Producing Swiss Emmental cheese (image, Swiss Cheese Marketing)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss are the world leaders in eating cheese and for 2009 the country set a new record for per person consumption, 21.4 kg. New 2009 figures from the Swissmilk show that in economically tight times the Swiss ate more, not less cheese, with consumption rising by 240g per person. The preference is for fresh, medium-hard cheeses.
Swiss cheese consumption 2009 (table, Swissmilk - click on image to view larger)
Those numbers are not as reassuring as the Swissmilk, the national milk farmers’ federation would like because foreign cheeses accounted for the increase, with Switzerland consuming 310g more of imported cheese, per person, and 70g less of Swiss cheese.
Appenzeller was the big loser, with consumption falling 10.5 percent, and Emmental was the big winner, up 7.5 percent. Switzerland Cheese Marketing will lead a country-wide publicity campaign to push the quality of Swiss cheese to consumers, starting in May 2010.
US President Barack Obama at his inauguration
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – US Democrats Abroad are launching a Get Out the Vote campaign worldwide to encourage Americans to register to vote early enough to participate in the November 2010 congressional elections. The group manages a web site, www.votefromabroad.org, where voters can order absentee ballots, and which offers them voter information.
Democrats Abroad is the official overseas branch of the US Democratic Party and has members in more than 160 countries. It is keen to get Americans abroad voting in the hope of holding onto a strong Democratic majority. There are 435 House elections and 36 Senate elections in November.
”Just over a year ago, we saw history being made before our eyes,” says Christine Schon Marques, the Geneva-based president of Democrats Abroad.
Wine and beer now allowed on radio, TV
More ads, different spots - and a drop of wine on Swiss TV, radio
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Ofcom, the Swiss federal communications supervisor, will issue directives during the summer of 2010 for more advertising space and time on radio and television. The new regulations will bring Switzerland into line with European neighbours, who have more advertising time, in order not to create a disadvantage, in particular for Swiss public TV and radio.
Hydroelectric station, canton Valais, Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Electricity price increases announced in 2009 by several suppliers were provisionally rejected in July 2009 by Bern as unnecessarily high, and Monday 8 March the federal electricity commission confirmed this. The commission’s report says that the increases were based on costs that were over-estimated in some cases and unacceptable inefficiency in other cases. The energy companies have the right to appeal, but if they do not the rate hikes will have to be abandoned.
The companies concerned are: Alpiq, BKW, Axpo (Axpo AG, CKW, EGL), EWZ and Rätia Energie, along with a number of smaller firms.
Wind turbine, Switzerland
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Canton Vaud will have 10 additional wind turbines on a third site, by 2014, Romande Energie announced Friday 5 March. The communes of Longirod and Marchissy, at the foot of the Jura, have agreed to their construction, as have the landowners. The wind energy produced by the mills will supply electricity to some 10,000 households. The cost to build them: CHF60 million.
Romande Energie has set a target to have 10 percent of its energy coming from renewable sources by 2020-2025, the company notes.
Links to other sites: Longirod, Romande Energy, Swiss federal department of energy on wind energy
Snow falling at noon Friday 26 February, at 1,000 metres, below Crans-Montana, Valais
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The locals and visitors from other parts of Switzerland will have their mountains to themselves again this weekend, with most of Europe’s school winter holidays over. Expect to climb high for decent snow, with warmer temperatures for the past few days thinning lower slopes. The outlook is brightening for the weekend but the picture remains mixed.
Swiss unemployment stable in fourth quarter, 2010 outlook brighter
More people working in Swiss healthcare
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Lake Geneva region showed the strongest growth in employment in the fourth quarter of 2009, up 1.1 percent. Zurich was the only other area to show growth, 0,9 percent. Overall, Swiss unemployment remained stable, with a slight slip of 0.3 percent compared to the same period in 2008.
Fourth quarter figures for Swiss unemployment published Thursday morning 25 February show with significant differences between industry, where the number of jobless continues to rise, and the services sector, where the jobless rate is falling. The outlook for 2010 appears to be brighter, according to Federal Statistical Office forecasts, with an increase in the number of jobs available. For the first time in five quarters, industry looks set to increase the number of jobs open, after seasonal worker adjustments to the figures.
The number of people actively working rose by 0.3 percent in 2009, thanks to women, whose presence in the workforce increased by 0.8 percent, while the number of men working fell by 0.1 percent.
First the cantons vote to ban smoking, now the anti-ban groups want to vote on new federal law
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland adopts a country-wide no smoking ban in May, but opponents are not taking the change in stride. A group defending the cafes and restaurants, the Légitime défense des cafés romands en péril Association, 3 February delivered a petition with 80,000 signatures, from French-speaking cantons, to the Chancellery in Bern, demanding a new vote. Theirs joins a similar petition from German-speaking cantons, delivered to Bern in December, with 64,000 signatures.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland is one of four commercial clients of Britain who will see nuclear waste returned by 2020, after a 10-year delay that kept it in Britain. Overall, 1,850 cannisters, 925 tons, of “highly reactive nuclear waste” will be returned to the countries that handed them to Britain for processing in the 1970s and 1980s. It will reduce the United Kingdom’s nuclear waste stockpile by 40 percent.
The first cannister sailed from the Sellafield plant in England for Japan Wednesday night, 20 January. Sellafield was home to numerous high-profile nuclear protests, particularly during the 1990s.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Commuters who leave their cars on streets in Grand Lancy and Chêne-Bourg for the day while they go to work are likely to find that option disappearing by the end of 2010, or in the case of Grand Lancy, sooner, reports the Tribune de Genève. The city of Geneva is currently the only commune in canton Geneva to sell its citizens monthly parking disks, known as macarons, which allow them to leave their cars on the street for indefinite periods
Update 21:20 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The proverbial sweet tooth could soon be replaced by sweet wheels in Switzerland, the kind that roll along sugar-covered highways. Authorities in canton Bern have confirmed that they have been using a liquid sugar-based product instead of salt on the A6 autoroute between Rubigen and Spiez, in a two-year test programme that is going well, canton Bern roads supervisor Martin Roesti told GenevaLunch.
The product being used is made by a British company, Safecote, and is manufactured in Italy. Parts of the US, Canada, Norway and Iceland use the liquid sugar on their roads. Switzerland is testing it, says Roesti, because at lower temperatures it is more effective than salt chloride. It is also less aggressive and doesn’t lead to potholes the way salt does.
Traffic jams a thing of the past, of course
Lausanne, Switzerland (Genevalunch) – The motorway roadworks that have last several months, between Morges and Ecublens on the A1 autoroute, are nearing completion. The Federal Roads Office (Fedro) says that the third lane (bande d’arrêt d’urgence - emergency lane) will be activated after 16:00 for afternoon rush hour traffic from Monday 18 January onwards. It will be activated permanently from 25 January onwards.
A1 to be partially closed Sunday 17 January
Fedro advises that Lausanne-bound lanes will be closed between Morges and Ecublens Sunday 17 January from 20:00 to 05:00 the following morning. The Geneva-bound lanes will be closed on the same stretch from 23:00 to 05:00.
Early January evening snowfall at Bern's Aare River and Bear Park
Bern's new Bear Park offers a lovely riverside walk, information on the animals
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Winter may not appear to be the ideal time to visit bears at parks, given their reputation for hibernating, but this is not stopping tourists from streaming to see the new bear park in Bern, which opened in late October 2009. Finn, a young male bear recovering after he was shot when an intruder went into the animal’s den, is particularly sought out.
”He’s in a kind of micro-hibernation,” says bear park spokesperson Marc Rosset, who says you have to have luck on your side to see Finn during these wintry days.
Finn, swimming again in December 2009
”He came to us from the Helsinki zoo, where he did hibernate during his first two years.” But in the slightly warmer climate of Bern, he occasionally goes outside. “He gets hungry, so he goes looking for food,” says Rosset.
Finn’s fourth birthday is 15 January.
Geneva's Cornavin train station
Artist's rendering of new Cornavin station (image: CFF)
Update with artist’s drawings, video link
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva’s Cornavin station begins a major renovation programme next Tuesday, 18 January. Work will begin on the west entry hall and the ground floor of the station. Access from the west end of the station to tracks 1 and 2 will be changed and new access to the building will be provided from the Montbrillant passage.
Ed. note: the Montbrillant passage will provide the only access to the building from the west side during the construction period, from January to August 2010, with the main area closed for renovation. A number of shops and other businesses in the station wil close for part of the renovation.
Artist's rendering of new Cornavin station (image: CFF)
Pedestrian traffic flow in future, Cornavin station
The first phase of the three-year project, the west wing, will be ready by May 2011 and the east wing in autumn 2013. The project is designed to improve traffic flows, but also t0 make the station brighter, livelier and more comfortable, says the CFF.
The area around the station will be particularly disrupted during the summer of 2010, with work going on inside the station and the nearby Place-des-Vingt-Deux-Cantons, next to the Notre Dame church, torn up to make way for the new Bernex tram line terminus.
2009 Unemployment figures for Switzerland: Seco
Update 17:55 Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Unemployment in Switzerland rose in December to 4.4 percent, up from 4.2 percent the previous month. Neuchatel and Geneva rose to 7.2 percent, the highest rates in the country, while canton Valais had the largest single month increase. 1.1 percent. Vaud’s rate in December was 5.9 percent.
Ed. note: Geneva, reports the Tribune de Geneve, argues that the federal statistics are skewered because they use data from 2000 for the canton’s working population. The canton in fact has an unemployment rate of 6.6 percent, it says.
Foreigners have been reported in the past to be affected more than the Swiss, and 2009 was no exception, with the rate for Swiss workers climbing 1 percent in December compared to 12 months earlier, but 2.5 percent for foreigners. Non-Swiss unemployed workers accounted for 46.4 percent of the total.
For the first time, jobless rates published by Seco are broken down according to nationality, although the figures provided, only in German, are limited to these groups:
Click on image to view larger
© 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.
Changes at La Poste include supplying new public mailboxes
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss postal service, La Poste, will be keeping only 30 of 114 post offices that were reviewed as part of cost-cutting measures begun in April 2009. A nearly 50 percent decline in mailed letters and packages plus a 17 percent drop in postal payments in less than a decade is behind a major restructuring of services to the public. La Poste’s list includes two post offices in Vaud that will be closed definitively without any replacement, in Buchillon and Chalet-à-Gobet.
Others will be modified with fewer services on offer or will be replaced by home pickup service, a practice widely used in many rural areas. The cutbacks are not finished: La Poste in April identified 421 post offices that will be reviewed by 2011.
At the end of 2009 La Poste has 2,348 post offices and 1,159 pickup services.
Swiss post office closings, changes (complete list)
Links to other sites: La Poste announcement in English, 24 Heures, Le Nouvelliste
Keeping the door open to dialogue
Update 23 December 07:55 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s Muslim community and the Swiss minister in charge of the Federal Department of Justice and Police met Monday 21 December to discuss the implications of the recent vote to ban new minarets. Federal councilor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told the group that Bern is determined to improve relations with the Muslim community. A first meeting took place in September, before the vote.
The government and three representative Muslim organizations have agreed to meet again, this time to analyze the situation and to discuss concrete measures.
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.
Garden, fresh snow, Saturday 12 December, Valais (1,100 m)
Aminona, near Crans-Montana, canton Valais, Switzerland, 4 December 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Last weekend there was snow: it wasn’t always pretty and it was wet, but it was the white stuff. It’s mostly gone now, except above 2,000 metres, but crowds nevertheless packed the autoroute from Geneva and canton Vaud to the resorts in Valais Friday evening. Saturday morning: it’s snowing again at 1,100 metres, so the buildup on the slopes is starting!
Here is your first taste of GenevaLunch’s popular winter weekend reports, a regular feature, now in its third season.
Alps, season gradually opening
Resorts news:
- Crans-Montana’s ski web site, mycma.ch, has a new look and offers more functions, but it’s slow. This weekend the resort offers low season rates, CHF57 for the day. You pay high season rates, CHF63 for the day, starting 19 December so get out there this weekend! (Ed. note: the Telegraph, UK, just ran a big feature on the resort but missed the boat when they got it wrong when they said it doesn’t strike them as a family resort)
- Gstaad, join the papparazzi, all sitting around outside Roman Polanski’s chalet, where he has been confined by a Swiss judge. Gstaad, for all its glamour, is not one of the high resorts, so not much is open in or near the town, but you can always head for the Glacier 3,000 area nearby.
- Verbier has been open since 20 November and will have five lifts open 12-13 December. CHF23-45 for day passes right now. New feature this winter – video snow reports. Snow depth Thursday, last snowfall: 70cm at 2,200m and 95cm at 2,950m
- Zermatt has 60 km of decent skiing at the moment.
Jura: you might prefer hiking to skiing this weekend, but some good news for later
December 2008, Jura
(Ed. note: Shirley Curran is back with her weekly reports on the Jura slopes, where she has taught skiing for years)
Our Jura resorts are due to open on December 19th and, in view of the excellent seasons we have had recently, to remain open until April 5th. Unfortunately, the weather is glorious in the Jura mountains at the moment with cobalt blue skies and some green slopes. We are not too worried. A cold spell is expected next week and snow will fall. This will be the first time for many seasons that we have not had a substantial fall in November!
Good news is that our downhill resorts (La Faucille, Mijoux, Crozet and Lélex) are all now using only the magnetic ‘forfaits’ that you can recharge on-line or at the ticket offices. The bornes read them automatically, so there will be no more fumbling with the ticket strung round your neck. The card is valid for three years and now costs only 1€.
9 December 2009, Jura - bit slushy yet!
Further good news is that Jean Charles and Pauline are back for another season running the refuge at Crozet. My top tip is a mid-morning hot wine next to their roaring fire or their home-cooked speciality of the day.
Weather forecast for the Swiss mountain regions
Snow in the Jura and the Alps, although some dry stretches in the Valais Alps. High of 3C, but -8C at 2,000m. Sunday 13 December colder, cloudy, highs of 0-2C. Snow intermittent throughout the mountain regions. MeteoSwiss
Swiss skiers off to a great start
Be sure to check our Monday morning weekend sports reports to follow Switzerland’s skiers, who are off to a great start this year.
New trams to Meyrin from Saturday 12 December
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva’s tram lines 14 and 16 will go all the way to Meyrin starting 12 December with five new stops in the town of Meyrin itself. The city’s public transport company, TPG, says that its entire route network has been extended and the frequency of bus and tram services increased.
The fare zones have been changed, partly in anticipation of the joint venture with canton Vaud’s Mobilis fare cooperative starting in late 2010, which will allow a person to travel from Annemasse to Lausanne and beyond with a single ticket. TPG also announced that its call up service Taxibus will be cancelled.
Until 1995, the only tram was the 12 from Carouge to Bachet. From 1995, TPG began important extensions to the tram network which now covers 30km of routes.
Background: “Vaud’s Mobilis tickets to cover most of canton“, 02 December 2009, GenevaLunch
Title: Course de l’escalade – Escalade Run
Location: Old Town, Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: The original, the only Course de l’Escalade. A run through the old town of Geneva for professionals to beginners of all ages. Last year there were more than 25,000 of us. (you must register)
The day ends with the course de la Marmite which is a general ramble through town in the most original costume you can find.
Start Time: 10:00
Date: 5 Dec 2009
image: ch.ch
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A small baby who died last week is Switzerland’s first death related to the A/H1N1 flu, authorities in canton Basel Land have confirmed. No details about the child or the exact cause of death have been released. The federal health department says the flu is now growing more rapidly, exponentially, with 773 cases, twice the number of the previous week.
Links to other sites: TSR (Fre), Swiss Federal Health Office web site on A/H1N1 pandemic, in English
Update 20:25 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government will not automatically hand over details of UBS accounts to the IRS, the US tax authority, without giving account owners a chance to defend themselves, Bern announced Tuesday 17 November: if Switzerland’s tax authority decides to turn over information to the IRS, account holders will first be notified and given a “chance to state their case.”
The announcement appears to be at odds with a remark attributed by the New York Times to Douglas Shulman, IRS commissioner, at a press conference held in New York Tuesday. He is reported to have referred to “‘the obligation that the Swiss have taken to the US government to produce 4,450 names’ to the IRS, he said.” But Switzerland says it will review the 4,450 accounts agreed upon and make a legal decision in each case about providing assistance to the IRS.
The Swiss government and the IRS Tuesday separately announced details of the process covered by their agreement, signed in August, concerning 4,450 UBS accounts where the IRS has asked for assistance as it chases tax evaders. Switzerland says the UBS affair will cost the government CHF40 million, with a team of some 40 legal and tax experts working fulltime for a year to decide in which of the cases Switzerland will provide assistance. Additional help from specialists will be called in if necessary.
The IRS’s Shulman also announced that more than 14,700 people had come forward under a tax amnesty that ended 15 October, for non-compliant taxpayers, well over the 100 or so who turn themselves in, in most years. He noted that the IRS case brought against UBS in 2008 will be dropped only if the US tax authority receives the names of 10,000 UBS clients, either through Swiss assistance or by the clients turning themselves in. The taxpayers who took advantage of the amnesty were from several countries and from many banks.
Tax adviser Gregory Dean of US Tax & Financial Services in Geneva Tuesday evening cautioned that “We should not lose sight that the voluntary disclosure programme still exists – the special programme promoted by the IRS closed October 15, but this has created the wrong impression that people can no longer come forward under the voluntary disclosure programme. This programme still exists, though the IRS approach to a post-October 15 disclosure is a little uncertain. What is certain is that voluntary disclosure is not available where the IRS has initiated an investigation of a taxpayer.”
Ed. note: The documents which make up the annex to the agreement between the two countries are available, but only in German, on the federal government’s web site.
Highlights of the agreement
Foreigners at top end out-earn Swiss
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Top managers’ salaries in Switzerland have continued to rise “sharply”, especially in the financial field, since 2006, and the spread between Switzerland’s lowest paid workers and highest increased, a preliminary government statistical report shows. Well-qualified foreign workers and those with long-term C residence permits out-earn their Swiss counterparts while foreigners with lower qualifications and some border workers earn less than Swiss people in comparable jobs.
Salaries, bonuses for insurers, bankers up sharply 2006-2008
The Swiss Statistical Office Tuesday 17 November issued its preliminary report on salaries in 2008. Salaries remained mostly stable, it shows, with the financial sector an exception: salaries and bonuses both rose, with top managers’ salaries increasing 38.8 percent from 2006-2008, compared to an 11.6 percent increase for top managers in all other fields.
