ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – WWF, the environmental group, and German Formula One champion Sebastian Vettel have reached an agreement on the new home he wants to build in Kemmental, canton Thurgau. The two have been at odds since the WWF announced in November 2010 that it would oppose planning permission for his home.
Local authorities had lifted a construction ban next to his house in the village of Ellighausen to make way for a swimming pool and tennis court, but the WWF and another group, SLP, had opposed it as well as his plans to build a 200-metre concrete wall to protect his privacy.
The racer and WWF 23 September announced that an agreement has been reached whereby Vettel is dropping his re-zoning request for the area next to his house and the wall will go ahead but only until 2020, at which point the hedge planted now will be high enough to replace the wall. In addition, Vettel has agreed to finance an environmental project to make up for damage done to a natural pond during excavation work.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A 48-year-old man who killed himself in a small plane crash over the weekend aimed for his mother’s house, canton Schaffhausen police said Monday 18 July. His 69-year-old mother was in the house at the time but she escaped injury.
The man left a note saying he would fly into her house, but he made no mention of trying to kill her, in his suicide note. The son and his mother had no contact by telephone before the crash. She has three other adult children.
The pilot, about whom police are not providing any further information, took off from the Altenrhein airport at 11:45 and he crashed into the villa shortly before 16:00. Police are still trying to determine if there were any other passengers in the plane.
Photos, video, TSR public television
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Monday 20 September is a holiday in much of Switzerland, the Jeûne Fédéral. GenevaLunch, based in Vaud, will be providing limited news coverage. Swiss weekend news highlights include:
SOCIETY – Four people are dead and 17 injured after a woman went on a shooting spree in Loerrach, Germany, near Basel, in a family dispute, setting off an explosion that provoked a fire. Media reports are contradictory, but it appears that the woman shot her former companion, their child and shot at others in a nearby hospital before she was shot dead by police in a shootout (Reuters).
SPORTS – Skier Didier Defago, on crutches Sunday 19 September after surgery for torn knee ligaments Friday, told journalists he has no intention of quitting. The 32-year-old Olympic downhill champion crashed last Wednesday during training in Zermatt, when the tips of his skis touched as he was going 110 kph.
PEOPLE – Russian billionnaire’s Geneva divorce battle now includes one of Florida’s most colourful pieces of property, reports Forbes magazine. Dmitri Rybolovlev, number 79 on Forbes’s list of the world’s wealthiest people, was sued for divorce in Geneva by his wife Elena in 2008. She has now asked the Swiss court to enforce a March court order, according to Forbes, to freeze an 18-bedroom, $48 million (assessed price) home she claims her fertilizer businessman husband is trying to hide behind business structures. The house was sold, reportedly to the couple, by Donald Trump who bought it from another magnate, Abe Gossman, who later went bankrupt.
POLITICS – Switzerland’s efforts to free two Swiss businessmen, Rachid Hamdani and Max Goeldi, have been shrouded in secrecy, but 19 September NZZ newspaper in Zurich reported that a Swiss soldier made a reconnaissance mission to Libya at one point. The newspaper bases its report on a confidential government memo it obtained. The two men were were imprisoned for 1.5 and 2 years respectively by Libya, with Hamdani freed in February 2010 and Goeldi in June 2010. The soldier reportedly traveled as a civilian, with a valid visa.
GENEVA RENTS – Geneva is regularly cited as one of the most expensive cities, with high rent playing a key role, but too much is too much, the president of the finance commission told the Tribune de Geneve, which reports that the justice department is paying CHF196,000 a month rent for a 2,226m2 building on the rue de l’Athenée in central Geneva. It houses, among others, the tribunal for rents and leases.
POLITICS – The US Justice Department announced Friday 17 September that one of the seven people charged with using UBS accounts for tax fraud had been sentenced to the longest prison term yet for such an offense. It also noted that he has been fined $4.4 million for not filing his FBAR forms, “an amount equal to 50 percent of the highest value of his UBS accounts as of December 31 for the years in which he failed to file FBAR.” The lengthy Justice Department news release notes: “Federico Hernandez, a Manhattan-based financial adviser, was sentenced today to 12 months’ imprisonment for hiding $8.8 million from the IRS by using sham companies to conceal his ownership of secret Swiss bank accounts held at UBS AG. Hernandez was one of seven US taxpayers charged on April 15, 2010, with filing false tax returns and related crimes for hiding Swiss bank accounts from the IRS. Hernandez pled guilty that same day to filing five false tax returns. In addition to the sentence of imprisonment, US District Judge Denny Chin imposed a sentence of six months’ home confinement. Hernandez also agreed to pay a civil penalty of $4.4 million. The sentence imposed on Hernandez is the longest term of imprisonment to date for hiding a UBS bank account from the IRS.
A Florida man who won $31 million in 2006 in the state lottery was found buried under an addition to a house and a friend was arrested for his murder Tuesday 2 February, nearly a year after Abraham Shakespeare went missing. Police say Dorice Donegan Moore used his cell phone in December 2009, pretending to be him and telling his family he was safe. She denies the charges.
Links to other sites: CNN, Miami Herald
The US House of Representatives passed its version of a US health care reform Saturday 7 November and less than a day later President Barack Obama in a speech at the White House turned up pressure on the US Senate to quickly approve its own version of the bill. The House bill would cost $1.1 trillion and provide health care benefits to some 36 million Americans who are currently uninsured. If the Senate passes its bill, the two houses of Congress will then negotiate a final version of the bill, which will become law. The vote in the House was close and mostly along party lines: 220-215, with only one Republican voting yes. The Senate fight is expected to be even tougher, with two bills merged into one and the overall cost not yet clear.
Links to other sites: Financial Times, New York Times, NPR
The empire of Bernard Madoff, disgraced US financier, is crumbling, and the latest bit to fall is his Montauk, NY beachfront home, dunes and all, which has been sold for more than $8.75 million to an undisclosed buyer. The house, with four bedrooms and three baths, was on the market for two weeks, had numerous bidders and sold for more than its asking price, according to Reuters.
The number of questions is growing about former US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s orders to the CIA to hide some of their activities from Congress. By law, congressional subcommittees must be informed of covert activities but CIA Director Leon Panetta testified to the Senate and House intelligence committees that he had been directed by Cheney to withhold information. Diane Feinstein, who chairs the Senate committee, confirmed Sunday 12 July on Fox News that Panetta had testified, CNN reports in its latest update on the unfolding story, which was broken late last week by the New York Times. Cheney has not been available for comment. Bloomberg
Schumacher's new home in Gland (©E Wallace 2009)
The race driver's old home, now for rent (image: GetImage/Immostreet.ch)
Vufflens-le-Chateau, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Formula 1 superstar Michael Schumacher has put his house in the Vaud hills above Morges up for rent for a cool CHF29,000, which even in the Swiss housing market is on the high end. And that doesn’t include les charges, such as electricity, for which the amount is not given.
Here’s what you can rent for this price in Vaud:
Lausanne, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – The driver of a car that drove straight into the side of a house (see photo on 20 Minutes) in Epalinges Monday was hospitalized with injuries that police reportedly say are not serious, after the “spectacular” accident.
Beat Ettlin on Facebook
Canberra, Australia (CNN) – Beat Ettlin’s husband calls him her hero, but if he were Australian rather than Swiss she thinks he would not have tackled a six-foot kangaroo that was jumping on their son’s bed, and dragged it out of the house.
