GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Apple is cutting the cost of mobile advertising, as the fight to woo advertisers for iPhones, iPads and Androids steps up. Last week the company announced that it will charge $100,000 for a campaign, a far cry from the original 2010 price of $1 million and a sharp cut from the recent $500,000 tab, reports Ad Age.
The price change is accompanied by two other key changes, the way in which advertisers are billed, which is being simplified, and the amount app developers will earn. Ad Age notes that “in addition, app developers will receive 70% of ad revenues from iAds running on their apps, vs. their previous 60% cut. The extra money will compensate for lower ad rates and serve as added incentive for developers to build businesses on Apple devices, even though they may grab a bigger audience or more ad revenue creating apps for Google’s Android devices, which now outnumber Apple smartphones in the U.S.
WWF suggests ways to reduce electricity consumption but keep holiday lights
Christmas decorations: WWF suggests ways to cut energy loss while still lighting up (photo: Coop, LED lights)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss households, in the five to six weeks around the Christmas holidays, use electricity for decorative lights that is the equivalent of a small town during an entire year.
Enough, says environmental group WWF: there are ways to decorate with lights that will significantly reduce energy use.
Some CHF8 million is spent burning 40 million kWh decorating homes with lights over the holidays, the same amount used by 10,000 households with four people during the course of a year.
The starting point is to use LED lights, which may mean throwing out your old lights and replacing them with more energy-efficient ones, with incandescent or halogen ones using four to seven times more electricty than LED.
Football and skiing cause greatest number of sports injuries, Swiss safety statistics show
Source: BPU 2011 (click on image to view larger)
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The greatest number of injuries to children around the home in Switzerland are due to falling from heights, while by age 26 falling on stairs becomes more of a problem.
By age 45 we become wiser about avoiding falls in general, until age 65 when we suddenly fall more often at level ground and once again from heights. But we remain far more careful about stairs in our old age.
The details of how and when we are likely to injure ourselves in accidents are part of the lastest Swiss safety statistics, published Wednesday 3 August by BPU, the Swiss Safety Council.
Accidents cost the country CHF55 million in 2008
The new figures, culled from 2008 statistics, underscore the often-ignored fact that accidents are a major and costly public health problem. Accidents caused more than 61,000 deaths in 2008, the most recent year for statistics and the one covered by the report.
Disease, by comparison, caused some 57,000 deaths.
The figures hold true for every age group: accidents at all ages take more lives than disease.
The total economic burden of all accidents in 2008 was CHF54.8 million, with home and leisure accidents accounting for more than half, CHF30 million. Road accidents cost more than the sports or home/leisure accidents when tangible costs alone are considered, but the longer-term cost of home and leisure accidents is more than double the figure for either road or sports accidents.
The statistics also show that for the three categories of road, sports and home/leisure accidents, the greatest number of people who are disabled or severely injured have had accidents at home, some 29,000. The figures for people disabled or severely injured by road accidents and sports are about the same: some 12,000 people in 2008 for each group.
The highest number of deaths, 1,538, was due to home accidents, followed by road accidents, 329, and sports accidents, 129.
Road accidents, however, carry the greatest risk of disability, severe injury or death, based on the rates in 2008. BPU registered 91,000 road accidents, 310,000 sports accidents and 600,000 home and leisure accidents.
Soccer has the highest per-hour-of-sport incidence of injuries
EPFL in Lausanne: foreigners pay just a bit more than Swiss students in fees
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss universities have the legal right to limit the number of foreign students in specific disciplines and they may charge higher fees than those for Swiss students, to reflect the real cost of providing the education.
A report to this effect was delivered to the Swiss Universities Rectors Conference (Crus) earlier in the year, Matthias Stauffacher, the group’s director general, confirmed Tuesday 2 August.
Swiss university students pay annual fees that are well below the cost of their education, between CHF500 and 1,300 a semester for basic fees for undergraduate students. St Gallen, which is the only Swiss university that currently has a quota for foreign students, 25 percent (it offers several programmes in English), charges foreign students less than CHF300 a year extra for foreign students.
Crus brochure, “Studying in Switzerland, Universities 2011″
Cucumbers: when will we learn to love them again?
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – “It’s the bean sprouts”, the source of the E. coli outbreak in Germany, Reinhard Burger, Germany’s head of infectious diseases programme, said Friday morning 10 June. The actual sprouts that are behind what the WHO labels the “the unusual enteroaggregative verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (EAggEC VTEC) O104:H4 bacterium” have not yet been pinpointed.
Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and Food Safety and the Robert Koch-Institute will publish a joint press release Friday.
The number of new infections has been falling in recent days, but E.coli itself has killed 6 people in Germany and the HUS complication has killed 26, with an additional death in Sweden, according to WHO worldwide figures for the outbreak. In total, 2,909 people have been infected.
The European Union said Tuesday it would set aside €210 million for farmers touched by the outbreak, but a European farmers organization, Colos, says the losses are reaching €400m a week. Spanish farmers, the largest fruit and vegetable producers in Europe, calculate they have lost €200m in business since the start of the outbreak at the end of April, and German farmers say they have lost €60m, according to news agency AFP/TSR (Fr).
A Swiss rubbish shed
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss may have a reputation for being among the world’s tidiest people, but the Federal Environment Department argues there is room for improvement.
It has just completed the first-ever calculation of how much it costs to clean up the country’s litter and the tally is CHF200 million, of which CHF50m is for rubbish left on public transport vehicles and the rest for rubbish left in public areas.
The cost comes to nearly CHF30 a person per year to sweep up cigarette butts, beverage and food containers and wrappers, which make up the bulk of the mess.
Taxes and public transport charges generally cover the cost, but the government once a year since 2008 has been holding a roundtable discussion to find creative solutions. It invites communes, cantons, manufacturers and industries such as the restaurant and food store businesses to take part. This year’s session will have not only precise figures to work with but clearly defined problem areas pinpointed, such as train station environs and public parks.
A panel of experts and government officials in Russia came together 27 April to “dispel the idea that road building is so corrupt that Russia’s notoriously bad roads are much more expensive than in Europe and the United States,” reports the Moscow Times. The question of cost, not to mention quality, has been in the news regularly since Ria Novosti, the government news agency, published figures in August 2010 that appeared to show Russia spending three times as much as the US to build one kilometre of road, with the cost rising to more than eight times as much if the road is in Moscow, compared to the US average.
Building 1km of a US road costs $5.9 million, according to Ria Novosti’s figures, while a European road is $6.9m and a Russian road $17.6m, unless it is in Moscow, in which case the cost is $51.7m. The article from August points out that the cost varies depending on several factors such as the number of lanes and the type of ground.
The Moscow Times quotes a Russian official who says that the higher cost isn’t just graft. “‘When roads are badly built, people blame corruption. You have to separate the flies from the meat patties; it’s not so simple,’ said government road technology expert Mikhail Pozdnyakov.” But the newspaper then adds that “The perception of road building as synonymous with graft is not completely unfounded. Road building is one of the most corrupt sectors, according to a recent analysis by the National Anti-Corruption Committee.”
The chairman of the committee meeting this week points out that one reason for cost differences is that in Europe the cost of buying the land is not included in the price of roads, whereas it is, in Russia.
An example of Geneva airport's new name and logo, unveiled 18 April
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – GVA is still there as the destination if you’re looking to book a flight to Geneva, but the airport’s name has changed and it has a new logo.
Genève Aéroport – note the accent and airport in French – was unveiled at a press conference Monday morning 18 April, where 2010 financial figures for the airport were shared.
The airport formerly known as Cointrin International Airport now boasts the name of its home base city, Genève, with a decision to use French to insist on the airport’s strong francophone ties.
Genève Aéroport spent CHF30,000 for the name and look change, to Atelier Zuppinger, the winner out of the six pre-selected communications agencies that bid on the job.
New signage will be put up throughout 2011.
English speakers, here’s a helping hand for pronouncing the new name of the airport correctly, but with a slight English accent!
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Natural catastrophes and manmade economic disasters cost the world $218 billion in 2010, more than three times the cost in 2009, Swiss Re, the Zurich reinsurer, said 29 March.
The loss of lives, 308,000 people, was the highest since 1976 and far higher than the 2009 figure of 15,000 lives lost, worldwide.
Earthquakes alone accounted for one-third of the financial cost.
A number of severe catastrophes claimed huge numbers of lives: “the deadliest event in 2010 was the Haiti earthquake in January, which claimed more than 222 000 lives. Nearly 56 000 people died during the summer heatwave in Russia. The summer floods in China and Pakistan also resulted in over 6 200 deaths”, according to Swiss Re, which insures insurance companies.
The cost to the insurance industry was $40b for natural catastrophes and $3b for manmade disasters.
Ten events at more than $1 billion each:
“The two biggest insured losses were caused by earthquakes – the February earthquake in Chile (USD 8 billion) and the September earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand (USD 4.4 billion). The third costliest event was winter storm Xynthia in Western Europe, which led to insured losses of USD 2.8 billion. Three storms in the US and two storms in Australia also generated losses of over USD 1 billion.
“Property claims from the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico are estimated at USD 1 billion. Given the complexity of the claims, the latter figure is still subject to substantial uncertainty. The overall insurance loss is higher, as liability losses are not included [in the report].”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s new head of criminal police services, François Schmutz, says that the amount of heroin on offer in Geneva has risen substantially, compared to 10 years ago. The price is considerably cheaper, he points out, making Geneva an attractive destination for buyers, 70-80 percent of whom come from outside the canton.
Heroin in other French-speaking cantons in Switzerland is CHF70-100 a gram, while in France it is 1.5 times that. The per gram cost in Geneva is just CHF28, Schmutz told Le Temps newspaper in the first interview he has given.
Stefan Lippe, CEO, Swiss Re
Final bill could be $6-12 billion
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The cost of last week’s earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, is expected to be around $800 million, based on currently available information, Swiss Re says in a statement issued Thursday 3 March. The company’s chief executive Stefan Lippe notes that the human toll, in deaths and injuries, is heavy “despite the advanced risk prevention measures that are in place in New Zealand”.
The final cost could be $6 to 12 billion for the total range of loss to the insurance industry.
Buildings are insured by the government’s earthquake commission for up to about $75,000 for the building and $15,000 for contents. Home-owners can buy additional coverage.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss Federal Council is proposing to raise the cost of train tickets by 10 percent and to double the annual road tax for which drivers now pay CHF40, for an autoroute sticker.
The price increases would cover the long-term infrastructure of the road and rail systems, says the council.
Today’s budgets for the heavily used systems do not cover the cost of the rail infrastructure as well as the need to expand the system due to the continually growing population of passengers, the federal transport department argues.
The council’s proposals, which will need to be fleshed out and then opened to public consultation, are in response to a popular initiative “for public transport” and will serve on the ballot as a counter-proposal.
There is clear agreement that more money is needed to expand the public transport system, but as TSR points out the real question is who will pay.
Links to other sites: Bern’s proposal with details of road and rail traffic forecasts, reaction of ATE (transport and environment association, which is sponsoring the popular initiative)
Source: Swiss Department of Transport, Energy and Communications
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Annual stickers for Swiss autoroutes go on sale Wednesday 1 December for CHF40. The 2011 sticker is valid from 1 December 2010 to 31 January 2012.
Current 2010 stickers are valid until 31 January 2011.
The new stickers have a silver background with the year in light blue on one side and white on the other. The old sticker must be removed and the new one placed on the inside of the windscreen, following the instructions that come with the sticker.
Motorbikes should have the sticker on the windscreen, but if the bike doesn’t have one it should be placed on another part of the bike that is not an easily interchangeable part, according to customs officials. Some bikers put it under the saddle.
They are sold by garages, post offices, car dealers and at customs posts.
Switzerland has an annual sticker in place of road tolls, to finance the autoroute system. The fine for travelling without a sticker is CHF100.
The cost of diabetes in the US could soar to $3.35 trillion from 2010-2020, with the government footing 60 percent, the bulk of the bill, if Americans don’t start to take off pounds, says the country’s largest health insurance group, United Health of Minnesota. Diabets currently costs the US $195 billion. The number of Americans with high blood sugar will climb from 93.8 million in 2010 to 135 million by 2020, a new study released 23 November by the group shows.
The figures follow a study published in October 2010 by the US Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta that shows one in three US adults could have diabetes by 2050. “One in 10 US adults has diabetes now,” the CDC reported. “The prevalence is expected to rise sharply over the next 40 years due to an aging population more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, increases in minority groups that are at high risk for type 2 diabetes, and people with diabetes living longer, according to CDC projections.”
An independent review mandated by the British government has concluded that universities should be allowed to charge more than the currrent limit of £3,290 a year per student. If Lord Browne of Madingley’s plan is adopted, the recommendation could prompt a major increase in fees, up to £36,000 for a three-year degree programme. The coalition government is likely to run up against stiff opposition if it allows higher fees: the Liberal Democrat party in the coalition made an election promise to ban the fees altogether.
The study also recommended that funding be provided for 10 percent more places to meet the rising demand for university degree-level education and that students be given a higher earning threshold before they are required to start paying back their loans, from the current £15,000 a year to $21,000.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The village of Cartigny, which has the largest programme in the Geneva area for heating homes with wood, is suffering the fallout of an unexpected price hike, the Tribune de Geneve reports. Rumours have been circulating about the increase and a public meeting will be held 30 September to review the situation.
Cartigny, population 816, lies southwest of the city of Geneva, on the agricultural plain bordering the Rhone river
The village of 816 people saves 800,000 litres of heating oil a year and avoids adding 2,000 tons of CO2 to the air, making the project popular with green-minded citizens and a model for other villages. It carries the label “Cartigny, cité de l’energie” since receiving a “European energy award”.
Eight out of 10 residents, some 650, have used the village’s “distance heating” wood fuel station for home heating since Cartigny closed down its heating oil operations in 2008. The kWh (kilowatt hour) price has risen this year from 14 centimes to 19, overtaking the price of heating oil, calculated as 17 c per kWh when all costs are taken into account.
WHO says over 50% population obese in 10 Pacific islands, causing host of health problems
Adolescents learn good eating habits at a youth centre in Port Vila, Vanuatu (photo: Unicef /Giacomo Pirozzi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Three Pacific Island regions, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia are home to 10 islands whose populations are suffering from growing health problems, with obesity at the root of the problem. Imported foods are the main culprit, says the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.
WHO surveys show that in at least 10 Pacific island countries, more than 50 percent of the population is overweight.
Obesity prevalence ranges from more than 30% in Fiji to a “staggering 80 percent among women in American Samoa”, a territory of the USA, says the organization.
Overweight is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) equal to or more than 25, and obesity as a BMI equal to or more than 30.
“Promotion of traditional foods has fallen by the wayside. They are unable to compete with the glamour and flashiness of imported foods,” says Dr Temo K Waqanivalu, the WHO’s technical officer for nutrition and physical activity for the South Pacific.
Fewer imports and more fresh, local food, including fish and vegetables, are needed in people’s diets, he says.
Imported food in the past came mainly from Australia and New Zealand, but much of it now comes from China, Malaysia and the Philippines. These foods are often energy-dense and nutritionally poor, such as highly refined cereals and fatty meat, according to the Pacific Food Summit.
Lack of food safety regulations is a problem, with old, damaged and contaminated products arriving in the market as well as products with low mineral content that are high in sugar and fat.
Airlines cost estimate: €1.5-2.5b
The European Commission said Wednesday that April’s volcanic ash debacle, which closed airspace in much of Europe for several days, cost the tourism industry at least €1 billion, mainly to travel agents, tour operators and hotels, said the commission’s vice president, Antonio Tajani, responsible for industry and entrepreneurship. The initial estimates were accompanied by first figures for the cost to airlines, expected to be €1.5-2.5 billion.
Hydroelectric station, canton Valais, Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Electricity price increases announced in 2009 by several suppliers were provisionally rejected in July 2009 by Bern as unnecessarily high, and Monday 8 March the federal electricity commission confirmed this. The commission’s report says that the increases were based on costs that were over-estimated in some cases and unacceptable inefficiency in other cases. The energy companies have the right to appeal, but if they do not the rate hikes will have to be abandoned.
The companies concerned are: Alpiq, BKW, Axpo (Axpo AG, CKW, EGL), EWZ and Rätia Energie, along with a number of smaller firms.
Keeping Swiss garages busy: traffic on the A1 autoroute in winter
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Touring Club Suisse has launched new online service, available in French and German, to help you calculate the cost of repairing your car.
The new service also makes it possible to compare what your garage is charging with average rates. TCS has set up the ervice based on its 30 years of experience in the field, with its own figures used for a database. Car owners can search by model and age.
Among its recommendations:
- try to use the same garage regularly
- intervals for car services have become shorter, but if the recommended one for your car is long, you are still responsible for ensuring that oil and water levels, for example, are maintained
- keep in mind that the hourly rate at garages varies from CHF80 to 180 but the average is CHF145 an hour
- overall, calculate that a car driven 15,000 km a year will require between CHF2,000 and 6,000 to service by 180,000 km.
Update 13 February: this is beautiful Swiss snow on Saturday!
Video (and skier): Anton Muller, at Bec Rond, Entremont, canton Valais, Switzerland (his photos and film clips on flickr)
Carnivals, cold, the down side of off-piste, Verbier and Jura reports
Verbier's February snow! (photo: Jessica Evans)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Glorious snow, biting cold in some places some of the time: call it winter in Switzerland! This weekend promises to be one of the best, with good crowds on the slopes, carnival starting in many areas, conditions great for skiing, sledding, ice-skating and more.
Weather forecast
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The cost of subscribing to a Swiss daily newspaper will rise in 2010, between 1 and 11 percent, to keep in step with increased costs and lower advertising revenues. The rise is even greater in reality in some cases such as the NZZ, when a mid-2009 increase is taken into account, notes ats/TSR. The newspaper’s editor, Markus Spillmann, has written to subscribers saying that “High quality information is an expensive product.”
The traditional income balance has been one-third subscriptions and two-thirds advertising, but with the latter falling dramatically for several months, readers are now being asked to foot a larger share of the bill. Newstand prices are also set to rise.
The rising cost of Swiss papers, according to ats/TSR, includes:
- Le Matin and 24 Heures, CHF379 to CHF389
- Le Temps, 11 percent, from current price of CHF432 for 13 months
- NZZ, from CHF488 to CHF512.
Background, GenevaLunch
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Some of Switzerland’s banks and insurance companies, all multinationals, could well be among those identified by the Basel-based Financial Stability Board as companies that need more regulation because of inherent risks. But the FSB denies Tuesday 1 December, that a Monday report in the Financial Times which lists companies is wrong and that it does not have such a list because such risks are situation-specific and change over time.
Natural catastrophe losses like to be down sharply in 2009
The good news for insurers is that catastrophes are likely to cost them far less in 2009, down by 59 percent compared to 2008.
Health care debate (cartoon: © 2009 Patrick Chappatte)
New York, USA (GenevaLunch) – Economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times (registration required) 17 August says of President Barack Obama’s proposed health plan that “it most resembles the system in Switzerland.” More pointedly, he says that unlike what many, including Fox News, would like the public to believe, the plan will not turn the US into a Soviet Union or a distorted version of Britain, but rather: “the truth is that the plans on the table would, roughly speaking, turn America into Switzerland – which may be occupied by lederhosen-wearing holey-cheese eaters, but wasn’t a socialist hellhole the last time I looked.”
Obamacare, he says, “is a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.”
Krugman has pointed to this similarity several times recently, prompting debate over how well the US could adopt the Swiss mandatory and well-regulated but largely private system, but facts about the Swiss system are few on the ground in the US debate.
A three-part special on housing and the international population in the Lake Geneva region: part 2
- Nominal GDP in the Lake Geneva region, Wuest & Partner index for aptmts, houses: 1998=100
Rents, Lake Geneva region increases compared to Switzerland, 2007
(Also see part 1:Geneva, Vaud apartment hunters struggle to find a place to call home)
Ed. note: click on images to enlarge
True or false
Rents have climbed continually in the Lake Geneva region
Mostly true, with rent increases outstripping those in the rest of Switzerland since 2002, when the rental market momentarily slipped.
True or false
The sale price of homes has climbed continually in the Lake Geneva region in the past 20 years
Overall, yes, up 179 percent from 1977-2008, but up 30 percent in 30 years in real terms: with cost of living increases taken into account. The increase has not been steady, however, with a big dip in the early 1990s, Swiss-wide, when easier mortgages led to a sudden bubble in prices, which then burst. Stricter rules were put in place: a home-owner’s debt cannot exceed 80 percent of the value of the property.
