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.
Escaped convict, sought in Vaud, Neuchatel and France since Sunday: note lower left arm tatoo
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud Police have issued two additional photos of the 64-year-old man who escaped Sunday 27 June while on an outing, after injuring one of the two police officers who accompanied him.
The man is considered dangerous. He has spent 40 years in prison for murder, rape and other charges.
He was not released when he became eligible after a judge ruled he was too dangerous to live in society.
He had been in prison in Neuchatel and escaped in canton Vaud near the borders with Neuchatel and France. A large manhunt with 10 police dogs has failed to turn him up.
Description of the fugitive
Police have added new elements: the man appears younger than his age, he has a large tatoo of a naked woman on his lower left arm and he was wearing Adidas shoes, gray with yellow stripes, when he disappeared.
64-yr-old convict appears younger than his age, say police
He is Swiss, mother tongue French with a Jura accent and he speaks Swiss German.
He is of normal build, 180cm tall, wears round medical glasses and has a shaved head.
He was wearing a short-sleeved light blue checked shirt when he disappeared, with washed out light bluejeans.
Click on images to view larger
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 61-year-old Vaud man from the La Cote area was pulled in for questioning after police discovered he had hidden a camera in the shower area of the locker room used by the local junior team he coached, without the boys’ knowledge. The films were confiscated and the boys’ faces were selected from the images, then shown to the local club managers for identification.
The commune where he was coaching promptly fired him, and the parents of the boys who were filmed have been informed.
French police spark investigation after suspicious photographer spotted at Ain pool
The camera was discovered after French police informed Vaud police during the summer of 2010 that a man had been spotted taking photos of children in a suspicious manner at a public swimming pool in Ain. Vaud police then identified him as a local juniors football club trainer and they proceeded to investigate.
Escaped convict, considered dangerous, is still on the loose in the Vaud, Neuchatel, French border area
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Some 70 police and six police dogs from two Swiss cantons, Vaud and Neuchatel, as well as France combed the area between Lake Neuchatel and the French border Tuesday 28 June but failed to find the convict who escaped Monday during an outing.
Another 30 police in Vaud conducted interviews with shop owners or others whose places might have provided food or lodging for the man, in his 60s, who has served more than 40 years in prison for murder, rape and other crimes. Their search efforts were concentrated around Grandson, Concise and Vaumarcus.
The escaped convict is considered dangerous and violent. Anyone with information is asked to call the police emergency number, 117.
A mobile patrol will operate during the night, say Vaud police.
Ed. note: Le Temps (Fr) carries a fascinating and disturbing story, recollections from an interview with “Jean-Louis B”, the escaped criminal, 10 years ago, at a time when the courts refused to ever release him considering him a dangerous psychopath.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud Police are warning the public to be on the lookout for a 64-year-old prisoner considered extremely dangerous who escaped Monday afternoon near Provence, Vaud while on an outing with two prison wardens. The man has been imprisoned for life, without parole, for murder, rape, attempted rape and crimes against property. He can be very violent, police say, and they ask anyone who sees him to call them on the 117 emergency number.
He was traveling by car with the two guards when he hit one of them in the hand with a blunt instrument. Police immediately set up a manhunt with border guards, Neuchatel and French police, local police, police dog teams and the Swiss army. The army has made a search helicopter available.
Provence is close to Lake Neuchatel and not far from the French border.
View Larger Map
The man is 180cm tall, of normal build, wears round wire-rimmed glasses and he has a shaved head. He was wearing a light blue shirt with short sleeves and washed-out jeans when he escaped. He is Swiss and French is his first language but he also speaks Swiss German.
He was last seen heading in the direction of Lake Neuchatel.
Swiss mountain passes are popular with bikers in summer
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The police in Vaud handed their Valais police colleagues a nice story Wednesday morning, of a local man in his 40s stopped for going 130kph on his motorcyle in a 50 zone. The man was going through the village of Crassier, near the Vaud/French border and the French town of Divonne.
The news comes just as police in Valais announced, Wednesday morning, the details of a safety and accident prevention day for motorcyclists Saturday 25 June in Bourg-St-Pierre, in Valais.
Motorcyclists are 20 times more at risk of serious injury or death than occupants of a car, statistics show.
One-third of biker accidents due to inappropriate speed
One-third of motorcycle accidents are linked to the rider losing control of his or her bike due to excessive or inappropriate speeds. Valais police note that two motorcyclists have lost their lives in just the one canton to date this year.
Number of deaths down, but serious injuries up: 1,435 in 2009 in Switzerland
The prevention day is part of a safety campaign that is tied to the heavy use of Swiss mountain passes by motorcyclists in summer, but also a drive by the Swiss to reduce the number of road deaths and serious injuries.
Cantonal oenologist Alexander de Montmollin may be the wine expert, but Geneva's boar, in front of him, gets the attention, with the top award named "Sanglier"
GENEVA / LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The news was already out of the bag that 2010 will be a great vintage for wines in Switzerland but now the best producers of a great vintage are also known.
The new crop of recently bottled 2010 wines as well as 2009 wines that have been maturing (and some older vintages that have been aging) have been judged in cantons Geneva and Vaud. The winners, announced at what are known as the official “Selections” 16 and 17 June, will represent the cantons and thus the region in international competitions.
Geneva this year shows off several prize-winning young producers who are anchoring the dramatic improvement in the canton’s wines in recent years. Wines from the canton won 21 gold medals in the past 10 years at the important Vinalies competition in Paris alone, and several more gold medals at other top international events.
Geneva judges try new method for noting competing wines
The 2011 Geneva Selection used a new approach to judging and while it may be too early to tell the impact, the participating judges told cantonal agricultural office authorities afterwards they were pleased with the change.
Judges at wine competitions usually work in small groups at tables where they are tasting and noting the same wine at the same time, which invariably leads to some individuals or the group influencing judges’ ratings, even though the tables of judges do not normally discuss the wines. Geneva this year had all of the judges tasting their wines independently, making any discussion impossible, since no one judge knew what wine another was tasting.
Top prize Sanglier goes to Dardagny sweet Pinot Gris
In a class of its own: Dardagny sweet late harvest wine from Les Hutins takes the 2011 top Geneva prize
Geneva handed out prizes to its award-winning producers at the Hotel de Ville 16 June, where the wines were available for tasting, along with Geneva specialties from the traditional sanglier or boar that acts as a mascot. The coveted top prize for the wine with the highest overall rating, called the Sanglier, this year went to Domaine Les Hutins in Dardagny, for the father-daughter team’s late-harvest sweet wine, a Pinot Gris 2008.
The number of wines presented at the Geneva Selection has grown steadily, from 280 in 2000 to 654 in 2011, with 51 judges this year.
Geneva is Switzerland’s third-largest wine-producing canton, after Valais and Vaud.
Vaud names top three wines in six categories
Vaud will hand out prizes to its award winners at the Gstaad Open tennis tournament in July. Some 1,070 wines were entered in the competition and given notes by 80 judges over three days. Awards were given to 330 wines, 148 of them gold and 182 silver, in six categories. Chasselas, the canton’s standard bearer, had 135 winners, or more than one-third of the prize wines.
Complete list of Geneva award-winning wines (Vaud to follow Monday evening)
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 36-year-old Frenchman is in critical condition in hospital following a car accident Friday morning at 08:30 on the Vallorbe-Croix cantonal highway, near the La Cula (RC 251a) crossroad. Vaud police say his car left the road for reasons that are not yet clear; the car hit a bank and ended in trees below the road. Emergency services cut him out of the car and he was taken by helicopter to the hospital.
Valais police identify 224 kph driver on autoroute near Sierre
Police say they have identified the driver of a car that was clocked at 224 kph on the A9 autoroute 9 June, following an investigation. The 21-year-old Valais man who lives in the region will likely face charges brought by the district attorney and he has been reported to the highway department services responsible for driver’s licenses.
He was caught going 224 kph on the A9 autoroute at Granges, going from Sion to Sierre, Thursday 9 June at 21:15, an area where the speed limit soon drops to 100 kph.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A policeman who shot and killed a passenger in a car on the A1 autoroute in 2010 was justified in using his gun, and correct procedures were filed, a Swiss court has ruled. The case was closed 15 June.
The 18-year-old from France who died from a gunshot wound was in a stolen car, one of three luxury cars stolen shortly before from a garage in Fribourg, by a group from Lyon. The brothers came up against a roadblock on the A1 autoroute and when they did not slow down a police officer waiting at the roadblock on the Vaud-Fribourg border opened fire. The youth died at the scene of the accident and his brother was jailed.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A woman critically injured Wednesday 8 June when her car left the road near Montherod, canton Vaud, on a wide bend in the Bois Masson, died Thursday in hospital, Vaud police say. The accident occurred about 13:30 Wednesday. The car was heading from Gimel to Montherod.
The 31-year-old French woman’s passenger, a 21-year-old Swiss woman who lives in the area, was hospitalized with less serious injuries. The car left missed the bend for unknown reasons and stopped against a tree after a dozen metres. The driver had to be cut from the car by a team of 12 firefighters called in from Morges, before she was flown by helicopter to the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne, where she died a day later.
Accident early Friday critically injures young passenger without seat belt
A 22-year-old Bern man is in critical condition, say Vaud police, after the car in which he was a passenger crashed at 02:00 Friday morning 10 June near Avenches. The 21-year-old driver, who was also not wearing a seat belt, is hospitalized in Payerne with serious back and facial injuries. The car was traveling from Avenches to Salavaux at high speed and the driver failed to manage a curve to the right. The car flipped over several times and the passenger was thrown from the car. He was flown to the Hôpital de l’Ile in Bern.
The road was closed from 02:30 to 08:30 Friday morning to allow investigators to make their report.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Traffic heading in the direction of Lausanne from Geneva came to a standstill Tuesday morning 7 June when a hefty 14-ton construction drilling machine on treads fell off the truck that was carrying it, and onto the highway. Both lanes of the autoroute were closed for two hours to allow an emergency crew to lift the machine out of the way and to repair the considerable damage done to the road itself.
The accident did not cause any injuries.
Vaud police say the tractor-trailer pulling the heavy load burst a tire shortly before the Morges exit, then began to sway back and forth, with the machine pulling loose from its moorings before tipping over into the other lane.
Traffic was backed up for nearly three autoroute stops during the morning and the lake road was packed with vehicles taking it as a detour.
Camel hitched to Swiss A9 autoroute bar, not an everyday sight
SION, SWITZERLAND – Drivers who had started sampling the goods at the Valais wineries Open day Friday 3 June might have wondered about the strength of the wine if they were on the A9 autoroute, where a camel and two horses were hitched to the safety bar on the median strip. Don’t worry, if you were one of those drivers: it was the real thing.
A 55-year-old Valais woman, driving a car and trailer from Martigny towards St Maurice at 12:30 Friday 3 June lost control of her vehicle and the trailer tipped over. Luckily, none of the occupants were injured, but police shunted traffic through the emergency lane while the passengers, two horses and a camel, were tied to the bar for the time it took to sort out the trailer and car.
Police from Valais and Vaud joined forces, with the accident happening near the border between the two.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND -The Tour du Pays de Vaud cycling race runs from Thursday evening 26 May to Sunday and Vaud police are warning motorists that if they are on the routes as the race comes through they will have to pull over and wait it out.
Dates and locations for the race:
Measles, photo: US Center for Disease Control
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland has seen 497 cases of measles declared since the start of 2011, compared to 211 for the same period a year earlier, the weekly newsletter from Swiss public health authorities shows.
Geneva (110 cases) and Vaud (93) are feeling the impact of a major epidemic in France, while Basel, with 57 cases, is affected mainly by a group that is reluctant to vaccinate its children.
Doctors are legally obliged to report suspected measles cases rapidly to public health authorities and anyone with the contagious disease will be quarantined. The federal public health department reminds anyone who has not had a second vaccination to be sure to have one in order to be protected against the disease, which can cause severe health problems and occasionally death. A 12-year-old girl died in Geneva in a major epidemic in 2009.
Background, GenevaLunch articles on measles in Switzerland
Zurich says no to both proposals to limit assisted suicide
Update 13:00 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – First Swiss 15 May voting results are in:
- Geneva accepting a re-zoning project for Plan-les-Ouates and Confignon, but a bicycle and pedestrian paths system looking like it is headed for defeat
- Vaud voting to support families in need, in particular those reaching the end of long-term unemployment claims.
- Zurich voters gave little support to either of the two proposals to limit assisted suicide (TSR, Fr).
a Zurich voters are famously having their say about suicide tourism 15 May, UK media in particular report, but inside Switzerland the hot issues include rezoning for a new housing area in Geneva, and nuclear waste and a minimum wage in canton Vaud.
Geneva: green transport support, re-zoning for new building
Geneva debates giving cyclists more space
The 15 May votes do not include any federal-level popular referendums. The Swiss go to the polls three to four times a year and the next federal voting session is in October, when members of parliament are elected.
Geneva voters, with the entire canton now eligible to vote online, have five items on the ballot. The one that has prompted the liveliest French-language media coverage is a zoning change in Plan-les-Ouates and Confignon, in the areas known as Les Cherpines and Les Charrotons. The re-zoning would permit agricultural land to be re-zoned for offices and homes, with the possibility of creating 3,000 homes near l’Aire, to the west of the A1 autoroute. The government is backing the plan, but opponents argue, among other things, that in order to eat local food as a feature of supporing the environment, you have to have land to grow it.
Geneva is also voting on a popular initiative to create pedestrian and cycling paths that would have priority, but the cantonal government says it is opposed to the plan, citing the fact that only 6 percent of those using “transport” systems are on bicycles and that the plan goes against a Geneva constitutional article that does not allow one form of transport to be given priority over others.
Vaud: nuclear waste, minimum wages
Vaud citizens are being asked to decide on a popular referendum that would create a minimum wage; Switzerland in general does not have minimum wages except for certain categories of workers, such as household staff, where they were established to avoid abuse. Unions and employer organizations generally negotiate wages that set a minimum.
Vaud is also one of several cantons that had planned votes on nuclear power stations, but in the wake of the early 2011 federal government moratorium on building nuclear plants, the ballot item was dropped. In its place is part of the larger ballot issue: voters are being asked to approve Swiss plans to bury nuclear waste deep underground. The cantonal vote is not binding on the federal government.
This weekend also sees the final round of voting to elect local officials.
Neuchatel, Valais, Zurich
Neuchatel: There are no cantonal voting items but the communes of Boudry, Cortaillod and Bevaix are voting on whether or not to join together.
Valais is not voting this weekend.
Zurich: Voters are being given two popular referendums on assisted suicide, one to end it and the other to limit it to Zurich residents when carried out in the canton, but neither is expected by most observers to pass. The importance of the vote lies in the message it will send to the federal government, which is expected to propose stricter legislation, possibly in 2011, and to canton Vaud, where a vote will probably be held in 2012 on allowing assisted suicide in homes for the elderly.
British media have covered the Zurich vote as part of ongoing coverage of suicide tourism, focusing on people going from the UK to Switzerland to die at one of the two main Zurich area clinics, Dignitas and Exit. Numbers are unconfirmed by vary widely, from 100 mentioned by the Telegraph to 800 on a waiting list mentioned by the Guardian.
Ed. note: one BBC story, and as a result other UK media stories, mistakenly reported that Switzerland is voting on the issue this weekend: only canton Zurich is voting on it (BBC’s Imogene Foulkes got it right).
Polls have shown a majority of Swiss in favour of ending suicide tourism, while safeguarding free choice about ending one’s life, for Swiss citizens.
Sponsor Breitling announcd the news of Jetman's flight over the Grand Canyon
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Jetman, as Vaud resident Yves Roissy is known, has done it! His lightweight jet-propelled wing took him across the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA, Tuesday 10 May in 8 minutes, flying at 220 kph, three days after he delayed his scheduled flight.
Roissy, who had permission last week from US federal aviation authorities, held off, saying he was not prepared.
A helicopter launched him at 2,400 metres abovve the west end of the canyon and he flew at about 60 metres above the rim before opening his parachute and landing gently at the bottom of the canyon, in Hualapai country.
He thanked the native Americans there, who agreed to his flight over land they consider sacred.
Roissy’s previous exploits have included a first jet wing flight over the Swiss Alps and flights over Lake Geneva and the English Channel.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s unemployment rate continued to move downwards, falling to 3.1 percent in April from 3.4 percent in March, a decline of more than 22 percent compared to April 2010.
Zurich accounted for the largest share, 18.4 percent of all unemployed in Switzerland, followed by Vaud with 13.1 percent and Geneva with 11.2 percent of the nation’s total.
Geneva remains the canton with the highest rate, followed by Neuchatel with a jobless rate of 5 percent.
The unemployment rate in the three fell from March to April:
- Zurich, 3.5 in March to 3.1 in April
- Vaud, 5.2 to 4.9
- Geneva, 6.6 to 6.3.
