GENEVA, SWITZERLAND -Alvaro de Miranda of Brazil riding AD Ashleigh Drossel Dan took maximum points in Geneva Sunday 11 December in the series final of the Rolex FEI World Cup Jumping, Western European League event.
The crowd had their money’s worth watching the 38-year-old rider and his 13-year-old gelding, in the second-round race against the clock, “a thriller in which the lead changed again and again”, according to the FEI.
Rolf-Goran Bengtsson from Sweden, the 2011 European Champion, was runner-up and Patrice Delaveau from France riding Orient Express was third. Sunday’s results have strengthened Bengtsson’s position at the top of the series, but Miranda, in 18th place, is now reportedly looking for a spot at the Rolex FEI World Cup™ Jumping 2011/2012 final in The Netherlands next April.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, 2 November lost his high court appeal to avoid extradition to Sweden. His lawyers say they will decide in the next 14 days whether or not to appeal to Britain’s supreme court. Assange is wanted by Sweden for questioning over charges of sexual assault filed by two women in relation to an August 2010 visit by Assange to Stockholm.
ABC News in Australia reports that “his mother Christine told the Australian Associated Press news agency on Wednesday that her son was now ‘even closer to a US extradition or rendition. If [the Australian people] don’t stand up for Julian, he will go to the US and he will be tortured,’” she said.
Links to other sites: ABC News, Australia, Guardian, UK, Radio Sweden
Long before Steig Larsson provided chilling murders Swedish-style, there was Henning Mankel
By Bob Evans
Ystad's police don't mind posing for photos by crime-fiction loving tourists
YSTAD, SWEDEN – “This is a great place to bring up children,” says police inspector and mother-of-two Charlotte Lindh as parents and children pass by heading to an open-air flea market on a bright Saturday morning. “Ystad is a very peaceful place.”
At the other end of Stora Ostergatan, the main street through the southern Swedish port and market town, milling shoppers halt on the main square to applaud parading military bands from Germany and Austria and Scottish pipers, in town for an annual festival.
The bookshop just off the square, Stortorget, is crowded as are the cafe terraces around it, the waiters threading through the tables balancing trays with coffees and pre-lunch drinks.
Just like any small provincial European town in the seasonal sunshine on the first day of a warm, late summer weekend?
Perhaps, but Ystad, with its 17,000-odd regular inhabitants, is different. For millions of thriller fans around the world, the medieval idyll of brightly painted thatched cottages and “olde worlde”—but with all mod cons—hotels is the murder-and-mayhem capital of Scandinavia.
Thank you, Inspector Wallander
Around its narrow cobblestone streets, the thoroughfares of the modern suburbs and the port, stalk the shades of the police heroes and heroines—as well as the villains—of the 11 “Wallander” novels of 63-year-old Swedish writer Henning Mankel.
Three series of Swedish television films based around the Wallander character, eagerly snatched up by broadcasters across the globe, have added many more mystery stories to the canon—all with plots approved by the author.
And Irish-born international star actor Kenneth Branagh has played the key role in British television versions—also popular in Sweden—of several of the novels, with more being shot around the town this autumn.
First launched into the world by Mankel in 1991, the gruff, introspective Inspector Kurt Wallander of the Ystad police has tracked killers and other assorted villains through the town and the picture postcard countryside beyond.
The death rate in each novel runs at an average of four.
The mainly quiet streets of Ystad, but just around the corner ...
Right there on Stortorget, the unathletic, fast-food addict divorcee inspector has a fight to the death to stop a criminal master-mind wrecking the world economy in an intricate international operation to be climaxed with a card slipped into an ATM machine.
In one of the films, a suicide bomber seizes the minister of defence on the square and in another a hostage-taker blows himself up there when he is cornered by Wallander and his team of male and female detectives.
In leisure moments, the inspector frequents the bookshop and the cafes. But a street away he finds the murdered body of a police colleague and just outside the square the crooked local member of parliament is shot dead despite a heavy police guard.
“One could say it is a pity that our quiet town has to become known for all this fictional violence,” says hotelier Peter Schonstrom, whose “Anno 1793 Sekel Garden,” built into a medieval tannery, features in two Wallander books.
“But I am not complaining. It certainly brings in business.”
Schonstrom’s hotel offers, without fanfare, a Wallander suite.
Tourists stream to Ystad for a closer look
Innovation a factor keeping Switzerland at peak of global competitiveness (photo, ©2011 E Wallace/GenevaLunch)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland is once again at the top of the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report, followed by Singapore, which has overtaken Sweden, then Finland with the US now in fifth place, slipping two slots since last year.
The report was published Wednesday morning 7 September by the Geneva-based organization that organizes an annual meeting of world business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland every January. The full report is available online.
Japan remains the top Asian country, at number 9 and China has advanced one place to number 26. Slovenia and Montenegro had steep falls of more than 10 places, while Sri Lanka rose by an impressive 13.
Switzerland is given top marks for its overall performance, especially ” innovation, technological readiness, and labor market efficiency”, where it comes first. The country’s strong points for the WEF include:
- “Switzerland’s scientific research institutions are among the world’s best, and the strong collaboration between its academic and business sectors, combined with high company spending on R&D, ensures that much of this research is translated into marketable products and processes that are reinforced by strong intellectual property protection.
- “This robust innovative capacity is captured by its high rate of patenting, for which Switzerland ranks 7th worldwide.
- “Productivity is further enhanced by a business sector and a population that are pro-active at adapting latest technologies, as well as by labour markets that balance employee protection with the interests of employers.
- “Moreover, public institutions in Switzerland are among the most effective and transparent in the world (7th). Governance structures ensure a level playing field, enhancing business confidence; these include an independent judiciary, a strong rule of law, and a highly accountable public sector.
- “Competitiveness is also buttressed by excellent infrastructure (5th), well-functioning goods markets (5th), and highly developed financial markets (7th), which benefit from a sounder banking sector than seen in last year’s assessment.
- “Finally, Switzerland’s macroeconomic environment is among the most stable in the world (11th) at a time when many neighboring economies continue to struggle in this area.
The weak point for Switzerland could be difficulty in maintaining its innovative capacity, which “will require boosting the university enrollment rate of 49.4 percent, which continues to lag behind that of many other high-innovation countries.”
Global Competitiveness Report 2011, WEF (top 20 countries)
Global Competitiveness Report, partial chart, ©2011 WEF
New rules from Basel for banks worldwide
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – The word Basel means one thing to bankers this week: new capital requirements.
New regulations will mean that the world’s largest banks have to raise additional capital and Tuesday’s paper is designed in part to give investors guidelines for “calculating extra funds that the lenders must raise”, reports Bloomberg, which notes that “the Financial Stability Board also published separate plans to ensure the orderly winding down of failed banks and shield taxpayers from bailing them out”.
The Financial Stability Board and the Basel Committee on Banking, both of which are part of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) unveiled details 19 July of the additional capital requirements that could apply to 28 banks “globally systematically important banks” that have been identified, in a document put out for consultation until early August.
The new formula for determining which banks are at what level of risk was promptly questioned by some of the world’s leading banks, which argue that the tougher capital requirements would endanger economic recovery by restricting their lending. Switzerland plans to implement even tougher standards and Sweden says it wants to do the same.
Bankers, however, say even the Basel III stringent requirements will push up the cost of lending.
Dragkedjan, by photographer Erik Johansson
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – “Mind your step!”, Eric Johansson’s optical illusion in the centre of Stockholm has taken the city, and YouTube fans, by storm, Yahoo News reports.
The photo-based street illusion in Sergels torg, or square, is impressively realistic on its own, but it comes to life when the crowds brave it. The video makes it clear that photography, usually considered a static medium, can spark action.
Johannson is no stranger to optical illustions, as the photographer/retoucher’s portfolio shows.
Eric Johansson’s web site and blog about making the illusion
3 videos:
Day 1, Mind Your Step
Creating the illusion
An interview with Eric Johanssen
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The United States is inching back up in world competitiveness, sharing first place with Hong Kong in the IMD business school’s 2011 World Competitiveness Yearbook, easing past Singapore, which in 2010 held first place. The US famously slipped to third place in 2010, losing the top slot it had held for several years.
The Lausanne school published its new report late Tuesday 17 May.
US “rescued” by business world efficiency
IMD included, for the first time, “Government Efficiency Gap” results, noting that US competitiveness overall was “rescued” by its business efficiency: the new measure compares a country’s government and business efficiency to determine whether countries have “the government they deserve.” The gap between US government and business efficiency has been declining since the early 2000s, the report notes.
Switzerland ranks fifth in the report, down from fourth place, with a score of 92.4 compared to the US and Hong Kong, each with 100 points. It was eased out by Sweden in fourth place, which IMD attributes to “the competitiveness of the Nordic model”. Germany gained six places to land in 10th, “thanks to increased exports and a more flexible labor marke”. Qatar, Korea and Turkey continue to become increasingly competitive, says the report.
Switzerland remains strongly competitive, but it slipped in business efficiency with labour availability, social responsibility on the part of business leaders and entrepreneurship seen as weaker than they should be.
The Swedish Millennium Films, based on the novels by Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson, have generated an increase in jobs, marketing, tourism and trade in the Stockholm area, according to a report (pdf) published by the Swedish-based Cloudberry group in collaboration with Oxford Research. They have also saved the city several million dollars in advertising.
The films have been watched by 20 million people, the region has become more popular and tourism is up: to reach an equivalent audience with purchased advertising time, according to Business Wire (BW), the Stockholm region would have to spend nearly CHF144 million.
Production costs of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, “The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”, and “The Girl who Played with Fire” totaled around CHF13 million for wages and services such as catering, housing, transportation, and location rental.
Olof Zetterberg, chief executive of Stockholm Business Region, told BW. “This study confirms that film is also a strategic tool for marketing Stockholm internationally.”
Anders Ekegren, chairman of Filmregion Stockholm-Mälardalen argues in BW that “the study shows that film is virtually unbeatable when it comes to marketing a region and a city. We also see the power of films to create jobs and economic growth at the local and regional levels.”
Links to other sites: Business Wire, Earth Times
Source: UNHCR, Geneva, 28 March 2011 (click on image to view larger)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of asylum seekers in the world has been halved in the past 10 years, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says in its 2010 annual asylum report issued early Monday 27 March. Whether this is good news or bad is difficult to judge, concedes the Geneva-based organization’s head.
“The global dynamics of asylum are changing. Asylum claims in the industrialized world are much lower than a decade ago while year-on-year levels are up in only a handful of countries,” notes High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “We need to study the root causes to see if the decline is because of fewer push factors in areas of origin, or tighter migration control in countries of asylum.”
He notes that developing countries still host the lion’s share of applications, and asks that other countries continue to support countries like Liberia, Tunisia and Egypt who are hosting large numbers of asylum seekers due to conflicts in neighbouring countries.
The report covers 44 countries that are destinations for asylum seekers.
US remains most popular host country
Switzerland was the 8th most popular country, with 13,800 applicants.
The report states that 358,800 asylum applications were made to industrialized countries last year, a 5 percent fall from 2009, and some 42 percent lower than the decade’s peak in 2001, when almost 620,000 asylum applications were made.
The US is the top destination for asylum seekers, for the fifth year in a row, followed by France, Germany, Sweden and Canada. These five countries accounted for 56 percent of all applications.
US numbers of new applicants were boosted by requests for asylum by more Chinese and Mexicans, while France saw an increase in applicants from Serbia, Russia and Congo. Germany saw an influx from Serbia, notably Kosovo, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The UNHCR says the “development is widely attributed to the introduction of visa-free entry to the European Union for nationals of these two countries since December 2009.”
Serbia has highest number of applicants
Serbia was the country with the highest number of applicants, 28,900, which the UNHCR says is almost as high as in 2001, “soon after teh Kosovo crisis”.
Several changes have taken place, including:
- the number of applications from Afghans fell by 9 percent and whereas in the past Norway and the UK were the main destinations, Germany and Sweden have become the top hosts
- Chinese asylum-seekers made up the third-largest asylum group in 2010, partly due to a substantial drop in the number of new applications from Iraq and Somalia
- for the first time since 2005, Iraq was not one of the top two countries of origin of asylum-seekers. It dropped to fourth place, followed by the Russian Federation
- Somalia, which occupied the third spot in 2009, fell to sixth in 2010.
Geneva international press, briefed by US Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe at UN Thursday
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The UN Human Rights Commission took a step in a new direction late Thursday when the Geneva-based body agreed to establish a special rapporteur for Iran.
This is the first single-country investigation into human rights abuses since the organization was set up in 2006, although Iran has come under review in the context of regular reviews called the Universal Periodic Review, to which all countries are subjected.
The motion passed with less than the majority voting in favour: 22 voted for the resolution, 7 were against and 14 abstained. A significant change from the past was Brazil’s vote in favour.
The US, which submitted the resolution jointly with Sweden, Zambia, the Republic of Moldova, Panama, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. US Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe told journalists afterwards that “today, what we have just witnessed is a seminal moment for this body, the Human Rights Council, with the establishment of a special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran. It is the first new mandate that is country-specific that has been created at the Human Rights Council since the creation of this body in 2006, so it’s a very important moment.”
She pointed out that country-specific actions by the council have generated “a lot of resistance in the past. Today we’ve seen the Council able to respond to a chronic, severe human rights violator which is Iran.”
Links to: UNHRC resolution on Iran 24 March, US Mission, Iran Human Rights
Smaller crowds turned out for Julian Assange’s extradition judgement today in south London than have been present for his other recent appearances, the BBC notes 24 February. The judge’s decision to allow Assange to be extradited to Sweden to face investigations into sexual assault charges against the founder of WikiLeaks was a foregone conclusion, Assange said afterwards, and he intends to appeal.
Links to other sites: CS Monitor, CNN, Telegraph
A judge in the UK today begins hearing the case for extraditing Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, to Sweden. The hearing is expected to end Tuesday, but with judgement reserved until later in February. Assange’s lawyers argue that he should not be extradited because Sweden wants him for questioning in relationship to two charges of sexual misconduct, saying he has not been charged with a crime.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, AP/Chicago Tribune, Reuters
Nations Brands Index: Swiss hold onto 8th place
US still number one, UK, Canada, Australia in top 10
When it comes to tourism, Switzerland is ranked 11th by the NBI (photo, Verbier)
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland is still viewed by most of the world in a positive light, says the newly published 2010 Nations Brands Index, NBI, which evaluates the strength and attractiveness of 50 countries. Several countries use it to create public relations campaigns.
The United States continues to have “the world’s most valuable country brand, a top spot it obtained in 2009 after [Barack] Obama’s election,” the index shows.
The annual NBI study bases its result on six categories: governance, investments and immigration, exports, tourism, cultural heritage and population. Switzerland ranks in the top 12 in 5 of these categories.
The study shows mixed results for Switzerland.
Generally speaking, Switzerland enjoys a better image outside Europe than with its neighbours, Germany being the exception. It ranks Switzerland second.
When it comes to the category “Population”, Switzerland is viewed less than favourably by Egypt and Turkey. Turkey places Switzerland 12th.
The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs notes that in the 2010 index, Switzerland’s “commitment to the environment and its excellent quality of life were once again regarded as [its] greatest strengths. It also received top marks for [respecting] the political rights of its citizens,” it ranked second only to Canada.
2010 equal to 2005 and 1998, confirms global warming trend
Extreme weather events listed but no direct link made
Australian desert (photo: ©2010 Peter Brodbeck, flickr)
(video, El Niño, La Niña) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Those who thought 2010 was hotter than usual were right: it was one of the warmest years on record, sharing the top hot slot with 2005 and 1998, the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) said in Geneva 20 January.
But if you were sitting in Scandinavia or the eastern US in December 2010 you’ll be right in thinking you’ve just experienced exceptional cold, with parts of Norway and Sweden having temperatures -10C below normal.
Eastern Canada and Greenland had unusually warm weather in December, however.
Higher temperatures did not affect the world evenly, but 2010 was exceptionally warm in much of Africa, southern and western Asia, Greenland and Arctic Canada, “with many parts of these regions having their hottest years on record” since the start of what the WMO calls instrumental climate records.
Greenland's snow and ice suffered from unusually warm weather in Decembe 2010
“The 2010 data confirm the Earth’s significant long-term warming trend,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. “The 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.”
The WMO is a United Nations organization that provides a place where member states’ national weather and meteorological services work together.
Arctic sea-cover at all-time low in December
Police in the UK are searching a property in Luton, Bedfordshire 13 December believed to have belonged to a man found dead in the street in Stockholm after two cars exploded there Saturday 11 December. Two people were injured in the attacks, the first such attack in Sweden. Swedish police have not released the name of the man believed to be the suicide bomber whose body was discovered near one of the cars that exploded in a busy downtown shopping area. He is believed to be an Iraqi who moved to Sweden in 1992 and is said to have attended Bedfordshire University.
Emails received by a Swedish news agency contained voice messages in Swedish and Arabic complaining of the Swedish military presence in Afghanistan and of a Swedish cartoonist who drew blasphemous images of the prophet Mohammed. Sweden had been spared the type of terrorist attacks that have struck London and Madrid.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, Daily Telegraph, Globe & Mail
Source: Al-Jazeera
WikiLeaks founder to appear in Westminster to answer sex charges from Sweden
London, England (GenevaLunch) - Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has been arrested in London, after turning himself into a police for a 09:30 appointment Tuesday morning 7 December. Assange has been in hiding since he was in Geneva in early November, after Swedish police announced they were looking for him in relation to the charges, brought by two women. He is expected to appear before a judge in Westminster later, but the process of deciding if there are grounds to extradite him could take months, British media report.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two of the four Swiss ski team coaches who were involved in a car accident in Sweden Wednesday remain in hospital in stable condition, in Umea, Sweden. Curdin Fasser is in an induced coma after suffering head injuries with a slight hemorrhage and a broken left femur as well as lung problems. Steve Locher has a fractured vertebrae and pelvis, but the fracture do not involve nerve damage. The two others travelling with them suffered minor injuries and have returned to Switzerland. Few details are available about the accident.
The international police agency Interpol has issued a “red alert” for Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblowing Wikileaks website after Swedish authorities issued an international arrest warrant. The Swedish public prosecutor’s office would like to question Assange about alleged sex offenses, which Assange denies.
The red alert is not an arrest warrant. “The persons concerned are wanted by national jurisdictions (or the International Criminal Tribunals, where appropriate) and Interpol’s role is to assist the national police forces in identifying or locating those persons with a view to their arrest and extradition”, according to Interpol.
Links to other sites: BBC, Daily Telegraph
Stockholm, Sweden (GenevaLunch) - The Swedish public prosecutor has issued an international arrest warrent for Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, over alleged rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion charges filed by two women who attended a seminar he gave in Stockholm in August 2010. Marianne Ny, the prosecutor, says in a statement she issued 18 November that “the reason for my request is that we need to interrogate him. So far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogations.”
Assange is Australian and he was visiting the country where his servers are located. He has denied the charges and said they are trumped-up. He was also applying for residence during his visit, a request turned down in October 2010 by Swedish authorities. Assange said during a visit to Geneva in early November that he is considering applying to Swiss authorities for asylum and moving Wikileaks to Switzerland.
Wikileaks has most recently made the news for releasing a massive number of classified documents in October 2010, 400,000, on the US was in Iraq. He was in Geneva in early November as a witness during the US Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council. A press conference he held at the Geneva Press Club drew an uncharacteristically large number of journalists, local and foreign.
Video, TSR (Swiss public television), interview by Dariel Rochebin with Assange, 4 November 2010
Switzerland number one for second year in row: institutions, infrastructure world’s best
World Economic Forum 2010-2011 competitiveness rankings
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland leads the pack, with Sweden and Singapore in second and third places respectively, and the United States in fourth in the latest edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Competitiveness Report, published Thursday 9 September.
The US has slipped two places, after being overtaken in 2009 by Switzerland. The WEF attributes the lower ranking to “In addition to the macroeconomic imbalances that have been building up over time, there has been a weakening of the United States’ public and private institutions, as well as lingering concerns about the state of its financial markets.”
The report uses two sources: publicly available data and a survey of business leaders, with 13,500 business people in 139 “economies” queried for this year’s report.
It contains more than 100 indicators for each country, part of the detailed country reports. “The survey is designed to capture a broad range of factors affecting an economy’s business climate. The report also includes comprehensive listings of the main strengths and weaknesses of countries, making it possible to identify key priorities for policy reform,” notes the WEF press release on the new report.
Nordic countries remain strong, says the WEF, with four of them in the top 15: Sweden (2), Finland (7), Denmark (9) and norway (14). China “continues to lead the way among the top developing countries” according to the report: it improved two places and is now ranked 27.
North African countries are competing more strongly, with several of them in the top 50.
Switzerland ranked number one in several areas in the report:
Authorities in Norway and Sweden have closed parts of their airspace as shifting winds are fueling a new cloud of volcanic ash over the peninsula. The Stockholm air space is open, but large parts of the country have become a no-fly zone.
Links to other sites: AP News
Saskatoon, Canada (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland was a pale shadow of itself Tuesday in Canada, losing to Sweden, 11-4 in the M20 World Junior Championship match for the bronze title. The US took the championship title in a surprise overtime win, defeating Canada 6-5.
Links to other sites: 20 Minutes (Fre), NHL videos
Church and minarets coexist in other parts
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, condemns the decision by a clear majority of Swiss voters and 19 and one-half cantons to ban minaret building in Switzerland, and says he is “shocked”. The Swedish integration minister, Nyamko Sabuni, says the vote was “an abuse of the Swiss voting system”, while Tobias Billstroem, her colleague in charge of migration and asylum policy, says “there are certain things one does not put to a popular vote”. The French Minister of Immigration, Eric Besson, says that it is wrong to “stigmatize a religion, in this case Islam”.
In Switzerland itself the reaction ranges from incredulity to glee. The Swiss people expressed their fear, says Romandie News, a fear of Islamist terrorism and Muslim immigration, citing the French-language press.
Targeted sanctions on leading Zimbabwe government officials, in place since disputed presidential elections in 2002, will not be lifted soon, according to a high-level delegation from the European Union (EU) which ended a two-day mission to Zimbabwe 13 September.
After a meeting with President Robert Mugabe, Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden’s international development minister, said “The political agreement was an important step forward, but much needs to be done. The key to re-engagement is the full implementation of the political agreement“. Mugabe has called for a lifting of the EU sanctions, arguing “sanctions are serving no humanitarian purpose, they are causing lots of suffering among the people right at the bottom”.
The EU is Zimbabwe’s main donor and its aid budget is currently frozen at €90 million. A Southern African Development Community (SADC) meeting 8 September called for Western sanctions to be lifted. Al-Jazeera, The Sunday Telegraph
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland has taken over the top position in the annual rankings by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) in its Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010, leaving the United States in second place for the first time in a number of years. The WEF says the lower spot for the US is due primarily to “weakening in its financial markets and macroeconomic stability.”
Singapore, Sweden and Denmark are the other top five countries, and European countries dominate the top 10, with Japan and Canada as 8 and 9 respectively. The UK has slipped to 13th place.
The report is compiled by combining publicly available data with an opinion survey of executives around the world.
Switzerland receives high praise in several areas:
Delighted Swiss mobile phone user
Paris, France (GenevaLunch) – Swiss mobile phone users pay among the lowest rates in the OECD countries, a study released 11 August reports. The Paris-based OECD, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, compares mobile phone service costs among member country markets, using Purchasing power parity (PPP) to compares prices using the cost of a similar basket of goods and services.
The government of Colombia said 27 July that it was investigating how Swedish-made weapons supplied to Venezuela were found in the possession of the rebel narco-terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). Colombia’s Vice-president Francisco Santos said “In several operations we have been able to capture arsenals of the Farc. We have found heavy weapons, including anti-tank weapons” that were purchased in Europe.
Jan-Erik Lovgren of the Swedish Inspectorate for Strategic Products, says that, based on the serial numbers, it appears that the weapons were sold to Venezuela in the 1980s. He told Swedish radio that arms sales to Venezuela had stopped in 2006 and that Sweden had never authorized arms sales to Colombia. The Venezuelan government, already embarrassed by findings linking it to Farc when Colombian troops overran a Farc camp in Ecuador in 2008, has rejected the claims. Venezuelan Justice and Interior Minister Tarreck El Aissami said it was a “media show” and “an aggression against our people, our government and our institutions”. BBC, CNN, El Nacional (Spa), Reuters.
Paris, France (GenevaLunch) – Sweden’s surprise star of this year’s Roland Garros tournament, Robin Soderling, continued his way by demolishing Nikolay Davydenko in straight sets 6-1 6-3 6-1. Andy Murray was overpowered by Fernando Gonzalez 6-3 3-6 6-0 6-4.
On Wednesday 3 June the big match will be Swiss star Roger Federer against Frenchman Gael Monfils. Federer is the only one of the top seeds still in the tournament and has seen three of the players with the best records against him knocked out (Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray).
Sweden’s parliament approved same-sex marriage legislation Wednesday 1 April by of a vote of 261-22 with 16 members choosing not to vote. The only party to oppose the new law was the Christian Democrats. The legislation will take effect May 1 2009. CNN
Are, Sweden (Geneva Lunch)- American skier Lindsey Vonn locked down her second consecutive World Cup overall title Wednesday 10 March by winning the last downhill of the season. She skied her way to victory with a time of 1 minute 42.49 seconds. Vonn is the first American woman to win two overall titles.
