GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Hillary Clinton’s offhand announcement, at the tail end of a Town Hall meeting in Washington, Thursday 26 January, that she’ll leave her post as Secretary of State when the president has time to name a replacement came as a big surprise to many while others wondered why it is news, since it’s not the first time she’s said it. Media reaction was at first muted as startled journalists dealth Clinton’s abrupt cutoff of speculation about whether she would stay on if President Obama is re-elected. And then the kudos began to appear. Clinton says she would like to find out just how tired she is after 20 years in politics and government.
Links to other sites: Atlantic Newswire, CBS News, Chicago Sun-Times, Shriver in the Guardian, Politico, US State Department transcript of Town Hall meeting
BASEL, SWITZERLAND – Novartis will be cutting close to 2,000 jobs in the US, in New Jersey, as the result of an expected fall in demand for a relatively new medicine and the expiry of the patent for another, the company announced Friday 13 January in Basel. The sales force will lose 1,630 jobs and another 330 will go in related administrative posts. Staff will be informed of the specifics in April and the job cuts will be made in the first half of 2012.
The restructuring that lies behind the job cuts will result in CHF160 million in exceptional charges in the first half of 2012 in addition to an exceptional charge of CHF900m in the second half of 2011 following a “reassessment of the future sales potential of Rasilez/Tekturna in light of the Altitude results”.
Preparations were underway to restructure the company’s general medicines business with the patent expiring for the hypertension market leading medicine Diovan (valsartan) in the US in September 2012. The restructuration is being speeded up, the company says, after Altitude clinical studies were recently called to a halt, ending trials for Rasilez/Tekturna (aliskiren), another hypertension drug.
Novartis notes that the
“study was halted following the recommendation from the Data Monitoring Committee overseeing the trial. The study was investigating Rasilez/Tekturna in a high-risk population of patients with type-2 diabetes and renal impairment. As a precautionary measure Novartis Pharmaceuticals ceased all promotion of Rasilez/Tekturna-based products for use in combination with an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB). Novartis Pharmaceuticals, in consultation with health authorities, is now recommending that hypertensive patients with diabetes should not be treated with Rasilez/Tekturna in combination with an ACE-inhibitor or ARB. Patient safety is the highest priority for Novartis and we are in continuing dialogue with health authorities worldwide to establish the most appropriate next steps.”
Novartis announced in November that it is cutting 1,000 jobs in Switzerland, some 350 of them in Prangins, near Nyon.
Swiss parliament must approve the new US-Swiss double taxation treaty
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The new double taxation treaty between the US and Switzerland, agreed to in June 2011, is heading towards Swiss approval, with the upper house of parliament giving it the green light Tuesday 13 December. It could face more difficulties in the lower house, which will now debate it.
The treaty is designed to replace a 1996 treaty. Both provide for judicial assistance in cases of tax fraud, but the new treaty defines the framework for this more precisely and admits tax evasion as well as fraud, in some cases, as grounds for a request for assistance.
Tax evasion is a crime, but not a penal offense in Switzerland, whose list of allowable tax deductions is far shorter than those of the IRS, and evasion has until now not been accepted as grounds for assistance.
The June agreement was amended in November after a parliamentary commission recommended, 7-3, that the addition be made: it allows for group requests covering several financial accounts to be made together and, significantly, bank data could be given to US authorities without the US first providing a name and account number, in a very limited number of cases.
In a separate set of talks, Switzerland and the US have been discussing the case of 11 Swiss banks that are under investigation by the US Department of Justice for illegally assisting Americans in the US to hide money offshore from the IRS, the tax arm of the US.
Swiss president says concern over legality of UK, German deals is EC’s “internal” problem
Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey in Geneva 28 November
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland is looking for an agreement with the US that will draw a line on the past, where banks and US tax fraud or evasion is concerned, Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey said Monday 28 November. It should include an agreed method for the US to collect tax money in the future while Swiss banking secrecy laws are respected.
“We don’t want to be a place for people who are trying to evade taxes. But we want to sort out past issues, once and for all, and put some order into [things],” she said, referring to ongoing problems between Swiss banks and the US tax arm, the IRS.
“And in the same agreement, we want to deal with the future,” for example through the kind of withholding tax agreement Switzerland struck in August with German and the UK.
“That, in essence, is our position, and it’s the same as it was with the UK and Germany.”
Her remarks were made at a press conference in Geneva Monday afternoon, 28 November where the president was presenting an overview of International Geneva, and its growth in size and importance in the past decade. She earlier attended the opening of the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva.
EU tax commissioner suggests to UK paper the EU might sue Britain
Switzerland, under the UK and German agreements, which have yet to be ratified, is to collect withholding taxes on transactions by financial institutions, then turn over the money to the other countries without divulging the name of the account owners.
But European Union Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta told the Financial Times in an interview published Monday morning that he believes Britain and Germany went too far in signing their own bilateral tax agreements with Switzerland. The FT writes that:
“Brussels is threatening to sue Britain unless ministers significantly alter a landmark tax deal with Switzerland, in a dispute that will cast doubt over the £4bn to £7bn of expected proceeds for the Treasury. European Commission lawyers concluded that the bilateral deal, which recovers billions of unpaid taxes in return for protecting the prized secrecy of the Swiss banking system, is in breach of European Union laws that are tougher on tax evasion.”
Micheline Calmy-Rey, Swiss president
Calmy-Rey says this is an internal matter for the European Union, and it’s not for Switzerland to comment on who is competent in this area, the EU or its member states.
Switzerland and the European Union have a tax agreement covering “taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments”, signed in 2004 and revised in 2008 and again in January of this year.
The FT reports indicates that the EU’s pressure on Britain and Germany to renegotiate their deals with Switzerland is causing some friction.
Whether or not Switzerland would be open to new negotiations remains unclear, although the Swiss Bankers Association CEO Claude-Alain Margelisch said last week that “our view is that there can be no renegotiation” and the organization’s priority is to see that all parties are convinced that the agreements are true and fair compromises.
US talks could create new agreement, but form is still unclear
The US-Swiss talks are widely expected to be completed within weeks if not days, but the ultimate form an agreement might take is not yet clear, Mario Tuor, spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Tax Office told GenevaLunch Monday evening. The two countries have a treaty dating back to 1996 that covers tax fraud, still in place, and a new treaty covering tax evasion, which goes before the Swiss parliament in December 2011.
Tuor repeated Calmy-Rey’s assertion that Switzerland also wants an agreement which covers the banks not currently being investigated by the US Justice Department for helping Americans evade US taxes. “The form [it would take] is not yet clear. But it is clear now that we will not need a parliamentary agreement,” which a treaty would require. “We won’t need an agreement that calls for a treaty because it will be based on existing law.”
Switzerland and the US signed a treaty in 2009 that covered an American request for assistance with UBS 4,450 bank accounts, whose owners had not been identified, thus putting the demand outside the existing legal framework.
The talks are raising questions among many Americans who live overseas and who are grappling with the implications for them of tax reporting changes that were designed to prevent fraud by wealthy Americans who live in the US and have offshore accounts.
Uganda landmine survivors met in March 2012 (photo ©2011 Landmine Monitor / D Osman)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – There is some good news on the landmine front, the “Landmine & Cluster Munitions Monitor 2011″ (full report online), issued 23 November reports, but it is dampened by news that three countries laid landmines this year, with two of them, Israel and Libya confirmed.
Myanmar is the third suspect, and four non-state armed groups laid mines as well.
Record ordnance cleared
On the brighter side:
- at least 200km2 of mined areas were cleared by 45 mine action programs in 2010, the highest annual total ever recorded by the Monitor; 198km2 in 2009, the previous record, and 160 km2 in 2008
- more than 388,000 antipersonnel mines and over 27,000 anti-vehicle mines were destroyed during this clearance
- programmes in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Croatia, Iraq, and Sri Lanka together accounted for more than 80% of recorded clearance
- an additional 460km2 of former battle area was reportedly cleared, destroying in the process more than 1.2 million items of unexploded ordnance; largest totals: Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Lao PDR.
Eighty percent of the world’s nation, 158 countries, have now joined the Landmine Ban Treaty. Donor contributions for mine action rose to $637 million, a record high, with 31 countries contributing. Five main mine action donors—the US, European Commission, Japan, Norway, and Canada—accounted for 64% of all funding.
Eighty-seven states have completed the destruction of their stockpiles, including Iraq, who was added to the list in June 2011.
5% increase in new victims
Account holders domiciled abroad must ensure someone is designated as a contact in case of litigation
BERN, SWITZERLAND – US citizens with Swiss bank accounts who are domiciled in the US and who have not clearly designated, in the bank’s files, a representative who can be contacted on their behalf ad litern (in case of litigation) might want to remedy the situation before the end of November. At that point a new amendment to the ordinance covering the Swiss-US double taxation treaty goes into effect. It is designed to “ensure that the procedural rights of affected persons domiciled in the United States remain guaranteed even if administrative assistance requests are submitted based on certain patterns of behaviour”.
It also puts the onus on account holders to make sure someone can be officially notified if an account comes under suspicion by the IRS and the US makes a request for administrative assistance to Switzerland.
Swiss banking privacy laws do not allow banks to turn over data until the federal government’s tax office orders them to do so, if the US request meets criteria set out by the 1996 treaty.
Requests will in future be published in the Swiss Federal Gazette, and owners of accounts who are not named, or their representatives, will have 20 days from date of publication to appeal the Swiss decision, before the data is turned over to US authorities.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The number of asylum seekers in Switzerland rose 4.9 percent in October, representing 100 more individuals (total, 31 October: 2,142) than in September, new figures from the Federal Migration Office shows. The office says that at the end of September the figures for the second quarter of the year were stable, with a 1.2 percent increase.
Zurich, Bern and Vaud have the largest number of active asylum applications under consideration.
Eritreans and Tunisians remain the two largest groups seeking asylum, with Nigerians third.
Switzerland sent 351 applicants to Italy in October, under the terms of the Dublin Regulation, which is designed to prevent asylum-seekers from applying to several European Union states or to move continually from one to another.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – World headlines include the following, over the weekend:
- Clocks go back in the US, a week after Europe moves from summer to winter time – NPR
- Chinese mine workers, some 200-strong, pulled out 45 miners Saturday who had been trapped for more than 48 hours after an explosion – CBS, Xinhua
- Pakistan charges 7 in Bhutto death in 2007 – Aljazeera, Reuters Canada
- Syria: 553 of some 15,000 prisoners released, but 20 killed Friday – Aljazeera, Xinhuanet
- Colombia: Farc leader Alfonso Cano killed, but now what? – CS Monitor, Guardian, Jakarta Post
The WHO board call for reform points to "WHO's unique mandate as the directing and coordinating authority for work in international health"; here, part of a 2009 WHO report on the health problems linked to the high number of road accidents in Africa
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Health Organization, based in Geneva, late Friday 4 November, approved a number of resolutions to reform the health body at the most basic levels.
The crucial question of how to improve funding was set aside for two months until the next general meeting of the executive board. The WHO, in a statement issued Friday night, states that the board will then review “a proposed mechanism to increase predictability and flexibility of financing for the organization”.
Two key changes agreed to in the special board meeting on WHO reform that just drew to a close in Geneva will be to establish a contingency fund for emergency work and to clarify roles and responsibilities “between the three levels of the WHO – country offices, regional offices and headquarters – to create a tightly networked, leaner and streamlined organization”.
The WHO has repeatedly faced under-funding for a number of reasons including the high percentage, in its budget, of “voluntary donations” and in the past, criticism from the US government which withheld funding. That relationship has been on a better footing for several years, and in September 2011 the US and the WHO agreed to strengthen the relationship.
The board also agreed to set up a mechanism for independent evaluation and to:
- develop criteria for priority-setting of its work in global public health
- engage “an increasing number of public health actors, including foundations, civil society organizations, partnerships and the private sector. The Board felt strongly that in any opportunity for engagement, WHO’s independence and integrity must be protected from undue influence by those with vested interests.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The US lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, voted overwhelmingly Wednesday 2 November in favour of a resolution reconfirming the country’s motto, “In God we trust”. The motion is non-binding, reports CNS news. “The resolution approved Tuesday not only reaffirms the national motto, it also supports and encourages its public display in all public buildings, public schools and government institutions,” it reports.
Republican Randy Forbes of Virginia was behind the resolution, approved 396-9, with 8 Democrats and 1 Republican opposing it.
The motto was adopted in 1956, but it had been used on coins since 1864.
Zurich Zoo temporarily welcomes 1,000 unplanned insect guests
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Zurich had its own headline animal news Wednesday 19 October, but it was not alone. The city’s airport was the scene of a discovery by Swiss customs officials of 261 illegally imported tarantulas, a haul that led officials to the apartment of the owner, where another 900 illegally held insects were housed. The Mexican redknee tarantulas and meat-eating centipedes have been taken to Zurich Zoo to be cared for.
USA, farm’s exotic animals let go
The news came in the wake of a major breakout in Zanesville, Ohio, Wednesday, that resulted in 49 animals being killed after they escaped, with another six reportedly taken to a zoo, according to CNN. One animal was missing late Wednesday, but authorities believe it may have been eaten.
©2011 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.
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
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Nestlé says it is one of just a few brands to offer ice cream snacks for dogs in the US and it claims to be gathering new fans rapidly for its new Frosty Paws Bites frozen ice cream snacks for dogs.
The bites are specially formulated for dogs who are lactose intolerant and cannot digest dairy products such as regular ice cream properly, says the Vevey-based Swiss multinational.
The product contains protein, vitamins and minerals, but no milk, comes in vanilla and peanut butter flavours with a vanilla yogurt coating. The Frosty Paws brand already offers larger ice cream cups for dogs.
As the leading ice cream snacks range for dogs, Frosty Paws is one of the only brands in the United States to offer frozen products for people’s canine companions.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The US Park Service is reporting one of the worst years in recent memory for deaths in the popular western US national park, Yosemite, reports the Los Angeles Times. Fourteen people have died so far this year, with a California women the latest victim after she slipped while coming down the rain-soaked granite face of Half Dome peak. An influx of visitors, but also lack of understanding the dangers of nature are often involved in the park’s accidents, says the newspaper. Several deaths this year have been linked to water with people dying after falling into swollen rivers or slipping on rainy surfaces.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Credit ratings agency Moody’s announced 13 July that it will review the US debt rating, since the country is not yet making significant progress on resolving the budget and debt ceiling crisis that could lead to a US default 2 August if not resolved soon. The announcement was followed a few hours later by President Barack Obama walking out of heated talks between Republicans and Democrats. It also prompted the head of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, to say that a default would constitute a major crisis that would send ripples through the financial world.
“The review of the US government’s bond rating is prompted by the possibility that the debt limit will not be raised in time to prevent a missed payment of interest or principal on outstanding bonds and notes. As such, there is a small but rising risk of a short-lived default.
“Moody’s considers the probability of a default on interest payments to be low but no longer to be de minimis. An actual default, regardless of duration, would fundamentally alter Moody’s assessment of the timeliness of future payments, and a Aaa rating would likely no longer be appropriate. However, because this type of default is expected to be short-lived, and the expected loss to holders of Treasury bonds would be minimal or non-existent, the rating would most likely be downgraded to somewhere in the Aa range.”
Links to other sites: BBC, Financial Times, Moody‘s, Washington Post
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – US President Barack Obama told congressional leaders Monday 11 July that they will have to meet for daily talks to resolve the impasse over the US budget, as he pushes for a long-term agreement with Republicans that would raise the national debt ceiling. The budget has already overshot the ceiling of $14.3 trillion and the US is currently running an annual budget deficit of $1.5t.
Republicans are unhappy with Obama’s call for tax increases and his fellow Democrats are unhappy with his insistence on cutting social welfare programmes. But Obama told reporters in Washington Monday that he won’t back off on his demand for a longer term deal rather than a quick fix to the ceiling issue before 2 August. If the budget is not passed by then, the day the budget runs out, the US will risk defaulting on its debt.
Meanwhile, as the budget debate heats up, 15 states in the Midwest are under heat wave advisories, meaning temperatures are expected to rise above 105F (41C), coupled with high humidity in some areas, such as Kansas City and St Louis, Missouri. CNN cites specialists who recommend that people avoid caffeine and alcohol in these areas.
Links to other sites: BBC, CNN, Washington Post
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Dr Jack Kevorkian, who brought assisted suicide into the limelight in the US, died at the age of 83 in Michigan, of complications from pneumonia and kidney problems. Kevorkian spent nearly eight years in prison after being sentenced in 1999 on second-degree murder charges linked to the death of one of his patients who had Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). He had been accused on several occasions of helping people to die, and he was a strong advocate of right-to-die legislation in the US, although he changed his stance after his time in prison.
He was convicted on second-degree murder charges in 1999 stemming from the death of a patient who suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was paroled in 2007.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The American Dream, of every family owning its own home, is taking a beating, even as housing prices continue to fall. The Standard&Poors/Case Shiller home price index, which is published every two months, comes out Tuesday 31 May and analysts expect it to show a decline in housing prices for the eighth month in a row. The New York Times is referring to it as the worst downturn in housing since the Great Depression of the 1930s in the US.
Quarterly figures published by the US Census Bureau at the end of April show that home ownership fell to 66.4 percent in March 2011, down from a high of 69.2 percent in 2004. Home ownership climbed steadily from 1985 until 2004, then began to slip, but since the end of 2009 the slip has turned into a steady slide.
More than 11 percent of US homes are vacant, Census Bureau figures show.
Links to other sites: Boston Globe, New York Times, US Census Bureau figures
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Oprah Winfrey ended her 25-year run on television in the US Wednesday 25 May, with a word to her in-studio audience that typified her approach to the millions that tuned in every afternoon: “I want you to know that what you have to say matters to me.” She handed out her e-mail address to the audience, with those words, saying that leaving the show, which made her a household name and a setter of tastes and trends, was not bittersweet. “Sweet but not bitter”, she told the audience.
Links to other sites: CNN, Entertainment Weekly, The Oprah Winfrey Show, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A social media manager who has 3,000 Twitter followers put her skills to good work and within five hours of her bike being stolen it was home and the suspected thief was under arrest. Elaine Ellis, a known tech expert in Boulder, Colorado, posted a cell phone photo of the thief taken by her neighbour on Ellis’s blog. From there she quickly had it up on Twitter and Facebook. One of her followers alerted police when he spotted the thief, reports The Daily Camera in Boulder.
Police in Boulder say that social media are increasingly being used as investigative tools, according to the local paper.
Airlines, tourist reservations in Europe also seeing strong growth
Swiss chalet spying: Brazilians, Indians, Chinese and Americans came in larger numbers in March
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Overnight stays in Swiss hotels, the standard measure of the tourism industry’s health, rose to 3.3 million, a 2.3 percent increase in March 2011 compared to March 2010. The latest figures were released by the Swiss statistical office Monday 9 May.
Foreign tourist stays increased slightly, by 1.1 percent, while Swiss tourist traffic was up 3.9 percent.
The strongest growth came from Asia, with Europe the only region not registering growth. India led the way for Asia, with 5,000 more overnight stays, followed by China with an increase of 4,900.
Brazil had the strongest overall increase, up 5,900 overnight stays, with the US having 4,300 more.
The largest drop was the UK: British tourists spent 30,000 fewer nights in Swiss hotels in March than they did a year earlier: the 16 percent fall was the largest of any one country.
Tourism in general is picking up
A 48-year-old former nurse accused of seeking out and encouraging via the Internet people who were considering suicide, was sentenced in Minnesota Wednesday 4 May. William Melchert-Dinkel was convicted in March over the deaths of a 32-year-old man from England and an 18-year-old Canadian woman.
The judge yesterday ordered him to serve 320 days in prison, then in an unusual twist, to return to prison for two days every year for 10 years, on the anniversaries of the deaths of his victims. He was ordered not to have access to the Internet except for his new job as a trucker. He had been working in a nursing home.
The families of the victims expressed disappointment with the sentences: Melchert-Dinkel had faced up to 15 years in prison for assisting suicides.
The judge said that Melchert-Dinkel’s actions were not alone responsible for the deaths, but they played a role. He posed as a female nurse online and he has admitted to taking part in online suicide chats and he signed fake suicide pacts. He told the court he believed at least five of those people killed themselves.
Links to other sites: Newsninemsn, Pioneer Press
It’s the 14th year running that Russia has made the US list for countries that don’t do enough to fight pirated goods, and the 7th year for China. The 2011 list was released by US Trade Representative Ron Kirk in Washington, who called on the many countries on the “Special 301 Report” list to do more to crack down on copyright fraud. He said in a statement that US companies lost $18 billion in 2010 to fake copies, affecting 18 million Americans who work in industries affected by the frauds.
Canada and India are among the countries listed.
Kirk’s office in a statement noted that “America’s two largest trading partners, Canada and China, remain on the Priority Watch List. The report notes the failure of Canadian efforts in 2010 to enact long-awaited copyright legislation and to strengthen border enforcement. It highlights ongoing concerns about the prevalence of piracy and counterfeiting in China, and China’s implementation of ‘indigenous innovation’ and other industrial policies that discriminate against or otherwise disadvantage US exports and US investors.”
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Scribd, US report, US Trade Representative’s Office
Correction Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The US has granted Wipo, the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, $50,000 for a six-month programme in Kenya, Morocco and the Philippines to help local authorities raise awareness about the risk of counterfeit products. The programme, to be administered by Wipo, which is matching the grant, will involve a series of seminars.
US Ambassador Betty E King, speaking at an event in Geneva with John Tarpey, head of communications for Wipo, said that “trademark infringement and counterfeiting raise very serious health and safety concerns, such as those attributed to counterfeit medicines, food, automotive parts and electrical products.”
Tarpey notes that half of all drugs sold on the Internet, for example, are counterfeit. The funding will allow Wipo to run workshops to develop a toolkit that will help intellectual property authorities in the three countries conduct more effective outreach campaigns, he says.
Don’t eat armadillo meat and don’t handle them! researchers caution
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Direct contact with armadillos can lead to leprosy infection, a team of researchers in Switzerland and in the USA has confirmed, using what they call advanced DNA analysis and extensive field work.
The Global Health Institute at EPFL in Lausanne and NPHA (National Hansen’s Disease Program) report 28 April in the New England Journal of Medicine that a never-before-seen strain of Mycobacterium leprae has emerged in the Southern United States and that it is transmitted through contact with armadillos carrying the disease.
Only about 150 cases of the disease appear each year in the US, traditionally imported by people who have worked abroad in areas with leprosy. Researchers are quick to point out that the disease is treatable with antibiotics and that 90 percent of people who come into contact with leprosy, officially known as Hansen’s Disease, fight off the infection spontaneously.
Source: EPFL (click on image to view larger)
Public health authorities in the US became alarmed when they realized that one-third of the cases they were seeing were infected people who had never been outside the US.
Armadillos have been known since about 1970 to also carry the disease.
The new study shows inter-species contamination and the presence of a unique strain.
“There is a very strong association between the geographic location of the presence of this particular strain of M. leprae and the presence of armadillos in the Southern US,” says Stewart Cole, head of the Global Health Institute in Lausanne who is known as a leader in the field of leprosy bacilli genome. “Our research provides clear DNA evidence that the unique strain found in armadillos is the same as the one in certain humans.”
The new strain of the bacteria, named 3I-2V1, was found in 28 armadillos out of 33 wild ones included in the study, and in 22 patients, all of whom reported no foreign residence, out of the 50 who took part in the study. The researchers used genome sequencing to identify the new strain and cross check it with other known strains from Europe and Asia. They used genotyping to identify and classify the population infected. It became clear that leprosy patients who never travelled outside the US but lived in areas where infected armadillos are prevalent (see map) were infected with the same strain as the armadillos, EPFL reports.
The researchers make three recommendations: avoid frequent direct contact with the animals, don’t cook or consume their meat and monitor the expansion of their range, as they move north in the US.
José Ramirez is a former migrant worker from Houston who contracted the disease after hunting and eating armadillo meat. Ramirez offers a fourth recommendation: get rid of the stigma attached to the disease, which is a bacterial infection that can be cured. “We need to take this opportunity to give leprosy patients a voice and to learn to not use the word ‘leper’ that has negative connotations around the world, a stigma that should be replaced with an understanding of the disease and its causes.”
Ramirez struggled for more than five years with the disease before it was properly diagnosed. He is now disease-free after receiving antibiotic treatment.
A panel of experts and government officials in Russia came together 27 April to “dispel the idea that road building is so corrupt that Russia’s notoriously bad roads are much more expensive than in Europe and the United States,” reports the Moscow Times. The question of cost, not to mention quality, has been in the news regularly since Ria Novosti, the government news agency, published figures in August 2010 that appeared to show Russia spending three times as much as the US to build one kilometre of road, with the cost rising to more than eight times as much if the road is in Moscow, compared to the US average.
Building 1km of a US road costs $5.9 million, according to Ria Novosti’s figures, while a European road is $6.9m and a Russian road $17.6m, unless it is in Moscow, in which case the cost is $51.7m. The article from August points out that the cost varies depending on several factors such as the number of lanes and the type of ground.
The Moscow Times quotes a Russian official who says that the higher cost isn’t just graft. “‘When roads are badly built, people blame corruption. You have to separate the flies from the meat patties; it’s not so simple,’ said government road technology expert Mikhail Pozdnyakov.” But the newspaper then adds that “The perception of road building as synonymous with graft is not completely unfounded. Road building is one of the most corrupt sectors, according to a recent analysis by the National Anti-Corruption Committee.”
The chairman of the committee meeting this week points out that one reason for cost differences is that in Europe the cost of buying the land is not included in the price of roads, whereas it is, in Russia.
Escalating violence by Syrian government against its citizens drawing sharp rebukes
(video) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The United States Wednesday 27 April in Geneva initiated a special session of the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Syria. France announced that it has called in the Syrian ambassador for an explanation of his government’s attacks on its own citizens, along with four other European governments: Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Late Wednesday news agencies received a statement that 30 members of the ruling Baath party in the city of Banias, scene of protests, have resigned over deaths this week and the violence used on protesters.
Syria was accused by US ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, representative to the UNHRC in Geneva, of “the killing of hundreds of civilians in connection with peaceful political protests last week.” Donahoe stated, in initiating the special session, that “we strongly condemn the killing, arrest and torture of hundreds of Syrians by the Syrian authorities. It is entirely appropriate that the Human Rights Council condemn willful government violence against peaceful political protestors. At the Special Session we expect Human Rights Council members to call on the government of Syria to meet its responsibility to protect its population and stop these attacks.”
photo: Xavier Haepe / wikipedia (flickr.com/people/vier)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The European Union’s frayed edges were showing Tuesday 26 April as governments and their citizens absorbed the newly published figures for sovereign debt and deficits, some worse than expected, while Italy and France called for reforms of Schengen rules in the face of massive immigration from North Africa.
Eurostat, the statistical office for the European Union, published 2010 figures for the euro area and the 27-member area, showing the five countries with the largest deficits (budget spending outstripping revenues) in terms of percentages of GDP (gross domestic product) to be: Ireland (32.4%), Greece (10.5%), the United Kingdom (10.4%), Spain (9.2%) and Portugal (9.1%). Greece had agreed not to let its deficit go deeper than 9 percent, the BBC points out.
Deficits on the whole decreased in 2010 compared to 2009 while debt and GDP increased, says Eurostat.
Five countries above 90%, debt ratio to GDP
Government debt (amount owed long-term by the government) declined as a whole but the debt ratio to GDP remained at significantly high levels for several countries.
“Fourteen Member States had government debt ratios higher than 60% of GDP in 2010: Greece (142.8%), Italy (119.0%), Belgium (96.8%), Ireland (96.2%), Portugal (93.0%), Germany (83.2%), France (81.7%), Hungary (80.2%), the United Kingdom (80.0%), Austria (72.3%), Malta (68.0%), the Netherlands (62.7%), Cyprus (60.8%) and Spain (60.1%).”
US, Swiss debt ratio compared to European ratios
The US debt, by comparison, is about 97 percent of GDP, a fact emphasized by the warning issued by S&P’s 18 April on the federal debt.
Switzerland’s federal debt was about 20 percent of GDP in early 2010, and with communal and cantonal debt added in, it stood at about 40 percent, well below the G20 average (closer to 100) and the average of most of Europe. Reuters, in December 2010, reported that Bern “expects Switzerland’s overall public debt to fall to around 37 percent of gross domestic product according to international standards next year [2011], less then half of the rate predicted by the OECD for the euro zone.”
Government spending decreased in 2010 in the two zones as a whole, while revenues were essentially static: “Government expenditure in the euro area was equivalent to 50.4% of GDP and government revenue to 44.4%. The figures for the EU27 were 50.3% and 44.0% respectively. In both zones, the government expenditure ratio decreased between 2009 and 2010, while the government revenue ratio remained almost unchanged.”
British military spending data questioned
Two countries prompted “reservations”, Romania and Great Britain, the latter for concerns over its reporting of military spending: “Eurostat is expressing a reservation on the quality of the data reported by the United Kingdom, due to uncertainties on the time of recording of military expenditure. The United Kingdom does not record military expenditure on a delivery basis, as required by the relevant Eurostat Decision of 9 March 2006.”
EU figures compared to Switzerland, USA
The warning by S&P’s 18 April on the US federal debt underscored it’s
Schengen rules don’t fit current situation, France and Italy argue
France and Italy, which have been at odds over how to handle large numbers of North Africans flowing across Europe’s southern borders, joined forces Tuesday on the occasion of a French-Italian summit. Leaders Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi have jointly sent off a letter to Brussels, they said, underscoring their commitment to the Schengen agreement on the free movement of people but insisting that the agreement needs to be reformed.
They did not specify what this would involve, but they cited the exceptional circumstances caused by events in North Africa, according to Le Monde (Fr).
Complete table, by country, from Eurostat
The Greek dilemma, Economist, 26 April 2011
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Russia has decided not to use its quota to hunt 29 polar bears but the decision is probably due to a lack of means to survey the situation, a WWF official in Russia says, according to the Moscow Times. Russia and the United States agreed in 2010 to a culling quota of 58 polar bears that could be hunted by natives for traditional and cultural purposes.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said 8 April on his website that the culling will no go ahead.
Russia had previously banned polar bear hunting but it agreed to the quota system as a means of stopping poaching. The WWF’s Russia office told the Moscow Times that it believes about 30 animals, out of a Bering Straits population of some 2,000 bear, are killed illegally every year. The US estimates that 100 are killed illegally in Alaska.
The Russian programme to end poaching has strong support from Putin, reportedly a wildlife fan.
Links to other sites: Moscow Times, Seattle PI, WWF polar bear page
WWF Umky Patrol, polar bears, in Russia
