London, England (GenevaLunch) - There is enormous pressure on British university places for autumn 2010, with an estimated shortfall of 170,000 places.
The results will add to pressures on students from the international schools in Switzerland, who generally take the International Baccalaureate rather the A levels, as fewer places will be available for those who just missed their targets in the IB exams.
The proportion of candidates getting an A* in A levels is approximately the same as those receiving a maximum “7″ in an IB exam.
The long-awaited UK 2010 Advanced Level university entrance exams results were released Thursday 19 August and show yet another improvement in grades, for the 28th consecutive year.
American and Swiss landscape architecture students visit the gardens of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland accompanied by IUCN's Master Gardener Florian Meier. Foreground: JJ Obee from Ohio State looking at a native shrub in IUCN's garden. (photo, US Mission Geneva / Eric Bridiers)
Update 11:55 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – The US Mission to the UN in Geneva has begun a project with a group of nine American and three Swiss university landscape students to help “green” the grounds of the Mission.
The students, selected by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in Washington, DC, which is the Mission’s partner for the project, are spending the first two weeks of August studying the Mission’s grounds. They will then draft a sustainable landscape design that can be phased in, over five years.
More than 130 applications were received by ASLA and screened to select a team with the widest breadth of skills, talents, and experience.
In addition, Craig Verzone, an American landscape architect based in Switzerland, worked with the Mission to identify three Swiss students to be part of the team and to share Swiss expertise in this area.
The project is part of a larger US State Department commitment to sustainable design at its dipomatic facilities.
Geneva site aims to be greenest US diplomatic building in Europe
The prominence of the Mission building in international Geneva and the fact that it is regularly visited by diplomats and political figures from around the world for meetings, such as the recent negotiations on the new Start nuclear treaty, were factors when the State Department selected Geneva as its “”Flagship Post for Energy and Sustainability”.
Solar panels at the US Mission in Geneva are part of a larger US State Department effort to make diplomatic buildings, grounds greener
The building is the site of the installation of the largest solar energy project ever undertaken by the State Department overseas. It is home to an innovative magnetic levitation (MaglevTM) chiller air conditioning system that runs a virtually friction-free compressor.
Conserving the variety of plant and animal life is also a priority, and in 2009 the Mission became the first State Department facility to earn certification by the US National Wildlife Federation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat.
Crowds for EPFL open house, Geneva wines Open Day and CGN party to celebrate steamboat’s 100 years
Hands-on science lessons during EPFL open house in Lausanne
Update 18:20 Geneva / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The first weekend after the two long spring holiday weekends are always filled with events in the Lake Geneva region, and 2010 was no exception. The crowds turned out again for the Geneva wines Open Day Saturday 29 May, with English-speakers taking part (Ed. note: the Tribune de Geneve carries an article about the number of expats present and interviews one who after eight years in the city speaks two words of French, which has prompted negative comments).
It is hard to calculate how many people turned out, says Denis Beausoleil, director of the Geneva cantonal wine office, but clearly it was in the thousands, and this year the weather was perfect, not too warm, and the small amount of overcrowding and drunkeness that marred a couple previous Open Days seems to have disappeared. “It was a day that reflected the vintage, the excellent 2009 wine!” says Beausoleil. The 2009 harvest is generally reckoned to be one of the best in years, and the Open Day provided consumers a chance to sample the goods.
This is the first year wine producers have tried a system where visitors pay CHF5 for their glass, but they can keep the same glass for the day. The feedback from wineries is that the system worked well.
EPFL packs in visitors
La Suisse, queen of the Belle Epoque fleet on Lake Geneva, celebrates her 100th birthday in style
Two out of the ordinary events took place that also attracted crowds. EPFL, the polytechnic institute near Lausanne, held its first open house in seven years to give the public an opportunity to visit its new Rolex Learning Center, but also to see firsthand the multitude of physical changes taking place on the campus, and to explore its growing number of programmes. The university estimates that some 25,000 people visited during the two days, Saturday and Sunday. Sixteen centres, with 1,200 staff and student volunteers explained some of EPFL’s strong points, such as its nanotechnology work, the Blue Brain project, work on robots and architecture. The open house brought to an end a week-long official inauguration for the Rolex Learning Center.
Nearby, in Lausanne, La Suisse, a beautiful old steamboat and one of the gems of the CGN Belle Epoque fleet that is the world’s largest, celebrated her 100th birthday Sunday, after a colourful Saturday in Geneva and an evening cruise up to the other end of the lake. Hundreds took advantage of the celebrations for short tours on the boat, which was dressed up in the outfit it wore its first day out in 1910: flags from all the cantons and 30 masts.
La Suisse will operate on the upper end of the lake from 13 June to 12 September, stopping at: Lausanne, Pully, Lutry, Cully, Rivaz, Vevey, Clarens, Montreux, Chillon, Villeneuve, Le Bouveret and St Gingolph.
Swiss unemployment stable in fourth quarter, 2010 outlook brighter
More people working in Swiss healthcare
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Lake Geneva region showed the strongest growth in employment in the fourth quarter of 2009, up 1.1 percent. Zurich was the only other area to show growth, 0,9 percent. Overall, Swiss unemployment remained stable, with a slight slip of 0.3 percent compared to the same period in 2008.
Fourth quarter figures for Swiss unemployment published Thursday morning 25 February show with significant differences between industry, where the number of jobless continues to rise, and the services sector, where the jobless rate is falling. The outlook for 2010 appears to be brighter, according to Federal Statistical Office forecasts, with an increase in the number of jobs available. For the first time in five quarters, industry looks set to increase the number of jobs open, after seasonal worker adjustments to the figures.
The number of people actively working rose by 0.3 percent in 2009, thanks to women, whose presence in the workforce increased by 0.8 percent, while the number of men working fell by 0.1 percent.
EPFL conference centre: exterior view from west
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A conference centre that will be Europe’s most modern in 2012 will soon see the light of day on the northern edge of the Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute (EPFL). The university hopes to attract world-class scientific meetings to the centre, which will house a main auditorium of up to 3,000 seats along with five lesser meeting rooms of up to 250 seats each.
Work on the complex should start in the summer. It will include parking and access to the rest of the EPFL campus. The centre itself includes housing for 500 students and a commercial zone, including medical facilities.
French Alps, seen from Celigny, Vaud in Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Frontaliers (cross-border workers) are said by some to be at the root of many of Geneva’s social problems, from traffic to crime to unemployment. These concerns among Geneva’s voters were reflected in last weekend’s elections to the cantonal parliament, or Grand Conseil, which gave the right-wing Mouvement des Cityoyens Genevois (MCG) an increase of 8 seats to 17, out of 100.
Le Temps asks in a lengthy article 16 October if there is any truth to the concerns that MCG raises, namely that frontaliers cause the problems of which they are accused.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The man suspected of aiding terrorism who was arrested by French police 8 October was charged in Paris Monday 12 October and it appears likely he will remain in detention. Internet surveillance of terrorist groups led investigators to e-mail exchanges the 32-year-old man had with terrorist groups. Swiss television TSR quotes a source close to the man’s file who says that he had not moved to the stage of being involved in planning attacks but that he had shown his interest and desire to do so.
Cern LHC tunnel that runs under Geneva and neighbouring France
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Cern (European Centre for Nuclear Research) confirmed over the weekend that a man arrested with his brother in the south of France Thursday 8 October has worked at Cern since 2003 as a contract employee for an outside company, not as a Cern employee. “His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism,” the organization says in a press release, noting that “Cern is a particle physics research laboratory whose research addresses fundamental questions about the universe. None of our research has potential for military application.”
French authorities say the two men, whose identity has not been released, were taken into custody in Vienne, south of Lyons.
Metal glass (top), traditional magnesium alloy (bottom), © 2009 ETH Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A substance that can stabilize broken bones as they heal, then is absorbed by the body when it is no longer needed, has been developed by materials researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (FITZ). The new material, called metal glass, is an alloy of magnesium, zinc and calcium that is cooled extremely rapidly to prevent it from forming the typical crystalline structure of a metal. The team announced the news in the science journal Nature Materials.
[includes video] Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two Boston University student interns, one at the World Health Organization, the other at the World Trade Organization, were interviewed by their university’s BU Today, on video, about their experience working in international organizations in Geneva.
The accompanying article and video are reproduced with permission from BU.
By Devin Hahn. Text by Benjamin Hall.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like I had a bit of an edge, having studied under the bright minds at the World Health Organization,” says Tara Vaughn.
Vaughn spent last fall in the Geneva Internship Program, taking courses and working at the WHO in the strategic information unit, focusing on prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS. Her courses featured daily speakers from different realms of public health, and topics included abortion rights, public health issues that arise from natural disasters, and climate change.
Harvard and Yale universities posted heavy losses in their endowment funds in the fiscal year to 30 June. Harvard lost $11 billion, or 27.5 percent, and Yale lost 30 percent to $16b. The university endowment funds invested heavily in hedge funds and private equity, which have suffered during the financial crisis. Both universities have responded by cutting costs and curtailing planned investment. Harvard has laid off staff and is stopping an ambitious construction project. Yale has projected a $150 million operating budget deficit for the next three years. The universities’ investment managers were among the world’s top investment performers over the past 10 years. Harvard Crimson, Reuters
EPFL, campus in Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A group based mainly at EPFL in Lausanne have identified a molecule that may provide a stronger tool in the fight against excess weight and diabetes type 2, both of which are increasing at alarming rates worldwide, according to the journal Cell Metabolism.
Researchers Kristina Schoonjans, Johan Auwerx, Hiroyasu Yamamoto and Chikage Matakiand at EPFL, the Lausanne federal polytechnic university, working with Charles Thomas at EPFL and Roberto Pellicciari at the University of Perugia in Italy, say the selective molecule, called INT-777, can activate the TGR5 protein. TGR5 controls secretion of a hormone that has a critical role in pancreatic function and regulating blood sugar levels.
To Facebook or not? That is the question in Payerne
Payerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Several students of the Gymnase Intercantonal de la Broye (GYB), a secondary school in canton Vaud, thought when school re-opened last week that they had lost access to Facebook and Messenger while in school. Online chatting and access to social platforms is still alive and well for the 900 students at GYB, the principal says.
According to school principal Thierry Maire, the bans, reported 1 September by some Swiss media, is not quite what the school is implementing.
Alem Kitmama, Ethiopia: safe water is a major health problem (image: WHO)
Updated 20 August Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Much-touted low-cost, easily applied solar treatments to disinfect water are not reducing diarrhea as expected, says a team at the Swiss Tropical Institute-University of Basel (STI). The group recommends that “Further global promotion of Sodis for general use should be undertaken with care until such evidence is available.” Daniel Maeusezahl and his team have published their findings from studies carried out in Bolivia in PLoS Medicine, a scientific journal.
Their report is a blow to hopes that developing countries can use a readily available, inexpensive solution to the often-deadly problem of diarrhea due to untreated water. Pneumonia, diarrhea and malnutrition account for most of the 10.8 million child deaths that occur annually around the world and an estimated 60 percent of these are preventable according to the STI.
The problem lies not so much in the science as in humans using the solution correctly, it appears. Ed note: a discussion comment on the study, by Zulfiqar A Bhutta, Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan interprets the study somewhat differently: “The failure of some plausible interventions when implemented at scale may also reflect a failure of delivery strategies rather than an ineffective intervention.” (see Frank Stinger comment here)
Children are slowly returning to school during August in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, scene of fighting in recent months. The CS Monitor in a feature about schools re-opening even though the buildings have often been destroyed, refers to “tenuous signs of a return to normalcy.” The Monitor says 80,000 girls are among the children whose educations were interrupted first by a Taliban ban early in 2009, then by fighting between Taliban and government forces.
Update 13:45 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss Federal Council (cabinet) met Monday 10 August in an extraordinary session that had sparked speculation they could be meeting to discuss the ongoing UBS court case in the US. Council members were briefed on the case, Swiss news agency ats was told by the Swiss vice-chancellor, André Simonazzi, who refused any further comment and insisted that no further information will be provided until the negotiations between the US and Switzerland for an out of court settlement are concluded.
UBS not mentioned, but Swiss cabinet takes economic measures to fight crisis
Instead, the Council took steps to create the necessary legal base that will allow the Swiss parliament to put in place a series of measures to help the country cope with the economic crisis.
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.
Liam Bates, aka Li-Mu, back in Switzerland
Update: Liam won third place in the 2010 competition
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Liam Bates arrived home to the Lake Geneva region in Switzerland from China 28 July with more than the six-month scholarship he won from the Chinese government as a finalist in its international university competition for Mandarin speakers: he had a broken leg plus damaged shoulder from a motorcycle accident and headed straight for the CHUV (university hospitals) in Lausanne, scheduled for an urgent skin graft.
He also had several hundred new fans from among the two million television viewers who watched the popular annual “Chinese Bridge” competition that rewards the world’s best students of China’s language and culture.
The competitor who hobbled onto the stage to give a speech four days after surgery on his leg, explaining why he wouldn’t be showing them wushu (kung fu) moves, caught the crowd’s eye.
But it was the large-screen background clip from a film of his travels across their country – a journey few Chinese have made – that sent his Chinese web site traffic zooming up by almost 10,000 percent in just days.
"Mao, Motorbikes and a Yak" film: the journey
Bates and three friends had completed a 7,000 km journey on motorcycles across China shortly before the competition, filming conversations with young Chinese about their dreams and hopes for the future.
Title: The library to the street
Location: Geneva
Description: During two weeks, the Paquis library moves to the street. Books and games will be available to children of all ages from 14:00 to 17:00 Monday through Friday.
17 Rue du Mole
1201 Geneva
Tel: +41 (0) 22 900 05 82
Take bus #1 (Navigation), or trams 13 or 15 (Môle).
Start Date: 03 Aug 2009
End Date: 21 Aug 2009
Unicef poster
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Revised estimates of the global trade in small arms show that it increased 28 percent between 2000 and 2006, the latest year figures are available, an annual survey of small arms published by Geneva’s Graduate Institute shows. The value of official transfers of small arms, ammunition, parts and accessories is estimated to be in excess of the previous estimate of $4 billion.
Illicit trade is possibly $100 million.
Image: ©2009 Helvetiq
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Quick – what’s the Matterhorn called in French and how long is the Swiss president’s term of office? How many cantons does Switzerland have and what makes raclette different from other cheeses? Don’t know?
Whether you are new to Switzerland or have been here all your life it is difficult to truly fit in if you are not familiar with the local cultural heritage. There is a new way to build up knowledge and have fun at the same time: a game called Helvetiq, originally designed to help people applying for Swiss nationality, which comes out in English 1 August, Switzerland’s national holiday. The game came out in French earlier this year and sold 7,000 copies in its first eight months. Among other buyers: communes, including Vevey, Crans-près-
Celigny, Attalens and Penthalaz, have bought it to help local people prepare to become citizens.
New Media campaign against A/H1N1
[public health video] Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The fight against the A/H1N1 virus in the French-speaking part of Switzerland is taking on a new face, a drag face.
The Federal Office of Public Health has started its swine flu awareness media campaign, “United against the flu” with a bit of humour: a comedian dressed in drag.
Torsten Åkesson, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, et José Manuel Silva Rodriguez
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The European Research Area is significantly closer to becoming a working reality, with Cern (European Organization for Nuclear Research) and the European Commission (EC) signing a memorandum of understanding Friday 17 July. The two have agreed to work more closely together in several areas, a key one being to facilitate implementation of the European Strategy for Particle Physics, which has been defined by Cern.
The EC and Cern say the memorandum will provide a framework to cooperate and share knowledge in several areas: research programming, training and mobility of researchers, science education, open publishing, technology transfer, innovation, building next generation infrastructures (including e-infrastructures) and global scientific cooperation.
US President Barack Obama made a key speech on future US-Russian relations at a graduation ceremony at Moscow’s New Economic School where he drew a line between past generations, children of the Cold War, and the new one, focused less on battles and nuclear arms. “The future belongs to young people with an education and imagination to create. That is the source of power in this century”, he told the students. Canada Free Press, Christian Science Monitor, Moscow Times, NPR and full transcript of the speech
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Peter Tschopp, right-wing politician who represented Geneva in the Swiss Parliament until 1999, has died, age 69, after being stung by a wasp, his family has told journalists. Tschopp was also the dean of the social and economic sciences faculty at the University of Geneva, then briefly, starting in 1999, president of what is today the Graduate Institute in Geneva, the former HEI.
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The combination of a larger student population in coming years and a steep rise in the number of teachers reaching retirement age could well lead to a shortage of teachers in Switzerland, the 2008 Education Statistics published by the federal statistics office indicates. Hardest hit are likely to be primary schools, where 45 percent more teachers will be retiring between now and 2018. Secondary schools will see a 20-25 percent increase in retirements.
Foreign students make up 44% of specialized education classes
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eight Webster University students will simulate the experience of being refugees for three days, 16-19 June. They will have a short time to throw together some personal belongings, then will walk from UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) headquarters in Geneva to the Webster campus in the village of Bellevue, 10 kilometres away. They will spend two nights and three days on minimum daily rations that they have to cook over open fires, and sleep in a tent donated by UNHCR.
Switzerland: still afloat, not quite plain sailing
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s solid base will stand it in relatively good stead in coming months, helping it resist the global economic crisis.
The country can expect only “soft growth” in the next few years, however, according to the World Competitiveness Report published 20 May by business school IMD in Lausanne (Ed. note: GL story on overall report).
The country held its fourth place slot in the rankings and did relatively well, landing in sixth place in the report’s new “Stress test for competitiveness,” rankings, based on future-oriented analyses. “Compared with many other countries, the fundamental economic, political and financial pillars of Switzerland show a remarkable stability.
Geneva's voters say yes to school reform
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss voters Sunday 17 May adopted biometric passports and a government proposal for insurance to cover, to a limited extent, complementary medicine costs. In cantonal and communal votes, Geneva’s citizens accepted their government’s proposal to reform the education system and they have voted to abolish citizen juries. In Vaud, a new commune has been created, Bourg-en-Lavaux, which embraces five villages.
International School of Geneva, Switzerland, Nations campus (click on image to view larger)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The International School of Geneva has been given a green light by the canton to proceed with construction of a new sports hall and a five-storey building that will provide 14 additional classrooms and an administrative centre at the Nations campus in Grand-Saconnex.
