Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Radio Frontier is about to go live, at least on the web, offering English speakers in the Lake Geneva region a new music and information service with a voice that will be familiar to many: Mark Butcher, who for several years hosted The Breakfast Show on WRG and later WRS radio, will be providing one of the key shows on Radio Frontier.
The new station was founded by Butcher and Peter Sibley, formerly of World Television in Geneva, to provide commercial radio with a very local slant that focuses on the French-Swiss border area.
RadioFrontier will initially be available at www.radiofrontier.ch, operating from new studios in Meyrin, with plans to expand in 2012.
Radio in English is growing
WRS and RadioFrontier are the only English stations in the region, although there are others, mainly available online, in Switzerland. They include Mountain Radio Verbier, also started by an ex-WRS employee, Conor Lennon.
Main sources of Swiss news in English
The new radio station boosts the English-language information offer that is produced in the region, whose main providers include:
- GenevaLunch, the main producer of regional online news and events listings in English
- public radio station WRS, World Radio Switzerland, which has a Swiss nationwide broadcast mandate and operates online and via DAB and FM
- swissinfo, the online English information arm of Swiss broadcasting, whose main mission is to keep overseas Swiss informed about their country
- Glocals, a local social network now connected to BuyClub.ch, for “group-buying deals”.
International Link is a non-profit organization started by the Vaud Chamber of Commerce to provide a business-based network for the area that introduces foreigners and Swiss people.
Swisster, an online English language news service started by Swiss publisher Edipresse, closed in December 2010.
There are several small local groups based in or near Geneva and Lausanne that provide a variety of services and products for English-speakers, some mainly for expatriates who are relatively new to Switzerland (see list at end).
Switzerland’s international population also attracts outside companies
In addition, Switzerland’s English speakers, viewed as well-educated and well-paid, are wooed by a number of social network and information groups based outside the region. Some, like AngloInfo, a business directory and forum, have strong local ties: the franchise is operated by a Geneva area resident, although some of the information comes from the larger parent group, whose roots are in the south of France.
Others have no, or very little, Swiss presence: Expatica is based in The Netherlands (note: they carry news from swissinfo and GenevaLunch news feeds, with our permission); the English Forum, a social network used by many newcomers to Switzerland, actually based in and moderated from Sweden and Germany and linked to a new news site called local.ch, run from Sweden.
Geneva.com is another “local” news site, run from Argentina.
GenevaLunch “friends”
Local information providers who offer good quality; some offer networking and others sell products:
Books, Books, Books in Lausanne
Expat-Expo, based in Zug
Know it All
Leman Events and Leman Expat Fair
Off the Shelf, online and in Geneva
Business clubs
American International Club
British-Swiss Chamber of Commerce
Executives International
Owit, Organization of Women in International Trade
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The massive exodus from Libya in recent weeks is “one of the biggest humanitarian evacuations in history” William Swing Lacy, director of the International Organization for Migration, told journalists Friday morning. The IOM and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued a rare joint press release to underscore their appeal to governments for additional new funding to help the streams of people, up to 2,000 a day, expected to flee Libya following the UN’s decision to create a no-fly zone and to allow military action by UN members.
The US has already committed $47 million, US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Betty King promptly responded, saying that the US will “will be reviewing the appeals carefully to determine how we can further respond”, and she urged other countries to do the same.
“I think we should with gratitude recognize the heroic efforts of IOM and UNHCR in spearheading an operation that has already assisted nearly 34,000 people return home. The suffering these people have endured in reaching Libya’s borders has been immense, and without UNHCR and IOM’s joint humanitarian evacuation operation that suffering would have been compounded. We cannot let this operation flounder for lack of funding.”
The UNHCR late Friday morning issued a new press release, reproduced here in full, which gives one of the clearest pictures to emerge of the efforts of people to flee Libya. Among the negative notes: Palestinians at the border with Egypt have been turned back, those fleeing describe numerous checkpoints and say cameras, cell phones and cards for these are being confiscated, while in Tunisia gunfire from across the border in Libya can be heard.
From the UNHCR:
UNHCR and partners have done extensive contingency planning and are
ready to work with the Egyptian Government to prepare for a massive
influx of people fleeing the violence in Libya. It is also possible
that the current conflict could cut off access to safe places and
passage out of the country. The events in the coming days will be
critical in determining whether mass displacement from the eastern part
of Libya takes place.
We have seen an increase in the number of Libyans fleeing into Egypt in
the past few days, with around 1,490 arriving on Wednesday, out of a
total of 3,163 people. The majority of those interviewed at the Egypt
border said that they left because of fear of being caught up in
fighting. Many mentioned the threats made by the Government in recent
days to bombard Benghazi.
A Libyan family from Ajdabiyya that crossed into Egypt yesterday told
UNHCR that radio broadcasts are telling the population that they should
leave or risk being caught up in combat. They also said that planes were
dropping pamphlets encouraging civilians to leave.
Violent clashes broke out along the Gaza-Egyptian border Wednesday 6 January when an aid delivery from the movement Viva Palestina was delayed in an Egyptian port. An Egyptian soldier died and scores of people were reportedly wounded, with CNN being told by one official that at least two people were in critical condition. The convoy of sedan cars was led by British Parliament Member George Galloway and has sparked some controversy.
Links to other sites: CNN, CS Monitor
When the snow melts, Switzerland and Italy will know how to draw their border
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The usual cement country border markers don’t work in the high Alps, partly because the snow is too deep and partly because the boundaries tend to shift as nature moves her mountains slightly. The Swiss Federal Council 19 August signed notes drawn up by Switzerland and Italy laying out the procedure for drawing the boundary line if the need arises.
The high Alps border covers a large area around several peaks, including Bernina, Mont Rosa, and around the Matterhorn and Mont Vélan.
Repairing the LHC, 100 metres underground, © CERN 2008
A view down into the LHC just weeks before it was sealed off, 2008
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Scientists at Cern (European Laboratory for Nuclear Research) in Geneva announced 6 August that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be switched on in mid-November, following the latest successful series of tests.
The LHC was started up in September 2008, and had to be switched off a week later, due to overheating and extensive damage to some of the magnets.
Cern's LHC, kilometres of tunnels under France and Switzerland
The latest tests involved the superconducting connections between the string of magnets, some of which revealed abnormally high resistance. It was this sudden increase in temperature in September that caused the nitrogen to heat and expand, severely damaging more than 50 magnets, each weighing almost 30 tonnes.
Geneva, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – Two men and a woman in their sixties and seventies, were stopped by customs officers at the Geneva-Croix-de-Rozon border early in the morning, and arrested when it appeared that they have been using a series – up to 25 in one case – of false documents to commit several crimes in Europe, including forgery, false documents and fraud. The new Schengen SIS shared identification system, in use at the border since August 2008, has allowed border guards to pick up 256 people sought by police within the Schengen area.
The cryosphere includes the area around the top of the Matterhorn in canton Valais
Rome, Italy (The Independent, UK) – This may come as a surprise to many Swiss, but Italy is planning to officially move the border with Switzerland. The Italian parliament is preparing a law for April that will legally change the border, fixed since 1861, redrawing the line through the cryosphere, or eternal snow area in the Alps. Melting glaciers are the primary reason.
