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.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Canton Vaud police are seeking the driver of a dark VW Golf following an accident at 09:00 Monday morning 9 January on the A1 autoroute between Rolle and Gland, in the direction of Geneva. A metallic gray Skoda was in the left lane, just before the La Côte layby, passing a truck, when the driver was surprised by the Golf, which suddenly moved towards the left lane. The two cars scraped their sides, but continued to the Gland exit, where the VW Golf driver continued without stopping or reporting the accident to police.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact them by phone at +41 21 644 4444 or to go to the nearest police station.
Rolle, Lake Geneva, 16 December 2011
GENEVA / ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Zurich airport is suffering major disruptions due to storms Friday evening 16 December and Geneva airport saw delays during the day, as winter blew into Switzerland with a vengeance.
Valais police are reporting several roads closed due to heavy snow, and the car/train link between Goppenstein and Kandersteg was closed Friday. Trees are down in several parts of Vaud, with one tree hitting three cars in Lausanne.
Joachim is the name of the storm that blasted its way across parts of the Jura and Bern Friday morning, bringing high winds and storms that churned up Lake Neuchatel.
Zurich airport reported some cancelled or delayed flights Friday morning, notably from Nice, London and Amsterdam, all affected by storms. By Friday evening Swiss was sending people to a “bad weather in Europe” page and Zurich airport was showing several flights cancelled or delayed, including Paris and London flights.
Geneva airport, which opened its new visitor center officially 16 December was only lightly touched, with some London flights cancelled and minor delays as the Lake Geneva region was drenched by winds and torrential rains.
The Swiss Institute for snow and avalanche danger has put most of canton Valais on a red alert (level 4) for avalanche danger. Postal cars on the Gampel-Steg and Blatten (Lötschen) line are not running because of the danger of avalanches.
Weather has also closed several regional train lines, including Rochers-de-Naye.
Lake Geneva at Rolle 16 December, looking towards Evian and the French Alps where the clouds are dumping snow
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A high speed chase on the A1 autoroute from Gland to Morges at 01:00 Monday 31 October resulted in the arrest of four men from Lyons, France. The group was breaking and entering a shop in Rolle when police were contacted via the 117 number. Several police and highway patrol units were set up and the car, with French plates, was spotted in Gland, heading for the autoroute.
The car was chased by police at speeds up to 150 kph, with the car ignoring police warnings to stop and the driver swerving several times to prevent the police from overtaking. At the Morges Est A1 exit two patrol cars were set up to block their path and the four were caught. The men have admitted to the facts in the case, say police.
Rolle has recently been the site of other robberies, notably jewelry shops.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss jewelers are being hit by a spate of armed robberies, with two people injured Friday morning in Lugano and one person in Gstaad.
The thieves in Gstaad, a luxury resort in the Bernese Oberland region, tied up an employee, who was threatened with a knife, before getting away with several thousand francs worth of watches, say police.
The owner of a jewelry shop in Lugano, canton Ticino, was injured, as was a shop employee, who tried to chase two thieves despite his injuries. One of the thieves was caught, but the other escaped.
Link to photos at the Corriere del Ticino.
GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Police in canton Vaud are looking for the driver of a Seat Combi car with Geneva plates who may have caused an accident Friday morning 19 August at about 05:50 on the A1 autoroute near between Rolle and Aubonne, heading in the direction of Lausanne. The driver left the scene of the accident, which occurred just after the Rolle exit. Police are looking for the driver as well as witnesses.
The driver of a Peugeot 206 was driving at 125kph, according to the driver’s statement, when the Seat Combi passed his and suddenly cut back in just one metre in front, forcing the Peugeot driver to brake suddenly. The Peugeot’s driver lost control and the car fishtailed several times, hitting the central barrier and ending up facing the wrong direction. An Audi A3 was forced to stop abruptly, with his emergency lights flashing, but the driver of the car behind couldn’t avoid it and both cars ended up facing the wrong direction.
The drivers of the Peugeot, the Audi and the fourth car had slight injuries but were not hospitalized.
Anyone who can help clarify the circumstances that led to the accident is asked to contact the nearest police station or call Vaud police: +41 21 644 4444.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The federal highway office’s Truckinfo site for international truck drivers is warning caution on the A1 autoroute, in both directions, between Rolle and Gland, with animals on the road following an accident.
Details are not yet available. The site is updated every few minutes.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Cisco, which has three Swiss offices, including one in Rolle in canton Vaud, was busy presenting its latest products at Cisco Live in Las Vegas, Nevada Wednesday 13 July while the business rumour mill was grinding out stories about expected layoffs that could be as high as 10,000, according to Bloomberg Monday, or between 5,000 and 7,000 according to the Wall St Journal Wednesday.
The California-based company employs more than 73,000 people worldwide and has annual revenues of $10.9 billion.
Chief executive office John Chambers appeared to give some credence to the rumours with a keynote speech at the Cisco Live event where he talked about a leaner company that will cut costs by about $1 billion during its next fiscal year, saying the company has become too complex. Cisco has been promising a reorganization that will get innovative products to market faster. The company has so far declined to comment on the number of jobs that will go, and Chambers said Wednesday that a final decision has not yet been made.
The job cuts are expected to be announced in August.
The accent on Wednesday was Cisco’s role in providing cloud-related products. The company is best known as a computer network equipment maker. Reuters, in a review of the new products presentation notes that the company is now the second provider of servers in the US, “behind only HP, commanding 19.7 percent of the market. While other business units are struggling to maintain, servers have grown into nearly a billion-dollar business in less than two years.”
Rolle, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The idyllic little town of Rolle, population 7,000, might seem a little less so now to one of its fans, French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, who has lived there for 35 years. He told a journalist in an interview in 2009 that he has never paid taxes in Switzerland, preferring for “cultural” reasons to pay them in France. The comment drew attention at the time in part because of media attention focused on French singer Johnny Halliday and other celebrities accused by the French government of avoiding taxes by using Switzerland as their tax base.
In Godard’s case, Swiss television TSR reports that after the interview appeared the Rolle tax office was contacted by taxpayers wondering how they could organize a similar arrangement, and since then the cantonal tax office in Lausanne has taken an interest in the case, to determine if the Vaud village is indeed Godard’s residence for tax purposes.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - A group of would-be thieves who tried to rob the UBS in Rolle, canton Vaud, made a speedy getaway and succeeded in escaping from police despite a high-speed chase in the early hours of Monday 19 July.
Police were contacted by several neighbours who heard unusual noises and noticed several masked invidividuals around the cash machine at the bank, at 03:20. One of the thieves was trying to remove the machine, using a cable and a Cherokee Jeep stolen shortly before the robbery, but didn’t succeed. The group fled as police arrived on the scene.
They drove off in two cars whose make is not known, say police. A large manhunt was set up immediately by the regional police centre, and they were spotted between Gland and Coppet on the A1 autoroute, traveling at high speed.
A police chase ensued, but they outdistanced the police and were lost heading in the direction of Geneva.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the police at +41 21 644 4444 or to go to the nearest police station.
New winter campus near Gstaad brings construction projects to nearly CHF100 million
Rolle, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Institut Le Rosey in Rolle, long known for educating many of the world’s royalty as well as the children of celebrities, is about to get a state-of-the-art cultural centre, to be baptized Carnal Hall [sic], named after the school’s founder, Paul Carnal. The new CHF35 million centre was designed by Paris/New York architect Bernard Tschumi, a graduate of EHZ in Zurich, and will house a theatre that will take 1,000 people, as well as several exhibit areas for the arts. The centre will be open to the public occasionally.
Bernard Tschumi designed the Ecal School of Arts in Lausanne and a number of other educational projects. Among the firm’s other projects are the new Acropolis museum in Greece and a new project to renovate the zoo in Paris.
Le Rosey will also begin work on a new winter campus.
A1 Gland-Rolle accident: one seriously injured; Epalinges, Gland and Gingins deaths
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Three people have died and one is in serious condition following four separate accidents in Vaud since Tuesday. A woman in her seventies died following an accident in Gingins Saturday morning. In another accident early Sunday a 20-year-old man was airlifted to the Chuv university hospitals in serious condition after he lost control of his car on the A1 autoroute between Gland and Rolle, heading in the direction of Lausanne.
The Gingins accident occurred when the woman failed to see a vehicle coming from her right.
Update 10:05 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The A1 autoroute, in the direction of Geneva, is closed between Rolle and Gland due to an accident involving a large truck. Officials say the road will remain closed until at least 11:30 and traffic, which is badly backed up, is being diverted to the N1 (lake road).
Ghana: local chief holds out cocoa used in Cadbury chocolate (photo: Cadbury)
Geneva/Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – US-based Kraft Foods went public with an offer for Cadbury, UK confectioner, after the British company refused its proposal. Kraft is offering £10.2 billion for Cadbury, which formally turned down the proposal Monday 7 September, noting in a statement that “the board is confident in Cadbury’s standalone strategy and growth prospects as a result of its strong brands, unique category and geographic scope and the continued successful delivery of its ‘Vision into Action’ plan. The board believes that the proposal fundamentally undervalues the group and its prospects.” Shares in the company rose strongly Monday.
Title: English cheeses and Swiss wines tasting
Location: Mont-sur-Rolle, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: A day to enjoy five different kinds of English cheeses, paired with Swiss wines and local specialties.
Date: 04 Sep 2009
Title: Flea market in Rolle
Location: Rolle, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: Clean your attic of those unwanted objects and sell or re-stock your cave at the flea market in Rolle. Must register to sell, free to shop.
For more info: +41 (0) 21 825 15 35.
Start Time: 7:00
Date: 5 September 2009
End Time: 18:00
Féchy's vineyards, Lake Geneva, French Alps
Féchy, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Wine producers in the small (population: 700) village of Féchy, above the lakeside town of Rolle, met Friday 12 June for the annual “baptism” of their Vigne du Monde, vintage 2008.
It was a remarkably charming event, held next to the landmark hillside white chapel, with the sun shining, the lake shimmering and world-class chef Fredy Girardet talking about the vintage for which he is the godfather.
New AOC rules prompting marketing efforts
A question of terroir and the winemakers' skill
Behind it lay a serious 21st century marketing push. Féchy’s wines are some of the best in the canton and their producers want to ensure that under a new AOC (appellations d’origine contrôlées) system, as many of their wines as possible win the right to the coveted premier grand cru label that will designate top regional wines. These are likely to be among the Swiss wines that are exported, extending the market, so the financial incentive for producers is significant.
This time next year, in May and June 2010, wine lovers will see the results of a major change now sweeping through the vineyards of canton Vaud (see wine buyer’s guide below).
Title: Spa open doors day (adults and children)
Location: Rolle, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: The Elaneha spa offers an opportunity to visit the space, meet the people connected to the children activities they offer, and get a taste of ayurvedic dishes. Representatives of the association for the children of Mozambique will also be present.
Date: 06 Jun 2009
Saint Prex, Switzerland lakefront
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Grouches will be hard-pressed to find something to complain about this weekend, with perfect weather lined up and plenty to do in the Lake Geneva area.
Weather
Temperature range 12-22C around the lake and 9-24C in Valais, with blue skies and sunshine – partly overcast Sunday, to spare those who picked up a sunburn Saturday.
Activities
Nyon: castle, beaches, swimming pool, Roman ruins, shops and more
Book fairs, wine and cheese tastings, free outdoor concerts: this is the weekend to explore the lakeside towns of Nyon, Rolle and Morges, each an easy 15 to 20-minute train ride from the other, with good service between the towns and cities of Geneva and Lausanne.
The lake water is a bit cold yet for most swimmers, but the grassy beaches in towns along the lakeshore are perfect for games, picnics and peaceful reading sessions.
Title: Cheeses, wine and more
Location: Mont-sur-Rolle, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: An evening dedicated to local cheeses, accompanied by some of the best wine in the region.
Date: 04 Jun 2009
A three-part special on housing and the international population in the Lake Geneva region: part 1
(Also see part 2: Myth and reality: how housing in the Lake Geneva region adds up)
Geneva, Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland’s population grew by 1.6 percent in 2007, the highest rate since 1963, thanks to immigration fueled by a healthy economy and the country progressively opening up to the Schengen Area free movement of labour, starting in 2002. One result was to put more pressure on the demand for housing, especially in the Lake Geneva region where demand has long been greater than supply.
A new peak in housing demand in 2008 in canton Geneva coincided with new construction falling off, leaving Geneva with an apartment vacancy rate of 0.25 percent on 1 June 2008, the date when national figures are compiled.
Cisco Rolle: showing guests the quality of large-screen networking
San Jose, California, USA (Bloomberg) – Cisco is selling $4 billion of debt, only the second sale of its bonds in 25 years, as part of measures to cut costs in the face of falling sales worldwide of networking equipment.
Moon over the Swiss Alps, Val d'Anniviers, 24 December 2008
(GenevaLunch) – Only today left and you haven’t started your shopping, or someone near and dear to you hasn’t and you’re a little worried about that?
If you’re desperate to make a nice, quick card, download from flickr the large view of the photo at left, the Swiss Alps the morning of 24 December (compliments of GL editor Ellen Wallace – Merry Christmas!).
Here are some suggestions for quick fixes to the shopping problem:
Read more…
Title: Music, theatre, exhibits and sports in Rolle
Location: Rolle, Canton Vaud
Description: Official calendar of events.
Start Date: 01 Nov 2008
End Date: 30 Nov 2008
Title: GWIT Happy Dinner, Room to Read charity event
Location: Rolle, Restaurant Le Casino
Link out: Click here
Description: Coraline de Wurstemberger, owner of Les Dames de Hautecour, will share her personal story and her wines followed by dinner and an after-dinner tombola in aid of GWIT chosen charity Room to Read.
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 30 Oct 2008
Rolle, Vaud, Switzerland (Le Matin, Fre) – Chiquita, the food company based in Cincinnati, Ohio in the US, will open a new European head office in Rolle, becoming the 15th international company to open shop in the town since 2003. The company registered in Vaud in December 2007, the deadline to take advantage of fiscal incentives that were made possible by a Swiss federal programme to build up disadvantaged industrial zones. The company reportedly plans to have some 100 employees at the new A-One Business Center complex, according to Le Matin. Other newcomers include Cadbury-Schweppes and Yahoo, neither of which has yet moved into the town, and Bank Pictet and Cisco, already established.
Lake Geneva region (GenevaLunch) – [Update, 13:00, fast trains are now operating, but with "delays." Service between Renens and St Prex is not operating and bus service is limited [CFF news link] The train line between Morges and Rolle is not in service for part of the morning, the CFF reports, due to an electricity malfunction. Service is expected to return at 10:00. The lines between Geneva and Lausanne are partially operating: Lausanne-Renens service is available and Geneva-airport to Rolle is in service. A bus has been added between Renens and Morges.
