Home sweet home
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Home loans, which account for 90 percent of bank credits in Switzerland, have grown by 5.2 percent in the first nine months of 2009, with the rate of increase up most strongly since March. And while the rate of growth of corporate loans is down, they, too, continue to grow.
“There is no credit crunch,” Manuel Jetzer, Geneva region head of Credit Suisse declared at the annual press conference of the Geneva Financial Centre 14 October. “There is no credit contraction in Switzerland.”
Much of the thanks for this goes to the home loan business, which is benefiting from historically low interest rates, with some banks offering new loans for as low as 1.65 percent*.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The cost of providing humanitarian aid is growing, with the number and intensity of crises increasing, maintaining at a high level the number of refugees who cannot return home. António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for refugees, told the annual meeting of the UNHCR in Geneva Monday 28 September at its opening session that the organization is faced with a 50 percent increase in its global workload, while the staff at the Geneva office has been reduced by 30 percent.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – World trade rebounded sharply in the second quarter, according to World Trade Organization (WTO) figures just released. World exports (which are also world imports) increased by 7.7 percent in the second quarter of 2009, compared with the first quarter, and reached $2.88 trillion in the second quarter, up 6.6 percent overall.
The answer to the question of who is the world’s leading exporter was announced 8 September by the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). China’s export figures for July are $105,420 billion, an increase of 10.4 percent over June’s figures. Germany announced that exports were € 70.5 billion, or $102,155b. This is an unadjusted increase of 6.6 percent from June 2009. Both countries were neck-and-neck in June.
Quarterly world merchandise export developments, 2005-09 (2005Q1=100, in current US dollars), WTO
All of the WTO reporting regions show a rebound in the first quarter.
We're not going anywhere
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The planned light rail line connecting Cornavin-Eaux Vives-Annemasse (Ceva) was delayed again by Switzerland’s administrative high court, in a decision made public 8 September. Two of the project’s partners, canton Geneva and CFF, Swiss federal railways, had asked the court to lift about 60 injunctions against the project, arguing that the delays were costing money. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument, stating that the project must address the 318 different objections to the plans before it can proceed.
US and EU, warming up to aircraft negotiations
US Trade Representative Ron Kirk with EC Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, March 2009, at their first meeting
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A confidential interim WTO (World Trade Organization) report on European assistance to the aircraft industry, notably Airbus, was issued Friday, reports Frances Williams in the Financial Times, and a similar report on US assistance to Boeing is expected in the next few months.
Burgundy comes to Sierre's sunny Vinea: Colline de Cortons wines were guests
Sierre, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – For the 16th year in a row, Vinea, the main wine fair for Swiss wines, managed to order sunshine for its two days of wine-tasting. This is the first year that the fair, organized originally by Valais winemakers to promote their own wines, has been opened to bottles from throughout Switzerland. Some 1,200 wines were on offer, and more than 10,000 people from around the country showed up to sample them.
Switzerland produces 1.12 million hectolitres of wine, a little over half of which is red wine, and Swiss consumers drink 37 litres per inhabitant a year.
The foreign wine guest of honour was the Colline de Cortons region in Burgundy, France, which brought 2006 bottles from several of its producers, providing a good basis for comparison within the region.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Faces too easy to see and car license numbers too clearly visible: Google Maps street views have crossed a legal line in Switzerland just two days after springing views of Geneva and other cities on the world. The Swiss data protection and privacy commissioner, Hanspeter Thuer, Friday 21 August told Google to immediately remove its street views from the Internet because the required blurring of key data such as faces and license plates, has not been done adequately. Thuer and Google managers will meet early the week of 24 August to review the situation.
Google’s new Swiss street views were unveiled Wednesday 19 August.
Data and privacy commissioner’s web pages on Google Street View (Fre)
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lakefront, Saint Prex, August 2009
Saint Prex, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Prepare for a weekend of 18-25C temperatures and sunshine alternating with some cloud cover – a change from this week’s sweltering heat, with Geneva recording its hottest day of the year, over 36C, Thursday 20 August. But before the great Saturday and Sunday weather, prepare for late Friday highs closer to 30C and local thunderstorms with wind whipping up in some areas. MeteoSwiss map and forecast
Weekend entertainment highlights: St Prex Festival starts, wine & chocolate for the family in Romainmotier and music at dawn in Geneva
This is the final week-end before Vaud students return to school and among the week-end entertainment offers featured on the GenevaLunch events page is the Saint Prex Festival which takes place in arguably one of the prettiest villages along the lake (also the home of GenevaLunch). The festival opens Friday evening 21 August and runs to 29 August.
Update 21 August Miami, Florida, USA (GenevaLunch) - A banker for NZB (Neue Zürcher Bank), Hansruedi Schumacher, and a Geneva and Zurich lawyer, Matthias Rickenbach, both Swiss, were indicted Thursday 20 August in Miami, Florida on charges of conspiring to defraud the US. The two are accused by the US of helping US residents to evade American taxes, including Jeffrey Chernick of New York and John McCarthy of Pasadena, California, two of four UBS clients who recently have been indicted for tax fraud after their names were given to the IRS in February 2009 by the bank, and who turned themselves in.
The two are accused, among other things, of telling “a New York businessman they paid an unnamed Swiss government official a $45,000 bribe for information on whether the businessman’s account would be revealed to US investigators,” Associated Press reports court documents as stating. AP also says the two are in Switzerland and it is not clear if they have US attorneys to represent them.
The New York Times says the new indictments indicate “that the American authorities are starting to pursue smaller players that may have helped Americans hide their money.”
Part of a Google street view of Geneva's rue du Rhone, faces blurred in line with Swiss privacy laws
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Google maps, the application from internet giant Google, just released a new version of its maps application that includes street views, seamless 360° views of the centre of most Swiss cities. Taken by vans that cruised around the city centre taking countless photographs, the project has caused concern around the world because of the implicatons for privacy.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Pillay, Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The “extra-judiciary” deaths of at least two Islamist leaders in captivity during July 2009 fighting in northern Nigeria prompted top leaders from the country to visit Geneva 15-16 August to apologize to the United Nations and plea with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, reports African newspaper the Daily Trust. The federal delegation is seeking to avoid UN sanctions over the killings of Boko Haram leaders by government forces in July. The group reportedly told Pillay that “severe efforts will be made to bring those responsible for those horrendous crime to book”, Ewubrae told journalists in Nigeria.
Not long to wait
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Opponents to the planned light rail extension known as Ceva, which will link Geneva’s Cornavin and Eaux-Vives stations and Annemasse, handed in 12,700 signatures, almost 5,000 more than necessary, to force citizens in the canton to vote on it. Voters will decide on a supplementary credit of CHF 113 million towards the project that Geneva’s parliament voted for in June.
The referendum’s date has not yet been fixed.
Steven Newman, Transocean CEO in 2010
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Transocean, the world’s largest offshore drilling company, has named Steven Newman as its new chief executive officer, replacing Robert Long, who will retire in the first quarter of 2010. Newman is the company’s president and chief operating officer. He has been with Transocean since 1994. The company, which moved its head office from the Cayman Islands to Geneva in late 2008, has a small top management staff in Geneva, including Newman and Long, but it maintains its largest office, some 1,400 people, in Houston.
Related, Houston Chronicle on handover, Reuters on Transocean move, October 2008
Read more…
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Four men entered the Chatila jewelry store on rue de Rhône in downtown Geneva 17 August afternoon at 15:00, overwhelmed the lone security guard, an employee and the store owner with pistols. They then smashed the store windows with sledge hammers and stole jewelry worth an unknown sum. The alarm was raised by a second employee in the store’s basement.
No shots were fired, and no one was hurt. The four individuals escaped on scooters. Geneva’s police arrived within minutes. The crime took place amid an ongoing debate in Geneva about safety on the streets. A week earlier, a jewelry store in London was robbed of £40 million.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s debt has fallen CHF 2.6 billion in the past three years to CHF 10bn, according to canton Geneva finance minister, David Hiler, in an interview with the Tribune de Genève 17 August. In 2007, Hiler says, the canton’s debt was CHF12.6bn. The reduction was possible thanks to several good years for tax receipts, a change in the law to allow public companies to put their debt on their books, and more efficient state administration, he argues. Hiler nevertheless foresees a gradual increase in the debt until 2011.
No integrated payment system yet for Lake Geneva region public transport
You'll have to buy the new tram line ticket, if you're from Nyon
Nyon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Nyon falls between the cracks when it comes to integrated transportation systems, apparently. Mobilis, a canton Vaud transport network with single payment agreements covering several local systems, has plans to extend its network west to Nyon, and to the Riviera, the north of the canton, and Lac du Joux, by the middle of 2010. Yet three-quarters of Nyon’s commuters use the train to get to Geneva, where they cannot use their train ticket for public transport in the city.
Statues of "peace" and "justice" flank the entrance to the WTO, Geneva: artist Luc Jaggi sculpted them in 1925
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - China reacted with disappointment Thursday 13 August to the report issued by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva on its publications and audiovisual materials dispute with the US. The WTO ruled that China must open its market more to the import of US films, DVDs, books and music downloads to respect commitments made when it joined the WTO in 2001.
Tourists in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Hotels in Geneva are increasing the pressure on the government to improve security for visitors to the city, in the wake of accusations by the consul general of Saudi Arabia that police did not do enough when a Saudi citizen was seriously injured and robbed in what the man’s lawyer says was an attack in the city centre, according to news agency ATS.
Missing persons, working with families: Peru (image: © 2009 B Heger / ICRC)
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Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – When the second world war came to an end in 1945 it was clear to witnesses of the more than six years of massive abuses of human rights that the world needed to banish the idea of “total war” and find a way to protect non-combatant victims of war. The four Geneva Conventions were signed 12 August 1949 in Geneva, sixty years ago today, cementing and extending earlier conventions to protect military people, prisoners, and civilian populations in times of war. They became the legal basis of humanitarian protection during war, around the world. Jakob Kellenberger, the president of the ICRC (International Red Cross) in Geneva, an organization whose history is closely intertwined with that of the Conventions, called on governments to better respect the treaties. “The lack of respect for existing rules remains, as ever, the main challenge,” he told a gathering in Geneva. The ICRC is the custodian of the Conventions.
The Geneva Conventions, with additional Protocols to the Conventions, are in fact a series of treaties, ratified by 194 countries, making them the most widely embraced treaties after the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Bosnia, 10 years later: identifying bones (image: © 2009 B Schaeffer / ICRC)
“They aimed to abolish the concept of ‘total war’ as witnessed during the second world war by establishing a legal framework to place limits on how war is waged. Today, they continue to constitute the bedrock of international humanitarian law, or IHL, and are among the most important treaties governing the protection of victims of armed conflict,” Christine Beerli, vice-president of the ICRC (International Red Cross) told a group in London in July.
Fetes de Geneve, photo: Sean Ecker
Fetes de Geneve, photo: Sean Ecker
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - More than 500,000 people turned out for the musical big-bangs end to the 63rd edition of Geneva’s colourful Fetes de Geneve.
The fireworks and music display, reportedly the largest in the city’s history, started at 22:00 and lasted for almost an hour.
It was a treat! Various pyrotechnical companies competed to show off their best displays. Several of the fireworks episodes had oriental themes, such as palm trees. The city increased the number of launch pads to a total of 15 around the end of Lake Geneva this year. After the fireworks display, the city was in pedestrian gridlock.
Corina Casanova, Swiss chancellor
Lucerne welcomes overseas Swiss for the weekend
Geneva and Lucerne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal chancellor, Corina Casanova, told delegates to the annual meeting of the Swiss Abroad Organization in Lucerne that they will all be able to vote electronically by 2015, using a system that will gradually be extended to cover voters registered in all cantons. Switzerland thus becomes a pioneer, with Estonia, of e-voting outside the country. Swiss overseas citizens registered in Geneva will be the first to test the new system, in November 2009: Geneva, along with Neuchatel and Zurich, have been testing e-voting since 2003.
UBS New York headquarters
Update 2 Florida, USA; Bern and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The bell hasn’t yet quite tolled for anyone in the US court case where the IRS is asking for names of UBS bank clients. Judge Alan Gold in Miami late Friday 7 August, Swiss time, gave the two governments another week, until 12 August and at their request, to hammer out details of an out of court settlement.
Reactions were mixed, with the Financial Times reporting that “Friday’s setback caused confusion” for investors, arguing that the “failure” to reach an agreement will hurt UBS shares. Swiss media were more phlegmatic, viewing the delay as an acceptance that a resolution of several technical issues requires more time, which the judge has given.
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.
Vice-commodore Fred Mayer of the SNG, right, at 1 August arrival of Alinghi in Geneva. Alinghi President Ernesto Bertarelli, left and Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey. Image: © 2009 Guido Trombetta/Alinghi
Ras al-Khaimah, UAE, America's Cup venue 2010
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Update 3 10:35 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The next America’s Cup race, the top event in the sailing world, will be held starting 8 February 2010 in Ras al-Khaimah, in the United Arab Emirates, the Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) announced Wednesday morning 5 August. The SNG has the right to select the next race’s location, as the home club of Alinghi, holder of the America’s Cup.
“Our absolute priorities in making this decision are the prevailing weather conditions and the resulting safety that they bring to both [Ed. note: Alinghi and official challenger BMW Oracle] teams,” explains Alinghi skipper Brad Butterworth.
Al Hamra, Ras al-Khaimah, UAE
“We looked everywhere for a venue that suited having good racing for the Match dates in February. We had trained in the UAE in the winter with Alinghi before and in the end we settled on Ras al-Khaimah in particular because of the infrastructure in Al Hamra Village and because it has a great building sea breeze during the day, similar to Mediterranean conditions in the summer, making it good for these boats and safe for all concerned.”
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.
UBS New York headquarters
Update 3 17:25 Bern and Zurich, Switzerland/Miami, Florida and Washington, DC, USA (GenevaLunch) - Shares in UBS rose more than 4 percent in the minutes following the news that Switzerland and the UBS have reached an Agreement in Principle in the civil case brought by the US Treasury department against Swiss bank UBS. The case will now be settled out of court, the Swiss government says in a statement issued late Friday afternoon. (background)
The two governments have reached an agreement in principle on the major issues in the case involving UBS and the IRS tax authority, US Justice Department attorney Stuart Gibson told the judge presiding over the case Friday 31 July. Neither he nor Judge Alan Gold provided details about the agreement, and the Swiss government says that “confidentiality has been agreed for the full duration of the negotiation process.”
Some early media reports noted that the judge has postponed the evidentiary hearing, whose opening had been delayed to Monday 3 August, until a week later, 10 August, with the parties scheduled to hold a status conference 7 August. But according to the Swiss government, the court has simply asked for an update on the details of the settlement Friday 7 August, and has scheduled a conference for this purpose.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meet today in Washington, DC.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - An empty desk in Geneva is receiving more than normal attention: that of the US ambassador, whose unwieldy title is US Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organizations. The post has been empty since January 2009 when Warren Tichenor left. Tichenor, a Texan and George W Bush appointment, may not have been a household name, but the new US ambassador could well quickly become one, thanks to sharper interest in how the US will work with other countries on several issues, many of them through international organizations based in Geneva.
This is the era of the Obama administration, with its promise of new relationships, and the period of Hillary Clinton at the helm of the US State Department, re-booting the Start talks with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Geneva in March 2009. Obama told a group of ambassadors in Washington Wednesday 29 July that “I came into office with a strong commitment to renew American diplomacy, and to start a new era of engagement with the world. This must be a moment when we engage on the basis of mutual interest and mutual respect, so that we can build new partnerships for progress.”
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe (image: Cisac, Stanford University)
One name being bandied about for the Geneva ambassador’s job is that of Obama fundraiser Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe. Le Temps wrote some weeks ago that she will be named, basing the information on “sources close” to President Obama, and IP Watch, an intellectual property industry newsletter, named her as the likely candidate in a 29 July article.
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.
Fêtes de Genève, fun on the ground and in the sky
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva and Switzerland’s biggest outdoor party kicks off tomorrow, 30 July, as the Fêtes de Genève get underway, after a two-week warmup called the pre-Fêtes. Music, art and food stalls in the streets, lakeside fair rides, a slow-up Sunday 2 August, spectacular fireworks Saturday 8 August: they’re all part of the fun.
And to put you in the mood the city is calling on amateur photographers to get out their cameras and start shooting their entries for the four seasons of Geneva photography contest, with tempting prizes.
Check it out on the GenevaLunch events page. Here’s where it is happening:
