France shifts to the left with Socialist win
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Francois Hollande comfortably defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy Sunday 6 May to become France’s new president, with 52 percent of the vote. The Socialist’s lead has been growing in the past week, following a first round of voting that eliminated candidates further to the left and right. They included Marine Le Pen, who outdid her far-right father’s ability to garner votes, before losing to Hollande and Sarkozy in the runoff.
The official result was announced at 20:00 in France, and although polls had been forecasting the result, French media were blocked from posting these. The French interior ministry earlier in the evening gave preliminary results which were not far off the final results.
Swiss media, not bound by French law, reporting polling results during the afternoon and evening.
La Bastille in Paris, long home to left-wing victories, was awash with crowds of cheering Hollande supporters Sunday night.
Both of the final cadidates have promised to balance the budget within five years, but the French appear to have joined the growing ranks of Europeans rebelling against austerity measures.
Greek voters move away from the centre over austerity programmes
Greek voters, who have been the hardest hit by European Union austerity programmes, moved away from the centre in their own voting Sunday, electing far-right and far-left candidates to parliament.
The Socialists in France have not had a president in office since Mitterrand left in 1995 and markets are waiting to hear whether Hollande plans to increase spending; he has promised to tax the wealthy more heavily and to bring back retirement at age 60, but only for those who have worked for 40 years.
The rest of the European community will also be watching closely, as France’s changing face could have an enormous impact on EU policies.
What French and world media are saying: Le Figaro, Le Monde, TF1 television, France and BBC, The Globe & Mail, Irish Times, NY Times, Reuters
©2012 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Vladimir Putin Sunday 4 March won a third term in office as president of Russia, winning with a 61 percent landslide, with 58 percent of voters turning up at the polls, according to the Moscow Times. Chechnya, it notes, had a 94 percent turnout.
Putin, who has been serving as prime minister since his second term in office ended in 2008, had President Dmitry Medvedev by his side as he announced the victory, calling it a fair win. Opponents have been vocal in their claims of fraud. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov was running second in early official results reports, with 17.7 percent of the vote, reports RiaNovosti news agency.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank, will leave his post in June at the end of his five-year term, he announced Wednesday 15 February. He is generally credited with leading the bank through a period of reform, including greater transparency, and for a number of initiatives during a time when the global economic crisis had a major impact on the World Bank’s work.
The bank, in its press release, says that among his achievement was “The first general capital increase for the Bank in over 20 years, with over half the new capital from developing countries; and a record $90 billion raised for IDA, the World Bank’s fund for the poorest, against a very challenging backdrop of donor austerity.”
The bank’s president is traditionally an American, selected by the US government, although technically appointed by the member countries. The process was approved and “regularized” in April 2011. The US played a key role in founding the bank.
Links to other sites: Financial Times (registration), Washington Post, Wall St Journal, World Bank press release
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Data privacy concern is increasingly raising its head in US-Swiss talks over taxes, visas and banking. The latest incident is linked to Switzerland’s decision to continue participating in the US visa waiver programme.
Parliament will have its say in US data demands for visa waiver programme
The Swiss Federal Council Wednesday 1 February made it clear it intends to move ahead with negotiations with the US in order to remain in the US visa waiver programme. Switzerland has been part of the programme since 1986 but in October 2009 the US announced that partners in the programme would have to observe two new rules, says Bern. They were told that “partner countries will be required to increase police cooperation. This will entail the conclusion of agreements about the automatic exchange of DNA and fingerprint data to prevent and to combat serious crime (PCSC) and the exchange of data about known and suspected terrorists.”
Swiss media and politicians have been speculating in recent weeks that the US has been pressuring the Swiss government to agree to the new rules and that, given Switzerland’s penchant for privacy and data protection, the Swiss government would refuse. Some 340,000 Swiss travel to the US every year and the visa waiver programme means they can visit as a tourist for up to three months without first obtaining a visa.
But Bern now says it plans to go ahead with the negotiations, noting, however, its own ground rules. The US “requires that two agreements in the security area should be finalized. The Federal Council has instructed the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) to formulate a negotiation mandate in this area. Parliament and the Cantons will be consulted before the final granting of the mandate. Data protection aspects will be duly taken into account in the negotiation of the agreements.”
Double taxation treaty talks bring up data release questions
Bern gives green light to send thousands of e-mails, but they remain encrypted
The sensitive issue comes up just as the lower house of parliament’s tax commission announced, 31 January, that Swiss President and Finance Minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf had brought it up to date on US-Swiss double taxation treaty negotiations. Details were not provided except to say that the discussion covered interpretations of “judicial assistance”, a sticking point in the negotiations, and “recent demands by the US”, without elaborating on these.
Swiss-German public radio DSR reported, however, that some 4 to 6 million e-mails, mainly correspondence about banks’ commercial affairs, were being offered to the US by at least some of the 11 banks currently under investigation by the US Department of Justice—but that the correspondance is encrypted and will not be decrypted until the two countries reach an agreement. The e-mails contain the names of client advisers. The banks are suspected by the US government of helping US citizens evade taxes.
Encryption until “global solution” found
Spokesperson Roland Meier of the Federal Finance Department then confirmed to journalists the information published by DSR. He noted that until a “global solution” is found with American judicial authorities, names that are encrypted may not be released unless a legal request is made to Swiss authorities, repeating what Widmer-Schlumpf said on television, “We will only decode when we have found a solution with the United States on all the banks that are under discussion.”
A legal request would need to respect the existing Swiss-US treaty and specifically state that the actions of the person whose information is being requested is punishable under both Swiss and US law. Details, TSR, French
Analysis, in French: Martin Naville, president of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, analyzed the situation in a video interview with RSR radio, “Les choses ont changé” (6 minutes, free but registration required)
Switzerland’s vocal Americans joined by even louder Canadians
Americans in Switzerland, meanwhile, are expressing growing concern about their ability to maintain bank accounts for their daily living expenses, mortgages and pensions, with Swiss banks growing more wary of them as clients given US demands for information. A particular sticking point is the Fatca (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) law that starting in 2014 will penalize financial institutions around the world that don’t comply by revealing the accounts of US persons to the IRS and collect tax withholdings for the IRS from them.
Switzerland’s Americans were some of the first US citizens abroad to become aware of the problem, because of Swiss data protection issues and US efforts to obtain information from Swiss banks. But Americans living in Canadai are becoming increasingly vocal in their resistance to US efforts to obtain data. The larger US expat community in Canada recently formed the Isaac Brock Society, named after Sir Isaac Brock, who prepared Canadians for war with the United States and gave his life in repelling a US invasion in 1812, according to their site.
Club increasingly international in its membership but retains American leader
AmClub's new president, Ed Karr
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Americans’ reputation for being dynamic and enthusiastic won’t suffer at the hands of Ed Karr, Geneva businessman and the new president of the American International Club of Geneva, which also calls itself AIC.
Karr, 42, is a partner in RAMPartners SA, an investment banking and investment management firm in Geneva, and he’s also known around town for his role as co-chairman of Republicans Abroad Switzerland.
He’s one of the youngest presidents in some years of the 60-year-old AIC, believed to be the oldest American club of its kind outside the US.
Karr is enthusiastic and realistic in equal parts about being a member of what he calls “the best business club in town” at a time when all clubs are feeling the pinch of global economic blues, being an American abroad during a period when the US is coming in for some heavy criticism, and enjoying the pleasures of an international life.
He is married to an Italian and has lived in Geneva since 1997. “We like the city, we like the lifestyle—we really like living here.”
“General specialist” at heart of Geneva’s fastest growing fields: trading, high tech, health care, energy
RAMPartners is a group of six people with backgrounds in institutional brokerage. “We’re independent. We’re general specialists. I know the markets, structures, how markets trade, relationships. We do a little due diligence and screening and we have several specialists available. I’m an expert at finding the experts.” He offers as an example a 3D bioprinting project that was introduced to him, technically capable of printing a new heart (and named one of the 50 best inventions of 2010 by Time Magazine). The project looked exciting, he says, “but I’m not a doctor so I call people I know who specialize in biomedical investments.”
The firm was set up in 2005 and it has helped raise more than $200 million for small capitalization companies in fields such as natural resources, high technology, health care and clean energy. Futures Magazine named Karr as one of the world’s Top Traders” in 2004.
Karr brings his business acumen and contacts to AIC’s leadership. The club itself has for some time reflected changes in the foreign population in the Lake Geneva region. Membership is down from a peak of 1,300 some years ago to 900 today. “It’s tough—all the clubs are struggling to survive,” he says, with declining membership, costs going up and sponsorship down.
Impact of Americans renouncing citizenship
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, finance minister, will be president for 2012
Alain Berset, Socialist, replaces Calmy-Rey
Micheline Calmy-Rey, Swiss president, says her farewells to parliament 14 December
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Alain Berset, the Swiss senate’s youngest member at age 31, was elected easily with 126 votes in a second round of voting, to Switzerland’s government.
The election of the Socialist from Fribourg completes the election of the 7-member government. He replaces Micheline Calmy-Rey, also a Socialist.
The two UDC candidates who were presented for several of the seven slots, failed to come close to majorities.
The party’s weak showing, on the heels of its parliamentary losses in October, reinforces the sense there is a parliamentary shift towards the centre.
The government now comprises one right-wing party member, three from the centre-right, one centre and two left.
New government member Alain Berset, Socialist, replaces Micheline Calmy-Rey, who is retiring (©2011 Reuters/Keystone/pool)
Berset is the only new member, with the others re-elected.
Parliament elects a chancellor, president and vice-president following the election of the government; chancellor Corina Casanova remains in her post with 186 votes out of 206.
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, finance minister, was elected president for 2012, with 174 votes out of 211 for the one-year post that rotates among Federal Council members.
Those watching US-Swiss talks over US investigations into Swiss banks will be relieved, for the lack of a change at the top in Switzerland will smooth the way for the discussions to be concluded. Widmer-Schlumpf has said recently, in her role as finance minister, that she is keen to see a solution found quickly.
The Swiss government’s seven members and their parties, in order of Wednesday’s voting:
Doris Leuthard, PDC (Christian Democrat), centre
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf , PBD, centre right
Ueli Maurer, UDC (People’s Party), right
Didier Burkhalter, PBD, centre right
Simonetta Somaruga, PS (Socialist), left
Johann Schneider-Ammann, PLR, centre right
Alain Berset, PS (Socialist) , left
Swiss parliament voting for new federal council 14 December 2011 (©2011 Reuters/Keystone/pool)
The next complete re-election is in December 2015.
Useful links:
Wikipedia on Swiss political parties and their positions
Analysis of the Federal Council election in English, swissinfo
Details of the votes, Swiss Parliament (Fr)
Background on Swiss political system from ch.ch
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan is being treated in a hospital in Dubai for a heart condition, but his condition is not serious. The BBC reports that “his departure has fuelled speculation in the Pakistani media that he may be on the verge of resigning”, reports that the government denies.
Reuters credits a source as saying he has had a minor heart attack, not his first.
Zardari, the husband of murdered former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has been in office since 2008. He has recently been linked to leaked memos that led to the resignation of Pakistan’s envoy to the US.
Calmy-Rey, fifth from left in front row, meeting with the foreign press association committee in May 2011, has headed Swiss foreign affairs since 2003 (GL editor Ellen Wallace, 3rd from left)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss president for 2011 and long-time foreign affairs minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, is expected to tell the Federal Council today that she is stepping down from the government. The regular meeting of the council this morning will be followed by a news conference.
Calmy-Rey, 66, is in her second term as president, a one-year post that rotates among the seven members of the Federal Council. The French-speaking Socialist from Geneva joined the council in 2002 and has headed the foreign affairs department since 2003. Her departure, to be announced before the October parliamentary elections that are held every four years, will require a cabinet shuffle at a time when Switzerland’s relations with the US are taut over banking secrecy but are generally in better shape with the country’s European neighbours than they have been in recent years.
She was heavily involved in Geneva politics before taking up her posts in Ber; the president was born in Sion, canton Valais.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Iceland’s president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, is making waves by saying Europe bullied the country into bailing out Icesave bank, which had large numbers of UK and Dutch investors, a bailout that was hugely unpopular at home, while the US was “absent” and India and China were helpful as the country faced serious debt problems. His remarks were initially made at the end of last week in an interview with the Financial Times following news that Iceland’s government has agreed to allow a Chinese investor to buy a large chunk of the island for an eco-tourism resort. He then repeated his remarks during a key radio broadcast Sunday, and he is asking the European Union to investigate the role of the UK and The Netherlands in the bank bailout.
The IMF has been involved in helping sort out the country’s debt problems and Iceland is eyeing European Union membership.
Links to other sites: China Post, The Financial Express, VOA blog
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Credit ratings agency Moody’s announced 13 July that it will review the US debt rating, since the country is not yet making significant progress on resolving the budget and debt ceiling crisis that could lead to a US default 2 August if not resolved soon. The announcement was followed a few hours later by President Barack Obama walking out of heated talks between Republicans and Democrats. It also prompted the head of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, to say that a default would constitute a major crisis that would send ripples through the financial world.
“The review of the US government’s bond rating is prompted by the possibility that the debt limit will not be raised in time to prevent a missed payment of interest or principal on outstanding bonds and notes. As such, there is a small but rising risk of a short-lived default.
“Moody’s considers the probability of a default on interest payments to be low but no longer to be de minimis. An actual default, regardless of duration, would fundamentally alter Moody’s assessment of the timeliness of future payments, and a Aaa rating would likely no longer be appropriate. However, because this type of default is expected to be short-lived, and the expected loss to holders of Treasury bonds would be minimal or non-existent, the rating would most likely be downgraded to somewhere in the Aa range.”
Links to other sites: BBC, Financial Times, Moody‘s, Washington Post
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Peru’s new president, Leftist former army officer Ollanta Humala, was congratulated by his opponent, Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the country’s former president, Alberto Fujimoro, who is serving a jail term. Despite what appears to be a peaceful transition of power, shares fell in the capital, Lima, by more than 10 percent, reports the BBC. Internationally-traded shares but particularly Peruvian mineral and precious metals mining company shares also fell on Wall Street, which US business publications attribute to Peru’s shift to the left.
Humala appears to have won by about 3 percent in a runoff vote: neither of them gained a necessary 50 percent majority in the first round of voting, which eliminated the three centrist candidates.
Links to other sites: BBC, Business Week, Wall St Journal
Washington Post video
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The long-serving president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has been transferred to a hospital in Saudi Arabia after an attack on his headquarters left him with head injuries, but reports on his medical condition are contradictory. Yemeni Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi took on the responsibilities of president Saturday night.
The Yemeni government responded to the attacks by attacking the home of tribal leader Sadeq al-Ahmar, who is suspected of being behind the attack on Saleh and others.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The FA, England’s national football association, has decided against voting for the next president of Fifa, the Zurich-based International Football, saying in a brief statement issued Thursday afternoon 19 May that it cannot support either candidate. AP sports writers put it more baldly, saying that the FA is “unable to choose between two candidates tainted by allegations of corruption scandal”.
The statement issued by FA Chairman David Bernstein, in its entirety:
“There are a well-reported range of issues both recent and current which, in the view of The FA board, make it difficult to support either candidate.
The FA values its relationships with its international football partners extremely highly. We are determined to play an active and influential role through our representation within both UEFA and FIFA. We will continue to work hard to bring about any changes we think would benefit all of international football.”
The two candidates are Sepp Blatter, who is seeking a fourth term from 2012 to 2016 and Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar, who successfully obtained the 2022 World Cup Games for his country.
Blatter has headed Fifa while a scandal involving members of the executive board unfolded, while there have been charges that Qatar paid Fifa board members to vote for it.
The United Nations special envoy to Cote d’Ivoire, YJ Choi, says that Laurent Gbagbo has agreed to surrender and that reports about attacks on the presidential palace in Cote d’Ivoire are not true. Choi says, “All the generals who are fighting for Gbagbo have deserted him, it is over. There is no army, there is no fighting.”
Reports continue to come in that there is still fighting throughout the country, and the possibility of a peaceful transition of power hangs in the balance Tuesday night 5 April.
Links to other sites: allAfrica/Radio France International, Reuters background on Gbagbo and rival Ouattara
AlJazeera video interview with UN special envoy Y J Choi
Japan is reviewing the possibility of completely covering the three damaged nuclear reactors at the Daiichi plant. It would be the first time anyone has tried to take such a measure. “Seawater near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility’s No.1 reactor contained radioactive iodine at 3,355 times the legal limit and a spokesperson for Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said extraordinary measures must now be taken,” reports Xinhua.
Japanese TV station NHK says reporters were told Wednesday morning that while airborne radiation levels continue to decline, the seawater contamination “was the highest measured in waters off the plant. The level of radioactive iodine-131 found 330 meters south of a water outlet of the plant was 3,355 times regulated standards at 1:55 PM on Tuesday.” The station notes that the outlet is used to drain water from reactors numbers 1 to 4.
“‘The (radiation) figures are rising further,’” said the agency’s deputy director-general, Hidehiko Nishiyama. “‘We need to find out as quickly as possible the cause and stop them from rising any higher.’”
The president of Tokyo Electric Power company, which owns the plant, has been hospitalized with stress and fatigue, Japanese media report, and CNN carries an article about the “austere” living conditions at the plant.
Links to other sites: ABC Australia, Aljazeera, CNN, NHK, Xinhua
Update Tuesday 8 March: The trial in Paris of former President Jacques Chirac has been postponed until late June to consider constitutional questions raised by the defense.
The French are waking up to a lively case of national politics Monday, with Marine Le Pen given the lead in a survey by Le Parisien newspaper, for the 2012 presidential elections, ahead of President Nicolas Sarkozy and Martine Obrey, Socialist candidate. Le Pen stepped into the shoes of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen as head of the National Front, France’s far right party. French media are debating the validity of the survey.
Meanwhile, the corruption trial opens in Paris Monday 7 March of former President Jacques Chirac, 78, who is charged with giving contracts for work that didn’t exist to friends during the early 1990s, while he was mayor of Paris, before he became president of France. The case reportedly could be cut short today on a legal technicality, however. Chirac served as mayor of Paris from 1977-1995 and as president of France from 1995-2007. He was also twice prime minister, from 1974-76 and from 1986-88.
Mikhael Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader whose meeting with US President Ronald Reagan in Geneva in 1985 led to the end of the Cold War, has sharply criticized current Russian leaders Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, calling them conceited for their remarks that they will decide between them who will run for president in 2012.
Putin, who stepped down after two terms and who helped his protege move into the job, is widely expected to run again. But Gorbachev says the Russian people should be deciding this and he is quoted by AP/Moscow Times as saying at a news conference that “It’s not Putin’s business. It must be decided by the nation in the elections, by those who would cast ballots.”
He also called for an investigation following remarks by a court spokesperson who says the judge had a verdict forced on him in the politically hot Khodorkovsky oil company case.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland is proposing to hold a series of smaller regional meetings rather than one major conference for the Global Forum on Migration and Development in 2011, Bern has announced. The forum is described by the foreign affairs ministry as “the first and only global dialogue on migration and development issues”.
Swiss Special Ambassador Eduard Gnesa shared the Swiss plan with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon 17 February in New York. Switzerland is 2011 president of the forum, a five-year-old United Nations initiative.
Voter turnout could be lowest on record
Portugal, fighting to deal with high unemployment and a heavy debt burden, has opted to keep its centre-right president in office. Anibal Cavaco Silva was elected 23 January to a second five-year term, but only 43 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot. Socialist Manuel Alegre and left-wing groups failed to convince voters of a need for change.
Links to other sites: Euronews, The Portugal News
BREAKING NEWS -
President Zine al-Abedine Ben of Tunisia has resigned and is reported to have left the country. Ben Ali had been in power since 1987 and 13 January, Thursday evening, he promised to step down at the end of his current term, in 2014, but growing crowds of protesters continued to take to the streets.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi announced on television that he is taking over temporarily, and he vowed to respect the constitution and implement promised reforms.
Reuters reports that police in Paris have been alerted to await his arrival and Al Jazeera says that “Maltese air traffic controllers have told Al Jazeera that Ben Ali is bound for Paris, though the Maltese government has denied any knowledge of Ben Ali’s plane having stopped in Malta after having left Tunis.”
Links to other sites: AFP, Al Jazeera, Reuters
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Back in 1993 someone told then-Swiss President Adolf Ogi that a group photo could do wonders for the popularity of the ruling seven-member Federal Council, Switzerland’s equivalent of a cabinet. And since then the ruling seven plus the chancellor, who oversees the administrative side of the government, have lined up every year for a photo. The 2011 version has a special look: for the first time in Swiss history, there are more women as councillors than men.
The seven members of the council are elected for four years and the one-year job of president rotates among them. Micheline Calmy-Rey, Socialist, is the 2011 president of the Swiss Confederation.
Left to right: Johann Schneider-Ammann, Didier Burkhalter, Doris Leuthard, Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, lEveline Widmer-Schlumpf (vice-president), Ueli Maurer, Simonetta Sommaruga, Chancellor Corina Casanova
Dilma Rousseff has two daunting roles to play as Brazil’s new leader as of Saturday 1 January: she is the first woman president of one of the world’s most dynamic young economies and she is the act that follows hugely popular President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who leaves office with an 80 percent popularity rating. Rousseff was Lula’s choice to succeed him, but she steps into the job with some solid credentials, starting with a strong mandate from voters in October elections.The former energy minister said in her first presidential address to Brazil’s congress that the country’s oil reserves are a key to managing its wealth. Petrobras, which will control the country’s first giant pre-salt find oil fields, the Tupi deposits, announced last week that the area, discovered in 2006, is commercially viable.
Links to other sites: Euronews, Dow Jones/Wall St Journal
US TV talk show host Larry King was told by Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai in an exclusive interview that his government is holding “unofficial” talks with the Taliban in order to advance peace talks. He cited a new High Peace Council, led by former President Buhanuddin Rabbani, with the goal of bringing the Taliban into the family fold of Afghans.
EU backs Germany on flight noise issue
Kloten International Airport, Zurich, Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland and Germany are back on track as friends, if official words are to be believed, after the start of German President Christian Wulff’s two-day working visit to Switzerland, Wednesday and Thursday 8-9 September.
Swiss media are reporting with caution the efforts by the German president and Swiss President Doris Leuthard to improve relations between the two countries.
Wulff, on his first official visit to Switzerland told media that he has “a good feeling” about the double taxation treaty the two countries are working on, which he says is far along. Leuthard talked about a “return to normalcy.”
The intervention of the European Union Thursday 9 September on one hot issue could ease tensions, because the problem of noise and flights over Germany from Zurich’s Kloten Airport has now been decided by the European Tribunal.
The two countries have been at odds for several months over two affairs in particular, bank data stolen from Switzerland that was purchased by a German state, and Germany’s refusal to let planes from Zurich airport fly over southern Germany early in the morning and late at night due to noise.
Stolen data debate part of taxation treaty talks
The stolen data has been an issue in the double taxation treaty, with Switzerland insisting that it cannot honour requests for judicial assistance if the request is based on stolen data. The same problem has arisen with other countries, notably Italy and France.
The Swiss Federal Council approved an ordinance that goes into effect 1 October 2010, and that will soon become law, under which foreign requests for judicial assistance in suspected tax fraud cases will not be handled if stolen data lies behind the request. The rationale is that “good faith’ must be part of any such request.
European Tribunal: Germany’s refusal to allow Swiss flights not against transport agreement
Germany in 2003 announced flight restrictions over southern Germany from Zurich, and Switzerland took the case to the European Tribunal. Thursday 9 September the tribunal announced that Germany’s restrictions are not in conflict with a 1999 bilateral transport agreement, which Switzerland has argued.
For now the flight restrictions, 21:00-07:00 weekdays and 20:00-09:00 weekends, remain in effect, with the option of a political agreement dangling during the talks Thursday.
Bronislaw Komorowski in the lead in close race
Poland’s electoral commission will not announce the final result of the presidential election until Monday afternoon 5 July, but the interim president, Bronislaw Komorowski, has more than 52 percent of the vote and is expected to win, with 95 percent of the vote in, in a close race. His opponent, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, conceded defeat Sunday, but the electoral commission has the final say, depending on votes. Kaczynski is the twin of Poland’s former president Lech Kaczynski, who died in an airplane crash in April 2010.
Links to other sites: BBC, Telegraph, UK, Warsaw Business Journal
Americans wondering what their tax returns should look like can take heart from the model return for 2010 filed by their president, Barack Obama, and his wif Michelle.
Few will be able to declare a $1,600 dog as a gift, the case for the Obama’s Bo, from Senator Ted Kennedy shortly before his death. And none will be able to claim something comparable to the $1 million he received for the Nobel Peace Prize, then gave away to charity. But many will be relieved to see how generous is the spread allowed when declaring other assets: a gift of bank shares from the estate of his grandmother sold for between $250-500,000. He made a loss on those.
The couple’s safe investments such as Treasury bonds, were valued at somewhere between $2.2 and 7.5m.
The most interesting thing for your average US taxpayer might be that the Obamas paid $1.4 million in taxes, on a salary for the president of $400,000, showing that the American dream of earning more than your boss pays you is still worth pursuing.
Links to other sites: AP, BusinessInsider, the White House tax report
Francois Bozize, the military man who became the civilian leader of the Central African Republic, this week becomes the latest African leader to be given an indefinite mandate, which could lead to a president-for-life title, reports AllAfrica. Parliament voted for a constitutional amendment to allow the indefinite mandate Monday 18 May. “Pro-government elements say the decision was necessary to bury the altercations over the electoral process which they believe could lead to a break down in law and order. The electoral process has been stalled for several months now as the opposition political parties, backed by civil society organizations face off with the government,” writes Jean-Mathew Tamba in The Monitor, picked up by the AllAfrica news service.
The name on all Washington’s lips Monday will be Solicitor General Elena Kagan, with US President Barack Obama rumoured to be ready to nominate her as the next Supreme Court justice. Justice John Paul Stevens’s retirement leaves open a slot. Kagan would be the third woman out of nine justices. There would be other “firsts”: the first time there is no Protestant on the court, the only sitting justice who has never worked as a judge and at age 50, Kagan would be the youngest justice.
While Kagan may not have strong backing from Republicans, she doesn’t appear to have strong opponents, for now, and her stint as dean of the Harvard Law School boosted her reputation. Her nomination would need to be approved by the Senate.
Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua has died, following a long illness. Africa’s most populated and oil-rich country is now led by Goodluck Jonathan, who has been acting president since January, but the new president, who is from the south of the country, faces possible challenges from northerners: Nigerian rule traditionally alternates between Muslims in the north and southerners, and Yar’Adua, from the northern state of Katsima, represented the northerners’ turn in power. The next presidential election is scheduled for April 2011. Jonathan has declared seven days of national mourning for Yar’Adua.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, AllAfrica, BBC, Xinhua
