Swiss representation to OECD, Paris. © 2009 délégation suisse près l'OCDE
Bern, Switzerland/Paris, France (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s official assistance to developing countries obtains high marks in general in an evaluation by the OECD’s committee on development aid. The committee notes that Swiss official development aid (ODA) was 0.42 percent of GDP in 2009, still short of the 0.7 percent recommended by the UN, but 6 percent higher than in 2008. Swiss ODA is praised for its concentration on the poorest countries, and on multilateral agencies, but the committee’s report notes that Switzerland is still trying to do too many things in too many different places with its ODA.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The French public prosecutor in Nice, southern France, Eric de Montgolfier, has revealed that his office is in possession of confidential details of up to 130,000 clients from HSBC’s private banking branch in Geneva. The data was acquired by the French state when Hervé Falciani, a former IT employee of the bank, left HSBC with the details stored on his laptop. Journal de Dimanche reports that 3,000 of the bank’s clients are French citizens.
The whistleblower, who is reported to have received a new identity and is said to be in hiding in fear of his life, told French public television that he acted out of idealism: “Either you bury your head in the sand or you try to do something about it.”
Armed hedges, in France
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Unigestion, a Geneva-based asset manager specializing in alternative investments like hedge funds, has opened an office in Paris, France in order to be able to offer its clients a fund that is not Swiss. Chief executive officer Patrick Fenal says in an interview with Bloomberg 21 October that Unigestion lost a mandate from a potential client because the company is Swiss. The new fund is managed by a French team in Paris and is registered in France.
Most Swiss private banks are already present in the major European Union financial centres, and can market their own funds to EU citizens directly. A source at Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, a Geneva private bank, told GenevaLunch that he did not see how Unigestion’s move could improve its marketing success with clients, except for the one potential client, already lost.
Paris, France (GenevaLunch) - Police have located the strangled body of the kidnapped woman jogger in woods near Boissy-aux-Cailles, south of Paris, France with the help of the presumed murderer, Wednesday evening 30 September. The suspect was taken into custody soon after the victim alerted police by cell phone from inside the trunk of the car she had been pushed into.
Marie-Christine Hodeau was out jogging 28 September when she was kidnapped. She managed to describe the car to police before the call was cut off. Police located the car and its owner shortly afterwards, but the suspect, a man who had spent seven years in prison for the kidnapping and rape of a 13-year old girl in 2000, initially refused to cooperate. He led police to the body after 48 hours of denying any involvement.
Bulgarian Irina Bokova withstood five rounds of voting in Paris, France Tuesday 22 September to become the new director-general of Unesco, the UN agency for education, culture and science, the first woman to do so. She beat out her Egyptian challenger, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, who was favourite to win at the outset, and supported by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. A career diplomat and mother of two, Bokova has been on the Unesco executive council since 2007. Libération
