Pair tracked in Paris, may have been seen on A40 in Annecy
Missing mother and daughter, spotted at Bursins autoroute gas station Thursday 26 January
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND / PARIS, FRANCE – Mizué Bachelard and her seven-year-old daughter Hanaé may have been seen in Annecy, Swiss police said Friday. The mother and child disappeared Thursday evening 26 January and have been tracked to Paris. Police in Paris have opened a “worrying disappearance” investigation and police in canton Vaud, Switzerland, have opened an investigation for “putting the life of another in danger”.
A police team from Lausanne is in Paris working closely with French police.
The mother, 35, is described by police as “psychologically fragile”.
The mother and daughter were possibly spotted Thursday 3 February at 02:30 in the morning on the A40, in an autoroute toll booth area, but they say they can’t rule out or be certain the pair seen were Bachelard and her daughter.
French police have traced the woman to Paris Friday 27 January when she appeared at Éditions Albin Michel, 34 bd Edgar Quinet in the 14th arrondissement at 08:30. She had sent the publisher a manuscript by post. At 09:40 that morning she took money from a cash machine on the rue de Sèvre in the 6th arrondissement. The mother and daughter were wearing the same clothes they had on when they were seen at a gas station in Bursins, canton Vaud, Switzerland, the night of Thursday 26 January.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Vaud police at +41 21 644 4444.
Description
Mizué Bachelard is 160cm tall, thin and “wispy”, with chestnut hair (she often wears it tied with a band) and brown eyes.
She was last seen wearing a pink pullover, checkered pants or pyjama-style bottoms, and a brown-beige coat.
Her daughter is 120cm tall, thin, with chestnut hair and light blue eyes.
She was wearing a red and white striped pullover, dark pants and a blue jacket with a hood.
Car: blue Nissan Micra car, Vaud license plates VD 551’987 .
Missing mother and daughter
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Police in two cantons have issued missing persons reports Wednesday 1 February, and they are asking the public for help finding them.
Canton Vaud police say 35-year-old Mizué Bachelard and her 7-year-old daughter Hanaé Noémi disappeared Tuesday evening 31 January from their home in Chexbres.
The mother is “psychologically fragile” say police.
They put out an alert after the mother bought petrol in Bursins, on the A1 autoroute, for her blue Nissan Micra car, Vaud license plates VD 551’987 at 19:40.
She then took money out of a bank cash machine in Versoix and at 09:00 this morning out of a machine in Paris.
Mizué Bachelard is 160cm tall, thin and wispy, with chestnut hair (she often wears it tied with a band) and brown eyes.
She was last seen wearing a pink pullover, checkered pants or pyjama-style bottoms, and a brown-beige coat.
Her daughter is 120cm tall, thin, with chestnut hair and light blue eyes.
She was wearing a red and white striped pullover, dark pants and a blue jacket with a hood.
Police believe the pair may be in Paris.
They ask anyone with information to phone +41 21 644 4444.
Valais youth missing from home since 26 January
Bastien Monnet, 18 years old, has not been seen since the night of 26 January in St Maurice.
Sebastien Monnet, missing from St Maurice
He is 187 cm tall, trim build, dark brown hair cut very short, brown eyes. He was last seen wearing military pants with US Army on them and very large side pockets, a black jacket with hood covered in logos, a black winter jacket with small red and gray motifs and black cloth trainers.
Police in canton Valais are asking anyone with information to contact them at +41 27 326 5656.
Bolder thieves: rush hour main street robbery in Rolle
Rolle, main street supermarket robbery Wednesday
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Armed robbers in the Lake Geneva region are getting bolder, with a supermarket hold-up on the main street of Rolle at 19:00 Wednesday night the latest example.
Two masked men broke into the Grand-rue store (police do not mention the Coop at that address specifically) at 19:00, after closing hours and “violently” threatened two of the four employees at gunpoint before making off with an undisclosed sum of money. The two, ages 26 and 30, were in shock but otherwise unharmed, say police.
Two other employees were not directly involved and there were no customers in the store at the time.
The thieves fled “in an unknown direction” and have not been found, despite a significant police search. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at +41 21 644 4444.
Description: 180-190cm tall for the first, both men of average build, wearing dark clothes, with one speaking French with a North African accent.
Valais thieves nabbed
Two thieves, ages 62 and 68, who live in France, were caught in the act of breaking and entering Monday 23 January at 23:00 in Evionnaz, canton Valais. Police were phoned after someone noticed suspicious lights on in an area business, on the Route du Simplon. The building was quickly surrounded and police caught one man attempting to leave the premises and soon found a second man parked at the train station. Stolen goods from three local businesses were found: money, cameras and cell phones.
The two have police records in France, Valais police note.
Vaud, 2 other armed robberies this week: hairdresser’s shop, bank machine client
Earlier this week Vaud police reported two holdups, one Wednesday in Payerne, where a hairdresser was robbed by a man with a knife just as she was closing, and the other a woman in Gland who had just taken money from a bank machine near the post office at midday.
The 44-year-old woman was robbed at gunpoint in Gland at 12:30 Saturday. His description: 20-25-year-old man, European in appearance, 175-180cm tall and thin, dressed in a black sweatshirt with hood, black scarf and gloves, black pistol. He fled in the direction of the train station and has not yet been found.
The Payerne hold-up was also carried out by a thin young man, 175cm in height, wearing dark clothes, speaking French with an accent that could not be identified. He fled the scene and despite a search with dogs and several police patrols, he has not yet been found.
Geneva police arrest 3 on several charges after Sunday night high-speed chase
Police in Geneva have three men, ages 19-23, under arrest following a high-speed chase late Sunday. All three reside in Geneva but are Kosovar, Serbian and Macedonian. The stolen car they were traveling in was spotted by police at the intersection of rue Lect and the routes du Nant-d’Avril and Satigny at 22:00. The driver of the car, instead of stopping when the patrol car put on its flashing lights, took off and led police on a high-speed chase. The car was finally stopped in Meyrin and the men taken into custody, where they admitted to a series of local crimes:
- the car was stolen 14 January when they were stopped by a police officer while they were stealing copper from a Lignon construction site; they escaped in the car, which the police officer managed to photograph, after one of them showed the office a Swiss passport, which turned out to be stolen
- the person whose passport was stolen reported it to Geneva police 16 January, showing a complaint filed earlier in Vaud: his house in canton Vaud had been broken into 3 January and he had filed a complaint with police there for the stolen passport and jewels
- the stolen car was reported by Vaud police in connection with unpaid petrol at a station in Yverdon 20 January
- two of the three held up a woman earlier Sunday evening, at a Vernier car wash, where one said he was a policeman and demanded her wallet; they then fled with the wallet, including her identity papers, which police found when they stopped the men. When they phoned the woman she said she had not yet had a chance to report the theft to police
- the man who had posed as a police officer admitted it and said that he had been driving the stolen car daily, without a license, and that on his own he had robbed a number of villas in Lausanne, Morges, Nyon and Fribourg.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Canton Vaud police are seeking the driver of a dark VW Golf following an accident at 09:00 Monday morning 9 January on the A1 autoroute between Rolle and Gland, in the direction of Geneva. A metallic gray Skoda was in the left lane, just before the La Côte layby, passing a truck, when the driver was surprised by the Golf, which suddenly moved towards the left lane. The two cars scraped their sides, but continued to the Gland exit, where the VW Golf driver continued without stopping or reporting the accident to police.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact them by phone at +41 21 644 4444 or to go to the nearest police station.
Clearing the roof, 30 December 2011, near Crans-Montana, Valais
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Too much of a good thing, with more and more snow falling, means that many lifts in the Swiss Alps are not open Friday: more than a foot fell overnight, more is expected Friday night and Meteoswiss is predicting strong northwest winds throughout the Alps Saturday.
Alps and avalanche reports
Check directly with resorts as the situation is rapidly changing for piste closings and openings, due to weather:
Anzere, Crans-Montana, Leysin-Aigle, Verbier, Villars-Gryon, Saas-Fee, Zermatt
The Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, WSL, bulletin concludes with: “On Saturday, continuous and intermittently intense snowfall is anticipated in all regions of the Swiss Alps except the furthermost south. The northwesterly wind will be blowing at strong velocity. The snowfall level is expected to ascend towards 1800 m over the course of the day. On Sunday, the precipitation will taper off in northern regions. In southern regions it will be sunny. The avalanche danger will escalate significantly on Saturday, presumably giving rise to increasingly frequent naturally triggered avalanches.”
Jura report
by Shirley Curran
With more snow falling, we look set for a good season. The cold weather and snow are expected to continue until Saturday when milder conditions are expected with some sunshine. The start of January promises to be warmer than recent days and our resorts will have a fine covering of snow, with the fresh that is falling now. Crowds will have diminished. Now is the time to enjoy ski-ing less than half an hour from the Swiss frontier!
Ed. note: at noon Friday the ski runs were open - check for updates
Great weather for snowshoes, ski touring, ice skating and sledding!
Snowshoes in canton Valais: perfect way to get around 30 December
Rolle, Lake Geneva, 16 December 2011
GENEVA / ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Zurich airport is suffering major disruptions due to storms Friday evening 16 December and Geneva airport saw delays during the day, as winter blew into Switzerland with a vengeance.
Valais police are reporting several roads closed due to heavy snow, and the car/train link between Goppenstein and Kandersteg was closed Friday. Trees are down in several parts of Vaud, with one tree hitting three cars in Lausanne.
Joachim is the name of the storm that blasted its way across parts of the Jura and Bern Friday morning, bringing high winds and storms that churned up Lake Neuchatel.
Zurich airport reported some cancelled or delayed flights Friday morning, notably from Nice, London and Amsterdam, all affected by storms. By Friday evening Swiss was sending people to a “bad weather in Europe” page and Zurich airport was showing several flights cancelled or delayed, including Paris and London flights.
Geneva airport, which opened its new visitor center officially 16 December was only lightly touched, with some London flights cancelled and minor delays as the Lake Geneva region was drenched by winds and torrential rains.
The Swiss Institute for snow and avalanche danger has put most of canton Valais on a red alert (level 4) for avalanche danger. Postal cars on the Gampel-Steg and Blatten (Lötschen) line are not running because of the danger of avalanches.
Weather has also closed several regional train lines, including Rochers-de-Naye.
Lake Geneva at Rolle 16 December, looking towards Evian and the French Alps where the clouds are dumping snow
A few decades ago, Sion's prisoners were incarcerated on top of a steep hill; today they are held in a prison down near the Rhone river
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The reputation for newly arrived Tunisian refugees charged by Swiss media with committing a high number of crimes will not be helped any by a high-speed chase between Sion in canton Valais and Bex in Vaud Saturday 3 December.
A prisoner, a 22-year-old Tunisian, escaped from the Sion penitentiary by climbing on the roof at 09:45 Saturday, jumping onto an attached building, then sliding down the side where he stole a car that had the keys in the ignition.
Police set up a large manhunt and alerted other cantonal police. He was spotted on the A9 autoroute near St Maurice, heading towards Vaud and a Valais patrol car gave chase. Three Valais police patrols joined Vaud ones. Chablais municipal police set up a roadblock at the Bex exit, but the prisoner crashed through it and drove at high speeds through the town of Bex, police on his tail.
He headed towards Ollon, but a police car was able to overtake him on a straight stretch of road and force him off the road. He was captured after the car he was driving overturned and landed on its roof.
Agrandir le plan
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 25-year-old woman was found dead in her car at 07:30 Saturday 26 November, in a field between Le Lieux and Le Sentier, next to the cantonal road in the hamlet of Hameau de Combe Noir on the northwest side of Lac du Joux. Her car had rolled several times after she apparently swerved hard and went off the highway. The woman, who was Swiss, was driving a car with French plates.
The highway was closed Saturday for the investigation; police are still seeking to learn why she abruptly swerved.
Swiss soldiers travel on Swiss trains for free when on duty (photo: Morges station, November 2011)
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The 2012 train schedule that goes into effect 11 December will offer travellers better connections for trips abroad. Some parts of the Lake Geneva region will also see improvements. But the best news for many working travellers is that mobile connections are being improved, as is the online sales service.
The CFF rail company presented highlights of the new schedule to the press Thursday 17 November.
You’ll be able to plug in and connect better in 2012
All the new trains will have electric plugs and existing intercity trains will also get them. “All the new Duplex trains on the intercity trains will be equipped with WLAN,” says Jeannine Pilloud.
A major improvement could be the installation of equipment that amplifies signals received inside and outside the train cars, giving better access to the cell phone and Internet network.
1.8 million cell phone tickets ordered and number growing
The CFF app for ordering online tickets via cell phone is proving popular, with 1.8 million users since it was introduced in 2010, and the number is growing steadily, says the rail company.
Users of the small pocket timetables will find that some of the international ones are disappearing, in favour of online information, and that smaller stations’ stops are no longer listed, but are incorporated into regional listings. All details will be available online, however.
French-speaking Switzerland, especially commuters, to see significant improvements
A host of changes for trains in the Lake Geneva region will have a significant impact:
More double-decker trains will be used on the Geneva airport/Lucerne line, offering more seats
An additional InterRegio train will run between Neuchatel and Lausanne at 07:53 and the Neuchatel/La Chaux-de-Fonds/Le Locle line will have additional service during rush hour and a pair of trains is being added to the Neuchatel to Bienne line
Canton Vaud: the S4 line is being extended from Morges to Allaman, stopping in Saint Prex and Etoy, which will now have trains every 30 minutes instead of once an hour, Monday to Friday.
Geneva: La Plaine/Geneva, more trains will run during rush hour. Coppet–Geneva–Lancy-Pont-Rouge trains, the 30-minute schedule is being extended for weekend night and trains will run every half hour on Fridays and Saturdays until the end of the day.
New international connections, travel time cut on major links
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The politicians, and there were many of them, at the groundbreaking ceremony for Ceva, the new French-Swiss regional rail system, made much of the historic importance of the moment. The ceremony Tuesday morning 15 November comes 100 years after Switzerland and Geneva signed an agreement to undertake the financing of a rail project that would link the city to the French rail system. At that point discussions had already been underway for some 60 years.
The Tuesday ceremony marks the end of years of effort to overcome political hurdles and opposition in order to treat the border area as one region, for transport purposes.
Source: Ceva (click on image to view larger)
The kickoff for the CHF1.57 billion Ceva project signals the start of a number of related rail projects for the Lake Geneva region, noted Federal Councilor Doris Leuthard in a speech.
She noted that the federal government recognizes the rapid growth of the region and the desire for an expanded public transport system that will better link cantons Vaud and Geneva.
A side benefit of the project will be the construction of 1,000 new housing units near the line, in La Praille, Eaux-Vives and Chêne-Bourg.
Construction will start at the end of January 2012. Ceva will link Gare Cornavin in Geneva to Annemasse via a 16km long rail line, 14km of which is in Switzerland, with five stations: Lancy–Pont-Rouge, Carouge–Bachet, Champel–Hôpital, Genève–Eaux-Vives and Chêne-Bourg. Most of the line will be underground, with two tunnels and several covered sections. Two bridges, one over the Arve and the other over teh Seymaz, are part of the project.
The end result of the six-year construction project will be to link the French SNCF rail system with the Swiss CFF, creating a true RER, or regional transport system.
The Swiss federal government is financing 55.47 percent of the project, canton Geneva 44.53 percent.
Negotiations are still underway with the French for their part of the line and some parts of the project still face legal battles, but the approval by Geneva voters in 2009 of a part of the money to be spent by the canton enabled the project to move ahead.
Key figures:
- Some 240,000 people live or work within 500 metres of a Ceva station
- Cornavin to Eaux-Vives will take 13 minutes
- 6 trains an hour will link Cornavin to Annemasse.
LAUSANNE / NYON, SWITZERLAND – Novartis plans to close its centre in Prangins, next to Nyon, have sparked protests by employees since the news was announced 27 October, and a new protest is planned in Nyon Friday afternoon. The company now says it sending in an expert from the US next week to explain an audit that figured in its decision. Some 350 people are employed in the company’s Prangins operations.
The Vaud cantonal council voted Thursday 3 November to back the workers and two top officials met with Novartis and union officials to explore options.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A high speed chase on the A1 autoroute from Gland to Morges at 01:00 Monday 31 October resulted in the arrest of four men from Lyons, France. The group was breaking and entering a shop in Rolle when police were contacted via the 117 number. Several police and highway patrol units were set up and the car, with French plates, was spotted in Gland, heading for the autoroute.
The car was chased by police at speeds up to 150 kph, with the car ignoring police warnings to stop and the driver swerving several times to prevent the police from overtaking. At the Morges Est A1 exit two patrol cars were set up to block their path and the four were caught. The men have admitted to the facts in the case, say police.
Rolle has recently been the site of other robberies, notably jewelry shops.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Police amplified Tuesday evening on earlier vague news of gunshots going off in the small town of Lucens in canton Vaud Monday night 31 October. One man, age 30, from Kosovar and without a known address in Switzerland, was injured when a bullet struck him in the thorax. He was sitting in a car with two other men and the trio got into a dispute with two men who were standing near their apartment in Lucens.
The others are Swiss and Kosovars between the ages of 22 and 34. All have police records.
Shots rang out and the driver of the car was hit but drove off. Emergency services were called and a police patrol intercepted the car, where the two uninjured man were trying to take care of the wounded man as they headed towards Lausanne from Le Broye. The man was hospitalized and the four others placed under provisional arrest at Vaud Police headquarters at La Blecherette2
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Canton Vaud police have arrested three of the main members of a gang of youths, ages 20-25, who have been sabotaging rail lines in the Morges region and dumping apples onto cars from autoroute overpasses.
The group has been active since the spring of 2011, placing heavy objects on CFF anxd BAM rail lines, including rocks and bales of hay. They have worked mainly around Morges, Saint-Prex, Allaman, Etoy and Lonay but also in the Vallée de Joux, where they have set fire to a number of huts and other small buildings including local refuges used by residents for picnics and group parties.
Several police units from the region have worked together to find the culprits, who have put public transport users in “serious danger”, say police, and who have caused more than CHF350,000 in damages. One of the trio arrested is Italian and the other two Swiss; all live in the region.
They were caught when they dumped a load of apples on a police patrol that was checking speeders.
The three are part of a larger group whose composition appears to vary, and police are continuing their investigations to look for other members of the gang.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The large multi-party centre is gaining ground in Switzerland, to the detriment of the main parties, early results from Sunday’s election for members of parliament seem to show.
Four of the governing parties, the right-wing UDC People’s Party and the centre-right PLR (Liberaux Radicaux), as well as the Christian Democrats (centre) and leftist Greens appear to be losing ground to two of the country’s new parties, the right and centre right environmental groups Vert Lib and PBD.
Swiss public broadcasting (SSR) stations, which track the parliamentary elections closely, provided their first projections at 19:00. Swiss polls closed earlier in the day and official results are generally released after midnight. Unofficial results are in for 23 of the 26 cantons, with intermediate results for Geneva, Vaud, and Zurich at 20:30. Only slightly more than half of the seats for the upper house were known.
Geneva‘s intermediate results show only a minor shift, with the Greens and Socialists each losing a seat in the lower house, but with centre left and environmentalists gaining the seats. Upper house: Liliane Maury Pasquier, Socialist, and Robert Cramer, Greens.
Vaud: Socialists and Greens have gained a seat each at the expense of the Vert’libs and the UDC, in the lower house.
Zurich: Vert’libs and centre-right PDC each gained a seat, with the UDC and centre-right PBD losing one each. Upper house: Verena Diener, Vert’lib and Felix Gutzwiller, PLR – with former UDC leader and federal councillor Christoph Blocher in third place for the two seats.
The map of voting, canton by canton, and all results are on TSR in French.
Marijuana bust in Nyon, several arrested
NYON, SWITZERLAND – Vaud Police say they have arrested nearly 80 people, part of a ring of drug dealers who have been supplying consumers in the St Cergue-Nyon region with marijuana and ecstasy plus some other drugs.
The ringleaders are a Swiss couple, ages 20 and 21 but the group also had some ties with the refugee centre in Nyon, which has been raided in the past for drug busts.
The group’s youngest person was 14, the oldest 57.
Marijuana crops growing in Arzier and St Cergue were uncovered, with an indoor growing centre in St Cergue financed by the mother of one of the buyers.
The investigations ran from June to December 2010, when the arrests were made.
Some of the stolen property recovered by police in Vaud and Valais
CANTON VALAIS, SWITZERLAND – A gang of 16 that had stolen some CHF650,000 in goods from homes in Valais, with similar levels of theft in cantons Vaud and Fribourg, has been dismantled, Valais police say.
Three members of the band were caught in March near Ollon, canton Vaud, and police in the three cantons worked closely together to uncover the rest of the group.
Those arrested, ages 20 to 38, are from Spain, Ecuador and Chile.
They worked by breaking into homes and stealing mainly cash, jewelry and electronic equipment, valued at CHF650,000.
In addition to the amount of the thefts, several thousand francs in damage were reported to police.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A nine-year-old girl who was hit by a car in Aigle 13 September died Saturday, 11 days after the accident, at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne, Vaud Police say. The 49-year-old man who was driving the car had had his license suspended in 1997 and police say he lied to them about who was driving the car at the time of the accident.
The girl was crossing the Route de Transit, the Aigle ring road, en route to Lausanne from Aigle, at 19:40, when she was hit. The driver and the owner of the car, a 36-year-old who was a passenger, told police the owner had been driving. The friend was aware the driver did not have a license but had loaned his car to the man in the past.
Police say the driver has previously been charged with driving without a license, on a number of occasions.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss police and gendarme training school in Savatan has signed an agreement with the French national Gendarmerie to boost mutual training and continuing education projects. One of the key goals will be to improve cross-border collaboration, increasingly important given growing policing problems in urban France and the Lake Geneva region that require rapid responses, say canton Vaud police, who are closely involved in the project.
Theft and violent crime in the Lake Geneva region, often with the criminals coming from French urban areas, has increased in recent years.
New police academy projects will focus on improving joint work methods and greater use of technology.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud police say the 48-year-old man whose body was found in Begnins, not far from Nyon, Friday morning committed suicide, but the cause of death of his 39-year-old wife is not yet clear.
The Swiss couple were found in their apartment by someone who knew them about 09:00 Friday 9 September and police were called immediately. Those close to the situation and the two children of the couple, reportedly ages 4 and 7, were given counseling by police.
Police have ruled out the involvement of a third party in the deaths of the couple who, according to local media, had been living in Begnins for less than a year.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 32-year-old Swiss man was treated in hospital and received 9 stitches when someone attacked him from behind and took a knife to his ear following a fourth league football match in Saint-Barthélemy, canton Vaud. Spectators at the match between FC Talent and FC Cugy began to whistle and verbally abuse each other after the second half started and shortly after the match three members of one team attacked a member of the other team. Fans and some team members then got into a free-for-all.
The player who was knifed was not involved in the fight and was leaving the field when he was attacked.
Bystanders called an ambulance, but the emergency team, too, was attacked when it arrived and had to call for police reinforcements.
Six police teams and a police dog found about 50 people when they arrived. Two were arrested later in the evening after several people were questioned. The police Hooligans squad will now determine if they are to be banned from Swiss football matches.
School is starting: watch out for little people crossing the road!
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Cantons Geneva and Vaud are back in school today, 29 August, and police are reminding motorists to slow down near schools.
School buses at Ecolint, the popular name for the campuses of the International School of Geneva, will start the year Thursday 1 September with a difference: the school has been working with EPFL in Lausanne to come up with the most efficient, environmentally-friendly system for its fleet of school buses in the two cantons.
“Our student population is increasing rapidly,” said Michel Chinal, responsible for the project shortly before his retirement in June. He noted that the rising number of parents picking up and dropping off their children is creating traffic problems in the village of Founex, just outside Geneva. The bus service offered by the school is too slow. The Founex campus, La Chataigneraie, will be adding nearly 300 students with its new primary school opening this week.
“Parents often say that they would like to sign their children up, but the bus ride is too long,” according to Chinal. The school transports nearly 300 students in an area bounded by Morges in Vaud, neighbouring France and Geneva.
The solution was to work with mathematicians in EPFL’s Discrete Optimization Group.
EPFL chemist Rainer Beck, whose child attends the school, offered to optimize the service and he asked his mathematical colleague Friedrich Eisenbrand to tackle the problem.
Eisenbrand notes that “coming up with a simple arithmetic algorithm is not difficult. But that’s not an efficient approach; due to the enormous number of possible itineraries, the calculations are painfully slow. We needed to develop an algorithm that quickly rejected most routes, so that the computation could be completed before the end of the Universe.”
Risenbrand and PhD student Adrian Bock came up with a solution for this complex problem. Using a few clever techniques, says EPFL, the calculations only take half a day to complete.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Blame or thank the sun: hot weather in June and July caused a serious case of heatstroke, but not to people: the pricey new radar system on the A9 autoroute in Vaud, near the border with Valais, didn’t function as well as expected because of the impact of high temperatures on the box. The test period was therefore extended, to the end of August.
Next week the operational phase starts, 1 September, and with it will come speeding fines based on the mobile radar system’s readings of a driver’s average speed between Bex and Aigle.
The new ANPR system is being tested in Vaud and the A2 Arisdorf tunnel with the idea that the radars will cut the number of speeders and thus accidents, but they will also improve traffic flow. They costs CHF400,000, at least twice as much as a traditional radar.
Grens, Vaud, near Nyon (Google map)
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A huge and costly fire in Grens, Vaud Saturday 20 August, at 15:00, was set off by three children from a Jura family, playing with lighters and straw, say Vaud police.
The parents noticed that the fire originated in an area where their children, ages 8, 9 and 12, had been playing, and when the family discussed it the children admitted to finding a box of lighters at the festivities to inaugurate the “ultra-modern” barn that would have housed 160 animals next week.
They then played with the lighters and some of the straw in the barn, which housed more than 800 bales of hay and straw.
The children, who were attending the festivities with their parents, were interviewed by the police and the file is now in the hands of the Juvenile Police Department.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss safety council, BPA, is putting up 1,400 posters around the country and police are increasing their presence near schools and crosswalks to remind drivers to stop for children on foot and on bicycles.
School starts Monday 22 September in canton Vaud and in most of Valais, with Geneva starting a week later, 29 August. Children headed back to school 15 August in the Goms Valley in Valais.
The number of serious accidents involving children 5-14 while between school and home was down in 2010, but with 180 critically injured or killed on Swiss roads last year, police are reminding drivers of their obligation to stop at a crosswalk if a pedestrian (including cyclists) is present.
Police in Vaud will be using mobile radars near schools for two weeks to remind drivers to slow down and to raise their awareness of the speed at which they are driving. They will also be handing out windshield cleaning cloths as a reminder to make sure your visibility is good.
They’ll be starting their 2011 visits to school classes to educate children about road safety. Police in Vaud made 1,348 visits to classrooms during the last school year.
Safety campaign poster for the 2011-12 school year: "Thank you for stopping for me" / Always come to a full stop
The TCS (Touring Club Suisse) offers a pointer to drivers: don’t use your hand or headlights to wave a child into an intersection because they’re more likely to run into the road without first checking traffic from both directions.
A final but critical reminder to drivers, say police, is to make sure all children under 12 or 1.5 metres in height are in child safety seats.
Children riding in a car without a seatbelt attached are three times as likely to be injured and 30 times as likely to be killed, according to Swiss statistics.
A 50kph crash, with no seatbelt, is the equivalent of a fall from the third storey of a building.
The driver rolled his car, ran away, hid under a parked car, then when caught he climbed a fence and swam the Rhone before heading home
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Monday 17 August was a rough day for the police, starting with the media focus on safety in Geneva and ending with unusual escapes in Vaud and Valais, in one case of a detained man who threw away his crutches, in the other of a speeding driver who ran across the autoroute and swam the Rhone before heading home.
Vaud police still hunting for escaped robber
Police in Nyon were caught by surprise Monday noon when an Algerian man in custody, age 25, who was being taken to a court hearing on several charges related to breaking in, theft and drugs, threw away his crutches and ran off. He was one of three taken to court. The other two were handcuffed, but he was using crutches after a medical examination declared the man to have an injured heel, and after the hearing he made his escape.
The man is not considered dangerous but he had not been found by the end of the day Monday despite a large manhunt: he is 180cm tall, thin, has brown hair and was wearing jeans, white trainers and a navy blue shirt with a red, white and blue stripe down the sleeve. He has tatoos on his right shoulder and left hand. Anyone with information is asked to call police at +41 21 644 4444.
Wild early morning chase in Valais before youth found at his home
A 20-year-old Valais youth was driving at a high speed on the A9 autoroute near St Maurice Sunday 14 August, heading towards Martigny, when he overtook a police patrol car at 05:40. The police set off in pursuit. The young man initially appeared to obey their order and headed off the autoroute, but at the last moment got back on the autoroute and, going 200kph, he drove to a Martigny exit, where he exited, went through a stop sign on the cantonal highway and crashed his car which rolled over several times. He was uninjured and took off on foot but a second police patrol spotted him shortly after, hiding under a parked car.
The youth then escaped, despite police calls to stop, by climbing over a fence, running across the autoroute and swimming across the Rhone river.
The police, who had information about his identity, found him at home later in the day. The driver admitted to the facts.
Geneva’s historical tension, police versus political bosses, raises its head again
Geneva’s police appear to be one of the pawns in an ongoing public political debate over safety in the city, with the most recent discussions sparked by the mugging of an American youth who was visiting his parents, a US diplomatic family. The incident was initially given publicity because of the family’s status as high-profile foreigners, but the UN added fuel to the fire with a two-paragraph reminder to UN staff to take care when going out at night.
Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, who is from Geneva, then announced her concerns about safety in Geneva, emphasizing its role as an international centre with a high percentage of foreigners. Monday, the political boss of Geneva’s police, Isabel Rochat, turned the tables by saying she is glad the federal government is at last considering boosting financial aid for Geneva’s security, something she says Geneva has been demanding for several months. The two are scheduled to discuss the issue 12 September.
Geneva media have jumped into the fray, reminding citizens, who go to the polls to elect a new parliament this autumn, of long-standing tensions between Geneva police and their politically nominated leaders. Rochat has made it a priority to calm down the mud-slinging battle of previous politicians who worked with police and the security forces. The heavy media coverage, where the American youth’s mugging has served as a pretext to revive the old battlelines, has made the story one of the most widely read in the Tribune de Geneve and prompted a number of online readers to leave comments on its pages and those of Le Matin, also owned by Edipresse.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Three people died in cantons Lucerne, Vaud and Valais over the long holiday weekend, as a result of accidents, and a fourth person is in critical condition.
Police in Valais say a 43-year-old Swiss man died while out hiking Sunday afternoon 1 August. He left the Cabane (hut) Pointe Rouge near Lidde and was planning to do a two-hour walk to the Pointe du Parc, at 2,700 metres, about 15:00. When he had not returned by 20:30 police were alerted. A rescue team found his body shortly before 22:00. He had fallen 150 metres to his death.
An 84-year-old man from canton Bern died Monday when he fell 300 metres among the rocks at the Briefenhorn, near Fluehli in canton Lucerne. His body was retrieved by a Rega helicopter team.
An 19-year-old back seat passenger died early Sunday in canton Vaud when the car he was traveling in went out of control and crashed near Lucens. The 18-year-old unaccompanied driver, who had a learner’s permit requiring an experienced driver in the car, suffered concussions, as did the front seat passenger, age 19. All three youths are from La Broye. Police say the car was traveling at an “inappropriate speed” on a curve at 04:50. A criminal investigation has been opened.
A 55-year-old Valais man is in critical condition after he missed a curve on the Vissoie-Niouc stretch of the Val d’Anniviers road, on his motorcycle. His motorcycle’s front wheel hit the rock wall and he was thrown violently to the ground, say Valais police. His inert body was found in the middle of the road by passersby, at 02:25 Tuesday morning 2 August. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Sion.
Will also create more secondary school places
ISLL, new international school, opens in Morges, September 2011
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Two schools, one new and one expanding, will significantly ease the pressure on the local English language and bilingual primary school offer starting in September. The continually growing international population in the Lake Geneva region has resulted in a worsening of what was already a shortage of places in schools where English is one of the teaching languages.
Morges school finds a home, thanks to regional development agency and town of Morges
The LLIS (Lake Leman International School) opens at La Gottaz in Morges 12 September, with kindergarten starting at age 3 to grade 5 (ages 9-11) opening during the first year, as well as a multi-lingual crèche or daycare centre for children from age 3 months. The school is planning to open a secondary school for the 2012-2013 academic year, with International Baccalaureate (IB) preparation.
It can take several years for a school to receive IB accreditation, but the new school, opening in its first year with seven classes, is basing its education programme on the IB, particularly for language learning, it says.
Finding a location for the school, especially given high rents in the Lake Geneva region, was not easy, but the Vaud Economic Development Agency and the town of Morges worked with the school, which is in a commercial complex next to the BAM regional train line and the A1 autoroute exit for Morges Ouest.
Anna Kaeser, who has several years experience in education in the UK and Switzerland, is the director of the school and a group of investors is working with management to ensure the financial viability of the school.
International schools also attract local Swiss famililes in part because they often offer a full-day programme, unlike Swiss state schools. The new LLIS will be open from 08:00 to 17:00, including the lunch hour, with a lunch service. The Cap Canaille crèche is located in the same building and is open from 06:30 to 18:30, five days a week, year round.
La Chataigneraie, part of the Int’l School of Geneva, adds 500 new students this September
New primary school at La Chataignerai, Founex
The oldest international schools in the world and a founding school of the IB programme, the International School of Geneva, has had waiting lists for several years.
This September it increases its intake dramatically at La Chataigneraie, its canton Vaud campus in Founex, thanks to a major construction programme. The school, with four campuses, had more than 4,000 students in September 2010.
Atrium in the centre of the new primary school creates light and airy space
The La Chataigneraie campus has built a new primary school that will house 642 students, and it added another storey to the old primary school, which is being turned over to the secondary school. Seven new classes are currently planned in the primary school and three in the secondary school, “but more classes may be added in the primary school if demand warrants it,” Catherine Merigay of the development office told GenevaLunch.
Total additional capacity is 500 students, potentially bringing the campus’s population to about 1,700 students.
La Chat, as it is popularly known, has been able to get rid of a number of portacabins and it is offering a “reception”, or kindergarten class for the first time, for children age 4 and up, starting in September.
Portacabins are disappearing thanks to an additional storey on La Chat's old primary school, now handed over to the secondary school
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud Police are seeking witnesses to and information about an accident that occurred at 07:35 Monday on the A1 autoroute between Nyon and Coppet, in the direction of Geneva. No one was injured when a car spun several times but the driver of another car, who was earlier reported to have caused the accident, left the scene.
The driver of that car has now gone to the police and they are seeking witnesses to establish what exactly happened.
The initial report from the police noted that a woman driving a beige Mazda 636 in the right lane, going 110 kph, used her signals to move into the left lane. As she did so she noticed a gray Q5 Audi Break with Vaud plates come up rapidly on her tail, flashing its lights at her. The driver swerved to the right to pass her, then swerved back into the left lane, suddenly braking “violently” according to police. The woman was also forced to brake and she lost control of her vehicle, which then spun several times, hitting the central barrier, coming to a halt facing the wrong way in the left lane.
The other driver continued down the road.
Anyone with information that will help clarify what exactly happened is asked to go to the nearest police station or call 021 644 4444.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The 64-year-old man described by police in Vaud and Neuchatel as a dangerous escaped criminal and psychopath has turned himself in: he told staff at a restaurant in Rasses, near a wooded area north and east of Sainte Croix, Friday morning that he was the man wanted by police and asked them to contact authorities.
He was promptly taken into custody and is in the hands of Vaud Police.
Police had earlier assembled 60 officers to the area around Chavannes-près-Renens after a reported sighting at 05:00 Friday of a man who appeared to be the wanted criminal. It was the second reported sighting this week, with the first leading to the brief detention in Geneva of a man riding a city bus who resembled the convict.
