Blackden is a boutique of Swiss-based financial advisers whose work includes expat mortgages and primary & secondary residences, pensions and taxation. Based in Versoix.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A man who had been sexually accosting, but without force, girls from 6 to 11 years old since 2002, has been behind bars since January, Geneva police announced Thursday. The 38-year-old has admitted to committing 60 sexual acts, usually asking the children for assistance to urinate and then masturbating.
The man, who lives in Ain, in France, operated mainly on Wednesdays and Saturdays, in Versoix, Meyrin and Lignon. He was unknown to police on both sides of the border, which made it difficult to find him, despite a long investigation and traces of DNA left at some scenes. It was known that he drove a black 4×4, but it took new evidence after another crime committed in January, to track him down. He worked as a building manager.
Lausanne at dusk, viewed from Lake Geneva: growing number of foreigners live in the city, its suburbs
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Geneva, with its international organizations and United Nations European seat is not likely to lose its reputation as Switzerland’s international city, but Lausanne has been creeping up on it as an international centre. From 2008 to 2010 the resident foreigners’ share of the total population in the capital of Vaud was higher than that in Geneva, and growing faster.
Figures published Monday 30 May by Badac, the Swiss cantons and cities database, show that Lausanne has had a larger percentage of foreigners than Geneva in recent years, although the two are close: Lausanne’s population in 2010 was 39.24 percent foreigners while Geneva’s was 38.58 percent, but while the increase in the foreign population in Geneva was .95 percent, Lausanne’s was 1.22 percent.
The figures take into account only the cities themselves, not their larger urban areas. Geneva’s population in 2010 was 185,958 and Lausanne’s was 125,885.
Smaller cities in the Lake Geneva region, such as some suburbs of Lausanne and Geneva, have even higher percentages of foreigners, including some of the highest rates in Switzerland: Montreux, 44.33 percent foreigners, Meyrin 33.99, Carouge 36.97, Renens 50.85, Nyon 36.39, Vevey 43.38, Morges 33.17, Versoix 33.20, Grand-Saconnex 28.40, Ecublens 43.03, Chêne-Bougeries 29.68.
Spreitenbach (50.74 percent), northwest of Zurich, and Renens (50.85), west of Lausanne, have a majority of foreigners; they are the only two Swiss cities over 10,000 where resident foreigners make up more than 50 percent of the population.
Reduced local trains during repairs, Geneva-Versoix
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Major maintenance works on the railroad lines will result in regional trains between Geneva and Versoix being stopped after 21:00, starting 11 May, until 6 June, Monday/Tuesday nights to Friday/Saturday nights.
InterRegio, Intercity and RegioExpress trains will run on their normal schedules.
The nights of 1/2, 2/3 and 3/4 June, trains will run on their normal schedule, says the CFF rail company.
Buses will replace the trains. The Geneva Cornavin station bus stop will be at Place Montbrillant behind the station.
School frees money for major investments
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - One of the largest private schools in the Lake Geneva region, the College du Léman (CDL) in Versoix, at the edge of Geneva, has sold the land on which the school sits. Suva, Swiss accident insurance company based in Lucerne, is the buyer, making this its second major property investment in Geneva in 2010.
The news was spotted in Geneva’s Feuille d’Avis (official record) by the Tribune de Geneve, which says the unusual amount of the transaction, CHF85 million, made it stand out, as does the uncommonness of owners in the region selling expensive land and continuing to rent it. The sale covers 60 hectares, (ed. note: CHF141.7/m2), with the school having an 85-year lease as part of the sale agreement, according to the Tribune.
The news has not been announced publicly by the school or its parent company, Meritas Family of Schools in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the US, which owns 19 schools around the world.
Travel bargains, solar panels, antimatter detectors, flying boats and an all-new old solar system!
Hydroptere.ch unveiled near Lausanne: prototype for world's fastest sailboat (photo ©2010 Gilles Martin-Raget)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Lake Geneva region has been showing its mettle in science and high tech areas this week. The world’s fastest sailboat project unveiled its new prototype, an entrepreneur has won a major award for his travel bargain’s online database, the region’s largest solar panels park has begun soaking up the sun and an unusual new solar system has been found by a team led by Geneva scientists. And Cern packed off a hulking antimatter detector to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it will join the final shuttle in the US space programme.
World’s fastest sailboat, Hydroptere, unveils new prototype, soon sailing on Lake Geneva
Alain Thebault, Hydroptere founder, pilot (photo ©2010 Gilles Martin-Raget)
Hydroptere.ch was unveiled 23 August in Ecublens. The sailboat is a water-borne lab that will soon be put into Lake Geneva. It is a prototype for Hydroptère maxi “whose purpose is to beat the most famous oceanic records and to follow Jules Verne’s vision: Flying around the planet”, says Alain Thébault, founder and project pilot. The project is working closely with EPFL, the polytechnic institute in Lausanne.
Hydroptère made sailing milestones in 2009 when the 60-foot trimaran became the fastest sailing craft in the world, beating two absolute sailing speed records: 51.36 knots (95 km/h) over 500 metres and 50.17 knots (93 km/h) over one nautical mile.
Thébault told a press conference early in the week that “The objective of this hybrid sailing boat is versatility. Sailing nearly as fast as Archimedean traditional boats and achieving higher speeds in flight. First on Lake Geneva, then in the Mediterranean and abroad, l’Hydroptère.ch should give answers to precise questions related to flight dynamics and she will be an ambassador of the cross-frontier collaboration.”
Unusual new solar system found sparks “a new era in exoplanet research”
The planetary system around the Sun-like star HD 10180 (artist’s impression)
An international research team led by astronomers at the University of Geneva Observatory in Versoix announced Tuesday 24 August they they have uncovered a new solar system with several intriguing features. It has the smallest exoplanet (a planet that orbits a star other than the Earth’s sun) found to date and it has a configuration of planets never seen before, with five Neptune-like planets.
Versoix Chocolate Festival 2010, Switzerland (photo, ©2010 Mr Kio)
Versoix, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The urge to turn the town into a chocolate bazaar overcomes Versoix every March and the sixth year of the Versoix Chocolate Festival took place as happily as usual Saturday 20 March.
This year’s festival had an unusual feature: chocolate-makers participating in the festival spent Saturday working in relays to build a five-metre high chocolate bunny, only to let the Geneva-Servette Hockey Club break it into pieces Sunday at 16:00 and hand it out to the public (donations for a nibble or two go to Haiti for post-earthquake aid).
Versoix has had chocolate-makers since 1858 but on this one day every year the town of 13,000 has more visitors than residents and all roads (and rails for the chocotrains) end in chocolate.
Versoix Chocolate Festival 2010, Switzerland (photo, ©2010 Mr Kio)
But the less said the better, for chocolate is meant to be looked at, smelled, touched, nibbled.
Eaten.
GenevaLunch photos by Mr Kio. (Photo album with 44 images from the Versoix Chocolate Festival, mmmmmm)
Title: concert: Yale University A Cappella Group
Location: Collège du Léman, Versoix
Link out: Click here
Description: A cappella concert, American Intl Club of Geneva event, CHF20-40, sign up by 8 March
Start Time: 19:00
Date: 2010-03-10
End Time: 20:30
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A violent crash between a Lamborghini Murcielago and a Volkswagen on the Route de Lausanne at Genthod late Thursday 19 November sent the Volkswagen driver to hospital with a concussion. No one else was injured. An eyewitness to the accident told 20Minutes that several expensive sports cars seemed to be involved in a high-speed race along the stretch of the Route de Lausanne between the roundabout at Creux de Genthod and the entry to Versoix.
The Volkswagen was not participating, and turned over several times when hit by the Lamborghini, before coming to rest.
Versoix, Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 44-year-old Italian man who lives in Meyrin, Geneva was killed in the early hours of Thursday (03:50) when his motorcycle hit an island on the Route de Fayard at the intersection with the chemin de Nant-de-Crève-Coeur, in the commune of Versoix, near the Vireloup French border customs post. He died of multiple injuries despite rapid emergency treatment, and the motorcycle, a Ducati I Monster 696 red bike, was totaled.
Versoix, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Six cases of swine flu have been confirmed among children attending the College du Léman summer school at Versoix, near Geneva, reports Romandie news. They will spend the next seven days in isolation in a nearby villa. Four other cases are under investigation.
Swiss news weekly L’Hebdo magazine 2 April publishes a feature article on expatriates in the Lake Geneva region. GenevaLunch, a partner of l’Hebdo brings you the English version in three parts.
French version © 2009 l’Hebdo
English version © 2009 GenevaLunch (may not be reproduced in part or whole without written permission.
By Julie Zaugg and Mehdi Atmani
They have their own schools, media and even neighbourhoods where they live. But who are these expatriates? Spotlight on this comfortably well-off and discreet community that lives side by side with the Swiss, without really mixing with them.
The Expats are among us
“Bonjour, hello – can I help you?” smiles the saleswoman in a children’s clothing shop. At the Chavannes-de-Bogis shopping centre English is ever-present, from the supermarket checkout to the self-service restaurant. Sometimes a word or two of German surfaces, or Swedish or Hindi. Not surprsing: we’re in the middle of a stretch that runs from Versoix to Nyon, which houses the largest concentration of expats in Switzerland.
Little is known about this population, despite the large number of these workers who come to Switzerland for several years, sent by companies and international organizations. L’Hebdo takes a closer look.
How many of them are there?
There are no precise figures for this population because expats melt into the group of holders of B permits, renewable residence permits for non-European Union members. But there are an estimated 100,000 in French-speaking Switzerland – nearly the same size as the population of Lausanne. In Geneva alone there are 65,000 expats, some 40,000 of whom work for international organizations, with their families.
GenevaLunch will continue the article Friday afternoon 3 April.
Swiss chocolate
Updated 13:00 Versoix, Switzerland (Genevalunch) - Versoix’s fifth annual chocolate festival holds some surprises this year, apart from the traditional artisan chocolate displays. Thirteen of the chocolate makers are presenting works with an astronomy theme for the international year of astronomy.
Read more…
Title: Chocolate festival
Location: Versoix, Canton Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: The fifth chocolate festival in Versoix is an opportunity to meet chocolate artisans, taste and play. Only one “industrial” chocolatier is invited to the festivities that include music.
Date: 28 Mar 2009
