ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Rudolf Elmer, ex-Bank Julius Baer manager who brought charges against his former employer for meancing him, dropped them Thursday 17 November when he appeared in court to appeal his earlier sentencing on a number of charges. A Zurich court ruled against his appeal but this was later overturned by the Swiss federal high court.
ATS Swiss news agency says he would not say if he was offered money by his ex-employer to drop the charges, and that he continued to say the bank had menaced him.
He was given a suspended sentence in January 2011 for threats and theft related to banking data he stole several years ago. He appealed the fines and suspended sentence he was given, and the Swiss federal court ordered the Zurich court to accept his appeal. Today, in court, AST reports, he became bogged down in contradictory statements about emails and faxes related to the theft.
Shortly after being released in January he was re-arrested on charges of breaking Switzerland’s bank secrecy laws, related to sharing data with WikiLeaks. The arrest followed an appearance in public with Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, to talk about sharing the documents.
Elmer still faces these charges.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The murder convictions of American Amanda Knox and her one-time boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, could be overturned by a court in Perugia in central Italy Monday 3 October, but the prosecution says it will appeal if the earlier verdict is quashed, and that life sentences will be demanded.
The case of the murder of British university student Meredith Kercher in Perugia in a drug-fueled sexual assault, as the lower court described it, has held the attention of world media for the past four years, since the couple was arrested shortly after the 2 November 2007 murder. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito to 25 years. Knox in particular has provoked deeply divided views of her role.
Links to other sites: CBC, Canada, Seattle PI, Daily Telegraph, UK
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Red Cross’s blood donor programme, Transfusion CRS Suisse, launched an emergency public appeal Monday 18 July for more donors during the next four weeks.
Supplies are dangerously low, the group says, and hospitals may be required to postpone surgeries if adequate supplies are not available.
Summer is a low donor period, but the last time supplies fell this low was during the World Cup in 2010, accompanied by a hot spell, which cut the number of donors.
This year the problem is linked to unexpectedly high needs from a number of hospitals.
Transfusion CRS Suisse, an independent group with a federal mandate to maintain hospital and emergency supplies coverage, plans to distribute 1,000 posters in train stations and on trains in the next four weeks, as part of the appeal.
Details about the requirements and how to give blood are available on the group’s web site, www.transfusion.ch and by telephone from a free number, in French: 0800 000 757.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The International Migration Organization in Geneva Monday 20 September launched a new, second major appeal to international donors, for help aiding victims of Pakistan’s ongoing flood crisis. The IOM is asking for $114 million in new funds to help the 20 million people affected by the country’s worst-ever flooding. It follows a August appeal for $38m for three-month emergency funds, of which £22m in pledges have come in, mainly from the US, UK, Canada, Sweden, Japan and the UN.
The new appeal covers projects to run through July 2011 and includes money for:
- Emergency and longer term shelter, and coordination of the Emergency Shelter Cluster ($70m)
- Community restoration, including debris removal and repair of damaged infrastructure ($26m)
- Staff and procurement support for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) ($4m)
- Logistics and transport for aid agencies and the NDMA ($3m)
- Mass communications for disaster-affected populations ($3m)
- Emergency health care and restoration of primary health care ($2m)
- Distribution of tool kits to help people to restart their livelihoods and rebuild their houses ($2m)
- Displacement camp coordination and camp management ($2m)
- Prevention of human trafficking ($1m)
Details of IOM’s Pakistan funds appeal
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - Swissinfo, the multi-language Internet arm of Swiss Broadcast Corporation, is stepping up its appeal to the public to sign a petition intended to help it survive. The news and information site, whose global reach is greater than that of TSR (Swiss public television) or the Tribune de Geneve, according to web-monitoring company Alexa, is threatened by budget cuts that staff say will mean its death.
They shared an appeal this week:
“As part of its 2011-2013 saving plans the government proposes to cut its SFr13m contribution to swissinfo’s budget which would effectively result in our death. The executive board of our parent company, SSR SRG idée suisse, swissinfo’s public advisory board and the executive board of the Swiss abroad organization have all expressed their public opposition to this proposal.
International sports, football
Update 19:42 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Franck Ribéry will not play in the Champions League final, the Swiss-based court, Cas, ruled late Monday. The Bayern Munich’s French player Franck Ribéry was in Lausanne with the club’s president, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and lawyers, Monday 17 May to plead with Cas (the international Court of Arbitration for Sport) for his football match suspension to be limited to one game, time off that he’s already served. He was given a three-match suspension for a dangerous tackle against Lisandro in a match with Lyons.
The tribunal said it will issue an explanation within a few days. It is the final court of appeals in sport.
Refugees from Equator province, November 2009, when number reached 100,000 http://www.flickr.com/photos/unhcr/4271338608/ (photo: BB Diallo/UNHCR)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Several United Nations offices appealed Tuesday morning 9 March in Geneva for an urgent infusion of aid money to meet the needs of 110,000 refugees in northern Republic of Congo’s Likouala province. Eighty-two percent are women and children who fled fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Equateur Province. UNHCR is asking for $20 million.
The request is part of a broader appeal by UN agencies, who say they have received only $17.3 million of the nearly $59 million the need for refugees from the Equator region in the country in 2010. Partners in the appeal are: the World Food Programme, Unicef, the World Health Organization, Unesco, the UN Development Programme, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization and the UNFPA.
The refugees fled from Equator province in late October 2009 “when Enyele militiamen launched deadly assaults on ethnic Munzayas over fishing and farming rights in the Dongo area,” the UNHCR says.
Finma appeals to Supreme Court
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s financial market supervisory authority, Finma, has decided to appeal to the country’s supreme court in the UBS client data case. A lower court had found it acted wrongly in ordering UBS to turn over the names of 300 of the bank’s US clients to the US tax authorities in February 2009.
Finma’s board voted 21 January to take its case to the Federal Supreme Court, saying it (Finma) “is using the opportunity to have Switzerland’s supreme court pass judgment on the extent of the Financial Market Supervisory Authority’s legal latitude in crisis situations.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s Rom population has received support from the canton’s justice system in its ongoing fight with the police over begging in the city. An appeals court Thursday 17 December upheld an earlier decision that a group had been arrested illegally, and their fines have been overturned. In some cases the fines had been turned into jail time, when those caught begging did not have the money to cover their fines.
The ruling could affect thousands of other fines, 20 Minutes was told by Mesemrom, a group that represents Rom interests in Geneva.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The two guides who worked with a military team scaling the Jungfrau when an avalanche hit and killed six in the group now face the possibility of a new trial. The prosecutor in the case Wednesday 25 November filed an appeal against the judgement last Thursday that acquitted the two guides, who were awarded damages.
Background: Guides acquitted in Jungfrau military accident, 20 November 2009, GenevaLunch
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres 11 May announced that his organization is chartering a Boeing 747 to transport emergency items to Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, at a cost of $584,000. Much more will be needed, he noted in an appeal to the international community for financial assistance and solidarity to help hundreds of thousands of Pakistani civilians displaced by recent heavy fighting in the region.
