environment.
“The visual arts, from an illustrative point of view, are less confrontational than photography. I believe that the decision to allow me to present a nude was a very courageous one, because nudity in photography is real and very direct. To offer a photographer carte blanche once again after so many years clearly illustrates the readiness of the festival to try out new things, to take risks and to surprise people.”
Gorman stepped into photography through his love of music. He borrowed a camera to shoot Jimi Hendrix at a 1968 concert and when he saw the image come up in a darkroom he was hooked, he says. In his 40-year career Gorman has photographed scores of musicians, including: Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Frank Zappa, Grace Jones, Elton John, George Clinton, Boy George, Tom Waits, Billy Idol, Leon Russell, Nina Hagen, Fleetwood Mac, Morrissey, Iggy Pop, Vanilla Ice, P. Diddy, RuPaul, Divine, Bette Midler, John Lee Hooker, David Bowie and Quincy Jones, Joan Jett, John Mayer, Melissa Etheridge, Debbie Harry, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Joe Cocker.
He draws a clean parallel between the discomfort yet esthetic appreciation nudes can provoke and the way music can work on us. “Nudity can be fascinating, but may also make some viewers uncomfortable, even nervous. I think music can have the same effect and I think that is one of the interesting things about this project. I love the total unexpected element of the male nude. Music can surprise, unsettle and sometimes even confuse people. A male nude even more so than a female nude, because it is still often thought of as taboo. Hopefully on a certain positive level, this image will have the same effect, but be able to break through that stigma. It is in many ways classical in nature, strong in shape and form and yet delicate and fragile in scale and balance. All of this can be referenced to the extraordinary art of listening to music.”
A Montreux poster is not just all in a day’s work
For those who think photography is a matter of snapping a shot, and for those who are dying to know who the model is, Gorman offers a few words:
“I teach photography workshops at my home in Mendocino, California, four times a year. And that was where I first worked with the model, Jordan David Miles, a 21-year old skateboarder and graffiti artist from Southern California. The initial idea arose from a similar shooting I had done with him, the previous year. During the subsequent shooting for the festival poster, however, l became involved in a long discussion with Jordan, who did not share my vision, and we had to cancel everything the first time out in the dunes because we just weren’t on the same page. I very much value critical feedback and I took Jordan’s concerns very much to heart. I knew we had to be in sync if the concept was going to work. At the second shooting, the light was not working in our favor. It was very overcast and I could not get the contrast, which is a key element in my photography. Finally our third attempt went very well. From all of the previous work, we knew what we needed to accomplish-the exact location, the angle, the right time of day for the light to be perfect (in essence, all of the aspects that needed to go into the photograph including the model’s body language). We got the picture in the can in less than half an hour. All the previous work helped to add to a better result in the end.”
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Working couples with children who were worried when they saw the UDC People’s Party popular initiative that would give tax cuts to families with a stay-at-home parent received support today from the government. The Swiss Federal Council says it cannot back the initiative because “fiscal law must be as neutral as possible and not favour the traditional family model, as the initiative does”.
A new federal law went into effect 1 January 2011 that allows an income tax deduction for the cost of childcare by a third party as long as the costs can be proven and the child is not yet 14 years old. The maximum allowed deduction is CHF10,100 a year for the federal income tax.
Cantons have until 1 January 2013 to adapt their legislation to allow the deduction, and they are free to set their own ceilings for cantonal taxes.
The federal tax system does not allow parents who care for children at home to deduct the cost, although cantons Zug and Lucerne do, but the UDC’s agenda calls for promoting the traditional family.
Antique valentine (source: Wikipedia)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Sex and the threatened male heart are increasingly being studied, but more could be done to see the impact of sex on the hearts of women with heart conditions and the elderly, according to the American Heart Association. The group says in a statement 8 February that according to a new scientific statement with recommendations by heart specialists “it is probably safe to have sex if your cardiovascular disease has stabilized”.
The AHA notes that cardiovascular events “such as heart attacks or chest pain caused by heart disease—rarely occur during sexual activity, because sexual activity is usually for a short time. ‘Some patients will postpone sexual activity when it is actually relatively safe for them to engage in it,’” according to Dr Glenn Levine, director of the Cardiac Care Unit at the Michael E DeBakey Medical Center in Houston. “‘On the other hand, there are some patients for whom it may be reasonable to defer sexual activity until they’re assessed and stabilized.’”
News agency AP noted in an article related to the study led by Levine, which was published in January, that “surprisingly, despite the higher risk for a heart patient to have a second attack, there’s no evidence that they have more sex-related heart attacks than people without cardiac disease.”
The UK’s Telegraph, reporting on the US report, says “American researchers who carried out the investigation are calling for doctors to screen men for sexual activity when assessing their risk of heart disease. Every year, around 270,000 people in Britain suffer a heart attack, and coronary disease remains Britain’s biggest killer.”
The Circulation article is available in full online (Levine, Circulation, pdf)
Earthquakes throughout Switzerland in the 24 hours preceding the small one in Zug: Switzerland has 500-800 a year, only 10 of which are felt (note: time is UTC and in winter Switzerland is one hour behind Universal Time)
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Zug was lightly shaken and stirred late Saturday 11 February at 23:45 by a 4.2 magnitude earthquake that officially qualifies as on the light end of “moderate”, with potential damage “very light”.
The earthquake had a depth of 32km. Switzerland has 500-800 earthquakes a year, about 10 of which can be felt by the population.
Four hours earlier a 2.5 magnitude earthquake hit the pre-Alps to the west of Venice, in the same area that 24 January had a 4.2 earthquake.
The most recent earthquake registered in Switzerland before this was and the most recent strong earthquake was in Sierre in 1946, according to the Swiss Federal Seismic Service.
Britain, France, Germany, Italy Spain: US citizens’ bank data in exchange for US reporting some of their citizens’ bank accounts
Overseas Americans already caught in crosshairs
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A proposed deal that is being hailed by the six countries involved as a step forward in their fight against international tax evasion ironically borrows from a Swiss solution proposed as part of new double taxation treaties. In both cases data on foreign citizens is not turned over directly to the other government by financial institutions. Instead, the banks would hand data on foreign clients to their own governments, which would pass it on.
The US and EU-5 proposal comes as Swiss and US negotiators grapple with differing interpretations of a pending a new tax treaty. Strict Swiss data protection laws have been a sticking point. The Swiss have insisted they will not accept “fishing expeditions” but will accept bulk requests where tax fraud or evasion is shown to be likely.
Switzerland proposed for its recently negotiated double taxation treaties with Germany and the UK that Swiss banks collect withholding taxes that the Swiss government will then pay to these countries. Their citizens can elect to declare the assets and get the withholding tax back or cede it to their governments if they do not want to declare their accounts.
The news of the six nation proposal came at the same time 8 February as the publication of 355 pages of regulations for Fatca, new US legislation designed to fight tax evasion.
EC applauds government to government approach
Europolitics reports that the European Commission was happy with the news.
“The European Commission issued a statement applauding these arrangements: ‘Thanks to this intergovernmental approach – the only one conceivable for now because it is rapid – to the exchange of tax information, the extra administrative costs, compliance costs and legal impediments (related to data protection) that financial institutions in the EU would have experienced will be considerably reduced’. The financial sector itself has estimated at US$100 million the extra costs for a multinational European bank as a result of implementation of the new legislation.
“For the Commission, which opened the debate on FATCA with Washington in April 2011, any EU member state should now be able to adopt this government-to-government approach to information exchange by concluding ‘coordinated bilateral agreements’ with the United States. Washington is considering developing other partnerships with third countries.”
Automatic data handover part of the likely new deal, but reciprocal
The new agreement between the US and Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain would see financial data for all Americans automatically handed by these countries to the IRS, the US tax arm.
In return, the US would hand over data, too, but, in addition, the other countries’ financial institutions would benefit from being included in a group registration with the IRS. The result: complying with Fatca would be far less expensive.
The US argues the new arrangement would lower the cost of implementing Fatca—and that it will at the same time bring the other governments information about bank accounts held in the US by some of their own citizens, those with offshore accounts.
Significantly, too, “the Fatca partner [country] would not be required to terminate the account of a recalcitrant account holder”, an American who did not report account information to the IRS, according to the US Treasury.
The reporting requirements and burdens would not be the same: the US is asking for all US accounts to be reported because it is the only country besides Eritrea to tax its citizens on the basis of citizenship rather than residence. The five European countries would be given data only on their citizens who have US accounts but who are resident in the home country.
Ed. note: Eritrea was condemned in 2009 and again in December 2011 by United Nations Security Council resolution 2023, for destabilizing the Horn of Africa region. Eritrea is sanctioned in part for its diaspora tax, used for military purposes. The US voted in favour of the sanctions. The only other country, according to Wikipedia, that has a citizenship-based tax system as opposed to residence system, was the Philippines, but it changed to a residence system in 1995.
Fatca: data privacy concerns circumvented by reporting to banks’ own governments
Fatca, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, is a US law that went into effect in March 2010 but which is only gradually being implemented. It requires foreign financial institutions (FFI’s) to report to the US government US accounts, according to the US Treasury Department’s press release on the six-nation proposed agreement Wednesday 8 February.
Fatca’s implementation has been rescheduled several times and it has been the subject of much heated debate in the financial industry. The US Treasury Department in its press release concedes that Fatca “has raised a number of issues, including that FFIs established in these countries may not be able to comply with the reporting, withholding and account closure requirements because of legal restrictions.”
Data protection laws have been part of this debate in the UK, for example.
Questions have also been raised about the legitimacy of the American government writing laws that apply to non-US businesses, the FFIs, outside the US.
Fatca and Americans living outside the US: not tax evaders
US expatriates have voiced a number of concerns about Fatca, starting with its failure to distinguish between Americans in the US with offshore accounts and Americans who are resident, particularly long-term, overseas.
American Citizens Abroad (ACA), a Geneva-based international non-profit organization, in 2011 and after public debate in town hall meetings, called for the outright repeal of Fatca, saying it “destroys lives and the US economy”.
Growing number of Americans in Switzerland refused regular bank accounts
A Town Hall meeting of Americans in Geneva Wednesday 8 February called for a show of hands of those who have been turned down for a bank account in the past year: an estimated 50 percent said yes, and afterwards some people admitted privately they haven’t told their banks they are American for fear their accounts will be closed.
The US is currently investigating 11 Swiss banks for aiding wealthy Americans based in the US to evade taxes. More importantly, for Americans who live in Switzerland, Swiss banks, like those elsewhere, are preparing for Fatca, and US clients may be viewed as a liability.
ACA has been gathering growing evidence that US residents abroad, even if they file taxes, are being refused bank accounts and that financial institutions are beginning to divest themselves of US securities.
The New York Times in an article published 9 February says “Fatca has also been criticized by American expatriates because it imposes new reporting requirements. Some have said it makes Americans less attractive as clients for financial institutions, raising the cost of doing business overseas. Those criticisms were not addressed in the proposed rules.”
Tax evasion effort tacked onto jobs bill
Fatca was passed by the US Congress to little fanfare in 2010, tacked onto a much larger jobs bill called the Hire Act. President Barack Obama when he signed it, made reference to four of the five parts of the Hire Act, never mentioning the foreign tax compliance section. The IRS web page devoted to Hire initially failed to mention Fatca as well (Hire Act (pdf).
The US Treasury Department press release yesterday mentions that the five Fatca partners of the US would look at “certain accounts” as part of the agreement.
The law itself is more precise, stating that FFIs will be obliged “in the case of any United States account maintained by such institution, to report on an annual basis” several pieces of information:
“(A) The name, address, and TIN of each account holder
which is a specified United States person and, in the case of any account holder which is a United States owned foreign entity, the name, address, and TIN of each substantial United States owner of such entity.
(B) The account number.
(C) The account balance or value (determined at such time and in such manner as the Secretary may provide).
(D) Except to the extent provided by the Secretary, the gross receipts and gross withdrawals or payments from the account (determined for such period and in such manner as the Secretary may provide).”
It defines a US account: “In general.—The term ‘United States account’ means any financial account which is held by one or more
specified United States persons or United States owned foreign entities.” The exception is an individual whose aggregate accounts at one financial institution, including for example retirement accounts, are under CHF50,000 in a given year.
Photo: Swiss Federal Customs Office
BASEL / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Lower prices across the border in France thanks to the high Swiss franc don’t always mean the Swiss lose out: the Swiss Customs Office says that in 2011 its revenues rose thanks to import declarations, from CHF28.7 million to CHF39.8m.
Imported border goods remain nevertheless a small part of customs revenues, only 0.2 percent of the CHF23.47 billion, which is more than one-third of all Swiss federal revenues.
The 30 percent increase in declared goods was accompanied by revenues from those who couldn’t resist the temptation to buy more without declaring the goods, as the number of contraband merchandise cases rose by 36 percent.
Customs offices and border guards say that while contraband goods are brought in by amateurs and professionals, they focused on the second group last year and uncovered 5,800 cases, some 400 more than in 2010.
They delivered 2,960 people to the police and discovered 1,477 falsified or illegally used documents and 1,308 illegal arms.
They seized, among other drugs, 208 litres of KO drops, more than triple the quantity found in 2010 and equal to 100,000 doses. It has no smell or taste and is “regularly used in kidnappings and sexual crimes”, notes the federal office.
Seized in Bardonnex, 2011
The most popularly imported illegal drop was Viagra-type erection drugs and the most popular source country was India.
Foods remain high on the list of illegal imports: fruits and vegetables (818 tons), cereal for human consumption (41 T), spirits (32 T), Wine (24 T), Meat and meat products (28.5 T), Olive and other consumable oils (20 T), Milk and cheese products (3 T).
St Prex, Switzerland and Lake Geneva: -10 before noon, with an icy wind, 6 February 2012
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – If you’ve been talking to friends about our Arctic weather, you should revise your description, for in recent days it’s been warmer in Svalbard, far north in the Arctic, than in Milan, Italy or Istanbul, Turkey, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva. Svalbard has seen 5C in recent days while Milan can expect -10 by the end of this week.
We’re currently in a “negative Arctic Oscillation” in Europe, says the WMO, based on reports coming in from its members, national weather services around the world.
The Arctic Oscillation “is the difference in pressure between Polar areas and mid-latitude areas (where most of the population in Europe lives). At the moment there is a negative Arctic Oscillation, which favors cold conditions in Europe and relatively warmer conditions in the Arctic.”
Our glacial temperatures are not even setting new records. “The long duration of the cold period, its relatively late onset and the extent of the cold area are noteworthy but not exceptional. The continental cold air extended even over the Balkan peninsula; slight ongoing frost was recorded even in northern Greece” in the past three weeks.
Meanwhile, Svalbard but also much of North America has benefited from mild air moving over the North Atlantic northwards over Iceland up to the Arctic region, according to the WMO.
"El Pisolero" Alberto Contador during the 2011 Tour de France (photo, SaxoBank)
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Spain’s Alberto Contador has been suspended from cycling for two years after the CAS sports tribunal in Lausanne, TAS, found him guilty on one count of doping. The winner of the 2010 Tour de France loses his crown as a result; it should now go to Andy Schleck of Luxembourg who came in second.
Contador was accused of using clenbuterol. The rider argued that he ate steak from a Basque producer, which accounted for its presence in his system.
Clenbuterol is sometimes used by farmers, although its use is banned in Europe. The hearing was in November but the CAS issued a statement earlier saying the final decision would be delayed because media rumours about the fairness of the hearing had prompted the organization to ensure the parties all agreed to the members of the panel.
The three-member panel’s president, Efraim Barak of Israel, had refused at one point to accept testimony of an expert witness brought in by Contador’s lawyers.
The two other members of the panel are Swiss: Quentin Byrne-Sutton, a Geneva lawyer, and Ulrich Haas, a Zurich professor.
Contador is the second Tour de France winner to lose his title for doping; Floyd Landis, American, lost it in 2006 title after testing positive for testosterone.
Fire death, drunk driver victims, high speed chase part of busy weekend emergency services work
Strong winds coupled with frigid temperatures whipped up icy flames on the lake surface Monday morning
Lake Geneva views of opposite shorelines obliterated by heavy waves and two metre high tongues of icy mists Monday 6 February
GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A new record low temperature for this winter was set in canton Graubuenden’s Engadine region, in Samedan this weekend: -35.1C.
The death toll from the cold in Europe, now estimated to be over 300 people, continues to rise.
In Switzerland, the icy weekend kept police and firefighters busy, and Touring Club Suisse (TCS), the automobile club, had a record 23,000 calls to help motorists.
Trains are running slow in several areas as the CFF rail company deals with icy lines and other cold-related problems.
Burst pipes caused flooding Saturday and Sunday, notably in Geneva and Lausanne, reports TSR. The head of Swissgrid, which manages the Swiss electricity supply, told NZZ in Zurich this weekend that the country risks blackouts in coming days because the system is pushed to its limits.
A main SSR (public broadcasting) emitter on top of Säntis mountain gave way under pressure from heavy snow, according to 24 Heures, and is using emergency power.
Vernier drunk driver crashes into trio
Police in Geneva were called to Vernier Saturday night where a 25-year-old man with a two-week old grudge against a nightclub worker left the establishment on Chemin des Batailles and got into his parked car, then drove into three young customers of the club, narrowly missing the club employee.
He had been drinking in several night spots and his alcohol level was measured at 1.69 after the accident, according to Geneva police. His victims were a 20-year-old Geneva man who lives in Vernier who was treated at the nearby Hopital de la Tour and two women who were taken to the cantonal hospital. The 19-year-old woman, who is Bolivian and lives in Rolle, is being treated for several facial injuries and the 18-year-old for a broken leg.
The driver continued and crashed into a number of rental cars parked nearby. He is under arrest for attempting to cause severe bodily harm and on other charges, and his license has been lifted.
Lausanne police chase ends in three captured
A car in Lutry with four people suddenly took off Friday when police stopped it and led area police on a high-speed chase as far as Chemin Campagne Pierraz-Portay in Pully, where the passengers took off on foot. Two were caught and arrested, along with the driver, when police discovered a quantity of goods stolens from homes in the Lausanne region. The car had Belgian plates and the two Algerians and one Iraqi were from Belgium, ages 32-35. Police are looking for their partner.
One dead in Martigny fire
One person died and another was saved by firefighters from a second floor balcony of an apartment building early Saturday 4 February when a fire broke out.
The identity of the victim is being established, say canton Valais police.
The first floor apartment was unoccupied. The cause of the fire, at 01:15, is being investigated.
