Police say goodbye to freed swan and release it back into Lake Geneva (photo, ©2010 P Brodbeck)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A swan, trapped by a line from a boat in the harbour in Geneva Saturday morning 13 February, was saved by two photographers and a quick-to-the-rescue Geneva police team. Other swans in the area began to attack the trapped bird, pecking at it. One photographer kept them at bay while the other alerted nearby police, who arrived in their dinghy to save the swan.
The bird would probably have died of exhaustion and stress within the hour if it had not been freed, according to photographer Peter Brodbeck. It was the second swan save of the day for the police team, the boys in blue told the photographers.
Swan-save photos by Peter Brodbeck
copyright 2010 P Brodbeck, all images below
See GenevaLunch swan rescue album: 24 images. Click on images here to view larger.
German local government confirms new stolen data offered, Swiss president confirms Germany bought first batch
Swiss politician might consider reconsidering Swiss banking secrecy, some hint
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The saga of data stolen from Swiss banks and offered to the German government continues, with new wrinkles to the story. A German newspaper will publish an article Saturday, reports Swiss television TSR, stating that a new batch of stolen data, with 2,000 client names, is being offered to a regional German government. The government of Bade-Wurtemberg has confirmed the information.
Meanwhile, Swiss President Doris Leuthard told reporters as she came out of a meeting that Switzerland will likely ask for a copy of the first batch of stolen data. Switzerland did the same with data stolen from a Geneva branch of British bank HSBC and sold to the French government. The data will allow Switzerland to see if requests for judicial assistance from France, and perhaps now from Germany, are based on information obtained from the stolen files. If this is the case, Switzerland will refuse to provide assistance because of the illegal source of the information.
Switzerland and Germany have confirmed this week that they are slowly, steadily continuing to negotiate a new bilateral double taxation agreement.
One of the results of this, according to Le Temps newspaper, is that the question of the viability of Swiss banking secrecy is no longer a taboo political issue.
Thieves to be prosecuted once identity known
Wednesday morning accident latest in regional string where pedestrians hit by cars
Group opens campaign to raise drivers’ awareness
Geneva: pedestrians are particularly vulnerable at busy intersections with cars, trams, buses
Lausanne, Switzerland(GenevaLunch) – An elderly man crossing the street at the Avenue du Tir-Fédéral in Chavannes-près-Renens shortly before 09:00 Monday has died at the Chuv (university hospitals), where he was taken. The car and the state of the road do not appear to have been factors, according to local police. The accident is one in a string of serious accidents where cars have hit pedestrians in the region in recent days. It occurs just as a campaign is kicking off to increase awareness by drivers of the problems of elderly pedestrians.
In Geneva early Wednesday afternoon an elderly person was hit by a tram in Carouge, reports the Tribune de Geneve. Police have not yet ocnfirmed details,including the state of the victim. The accident has disrupted service to lines 12, 13 and 14 in the city.
A young boy was hit by a car Tuesday morning in Ollon, in Vaud, at 06:50, as he was crossing the street on the route d’Aigle at the rue du Carroz.
GenevaLunch will be taking a short news pause until Tuesday evening due to technical problems. We will bring you up to date then on the latest news in the Lake Geneva region. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Julius Baer Group has agreed to buy ING Bank (Switzerland) Ltd, based in Geneva, for CHF520 million, the Swiss bank announced 7 October. The ING bank will be folded into Bank Julius Baer. The combined assets under management (end August 2009 figures) will be CHF160 billion, with the Dutch bank subsidiary’s CHF15 billion under management providing Julius Baer with a 10 percent boost to assests under management. Julius Baer’s position as the top Swiss wealth management bank is thus ensured.
ING has 310 employees, of which 80 are relationship managers, and the its addition will double the presence of Julius Baer in Geneva. The wholly-owned ING subsidiary’s business in Monaco and Jersey are included in the deal, which is expected to go into effect in early January pending regulatory approval. ING Bank is strongly capitalized, the Baer Group says, and it has a net asset value of about CHF 380 million.
Links to other sites: Julius Baer press release, Bloomberg, Financial Times
Lake Neuchatel from the port © 2009 LNM
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Men who wear a watch made in Switzerland get a free boat ride on the Lake of Neuchatel during the month of October. In September it was women who wore dresses who got the free ride, courtesy of the Société de Navigation des Lacs de Neuchatel et Morat (LNM). That special offer provoked a number of e-mails from irate men.
Link to other site: 2oMinutes
San Siro, Milan (GenevaLunch) - FC Zurich took on the mighty AC Milan in the European Champions League and succeeded in pulling off a shock win thanks to a spectacular heeled goal by their Finnish centre back Hannu Tihinen. The Italian team, owned by Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, has won the European Championship seven times, second only to Real Madrid. Real won their game against Olympique Marseille 3-0, with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring twice. Manchester United came from behind to beat German champions Wolfsburg 2-1, while Chelsea made heavy going of their game against Nicosia but still won 0-1.
Details: UEFA
A little less water than usual in Lake Geneva near Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The fire that began in Lausanne Thursday 23 September in the storage space of an archiving firm was finally under control late Tuesday, but it continues to smolder, say officials. More than 300 firefighters from around the region have been involved in the battle against the flames and smoke, with the army called in over the weekend to provide relief and more equipment.
Forty-five soldiers from the catastrophe division put in 48 hours, providing a 1.5 km waterhose from Lake Geneva up the hill to the Rue de Provence, to ensure an adequate water supply to douse the fire. The hose delivered 8,000 litres of water a minute for 27 hours straight.
Flushing Meadows, New York (GenevaLunch) - World number one Roger Federer beat Leyton Hewitt for the 14th time in a row, but dropped a set before he managed to pull away from the Australian 4-6 6-3 7-5 6-4. Another Swiss, Marco Chiudinelli, lost to 8th seed Nikolay Davydenko. Novak Djokovic came through in four sets, beating Jesse Witten 6-7 6-3 7-6 6-4. Andy Roddick, who reached the Wimbledon final was the shock loser in the men’s draw, going out to 55th-ranked John Isner who has played most of his tennis for the University of Georgia.
Lindt Easter bunny boosts sales, but Christmas chocolates are bigger
Kilchberg, Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss chocolate maker Lindt & Spruengli saw its operating profits (EBIT) slip from CHF33.6 million to CHF24.1m in the first six months of 2009, compared to the same period a year earlier. The company expects nevertheless to end the year with a CHF260-280m profit.
Rising cocoa prices that could not be entirely passed on to consumers in a weak economy were blamed for much of the profit decline.
Berlin, Germany (GenevaLunch) – Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt smashed his own world record as he won the 100 metres in 9.58 seconds. The previous best was his 9.69 winning time at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. American Tyson Gay was second in 9.71 while Jamaican Asafa Powell was third in 9.84. According to Sports Illlustrated “It was the biggest increase in the record since electronic time was introduced in 1968.”
Details: BBC, Sports Illustrated
Montreal, Canada (GenevaLunch) - Andy Murray beat Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a resident of La Rippe in canton Vaud. The 6-4, 7-6 victory also pushes Murray past Rafael Nadal to number 2 in the new ATP rankings. This is the highest ranking for a British player since the rankings started in 1973: Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski reached number 4.
Montreal, Canada (GenevaLunch) – The top eight players in the world all reached the quarter-finals of the Rogers Cup in Montreal: it is the first time this has happened since ATP rankings were introduced in 1973. The current top eight in order are Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick, Juan Martin Del Potro, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nikolay Davydenko.
GenevaLunch is providing news with a slight delay Friday 17 July due to heavy thunderstorms in our area. As a precaution against electrical problems we turned the computers off for a while. We’re now back at work.
Morges, Vaud, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – Eight cartoonists from Lebanon are guests of honour at the Morges Festival sous rire, an annual humour fest in Vaud. Le Temps online carries a sample of their views of their country.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Tamedia, which is scheduled to buy out the Swiss business of Edipresse if the competition commission approves the deal, has published less than rosy results for 2008: a 30 percent fall in profits, to CHF105.8 million. The company’s sales rose 21 percent to CHF895.7m, but this was due mainly to absorbing Bern-based Espace Media Group.
Cartoonist Patrick Chappatte
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Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Roche has increased its offer for shares in US company Genentech to $93, from $86.50 and is giving shareholders an extra week to consider the new offer, in order to bring the disputed takeover to a close.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Radio Cité, the former religious radio station in Geneva, which was saved from bankruptcy by a CHF1 million annual investment by Genevan Viviane de Witt’s Fondation de Chênes, has seen its audience slipping steadily since January 2007, from 1.9 percent to 1.3 percent of the French-speaking Swiss market. It was granted a license as a community service station in October, one of five stations given licenses in the Lake Geneva region, of 14 federal licenses assigned in October 2008 after months of suspense. The others are commercial stations.
Cadillac xlr 2009 by GM, appearing at the Geneva Motor Show (photo © GM)
Geneva, Switzerland (Financial Times) – General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson Tuesday told reporters at the Geneva Motor Show’s press day that the company’s 300,000 jobs in Europe are at risk if European governments do not provide emergency funding.
Updated 12:30 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Preliminary figures for Swiss gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2008 show 1.6% growth (at constant previous year prices) and 3.9% at current prices, based on averages of the four quarters. The estimated figures were released 3 March with Bern’s fourth quarter GDP report. But Q4 figures showed a fall, the second quarterly slip in a row, technically putting Switzerland into a recession (TSR, Fre).
Real Time Rome 2006: cell phones as football starts
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “For too many years we believed technology would solve problems,” and now we’re learning that’s not quite true, architect-engineer-designer Carlo Ratti says. It needs a helping hand from humanity, it turns out, or in one of the most moving (literally) projects he’s worked on, helping feet: sustainable clubbing in Rotterdam takes human energy from the dance floor, pulls it down and turns it into the electricity used for interactive visuals and to light the dance floor.
Ratti told a crowd during the Lift09 conference in Geneva last week (25-28 February) that some of the most creative thinking about sustainability is coming from individuals and small businesses.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Kudelski Group 27 February reported a loss of CHF7 million for 2008 after profits in 2007 of CHF67m, but sales have grown significantly, particularly in its digital TV division. The company in August was still forecasting 2008 profits of CHF5-10m despite a loss of CHF34.9m in the first half of the year. The group started to recover in the second half, posting a CHF27.9m profit for the period.
Group net revenues grew by 11%, with digital TV up 15.3%, and operating profit was CHF18.4m. The Group’s financial report states that the cost of migrating customers to a new “service” rather than sales model, and providing new smart cards was a major investment in early 2008 that will be fruit in 2009. “Service model revenues are expected to fully kick in starting in the second half and one-off migration costs will be substantially lower than in 2008. The Group expects improved operating profits and substantially better cash flows for 2009.”
Kudelski is a world leader in digital access systems for television.
Related story, TSR, Fre
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - People who don’t want to fight the traffic around Geneva once the Geneva International Motor Show starts can watch it all on television, available online for the first time in 2009. The web TV show will air daily at 10:00 from 2-16 March on Salon Auto TV. The show itself runs from 5-15 March.
by Catherine Nelson-Pollard
Swiss parliamentarians live a relatively simple life when they travel around, according to Jordan Davis, WRS’s journalist and political reporter: no pomp and circumstance, no motorcade accompanying them along the way. He sees many of them on the train beween Geneva and Berne when he is en route covering events when parliament is in session.
However, Swiss politics itself is not that simple and Davis attempted to explain it all last night to a group of expats and members of Glocals, the online community and social networking group. In just over an hour he gave us the facts. First of all, under “Who’s running the place?” he explained about the role of cabinet members and the recent changes within it. He ran through the main political parties and what they represent, and told us about the “magic formula.” He explained that as the parliamentarians comes from cantons with different tastes, different cultures, and different languages, consensus building is the key aim of Swiss politics, to keep things stable and well balanced.
At the moment though, not everything is calm or stable, and Davis is covering it at a very interesting time and gave a run down of recent upsets. All fascinating stuff and in a way it was a shame that the session only lasted an hour as there was obviously more to be learned and Davis could only scratch the surface. But within the time he managed to give a good, broad overview. Some interesting facts came out, such as there are only four, three-week parliamentary sessions per year, that members of parliament do have other paid jobs, and that very few of them use the interpreting headphones available to them when the house is in session as most of them understand each other’s language.
Questions asked from the audience afterwards in the Geneva Welcome Centre ranged from how the no smoking in Geneva ban fell through, to the power that cantons hold and how they can set their own tax rate, to the ongoing discussions on European unificiation.
Such was the interest shown in the event that the evening was massively oversubscribed and Nir Ofek who co-runs social network Glocals said that members signed up within hours of the event being announced. There is obviously a thirst for this kind of evening and Davis was an excellent choice to kick this off. He himself knew little about Swiss politics when he first arrived here, but he now knows an awful lot, which the audience, keen to be less of a dummy themselves and learn more, really appreciated.
