Geneva-Servette Hockey Club players, here training, are more fit than the average person in Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland takes the country’s health pulse once every five years, and the 2010 results, published 2 November, show too many Swiss remain overweight, at 34 percent of the population, with 8 percent considered obese. Only two in five persons has an adequate level of exercise. That said, the Swiss generally consider themselves to be in good health, 87 percent. The weight and exercise figures might be higher than health authorities would like, but the reassuring news is that the Swiss national waistline has stopped expanding.
The number of overweight people in Switzerland grew steadily from 1990 to 2002, up from 30 percent of the population, but since 2002 it has remained stable at 37 percent.
Other key findings of the survey, based on questionnaires given to 18,760 individuals residing in Switzerland:
French workers are on strike again Tuesday 12 October, for the third time in the past 30 days, over government plans to raise the age for pensions from 65 to 67, and the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62. But today’s strikes have a different tone, with major unions scheduled to vote at the end of the day over starting rolling strikes, which would mean advance notice for one-day strikes that could be renewed, by vote, at the end of each day.
Half of French flights have been cancelled Tuesday, and rail service and public transport are badly disrupted. A three-week-old strike in Marseilles is blocking oil tankers, pushing up the price of diesel throughout Europe, according to the BBC.
Swiss births up, new mothers older, divorces down
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Foreigners made up 21.98 percent of the Swiss resident population in 2009, figures released by the Federal Statistics Office show, a relatively stable percentage. Overall, the resident population of Switzerland continued to grow at a steady pace, to 7,783,000, with a foreign population of 1,711,000. The increase in the total population was due mainly to a positive migratory figure (immigration minus emigration), with immigration accounting for 81 percent of the total growth.
The birth rate rose by 2 percent, with both the Swiss and foreigners showing increases.
A 12-year-old Saudi Arabian girl, married a year ago to an 80-year-old man, is receiving help from the country’s Human Rights Commission in what could turn out to be a test case. Marriages of young girls to older men are not uncommon in some parts of the country and are legal, but a draft law under consideration would create a minimum of 16-18 years. The girl’s mother reportedly filed for her daughter to divorce but withdrew it a month ago without explanation.
A team of researchers using advanced oil-drilling equipment has determined that the Amazon River and its basin were formed in the Miocene period, between 11.8 and 11.3 million years ago. It took its present form about 2.5mn years ago. The age of the river has previously been a source of scientific speculation. Researchers from the University of Liverpool, reporting in the journal Geology, examined bore samples of the river’s deep-sea fan from the outer continental shelf. The bore samples were provided by Petrobras, Brazil’s state oil company. The formation of the Amazon was closely linked to the formation of the Andes mountain range at about the same time.
