GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Traffic jams are dying down in Geneva after three days of snarled traffic, but the Quai Général-Guisan will remain closed until at least Thursday. Work is continuing on the area around the burst pipes that gave way to the cold Sunday 5 February.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Mark Muller, the Geneva Council member who has been in the news over a New Year’s Eve fight with a barman in the early hours of the year, has acknowledged he attacked the man. The charges pressed against him by the bartender were dropped, after Muller apologized and paid the man for costs he incurred that evening.
Muller had earlier said the two got into a fight and a week after the MàD disco bartender filed charges against him, the politician pressed charges against the other man.
Lift has become one of
Europe’s key events about
innovation and digital
technologies, now in its 7th year
Location: International Conference Centre, CICG
Link out: http://http://liftconference.com/lift12
Start date: 22 Feb 2012
End date: 24 Feb 2012
St Prex, Switzerland and Lake Geneva: -10 before noon, with an icy wind, 6 February 2012
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – If you’ve been talking to friends about our Arctic weather, you should revise your description, for in recent days it’s been warmer in Svalbard, far north in the Arctic, than in Milan, Italy or Istanbul, Turkey, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva. Svalbard has seen 5C in recent days while Milan can expect -10 by the end of this week.
We’re currently in a “negative Arctic Oscillation” in Europe, says the WMO, based on reports coming in from its members, national weather services around the world.
The Arctic Oscillation “is the difference in pressure between Polar areas and mid-latitude areas (where most of the population in Europe lives). At the moment there is a negative Arctic Oscillation, which favors cold conditions in Europe and relatively warmer conditions in the Arctic.”
Our glacial temperatures are not even setting new records. “The long duration of the cold period, its relatively late onset and the extent of the cold area are noteworthy but not exceptional. The continental cold air extended even over the Balkan peninsula; slight ongoing frost was recorded even in northern Greece” in the past three weeks.
Meanwhile, Svalbard but also much of North America has benefited from mild air moving over the North Atlantic northwards over Iceland up to the Arctic region, according to the WMO.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND’S – Lewis Hamilton‘s five-year relationship with Switzerland appears to be drawing to a close, with the Formula 1 racer said to be moving from Zurich to Monaco, according to the Daily Mail. Hamilton moved to Geneva in 2007, then to Zurich in 2010. He will join a small herd of F1 drivers in Monaco, which hosts one of the circuit’s biggest races.
Fire death, drunk driver victims, high speed chase part of busy weekend emergency services work
Strong winds coupled with frigid temperatures whipped up icy flames on the lake surface Monday morning
Lake Geneva views of opposite shorelines obliterated by heavy waves and two metre high tongues of icy mists Monday 6 February
GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A new record low temperature for this winter was set in canton Graubuenden’s Engadine region, in Samedan this weekend: -35.1C.
The death toll from the cold in Europe, now estimated to be over 300 people, continues to rise.
In Switzerland, the icy weekend kept police and firefighters busy, and Touring Club Suisse (TCS), the automobile club, had a record 23,000 calls to help motorists.
Trains are running slow in several areas as the CFF rail company deals with icy lines and other cold-related problems.
Burst pipes caused flooding Saturday and Sunday, notably in Geneva and Lausanne, reports TSR. The head of Swissgrid, which manages the Swiss electricity supply, told NZZ in Zurich this weekend that the country risks blackouts in coming days because the system is pushed to its limits.
A main SSR (public broadcasting) emitter on top of Säntis mountain gave way under pressure from heavy snow, according to 24 Heures, and is using emergency power.
Vernier drunk driver crashes into trio
Police in Geneva were called to Vernier Saturday night where a 25-year-old man with a two-week old grudge against a nightclub worker left the establishment on Chemin des Batailles and got into his parked car, then drove into three young customers of the club, narrowly missing the club employee.
He had been drinking in several night spots and his alcohol level was measured at 1.69 after the accident, according to Geneva police. His victims were a 20-year-old Geneva man who lives in Vernier who was treated at the nearby Hopital de la Tour and two women who were taken to the cantonal hospital. The 19-year-old woman, who is Bolivian and lives in Rolle, is being treated for several facial injuries and the 18-year-old for a broken leg.
The driver continued and crashed into a number of rental cars parked nearby. He is under arrest for attempting to cause severe bodily harm and on other charges, and his license has been lifted.
Lausanne police chase ends in three captured
A car in Lutry with four people suddenly took off Friday when police stopped it and led area police on a high-speed chase as far as Chemin Campagne Pierraz-Portay in Pully, where the passengers took off on foot. Two were caught and arrested, along with the driver, when police discovered a quantity of goods stolens from homes in the Lausanne region. The car had Belgian plates and the two Algerians and one Iraqi were from Belgium, ages 32-35. Police are looking for their partner.
One dead in Martigny fire
One person died and another was saved by firefighters from a second floor balcony of an apartment building early Saturday 4 February when a fire broke out.
The identity of the victim is being established, say canton Valais police.
The first floor apartment was unoccupied. The cause of the fire, at 01:15, is being investigated.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Trains in both directions between Martigny and Sion will not be running again until Friday morning says the CFF rail company, after a heavy load fell from a bridge near Riddes, damaging contacts on the lines.
A bus service will replace local traffic but travellers between Geneva or Lausanne and Brig, including anyone going to resorts in the area, will have to travel via Bern.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – CFF train service between Lancy-Pont-Rouge and Geneva will stop from 09:00 Saturday until the end of service Sunday, 4 and 5 February.
The interruption is due to construction work on the line, part of the new Ceva regional rail project, and the CFF cautions that this is the first of what may be several such service cuts to allow work to move ahead.
Geneva transport services should be used instead of the train, the CFF says.
PARIS, FRANCE / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The French high court (Cours de cassation) in Paris published a ruling Tuesday 31 January that data stolen in 2007 from British bank HSBC in Geneva by its employee Hervé Falciani cannot be used by French tax authorities because it was illegally obtained. Falciani turned over the list of more than 15,000 bank accounts to the French tax office and Nice attorney general Eric de Montgolfier. France identified 3,000 of these as falling under French tax jurisdiction and shared the remaining data with Italy and Portugal.
Swiss news agency ats cites French media as saying that only 800 of the accounts have been reviewed, and the remaining account holders, if they are not yet tax compliant, have nothing to fear from the data theft. The Swiss agency cites “informed sources” as saying that French tax officials knew the information could not be used, but held the data over clients’ heads to pressure them into identifying themselves to the tax office.
Background, GenevaLunch: Falciano and HSBC data theft
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 32-year-old man shot and killed the father of his ex-girlfriend in Vernier Saturday morning at 10:30, Geneva police say. The man arrived to pick up his daughter, born in 2009, for a weekend visit but a dispute broke out between the man, his ex and her parents, who were visiting. The younger man, a Geneva resident, then shot the older man. Police arrested the gunman in front of the apartment building and despite emergency services arriving quickly on the scene, the victim died there.
Bolder thieves: rush hour main street robbery in Rolle
Rolle, main street supermarket robbery Wednesday
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Armed robbers in the Lake Geneva region are getting bolder, with a supermarket hold-up on the main street of Rolle at 19:00 Wednesday night the latest example.
Two masked men broke into the Grand-rue store (police do not mention the Coop at that address specifically) at 19:00, after closing hours and “violently” threatened two of the four employees at gunpoint before making off with an undisclosed sum of money. The two, ages 26 and 30, were in shock but otherwise unharmed, say police.
Two other employees were not directly involved and there were no customers in the store at the time.
The thieves fled “in an unknown direction” and have not been found, despite a significant police search. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at +41 21 644 4444.
Description: 180-190cm tall for the first, both men of average build, wearing dark clothes, with one speaking French with a North African accent.
Valais thieves nabbed
Two thieves, ages 62 and 68, who live in France, were caught in the act of breaking and entering Monday 23 January at 23:00 in Evionnaz, canton Valais. Police were phoned after someone noticed suspicious lights on in an area business, on the Route du Simplon. The building was quickly surrounded and police caught one man attempting to leave the premises and soon found a second man parked at the train station. Stolen goods from three local businesses were found: money, cameras and cell phones.
The two have police records in France, Valais police note.
Vaud, 2 other armed robberies this week: hairdresser’s shop, bank machine client
Earlier this week Vaud police reported two holdups, one Wednesday in Payerne, where a hairdresser was robbed by a man with a knife just as she was closing, and the other a woman in Gland who had just taken money from a bank machine near the post office at midday.
The 44-year-old woman was robbed at gunpoint in Gland at 12:30 Saturday. His description: 20-25-year-old man, European in appearance, 175-180cm tall and thin, dressed in a black sweatshirt with hood, black scarf and gloves, black pistol. He fled in the direction of the train station and has not yet been found.
The Payerne hold-up was also carried out by a thin young man, 175cm in height, wearing dark clothes, speaking French with an accent that could not be identified. He fled the scene and despite a search with dogs and several police patrols, he has not yet been found.
Geneva police arrest 3 on several charges after Sunday night high-speed chase
Police in Geneva have three men, ages 19-23, under arrest following a high-speed chase late Sunday. All three reside in Geneva but are Kosovar, Serbian and Macedonian. The stolen car they were traveling in was spotted by police at the intersection of rue Lect and the routes du Nant-d’Avril and Satigny at 22:00. The driver of the car, instead of stopping when the patrol car put on its flashing lights, took off and led police on a high-speed chase. The car was finally stopped in Meyrin and the men taken into custody, where they admitted to a series of local crimes:
- the car was stolen 14 January when they were stopped by a police officer while they were stealing copper from a Lignon construction site; they escaped in the car, which the police officer managed to photograph, after one of them showed the office a Swiss passport, which turned out to be stolen
- the person whose passport was stolen reported it to Geneva police 16 January, showing a complaint filed earlier in Vaud: his house in canton Vaud had been broken into 3 January and he had filed a complaint with police there for the stolen passport and jewels
- the stolen car was reported by Vaud police in connection with unpaid petrol at a station in Yverdon 20 January
- two of the three held up a woman earlier Sunday evening, at a Vernier car wash, where one said he was a policeman and demanded her wallet; they then fled with the wallet, including her identity papers, which police found when they stopped the men. When they phoned the woman she said she had not yet had a chance to report the theft to police
- the man who had posed as a police officer admitted it and said that he had been driving the stolen car daily, without a license, and that on his own he had robbed a number of villas in Lausanne, Morges, Nyon and Fribourg.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A fight or an argument? Pushes and shoves or verbal abuse or just heated words? A Geneva judge will have the task in early February of deciding whose word to believe: Mark Muller, Geneva cantonal council member or the bartender at the Moulin dance hall, concerning what really happened in the early hours of 1 January. Cantonal Attorney General Daniel Zappelli will hear the arguments of both sides and decide if charges filed by the bartender should be pressed against Muller.
The bartender filed charges 6 January, saying that Muller had hit him. Muller denies this and he, in turn, filed charges against the bartender 12 January. Muller’s charges have not for now led to an investigation being opened, as is the case with the bartender’s charges.
Meanwhile, reports the Tribune de Geneve, Muller has had a case taken away from him and given to another council member, that of the Moulin à danses, near the old Jonction usine à gaz, which has to move to make way for Geneva’s new green neighbourhood, or éco-quartier.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Police in Geneva have arrested a 78-year-old man in the Old Town of the city after he shot and wounded a young man at 04:30 Wednesday 25 January. The 28-year-old victim was hospitalized after being hit in the stomach by a bullet. The shooting occurred after a dispute over noise near a discotheque, with the elderly man shooting from the window of his apartment near Place des Trois-Perdrix.
Major Swiss highway programme changes announced
Annual highway tax/sticker to jump from CHF40 to 100 by 2015
GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The roadworks weren’t welcome at the time, but the switch in Morges from two to three lanes during rush hour, using emergency lanes, has been such a success at reducing traffic jams that the Federal Highway Office plans to set up the same system in Geneva and Lausanne.
The measure is part of a series of highway improvements announced by Bern Wednesday 18 January, with the focus on shifting 378km of cantonal roads to the national highway system by 2014, to better needs today that are the result of a series of urban developments over the past five decades.
Morges again has special treatment, with the office adding a Morges bypass to the list of projects to be developed sooner rather than later, to ease the growing congestion in the Crissier area. The cost: CHF220 million. Details of a likely bypass, published in 2009, call for a larger loop from Morges Ouest (west) to Ecublens.
The A1 around Morges was given three lanes in 2009, for rush hours
The package includes traffic flow improvements for Coppet-Le Vengeron, at a cost of CHF175m.
The number of kilometres driven on Swiss autoroutes has doubled since 1990. Recent studies show a 34 percent increase in 2010 in the number of hours of traffic jams, to 15,910, compared to 2009 In the next 18 years, some 400km of autoroute will regularly suffered congestion.
The Morges area switch to three lanes during rush hours has improved traffic flow, the highway department says, lowered the accident rate by 15 percent in general and 80 percent locally, and it has also brought about a 20 percent reduction in pollution next to roads: CO, CO2 and NOx emissions.
Bern and Winterthur will see their emergency lanes changed in the near future, with Geneva and Lausanne, but also several other areas including stretches along Lake Zurich, scheduled for later.
Automatic signals to reduce speed for better traffic flow to go from 85km to 400km
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A number of Swiss trains, including Intercity trains between Zurich and Basel and Zurich and Bern, have been running late for most of the day due to a break in the line at Deitikon, in canton Zurich. Trains have had to alternate on the same line in some areas, causing delays of up to 30 minutes. The main Geneva-St Gallen trains have been affected.
CFF rail company authorities say cold may be the culprit, affecting some electric lines. Monday night was Switzerland’s coldest night to date this winter.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A man described by Swiss customs as a Russian, age about 20, was stopped in Presinge, Geneva, after he attempted to evade border checks by getting off a bus, then heading through fields with a large collection of jewels of “dubious origin”.
Border guards noticed the odd behaviour of the man who got off at bus stop Les Bornes, from a line C Malagnou – Monniaz bus.
Hazelnut, Basel, 3 January 2012 (photo: MeteoSwiss pollen forecasts)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Massive amounts of snow cover the Jura and Alps, but on the Lake Geneva region plains the weather has been clement, and for hay fever sufferers that translates into the hazelnut trees budding. Where the air is dry, pollen is already being released.
The amounts are small but measurable near Geneva, MeteoSwiss’s pollen map shows, but by tomorrow in Ticino, with flowering already occurring Thursday 12 January, the rating will go up to “average”, as they have done in some very locally confined areas, such as Buchs in eastern Switzerland.
Flowering of troublesome pollen-bearing plants has been happening earlier since the 1990s, says the national weather service but traditionally this happens anywhere from December to March depending on the combination of a number of factors. Hazelnuts are now forecast to flower 24 January in Geneva and Lausanne, a full two weeks earlier than the average.
MeteoSwiss is now offering a daily pollen forecasting service, in French, German and Italian, with maps showing the daily situation for the main varieties that cause problems. A smart-phone application is free of charge.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A year ago the focus of concern for world political and corporate leaders was environmental but that has now shifted to socio-economic issues, the World Economic Forum says in its 2012 Global Risks report, published 11 January in London. The combination of “chronic fiscal imbalances” and economic disparity could, over the next 10 years, wipe out progress brought about globalization, the report argues.
Fairytale setting of Davos will contrast with financial backdrop
The Geneva-based group issues the annual report in the days running up to its Davos forum, which this year takes place 25-29 January. Host canton Graubuenden with its fairytale scenery after steady snowfalls will contrast with global economic gloom.
50 risks to live by
The report lists 50 risks that will figure on the agendas of world leaders in the next decade. It divides them into economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological categories, arguing that “the world’s vulnerability to further economic shocks and social upheaval risk undermining the progress that globalization has brought”.
A stark remark from Lee Howell, who is responsible for the report, will hit home for many people. “For the first time in generations, many people no longer believe that their children will grow up to enjoy a higher standard of living than theirs,’ says Howell. “This new malaise is particularly acute in the industrialized countries that historically have been a source of great confidence and bold ideas.”
Glum outlook
The report refers to growing dystopia (the opposite of utopia) brought on by a combination of young people with no prospects, older people who have to fend for themselves rather than counting on the state and an ever-larger gap between rich and poor.
Society will become more vulnerable as the kind of safeguards we expect our governments to provide are weakened by ” risks related to emerging technologies, financial interdependence, resource depletion and climate change, leaving society vulnerable.”
And while our lives have changed forever by the connectivity that technology has brought us, we will increasingly see the darker side of this, according to the report. Technology helped the Arab Spring, but it also aided the London Riots in 2011. Connectivity is “making us susceptible to malicious individuals, institutions and nations that increasingly have the ability to unleash devastating cyberattacks remotely and anonymously.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A jeweler on the rue de Montchoisy in Geneva suffered head and hand injuries after he was attacked by a man with a 30 cm knife, say Geneva police. The would-be client entered the shop, walked out to look at the window with the owner, then attacked him as the owner was heading back into the shop.
The attacker fled towards Parc Le Grange, without taking anything, and he has not yet been found. He was wearing a khaki jacket and jeans, age about 30, possibly North African.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay 6 January told Yemen’s lawmakers that they must not go ahead with a proposed amnesty law that would protect those who commit war crimes. Her office has recently sent a team to Yemen to study the situation there and prepare a report on the country, where protests have grown in recent months.
“I have been closely following the events in Yemen, particularly the very contentious debate about an amnesty law to be presented to Parliament shortly,” the high commissioner said. “International law and the UN policy are clear on the matter: amnesties are not permissible if they prevent the prosecution of individuals who may be criminally responsible for international crimes including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and gross violations of human rights.”
“Based on information we have gathered, there is reason to believe that some of these crimes were committed in Yemen during the period for which an amnesty is under consideration. Such an amnesty would be in violation of Yemen’s international human rights obligations.”
Geneva's Escalade, with energy-efficient Christmas lights in 2011 (photo Mr Kio on flickr)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Geneva was one of the top winners in the sixth annual Swiss government Watt d’Or programme to recognize energy-saving initiatives.
It was honoured 4 January as the winner of the energy technologies category for its new LED strings of lights along the Lake Geneva waterfront.
The waterfront area has been lit up for more than 100 years, but with incandescent lighting and with new energy regulations calling for the end of this kind of lighting in 2012 the city had to scramble to find another solution. It worked to develop a “revolutionary” LED lighting system that looks like incandescent lights, but uses far less energy, the awards committee announced. Geneva in November 2010 replaced 4200 bulbs with LED light strings that were awarded a prize at the Salon des inventions de Genève. The light is as strong as with the bulbs, but energy consumption has been reduced by 90 percent.
Zermatt was another top winner, for its new rubbish disposal system, and St Gallen was given the top prize for its overall urban development and energy use system, with a new geothermal centre going into operation in 2013.
Cigarette on fifth floor suspected
Update 23:00 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A patient who suffered burns from a fire that broke out in the psychiatric unit on the fifth floor of the HUG university hospitals in Geneva died Tuesday 3 January, and a member of staff remains in serious condition from smoke inhalation. The patient was a woman in her 50s.
A cigarette is suspected as the source of the fire, with one found near the head of the bed, along with a packet of them. Police are investigating if a lapse in security is involved, since smoking is banned in the hospital.
The fire broke out shortly before midnight Monday and firefighters, who were at the scene within four minutes, had the fire under control within a half hour, but 20 people, had to be treated for smoke inhalation.
The hospital’s emergency plan was kept active for three hours, with several patients from lower floors moved to a makeshift treatment centre on the ground floor as a precaution.
The room of the patient who was injured was completely destroyed by the fire and an adjoining room was badly damaged.
Geneva police say the cause of the fire is not yet known and an investigation has been opened, but TSR reports that a cigarette is suspected of starting the blaze.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 17-year-old youth led police on a wild car chase through the streets of Geneva and the autoroute around the city early Monday morning 26 December, reports Le Matin. He reportedly stole a VW Golf in Eysins Sunday night. The car was spotted by border guards near La Croix-de-Rozon at 05:40, then again by police in front of the Kempinski Hotel on the Quai du Mont Blanc 20 minutes later.
Police chased him to Chambésy along the Rue de Lausanne at speeds that reached 180kph, according to the newspaper, with the car driving on the wrong side of the road, then up past an embassy on the Rue de la Paix where a guard, suspecting a suicide bomber, shot at the car. He reportedly ran a red light and made it to Gare Cornavin train station going 100 kph before taking Montbrillant and the Rue de Servette up to the autoroute, where he attempted a u-turn despite a divider.
Once his car crashed he ran for cover on a construction site, where police, with the help of a dog, found the young man, who tested negative for alcohol, but who had consumed cocaine, according to the newspaper (police have not yet confirmed the details of the report).
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Police in the Swiss cantons around the Lake Geneva region have been kept busy over the holidays with road and mountain accidents, bank and post office robberies, and in one happy instance finding suspects and two stolen locomotives from the train park at Le Bouveret in canton Vaud.
Chavannes-de-Bogis, Grosse-Pierre / Morges post offices, hit by armed robbers
Two men held up the post office in Chavannes-de-Bogis Tuesday morning 27 December at 07:00, grabbing the manager as he arrived for work. Despite his cries and efforts to fight them off the two men knocked him to the ground and were able to force him, at gunpoint, inside where he gave them the cash on hand.
The two fled in a blue metallic BMW that was stolen a few weeks ago. The car was found shortly afterwards, completely burned, on a forest path next to the Route des Coudres, in the direction of Bogis-Bossey. Police say a relay car was undoubtedly waiting to pick them up there.
A manhunt was set up immediately. Vaud police say they are looking for two men, both 180cm tall with athletic builds, who speak French without accents. One was wearing a lightweight black cagoule (balaklava), black clothes, glove and carrying a pistol.
The other man, European in appearance, had long hair, to his shoulders, which was very dark and straight. He was also dressed in black and was carrying a knife.
The post office manager was in a state of shock following the robbery, but otherwise unharmed.
The hold-up follows an attempted robbery early last Friday, 23 December, at the Grosse-Pierre post office in Morges. A 47-year-old woman arriving for work was surprised by two men, reportedly 170 cm tall, dressed in dark clothes, one carrying a knife. Her cries frightened them off and a witness called 117 to alert police.
Anyone with information about either crime is asked to phone Vaud police at 021 644 4444.
Verbier avalanche slightly injures 2 in family of 4
An avalanche caught a family of four skiing off piste near Verbier Monday 26 December at 12:15. The group managed to get out from under the avalanche, which was 10 metres wide and 150m long. The 16-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy both suffered minor injuries and were taken to the hospital in Sion to be checked.
The avalanche was triggered at Mont Gelé, at about 2,900 m.
Icy roads behind crashes
A 25-year-old woman from the Avenches region whose car skidded on the road near Salavaux and Avenches at 10:25 Tuesday morning is in serious condition after her car crossed the line and hit another car head on. The 41-year-old man driving the other car sustained lighter injuries and was hospitalized in Fribourg.
A crash caused by ice on the road was responsible for closing the Col de Pillon near Gsteig Tuesday morning, a main route to the Gstaad area from Lake Geneva.
Fires in Geneva and Morges send several to hospital
Thirteen people, including a year-old child, were injured, four of them seriously, after a fire broke out on the ground floor of a three-storey centre for asylum seekers in Geneva, Tattes, 1 chemin de Poussy in Vernier. Four are in serious condition, two from injuries sustained after they jumped out of second-floor windows and two others for burns and smoke inhalation, say Geneva police.
Sixty people were evacuated from the building.
The fire department received scores of calls Monday afternoon at 15:22 and the fire, which spread to the first floor, was brought under control by 16:15.
In Morges, canton Vaud, cigarettes thrown into the garbage are suspected of being the cause of a fire in a third-storey apartment in an 11-storey building at chemin de la Grosse-Pierre 9 early Friday morning 23 December. Two tenants ages 20 and 21 were hospitalized, as well as their neighbour, an 85-year-old woman, for smoke inhalation. The fire was brought under control by 03:15.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Researchers at Cern, working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), this week say they have turned up a boson, a particle that carries force, although it is not the famously sought-after Higgs boson. The Chi-b (3P) appears likely to be the first sub-atomic particle found since the LHC went to work in 2009.
As for Higgs, Cern this week published this statement in relation to the 13 December conference it held about the Atlas and CMS experiments: “The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV by the Atlas experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS. Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.”
Details: Wired
Lausanne-Geneva train traffic to grow 35% in next three years
View from the rails, Lausanne, 20 December 2011
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The additional CHF90 fine that went into effect 11 December for CFF rail travelers taking the train without a ticket has resulted in half a million francs in additional revenue in 10 days, according to Zurich’s NZZ newspaper 21 December. The CFF’s spokesperson Lea Meyer told NZZ that most passengers are nevertheless traveling with tickets: on average one person is fined for every two trains, some 800 fines a day.
The company said when it announced the sharp increase in fines (in addition to the price of the ticket passengers must pay) that the goal was not to bring in income so much as to reduce the inefficiency and high cost of ticket-takers issuing tickets.
Major extensions to Lausanne station moving ahead
In other Swiss rail news, the CFF in the past week acquired three buildings next to the station in Lausanne, as planned, that will the station to add new lines and double the rail capacity between Geneva and Lausanne by 2025.
The CFF told GenevaLunch this week that traffic on the line is expected to see a 35 percent increase by 2015, in just three years, due to the population growth in the region.
The company had 25,000 travelers a day on the line in 2000 and it has already doubled to 50,000 daily this year. By 2025 it will reach 100,000 a day.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Hug University Hospitals in Geneva and its lab workers have reached an agreement, two weeks after the hospital lashed out at the workers’ union for endangering lives during a work slowdown. The agreement calls for the laboratory workers to have two new work categories labeled as technicians, reflecting changes in their field, and to redefine the training and skills needed for their jobs.
The hospital has argued that it does not have the power over this area, for which only the canton is competent, but it has agreed to a joint work group that will focus on developing job descriptions for the cantonal system, with particular attention to continuing education, and to a joint commission that will be involved various areas, notably staff concerns over the new laboratories being built.
photo, Jared Bloch
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – International organization employees are being alerted that traffic could be a problem in the area around the United Nations Palais and the World Trade Organization Thursday to Saturday, when the WTO holds a Ministerial meeting at the CICG, the Geneva conference centre.
The area around the centre will be cordoned off and access to the Parking des Nations will be limited.
Staff at UN agencies are being asked to use public transport.
Officially, there are no advisories about possible disturbances, but agencies have been alerted that the police presence will be heavy and flyers are circulating and media are received messages about possible meetings 15 December by a group calling itself “Occupy OMC” at the intersection of Avenue de France and Rue de Varembé and at 20:00 at the Rue des Savoises. Another demonstration is being announced for 17 December in the same area.
Geneva's Christmas lights (click on map to view larger)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Hard to imagine as thunder and lightning cross Geneva’s skies Wednesday that snow is on its way, but just as the weather forecasters are promising flurries for the weekend, Geneva is enjoying a greener than usual Christmas season, in terms of lighting for the holidays.
Geneva installed 14km of garlands and nearly half a million Led low-energy lights in November, lighting up the city at the start of December.
The city has put the accent on sustainable development this year, and all of the material is standard, readily available on the market, so it’s easy to install and modular.
The Christmas lights will consume some 32,000kWh during the festive period; they are taken down 9 January. They account for 0.4 percent of the city of Geneva’s total public lighting. The lighting, provided by Sig (Services industriels de Genève) comes entirely from hydraulic energy sources and solar and biomass sources.
The city’s star 2011 Christmas tree, at Place Molard, uses one-tenth the energy it did in 2010.
Take precautions, especially around the holidays, with home break-ins on the rise
GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The number of dusk break-ins around Lausanne and along the La Côte stretch more than doubled from 1 October to 12 December, compared to 2010, say Vaud police, pointing in particular to organized groups of North African and Balkans origins who have been operating in the area.
Geneva police also cite a steady increase in recent years in the number of break-ins but also simple burglaries and last week they began distributing reminders to all homeowners in the canton of precautions to observe.
There were 530 home break-ins in Vaud, compared to 225 a year earlier, during the same period. The increase for the first three months of 2011 compared to 2010 was only 10 percent, say police.
Take precautions: checklist
The number of home burglaries rises every winter when the nights are longer but given this year’s sharp increase the police are urging people to remember to take preventive measures, particularly with the holidays coming.
