GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Monday is the Pentecost holiday in Switzerland, with most cantons offering workers the flexibility of taking the day off or not. Some shops and businesses will remain open, but many are closed for a three-day weekend.
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – It’s been 56 years since the Switzerland beat Germany in football but they did it Saturday in Basel, 5-3 in a friendly match. The Swiss team put in a strong performance against a German team preparing for Euro 2012. The Germans were lacking a number of players, but coach Joachim Loew said the team made a number of mistakes.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss government 25 May opened for public review the proposed initial regulations drawn up by a working group, that result from a popular vote in March 2012 to limit the number of second homes in the country.
The vote called for a 20 percent cap on second homes in any commune, but developing the ordinances has been fraught with heated discussions about what precisely the Swiss voted on.
Canton Valais, which has a particularly high number of small communes where the number of second homes is well over 50 percent, has been pushing for clarity on several of the issues: when the law goes into effect, whether or not it affects existing second homes and the impact on inheritance.
Thursday Bern said that two options are being proposed for the law to go into effect, 1 September 2012 and 1 January 2013. The first would allow communes to continue giving building permits until September, in theory.
It also noted that “buildings that have been constructed and used in line with legislation in effect before 11 March 2012 must be able to continue to be used in the same way that was legally admissible on the date when the new constitutional law was accepted. Existing homes must be able to be freely sold and handed on through inheritance.”
Bern also clarified the definition of a second home: one that is not the legal domicile of the people living there.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A growing shortage of qualified labour in Switzerland, according to research carried out for online employment agency Monster.ch, is encouraging companies to reconsider older workers. The prognosis for those over 50 is brighter than in the past, with 75 percent of companies saying they see recruitement of people over age 50 as a solution to the shortage of qualified workers.
That said, only 37 percent of them are actually regularly hiring people over age 50. And 34 percent say they do not want to keep people on as salaried employees once they reach age 65.
The research was carried out through interviews with 500 of Switzerland’s largest companies from November 2011 to March 2012. It indicates that companies consider close to 35 percent of jobs difficult to fill and they turn to neighbouring countries to look for applicants, particularly for IT and research and development posts. That figure is expected to climb to more than 46 percent by 2015. Combined with changing demographics, with an aging work force, older workers may have a better chance of finding work in the future.
Bright news is that 2013 should be better
Swiss Alps, winter 2012
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Glum news out of Bern for the Swiss tourism industry Tuesday 22 May won’t surprise anyone: the strong franc and weak euro are hurting the tourism industry this year. The latest forecast for the summer season is a drop of 1.7 percent overall, but 3.4 percent for tourists from abroad.
Two factors that are saving the situation somewhat are strong demand at home, with the Swiss visiting their own country, and continuing strong demand from Asia. Seco, the economics ministry, notes that while strong demand from Asia’s emerging economies helps, they remain too small a share of overall tourism to make up for significant losses from neighbours France, Italy and Germany.
The glum outlook follows a morose winter season, down 3.4 percent compared to the previous year, but with Swiss resorts showing a 6 percent drop despite wonderful snowfalls, due to poor weather in December followed by bitter cold in February.
The forecast for 2013 is brighter, expected to rise 1 percent with a 2.7 percent for 2014.
Consumers see inflation as stronger and expect it to increase in next 12 months
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss consumer confidence is rising, with the quarterly index of Seco, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs showing a marked increase in two key areas. The survey carried out at the end of April shows that “consumer expectations regarding the development of the overall economic situation reached -2 points in April (compared with -29 in January). There was also an improvement in the expectations concerning unemployment (+49 in April com-pared with +71 in January),” according to a statement from Seco.
The two areas that remain virtually unchanged, however, are assessments of the future development of consumers’ personal financial situations (+0 in April compared with +1 point in January) and “the assessment of their future savings opportunities (+20 compared with +22 points in January)”.
A number of changes are taking place in the way the survey is carried out, starting with a change in the research institute doing the research, but it will also cover an additional two to three weeks and will include 1,200 rather than 1,100 households. A key change is that Italian speakers from Ticino are now being inclluded; in the past the surveys were run only in French- and German-speaking Switzerland.
Truck overturned, en route to Gondo, on the Swiss-Italian border, closed the Simplon pass Tuesday afternoon
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A truck overturned Tuesday 15 May at 14:20 on the downhill side of the Simplon pass, heading towards Italy. The 56-year-old Italian driver was injured slightly. The road was closed following the accident.
He was returning from Visp in canton Valais to Torino, Italy when the truck went onto its side on a hairpin bend near Gondo.
Police have not yet determined what caused the accident.
Arab spring played a role
Numbers are impressive but it’s the criminal tales that are gripping
Growth in reporting of suspicious financial activity shows significant jump
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland saw a 40 percent increase in 2011 in the number of suspicious activities reports (Sars) to MROS, the Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland, the federal office shows in its annual report published Monday 14 May.
Banks and other financial groups, required by law to report suspicious activity, filed 1,625 Sars in 2011. Of these, 91 percent were forwarded after “careful analysis” to judicial authorities, federal or cantonal, for prosecution. The total asset value was more than CHF3 billion, greater than the combined value of Sars from 2009 and 2010 and a record figure.
“In 2011, 1,625 SARs generated a total asset value of just under CHF 3.3 billion (2010: CHF850 million from 1,159 SARs),” the report notes.
Two-thirds of the reports were triggered by media reports (30 percent of information sources) combined with third party information and information from prosecuting attorneys, which “show(s) that financial intermediaries use modern resources and consult external sources in order to gather information for their inquiries, which is then evaluated and condensed into a considerable number of Sars sent to MROS”, the report indicates.
Seven cases of bribery had total assets of CHF791 million each
The huge increase underscores the continuing progress made against money laundering in Switzerland over the past 10 years but it also provides a window to some significant shifts in money laundering globally. The average asset value in 2011 was approximately CHF2 million, compared to CHF731,000 a year earlier. The sudden jump shows a small number of cases, notably bribery in the Middle East and in particular in Egypt, that involve much larger sums than the cases in 2010. Seven cases of bribery had total assets valued at CHF791m each.
Four cases of online gaming had a total assets value of CHF560m each.
Eight cases had a total asset value of nearly CHF200m each, while in 2010 none of the reported cases had a total assets value over CHF100m.
Types of crimes reported are shifting
Fraud remains the largest group of crimes reported, but the numbers are down slightly due to a change in reporting. Computer fraud, mainly phishing, has been retroactively put into a category of its own starting with 2007. MROS says the report “shows that ‘phishing’ remains a topical subject and that financial intermediaries consistently report the account details of financial agents or ‘money mules’ to MROS”.
A second group, money laundering, consists of activities that are not technically money laundering crimes “despite the fact that the modus operandi suggested acts of money laundering. The increase is due not only to one reported case involving numerous business connections, but also to the general increase in the number of SARs in 2011.”
The drugs category consists of reports linked to “the street sale of drugs by nationals of sub-Saharan African states and the financial transactions associated therewith (money exchange, money transmitting)”.
Swiss police dog at a recent training camp (not Krak)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 24-year-old Swiss border guard suffered serious injuries Sunday morning 13 May when a passenger attempted to flee from a car that was pulled over by guards. The young guard sustained two compound (open) fractures to his leg and was operated on successfully Sunday night; he will need several months to recover, according to customs authorities.
The passengers of a blue Renaut Clio with French plates were stopped at the Moillesulaz (Thônex) border area, at route de Genève 148 at 09:20 Sunday as they were leaving Switzerland. A 21-year-old Algerian jumped out of the car and tried to run back towards Switzerland.
Two guards immediately gave chase and as they caught him, one of them fell hard against a curb, breaking his leg badly. While his colleague stopped to give him first aid, the suspect ran off again and another border guard, in charge of a police dog, ordered the man to stop. When the order was ignored he called on the dog to give chase.
Krak, a 4-year-old German Shepherd, caught the man after 50 metres, biting him on the calf. The man suffered light injuries.
The car’s occupants were arrested by guards on suspicion of having committed a number of crimes in the Geneva region. They were turned over to Geneva police.
Canton Vaud tells Bern: pump money into public transport
The slow boat to Lausanne: the canton would like to see low-energy but high-speed options developed
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Cleaner air, healthier citizens, faster transport – Canton Vaud’s infrastructure department head François Marthaler says we can have it all, by speeding up investments in public transport, and he is calling on Bern to do so.
Marthaler’s demand in a statement from the cantonal council Friday 11 May comes on the heels of the first federal microcensus for transport and mobility, issued last week. The federal figures, combined with other cantonal numbers, show that train use is on the rise and cars are gradually slipping from favour.
Switzerland until recently ran a census every 10 years, but the use of digital databases has made it practical to compile annual microcensuses that focus on a limited number of subjects which were previously part of the longer-term census.
Regular use of public transport up
More than 60,000 people took part in the mobility microcensus. It shows that cars used as a share of overall transport have fallen from 77 percent in 2000 to 75 percent in 2005 and 72 percent in 2010. The number of cars per inhabitant has also been sliding, from 530 per 1,000 during the 2001-2005 period to 512 per 1,000 last year.
Worth noting: population growth was 1.9 percent, or 13,500 people more, from 2010 to 2011.
Vaud residents are becoming more regular public transport users, with 46 percent of them having some form of special rate “abonnement” card, compared to 37 percent in 2005.
The canton argues that the CHF6 billion earmarked by the federal government as an optional budget item to speed up the expansion of regional train service is the minimum for what needs to be invested.
Improving car traffic will make public transport function better
The council makes the argument that the project to improve the ring road around Lausanne is crucial to help the shift to public transport: if traffic is drained from Lausanne more rapidly onto the autoroute, public transport in the city will function more effectively.
Another crucial part of the transport picture is bicycles and pedestrians and here, the council notes, Vaud lags behind the rest of Switzerland. The potential to develop bicycle and pedestrian paths is huge, says the council, which would like to see these developed more in the greater Lausanne area.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss federal government says the fight against black market labour is showing results, thanks to strong support from the cantons. Inspectors carried out 1,130 checks of companies and checked 33,866 individuals in 2011, a slight drop, according to Bern’s figures, but the government says cantons carried out more in-depth investigations last year.
The law against black market labour is now in its fourth year and the Department of the Economy is preparing a report for the end of the year with long-term recommendations.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland’s closely-watched numbers of asylum-seekers rose by 7.9 percent in April, compared to March, showing a continuing significant increase. The countries of origin were markedly different compared to the previous month, however.
The country’s relatively high number of foreigners, 22.3 percent of the population and the highest percentage in Europe except for tiny Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, does not include the figures for asylum seekers.
Both are on the rise, adding fuel to the debate over Swiss immigration policies.
The far-right UDC People’s Party in March 2012 handed in enough signatures for a popular referendum, “Against mass immigration”, and although the vote is not yet scheduled, both sides are building their arguments
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland officially lifts all sanctions against Myanmar/Burma 10 May, except arms embargoes and sanctions against materials that could be used for repression. The government made the decision to do so at the end of April but asked the Federal Department for the Economy to draw up a plan of action. This was approved by the Federal Council yesterday and goes into effect today.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss government recommended Wednesday 9 May that citizens vote against an upcoming popular initiative that would end reimbursement for abortions under the mandatory health insurance system. The cabinet said, after studying the proposal that will go to voters, that economic considerations should not come into play when a woman is weighting moral, theological, socio-ethical criteria when deciding whether or not to interrupt a pregnancy.
The popular initiative argues for abortions not to be reimbursed on financial grounds. The Federal Council argues that the savings of CHF8 million cannot be justified for a number of reasons, not least of which is the financial uncertainty it would cause for women who are making this decision, with the likelihood that some would turn to less costly but less safe solutions.
Switzerland’s current legislation, passed by a popular vote with more than 72 percent backing in 2002, requires that abortions be done under good conditions and that a woman request an abortion in writing.
The Swiss have a very low abortion rate compared to other European countries, according to the Federal Council, and the rate has been falling since 2004, especially among 15- to 19-year-olds.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland added its doubts to Acta (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) a day after the German parliament was told Germany is advising developing countries not to back it. The Swiss Federal Council noted 9 May that it will not sign the agreement.
Acta, a plurilateral agreement, “has been negotiated as a “TRIPS-plus” (going beyond the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) standard for the enforcement of IP rights between the European Union member states, the United States and nine additional countries since 2007,” reports IP Watch, but in recent months it has come up against growing opposition from several corners. IP Watch, an industry newsletter, raised the question 15 April if the Group of 8 was reacting to Acta’s impending death: “it may have signalled a shift to a narrower approach on intellectual property rights” at a meeting a week earlier.
The Federal Council Wednesday says that since negotiations were concluded “criticism of Acta has continued to grow in a number of countries. The Federal Council is taking these fears seriously because they concern fundamental liberties and important legal provisions.”
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Germany, the UK and now Italy: Switzerland’s southern neighbour is the latest to enter into talks with Bern over ways to get more of its citizens money into the taxman’s hands. A steering group has been set up and will meet for the first time 24 May to consider several financial and tax issues, but one of them has already been resolved: an outstanding payment of the “retrocession for cross-border commuters” has been resolved, says Bern, and the payment order in favour of Italy has been issued.
Widmer-Schlumpf and Monti to meet soon
The Federal Department of Finance and the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance announced Wednesday 9 May that a working visit will soon take place between President Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf and the President of the Council of Ministers of of Italy, Mario Monti.
The announcement follows a working session in Bern Wednesday between State Secretary Michael Ambühl, head of the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters (SIF), and Italian Ambassador Carlo Baldocci, diplomatic adviser to the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The two “discussed various financial and tax issues. Also in light of the recent developments in the European Union, their discussions included the model for an agreement on the regularization of assets held in Switzerland by non-resident taxpayers and the introduction of a withholding tax on future investment income, as well as access to financial markets, existing black lists, the revision of the double taxation agreement (also with reference to the exchange of information) and the agreement regarding the taxation of cross-border commuters.”
And it takes them only 92 minutes to cover the distance
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss are on the move, with train travel inside the country up in particular, figures from the new federal “Microcensus” show. Each Swiss resident six years or older “covered a daily distance of almost 37km within Switzerland in 2010.
Two-thirds of that distance was covered in cars, but train travel is on the rise in this nation that rides the train more than any other country’s residents: up 27 percent in five years.
The growth in road traffic parallels that of the population, which increased 5.5 percent from 2005 to 2010.
Swiss remain world travelers
The Swiss travel 20,500km a year, a distance equal to going halfway around the globe, and one-third of that is spent on travel outside the country, the microcenss shows.
The 37km were covered in 92 minutes, including waiting time and transfers, the statistics show. They were gathered by questioning 63,000 people.
The Federal Statistical Office (FSO) and the Federal Office for Spatial Development (ARE) carried out the Mobility and Transport Microcensus, part of the new modular census that “analyses today’s accelerated social change much more effectively than was previously the case” with the old 10-year censuses.
Here’s how we moved: 23.8km by car, 8.6km using public transport and 2.8km on foot or bicycle.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Fame has suddenly hit the Graubuenden hamlet of Obermutten and so far, it’s just what the townfolk wanted. Mayor M Wyss and G Flatscher, who owns the single restaurant, decided last year that the village, with all its typical Swiss mountain charm, should create a Facebook page that would increase visitors.
He made one firm promise, to post every visitor’s photo on the village notice board if they “liked” the page. Soon the notice board was covered, and as the buzz picked up speed, the village’s barn walls also began to be covered with the pictures.
The page now has more than 17,000 likes and the English version of a video showing the village has had nearly 44,000 views (the German version: 3,500). And tourism has picked up, reports tnooz, a travel industry web site. “The Obermutten page now has more fans than some of the most popular tourist traps in Europe and the regional Grabunden tourist board site has since its web traffic soar by 250%. But more importantly, at the height of the ‘campaign’ four out of five fans regularly interacted with page and each other – a figure its creators reckon is higher than pages belonging to Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Coca-Cola.”
Here’s the first video of 11 the village has posted on its page, and a more recent one, in English. You also get a peek at some ibex.
https://www.facebook.com/obermutten
Switzerland's Val d'Herens cows fight in the spring, when left to themselves
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It was push and shove all the way, but in the end Schakira from Toerbel in the Goms Valley in canton Valais, put her head down, locked her horns and pushed her way to the Swiss championship.
Just short of 800 kg, Schakira is the new queen of the cows among Switzerland’s famous fighting cows after the final match in Aproz Sunday 6 May.
RTS television estimates the crowd at 12-13000 spectators.
The event culminates the springtime rounds of fighting in several places throughout canton Valais, among Val d’Herens race cows, who fight naturally when in the field, to find the leader of the herd.
The short-legged black cows are agile and powerful, with generally gentle dispositions, but in the spring the pregnant cows fight to determine which cow which lead them during the summer spent high in the Alps. Once a fight is finished they start grazing again, showing little aggression.
Schakira fought her final battle with Ronja after last year’s winner, Manathon, lost her bid for victory in an earlier fight.
Earlier report, GenevaLunch, on fight in Mollens, Valais, with video
RTS video: “Schakira” sacrée reine des reines 2012 – rts.ch – info – régions – valais.
Online database will help researchers, government planners prepare for natural disasters
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss national weather service, MeteoSwiss, and the University of Bern have brought online more than 125,000 historical data on weather, climate and natural disasters housed in a database called Euro-Climhist, the first such DB, unique in the world, according to Bern. Euro-Climhist is designed to become a European-wide database. It was presented 3 May in Bern.
The Centre Oeschger at the university with support from the Swiss GCOS (Global Climate Observing System) Office has been gathering a wealth of information from sources such as public and private chronicles, books kept by public institutions such as hospitals that date back to the Middle Ages.
The result is a database that covers 1550-1864, when Switzerland began official weather recordings.
The centre “has been working intensely in recent years to systematically collect the data, run quality control checks and safeguard digitally these documents,” says MeteoSwiss points out in a press release.
Floods such as those in 2005 that caused CHF3 billion in damage provide information that, compared to similar disasters in the past, can help governments plan to better protect their populations, but such data can also be useful in evaluating the safety of nuclear power plants. Risk experts, climatology researchers but also insurance companies calculate risks based on the long-term picture of the frequency of extreme natural disasters.
Accurate and regular reporting of data became accessible only with the arrival of measuring instruments in the second half of the 19th century
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – US President Barack Obama’s surprise visit to Afghanistan 1 May has focused world attention on the country itself, but a two-day conference 2-3 May in Geneva is looking at the ramifications of 30 years of war in Afghanistan for refugees in two neighbouring countries. Some 40 international organizations and representatives from 60 countries are attending the conference, where host UNHCR (UN refugee organization) and Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran are unveiling their plans for “a joint strategy to find lasting, coherent and unified solutions to the problem of Afghan refugees and internally displaced persons”, according to Didier Burkhalter, head of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), who opened the conference Wednesday.
“Participants will be asked to support programmes in Afghanistan to increase the sustainability of refugee returns. The new strategy also seeks the commitment of the international community to support the host countries of the Afghan refugees. This is the first joint action with humanitarian and development actors and will contribute to the stability of the region,” says Bern in a statement.
Canadians had own investigation, but Swiss reportedly asked for help over money laundering and corruption
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Riadh Ben Aissa was arrested in Switzerland sometime in the past few days, but it’s not yet clear what charges are faced by the former head of global construction SNC-Lavalin, a large Canadian company. The company has been in Canadian headlines for weeks over a scandal involving missing millions.
The Globe & Mail refers to Ben Aissa as Canada’s most mysterious businessman. It says it was told by Jacquelin Buhlmann, a spokeswoman for the Swiss Public Attorney’s Office that Switzerland in April asked Canada for assistance in its year-long investigation into possible money laundering, corruption and fraud. About that time, says the Canadian newspaper, Canadian police raided the offices of SNC.
“Ben Aissa was forced out of the Montreal-based company in February amid allegations he made $56-million in improper payments to unknown commercial agents,” reports the Globe & Mail. “The company has said it has no idea where the money went. Mr. Ben Aissa has denied any wrongdoing. A source familiar with the company’s investigation has said some of the payments went through banks in Switzerland and the Middle East.”
He had close ties to the two Qaddafi sons, Saadi and Saif, the Toronto Star reports. Their assets in Switzerland have been blocked since before the overthrow of their father’s regime.
The company’s major projects in Libya included, according to RTS, the Benghazi airport, the Gharyan prison and an artificial river that runs through the desert.
RTS notes that SNC has said it will cooperate fully with the Swiss investigation.
Foreign workers make up a significant part of the seasonal construction industry in Switzerland
BERN, SWITZERLAND – A record 27,000 foreign workers’ salaries and working conditions in Switzerland were checked in 2011 for suspicion of abuse, in particular for underpayment. The number of short-term labourers (three month contracts) brought into Switzerland rose, which accounts in part for the increase in suspected cases of labour force abuse.
Traditionally, about half of those checked are sanctioned and while the others may not found to be abusive once investigated, a number are considered minor infractions and the company is allowed to simply pay its workers what is owed without being sanctioned.
Three groups investigate companies that are suspected of salary abuse. The cantons checked 7,200 Swiss companies with foreign employees and 7,000 foreign firms. Organizations that work with companies with collective contracts checked 11,000 foreign companies and 7,500 Swiss companies. And 5,600 self-employed workers had their status checked to ensure they were working legitimately, and about 10 percent of these were found to be “fictive”, says Bern.
Companies with collective contracts less often under suspicion
Companies with collective contracts saw the number of their cases slip to 9 percent for Swiss companies and 14 percent for foreign companies. But the figures were much higher for other firms: 35 percent of foreign companies were suspected of underpaying workers and 26 percent of Swiss companies, although the latter fell from 41 percent the previous year.
The investigations lead last year to salary adjustments and fines paid in 80 percent of cases for foreign companies and 70 percent for Swiss ones. Seco, the economy ministry, notes in its report that the presence of work inspectors is clearly effective and important to avoid labour market abuses.
Foreign non-residents lax when it comes to safety gear
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss Safety Council’s latest figures for the use of safety equipment on the country’s ski slopes and off-piste show good use up to age 17, then a dip after age 25 until age 46, when skiers and snowboarders suddenly put on their safety gear again.
The council for the first time compared use of safety equipment by “foreign guests” and Swiss residents, and the foreigners fell far short, with 73 percent wearing helmets, as compared to 88 percent of Swiss residents, all ages and genders mixed.
The use of helmets has increased sharply in the past 10 years thanks in large part to the council’s safety awareness campaign, but wearing them has not been evenly adopted, with the 84 percent Swiss average hiding a big language region difference: 89 percent in German-speaking Switzerland and 71 percent in French-speaking Switzerland.
Biggest increase in helmets seen with 18-25 year-olds
The group that showed the sharpest increase in the use of safety equipment was the 18-25 year-olds, up 12 percent.
Ed. note: no explanation is provided for the difference between 88 percent for Swiss residents and the 84 percent that is the average between French and German regions; presumably Italian region use is lower than German region use.
Skiers have caught up with snowboarders in terms of helmet use, both now averaging 84 percent after 10 years of skiers gradually closing the gap. The 2002-03 season saw only 20 percent of snowboarders wearing helmets and 14 percent of skiers.
The council’s safety check, carried out on the slopes with questionnaires this year in order to include foreign residents, covered 4,521 skiers this year and 1,038 snowboarders, slightly more than the previous year. The safety council works with 20 cableway companies throughout Switzerland to compile the statistics.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The good thing about being a police dog is that your job is to play, all the time. And you spend hours learning how to do it well, with your buddy, whom others call your “handler”.
“They don’t work, they play. That’s what dogs do, and police dogs are no different,” Jean-Christophe Sauteral, press officer for Vaud Police told GenevaLunch during a demonstration of police dog training Wednesday 25 April high in the Jura hills near Sainte-Croix.
Police from four countries come together once a year in this area for a week of intensive specialty training for dog handlers and their animals.
The dogs play hard, and their level of discipline is striking.
Each country’s police dog teams have particular skills that they share with the others, says Sauterel. They also simply get to know each other and work together, useful because the police forces call on each other when highly specialized teams are needed.
The Austrian police dog teams are particularly known for their searches for bodies and tracing human blood, says Sauterel. “And the Belgians are the best at working with fires,” he adds. Paris teams have drug-search expertise.
Swiss pioneered Sokks method for training dogs with pure molecules
The Swiss are known for their dogs’ work searching pure molecules, a relatively new field called the Sokks method, where dogs are trained to search for pure molecules, for example those in drug odours, rather than the less reliable training in specific odours. With cocaine, for example, it can become contaminated with other odours and as it degrades, the odours shift. But the underlying molecules remain the same. Switzerland adopted the Sokks method in 2004. Dogs trained with it have shown a 28 percent increase in successful detection, according to Vaud Police.
Canton Vaud has 13 dog handlers, with 5 of them and their dogs on rotating duty, 24 hours a day. The dog teams are used in Vaud on average 5-6 times a day and throughout Switzerland about 40 times a day. The handlers use down time to continue their dogs’ training.
Once a week the dogs and their trainers meet for a day of joint exercises and continuing education for the handlers.
The dogs belong to the police force, but the handlers pick out their own dogs at the kennels when they are two and a half months old, and the dogs are then assigned to the families where they spend the rest of their lives. They train until they are two years old before they are put on duty with their handlers, but they join the police patrols as early as possible, to get them used to unusual situations and noise, for example in stations, markets, restaurants.
Vaud Police’s dog unit (K9) has one Labrador, but the rest are German or Belgian shepherds (Malinois). They are all trained to perform all police dog tasks: tracking, looking for lost objects, defending their masters, searching for explosives, and looking for drugs, for example. One dog has been trained specially to work with special intervention forces, learning to remain completely calm, quiet and still for hours, but ready to instantly move into attack mode.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Federal Council Wednesday 25 April approved the 2011 federal consolidated finances, with a surplus of CHF2.2 billion. The cabinet notes that they give an overall picture of decentralized and centralized government units in “good health” financially. The surplus is smaller than in the past three years.
Bern publishes, in four languages every September, statistical financial data that provides an international comparison of Swiss government finances.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The new doubledecker trains called Duplex Regio CFF that will be put into service on two lines by 9 December 2012 had their first ride on the rails Thursday 26 April. The trains were unveiled for officials and guests on a run from Romont to Geneva.
The trains are part of a fleet of 13 that will provide 33 percent more seats and more trains overall in French-speaking Switzerland. Passenger traffic in the region has increased by 44 percent in the past eight years.
The new trains, which each have 337 seats (277 in second class), will be used on the Geneva-Lausanne-Romont and Geneva-Lausanne-Vevey CFF lines. The trains will be doubled during rush hour, with 674 seats each.
They will be put into operation progressively, with the first one going into service in June. The CFF will hold open houses in September in seven cities to introduce the public to the new trains.
Five months ago the company was cutting jobs; today it is expanding its Swiss base
BASEL / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Novartis is pumping CHF500 million into a new plant in Stein, canton Aargau, near Zurich, to replace an older one with a state of the art production facility. Stein will become a platform for launching new pharmaceutical products, the company said Monday 23 April.
The news was presented in the context of Novartis’s commitment to Switzerland, with the company underscoring other projects, such as one in Basel, to expand the size of its workforce in the country. The pharma company has been under heavy pressure since it announced in January that it would cut jobs in Basel and closing its over-the-counter unit in Prangins, next to Nyon. Intensive talks led to a turn-around, with the company announcing 17 January a long-term solution appeared possible that would allow the centre to remain open.
Tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) to get same treatment as double taxation treaties
Switzerland seeks tax agreements with developing countries
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland is taking new steps to fight money laundering and illegal flows of capital, the Federal Council announced late Monday 23 April. Mutual administrative assistance, the political phrase for sharing financial information at the request of another government, will be extended to countries with which Switzerland has TIEAs, agreements that are similar to double taxation treaties on the level of requests for information exchanges, but generally with smaller economies or less important economic partners.
The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes had requested the move. The forum is the multilateral framework where international tax standards are set.
The Swiss government Monday also approved a joint report by the Federal Department of Finance and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, commissioned by parliament, “on the possibility of arranging information agreements of this nature with developing countries”. The report now goes to the Economic Affairs and Taxation Committees of the upper and lower houses.
Bern noted in a press release, “Amongst other things, this report concludes that it could make sense for Switzerland to conclude tax agreements with developing countries. A contribution could thereby be made to preventing illegal flows of capital and strengthening the integrity of Switzerland’s financial centre.”
A family no matter which name they choose
BERN, SWITZERLAND – All is supposed to be fair in love and war, but Swiss law covering keeping your name or changing it when you marry has not treated men and women equally.
This will change 1 January 2013, when married couples and homosexual couples will have more options.
The changes passed by parliament in September 2011 also cover the names of children, so it extends to unmarried couples with children.
Bern’s announcement of the change states: “Marriage in theory no longer has an impact on the name of the members of a couple nor any obligation to change these. Each of them keeps his or her own name and the right to maintain it. An engaged couple may, however, announce that they intend to use the name of either one as the single family name. The same option is available to same-sex couples who have registered their partnership.”
A partner who changed his or her name upon marriage under the current law and who wishes to change it back to the pre-marriage name may, at any time, tell the civil authorities that he or she wants to make the change.
Same-sex couples who registered their partnership before the change in the law have one year to declare the pre-partnership name they want to share.
The changes include:
- Children of married parents take either the single shared family name or, if the parents have different names, the pre-marriage name that the parents choose as a family name when they marry
- If the parents are not married, the child carries the mother’s name
- If the parents have shared custody, they may opt for the child to have the father’s name; they have one year to officially declare this
- In the case of unmarried parents with joint custody the parents have one year to give the child the father’s name, but once a child is 12, the child’s agreement is needed to make any name change.
