Loose wood and petrol in the tunnel caused huge detour and 20km traffic jam at start of holiday
Motorists coming out of the 20km traffic jam were met near Vevey by a very local cloudburst that did little to speed up traffic
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud police are looking for a driver who lost a pallet of wood Wednesday afternoon on the A9 autoroute. The wood slid off the unknown vehicle about 100 metres into the Flonzalley tunnel after Lausanne, heading in the direction of Vevey. The wood scattered and was run over by eight vehicles, hitting the gas tank of one of them. Several other vehicles that either hit or tried to avoid the wood were spun off the road.
Fortunately, say police, there were no victims, but the damage to property is considerable.
The petrol that spilled from the damaged tank spread along several hundred metres in the tunnel. Police quickly closed off the area for 25 minutes and sent some of the traffic on a long detour towards Yverdon and Bern before it headed back in the direction of Valais.
One lane was opened later, but with traffic was predictably heavy at the start of the four-day Ascension holiday weekend, a traffic jam some 20km long bogged down traffic as far back as the Ste Croix junction at Crissier. Traffic moved at a crawl until well after 18:00, when both lanes were opened, just as very local showers hit the area.
The accident required six police teams, fire trucks, special highway department units and a high-pressure cleaning machine.
Police are asking anyone with information about the driver and the vehicle that was carrying the wood to contact them at +41 21 644 4444 or to contact the nearest police station.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The new doubledecker trains called Duplex Regio CFF that will be put into service on two lines by 9 December 2012 had their first ride on the rails Thursday 26 April. The trains were unveiled for officials and guests on a run from Romont to Geneva.
The trains are part of a fleet of 13 that will provide 33 percent more seats and more trains overall in French-speaking Switzerland. Passenger traffic in the region has increased by 44 percent in the past eight years.
The new trains, which each have 337 seats (277 in second class), will be used on the Geneva-Lausanne-Romont and Geneva-Lausanne-Vevey CFF lines. The trains will be doubled during rush hour, with 674 seats each.
They will be put into operation progressively, with the first one going into service in June. The CFF will hold open houses in September in seven cities to introduce the public to the new trains.
Nestle in Vevey
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Nestlé is having a good week: Thursday 19 April its annual general meeting it smoothly re-elected Paul Bulcke chief executive officer for the next five years and there were fewer clashes with protesters, the European Patent Office has handed Nespresso a victory and Friday Q1 figures were released showing 7.2 percent organic growth.
Nespresso’s victory, announced at the annual general meeting, was perhaps the least certain of this week’s successes for the company, although the copyright battle over single pod capsules could have a last stand. The European Patents Office upheld an earlier decision backing Nespresso’s patent on the pods that work with its machines. Three companies, Sara Lee Corp, Ethical Coffee Co. and Vergagno in Italy have been fighting the patent. The EPO’s court of appeals is now the last resort for the three.
The company’s financial results for the first quarter show sales up 5.6 percent to CHF21.4 billion, with acquisitions responsible for 3 percent of the increase. Foreign exchange had a 4.6 percent negative impact, says the food multinational.
Bulcke’s assessment: “In many developed markets where consumer confidence is low, the trading environment is subdued whilst in most emerging markets, conditions remain dynamic and rich in growth opportunities. Our past and present investments, and continuing innovation, have enabled us to deliver good growth in the first quarter.”
Uh-oh, time to eat this for the morning coffee break: Swiss dark chocolate ice cream in its half-empty carton is forming telltale ice crystals, center top
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – If you’ve never considered the instability of your ice cream beyond the fact that it disappears too quickly, you are clearly not an ice cream manufacturer.
We thought we were finished writing about the work of WSL, the Swiss avalanche and snow research insititute, now that the ski season is ending, but Nestlé has brought them back with news that the food multinational is collaborating with the WSL on ice crystals research, using a one-of-a-kind x-ray machine.
Nestlé hopes to uncover the holy grail of ice cream makers: how to keep its texture and structure and therefore quality for longer. Initial research results published 9 March in the journal Soft Matter.
A follow-up study is now underway with the SLF and a research group at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, the company notes in a press release.
“The study found that as some ice crystals grow in size they fuse together, creating bigger crystals which cause the texture of the ice cream to coarsen,” says Cédric Dubois, a scientist working on the project for the Vevey-based food company.
“We already know the growth of ice crystals in ice cream is triggered by a number of different factors. If we can identify the main mechanism, we can find better ways to slow it down.”
A too-short slippery slope towards hard and icy or chewy ice cream
Closeup: Ice crytals come from the milk itself: not what mother cow intended
If you store ice cream too long in your freezer it develops ice crystals and, often, an inconsistent quality, with some bits going chewy and others hard. The ice crystals are the water that is in the ice cream itself.
“Ice cream is an inherently unstable substance,” says Hans Joerg Limbach, a scientist at the Nestlé Research Center in Switzerland. “As part of its natural aging process, the ice will separate from the original ingredients such as cream and sugar.”
Limbach says that temperature variations, which are clearly not good for ice cream, can occur at different stages of the product’s transportation and storage.
“For example, most home freezers are set at minus 18C, but the temperature doesn’t remain constant. It fluctuates by a couple of degrees in either direction, which causes parts of the ice cream to melt and then freeze again. The ice cream can sometimes become chewy due to loss of water or air, or icier and harder to scoop.”
WSL and the art of staying cool while studying ice crystals
Enter the WSL, which has the world’s only x-ray tomography machine “that allows long-term observation of tiny particles in a substance at temperatures of zero to minus 20 degrees Celsius,” Nestlé notes in its statement about the partnership. They “monitor the evolution of ice crystals in snow and how this affects its properties: key factors for understanding avalanche formation. Ice crystals affect the properties of ice cream in a similar way, altering its texture and structure as they grow and change shape.”
The WSL is one of the world’s top avalanche and snow research centres. The Davos-based institute, which in 2011 celebrated its 75th anniversary, is a well-known name to Swiss back-country and off-piste sports fans, thanks to its excellent snow condition maps and bulletins. GenevaLunch includes the group’s daily bulletins every Friday during the ski season when we issue a Swiss resorts weekend snow and winter sports report.
Ice cream people in Vevey, with its fine view of the snowy Alps, naturally turned to the WSL with their dilemma. The difficulty until now has been finding a way to examine material at -20C without destroying the sample. “This method is non-invasive and does not disturb the product,” says Dubois. “X-ray technology is normally used at room temperature, but this machine works within exactly the right range for frozen food.”
The new work with the Paul Scherrer Institute is giving the researchers “access to technology that should enable them to examine even higher resolution images of the microscopic particles in ice cream.”
Drunk driver left scene of Montreux-Vevey accident; 78-year-old woman killed
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 78-year-old woman died in hospital Saturday night 21 January shortly after an accident at 22:00 on the A9 autoroute between Vevey and Montreux, in the direction of Vileneuve. The lake side of the road was closed to traffic until 07:15 Sunday for the investigation.
The driver of the second car noticed the car ahead of him too late and despite braking hard he rear-ended the car violently, say canton Vaud police. The two cars ended up crosswise on the highway.
The victim, who lived in north Vaud, was driving a gray Toyota wagon, and police are looking for witnesses or anyone with information, in particular drivers who may have passed her car. She was taken to the Chuv university hospitals, where she died.
The man who crashed into her car is 26 years old, Portuguese and his driver’s license was already suspended. He fled the scene of the accident but turned himself in later. His alcohol level was measured at 1.08.
Anyone with information is asked to go to the nearest police station or to phone +41 21 644 4444.
Lausanne train station
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 32-year-old ticket checker on a CFF train suffered a broken nose and facial lacerations when he was attacked by a man without a valid ticket last Friday, 15 July. His aggressor fled and police, who have a witness, turned the case over to judicial authorities, who have opened a criminal investigation.
The man’s ticket had earlier been checked, shortly before Vevey on the Brig-Geneva airport train, and it was valid as far as Vevey. When the conductor spotted the man in the last car of the train from Vevey to Lausanne, at 13:30, he asked to see the ticket again, remembering that it was not valid.
He was starting to write out a fine when the man suddenly grabbed his ticket back and became “violent and uncontrollable” according to Vaud Police. He grabbed the CFF employee by the collar and began punching him in the face and kicking him.
The two fell to the ground and the conductor, whose colleague was elsewhere in the train, tried unsuccessfully to hold onto the man at the Lausanne train station.
The Lausanne train station gendarmerie is in charge of the investigation.
VEVEY, SWITZERLAND – Nestlé’s move into nutritional solutions for health problems is being given a boost this week with Nestlé Health Science taking a minority stake in a New Zealand company that specializes in developing kiwi-based products to treat gastrointestinal conditions.
Vital Foods, a 20-year-old firm, has two products for treating constipation that are well established in New Zealand, Phloe and KiwiCrush.
“Both products are based on a natural kiwifruit extract, and have been clinically shown to be effective against constipation,” the Swiss multinational notes in a statement about the deal. “Constipation is a common functional disorder of the gastrointestinal tract, affecting around 1 in 6 people in the general adult population in Oceania, Europe and the US.”
The terms of the agreement are not being disclosed. The Swiss company will have a seat on the board, giving it a voice in the company’s product development and commercialization strategies. Inventages, which manages Nestlé Venture Funds, has been an investor in Vital Foods for several years.
Nestlé Health Science also announced Thursday that it has completed the purchase of Prometheus, a company that specializes in gastroenterology and oncology diagnostics and specialty pharmaceutical products, notably for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
The San Diego, California firm was scheduled for an IPO in the US when it agreed to a buyout by Nestlé in May 2011. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Dow Jones News cited a Vontobel analyst as saying that the Vevey company most likely paid over $1 billion.
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.
One of the breakfast cereals Nestle will produce in Malaysia
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two multinationals with strong ties to the Lake Geneva region, P&G and Nestlé, are investing heavily, the first in a major new product and sugarcane packaging, the other in new Asian markets, they announced 26 April.
P&G’s mother company in Ohio, USA, says it is about to launch a new product, and Ad Age, hyping the marketing push it will receive, writes, “Procter & Gamble Co. is preparing to launch what it describes as its biggest laundry innovation in more than a quarter century with Tide Pods: a line of highly concentrated liquid detergent tablets, backed by a massive $150 million marketing budget.”
The news site Cincinnati describes the new product as “a tablet of highly concentrated liquid Tide. Each tablet will contain three chambers of liquid detergent surrounded by a film designed to dissolve in any temperature water. The detergent in the tablets will be twice as concentrated as liquid Tide, P&G says.”
Expect to hear more about the product, lots more, says Ad Age.
Before it shows up in Europe, another P&G innovation will arrive. Ecouterre, an environmental products-watcher site, says the company has just come out with its first sugarcane-based packaging for hair care products. “Pantene, the brand of haircare products run by Proctor and Gamble, will be shipping its first plant-based plastic containers to stores in Western Europe this month. Sourced mainly from sugarcane, the new packaging is expected not only to slash P&G’s fossil-fuel consumption by 70 percent but also to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 170 percent, according to Len Sauers, the company’s vice president of sustainability.
Joint venture for breakfast foods will get 80% of raw materials locally, in Malaysia
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eight people were taken to hospital to be checked and 53 others were treated by emergency teams at rue de la Madeleine 37 in Vevey after they were affected by odours coming from an apartment where a man who had been dead for several days was found.
The man and a woman who was alive but unconscious were found at 10:00 Wednesday morning 23 February after police were called about a bad smell coming from the apartment.
A large team of police, fire and health workers converged on the scene after the macabre discovery, and the area was partially blocked off to allow them to work.
Police have opened a criminal investigation to identify the people in the apartment and to identify the cause of the man’s death.
Meanwhile, peelable ice cream ready for market
Peelable ice cream, inspired by bananas, expected to boost 2011 Nestlé sales
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Food multinational Nestlé saw its profits jump to CHF34.2 billion in 2010, thanks to continuing strong growth boosted by exceptional revenues from the sale of Alcon, an eyecare company. Profits in 2009 were CHF10.2b.
The Vevey firm had sales in 2010 of CHF109.7b, up from CHF108b in 2009.
“We are starting 2011 with continued momentum, well placed to face uncertainties ahead, including volatile raw material prices,” says chief executive Paul Bulcke.
In separate news, the company says it is now ready to market peelable ice cream, which you eat like a banana, with a jelly outer skin and ice cream inside. Test marketing in Thailand was successful, Nestlé says, and the product will now be rolled out in other markets.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Vevey are asking the public for help in finding 50-year-old Pierre Ecuyer, who was last seen Wednesday morning at 08:30. Ecuyer has a history of depression. He is 180 cm tall, corpulent, has straight, dark, longish hair and a lump on his forehead. Anyone with information is asked to call +41 21 644 4444 or to stop by any police station.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 51-year-old man died shortly after being hit by a train at the station in Wipkingen, on the outskirts of Zurich. He had just stepped off the train and fell onto the tracks for unknown reasons, then was hit by the moving train. Emergency services arrived at the scene promptly but were unable to save him. Police are looking for witnesses to the accident.
A Vevey woman was luckier last week when she was hit by a train after falling at the Vevey station, surviving the accident but sustaining serious injuries. Swiss newspaper 20 Minutes carries a story 2 November saying that she was taken to the Chuv (university hospitals) where a leg was amputated, but no one contacted her husband, despite the woman having a cell phone and identity papers on her. Her husband told the newspaper that he only learned the next day, nearly 24 hours later, why his wife had not returned home.
Rail traffic was disrupted on the Vevey-Geneva line Thursday, following the accident
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A 55-year-old Vevey woman suffered serious injuries to her legs when she tried to catch a train leaving the station in Vevey around 14:30 Thursday. The train was an Interregio, heading for Geneva Airport. The woman’s legs were reportedly caught between the rail car and the quay when she fell and the train doors closed. An investigation into the accident has been open.
Traffic on the line was delayed for an hour and a half.
A serious accident involving a teenager who had just graduated from La Chataigneraie (International School of Geneva) in 2008, following an evening out with friends, made headlines at the time, but the Vevey woman is the latest of some 20 victims of “imprudent” behaviour by rail travellers every year in Switzerland, according to the CFF. The rail company works with schools throughout the country in an annual campaign aimed at teenagers to educate them to dangers of playing around trains, railyards and the need for basic precautions around trains.
Ed. note: the youth, from the Nyon area, sustained serious injuries, but survived the accident.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 30-year-old Swiss man has been arrested in Vevey for beaming a “relatively powerful” astronomy laser at two military helicopters that were part of the security coverage for the francophonie summit in Montreux over the weekend. Two soldiers suffered eye injuries as a result of the laster attacks, at 10-minute intervals. One was taken to hospital and treated, but the injury is not believed to have done lasting damage.
The two helicopters had just taken off from La Veyre in St-Légier when the beam hit them. The pilots were able to precisely locate the source of the beams and direct police to the man’s apartment.
He has admitted using the lasers on the helicopters.
Security was high for the summit, which attracted a number of high-level government officials from around the world and several heads of state.
Rega, which carries out hundreds of helicopter rescues and emergency transports, recently told Swiss media that the number of laser attacks against its pilots has increased, to 10 in 2010, by the end of August.
3 Couronnes fitness room affected; anyone who used the area Monday should call police
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Aarau, canton Aargau, northwest of Zurich, evacuated 120 people Monday 11 October after the discovery of two rusty grenades dating back to the first world war. The discovery was made when family members of a person who died more than a year ago were cleaning out a building and discovered personal effects. The grenades were underneath a garage. De-miners had dismantled the grenades by midnight, but police confirmed they were indeed dangerous.
It was the second evacuation Monday, with the other at the Trois Couronnes five-star hotel in Vevey. Some 50 guests and staff were led out of the hotel after an employee who was cleaning the swimming pool was seriously injured by toxic chlorine fumes from sulphuric acid being mixed with bleach. Eight other employees were taken to hospital after emergency treatment for inhaling the fumes and the area around the hotel was closed until the toxic product could be neutralized, mid-afternoon.
Anyone who used the fitness area and left without alerting police should call 144 to check if medical measures should be taken, say Vaud police.
Vevey builds on slogan, Vevey, Ville d’images: visual arts festival walls, now Chaplin murals
First Gilamont tower, white one with Chaplin frescoe, Vevey (photo ©2010 overthemoon on flickr). Second tower, to be completed in 2011, will be black.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Charlie Chaplin is truly larger than life, now, thanks to Vevey’s ambitious project to paint him and his work as a filmmaker onto two 14-storey apartment blocks near the autoroute. The first of what will be the two largest frescoes in Switzerland were officially inaugurated Tuesday 28 September, but Vevey residents have been watching the paint job and more for several months.
“And more”: the initial project was to revive two aging and dispirited-looking buildings that were built from 1967-69 to provide 140 moderate-rent apartments. The city, which owns them, wanted to renovate the two towers, 140 metres high, make them far more energy efficient and bring the neighbourhood back to life.
When a resident of one of the towers suggested adding monotone Chaplin frescoes to the black and white buildings theme that had been proposed, the city was delighted, says mayor Laurent Balliff.
All the better that the buildings are close to a new Chaplin museum, under development, Chaplin’s World. Charlie Chaplin lived the last 25 years of his life at the nearby Manoir de Ban, in Corsier-sur-Vevey. The lakefront statue of Charlie Chaplin on the quay Perdonnet is said by the town of Vevey to be one of the most photographed spots in the Lake Geneva region.
A ton of paint and 100 rollers
Three lanes: now two again, for a month, on the A1 near Morges-Lausanne
Morges, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Prepare for summer traffic jams: the A1 autoroute between Morges Ouest (west) and Lausanne is about to undergo surgery that will last until 25 June. The facelift reduces traffic to two lanes in each direction fom 06:00-20:00 and one lane each way during the night.
The A1 has operated far more smoothly since the start of 2010 when months of roadworks were completed, giving it three lanes in each direction during rush hour. The combination of heavy equipment and a colder than usual winter damaged the surface of the existing lanes, however, and these now need to be removed and the roads re-covered. The highway department notes that even when it appears that there are no workers the lanes are closed for a good reason, as it can take several days for the surface to harden fully.
The new roadworks will add to the headaches of travellers between Morges and Villeneuve, given the heavy roadworks scheduled along the A9 between Lausanne and Villeneuve. Long stretches in each direction have been reduced to a single lane.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Nestlé is recalling its Nescafé Espresso 100g jars of due to the possibility they were damaged during transport and there might be broken glass that is difficult to see.
The company has not received any complaints but has voluntarily recalled the product over safety concerns. Consumers should check the product’s bar code then either call the hotline, 0800 860 080 in Switzerland, or fill out a form to receive their money back.
Greenpeace protesters dressed as orangutans swing into action for Nestle annual meeting
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Food giant Nestlé has become the first global consumer goods company to become a partner of TFT, The Forest Trust, “to build responsible supply chains”, starting with palm oil.
The company’s sourcing policy for palm oil came under attack at its April 2010 annual general meeting, when Greenpeace protesters arrived dressed as orangutans to draw attention to the problem of deforestation from palm oil suppliers.
The Vevey group says it is also studying pulp and paper sourcing.
Greenpeace credits its campaign to get KitKat fans to pressure the manufacturer, as does TFT, with Greenpeace noting that the decision will affect another multinational, Cargill.
A great view, but not the same for Chaplin without his cane (photo,©2010 Overthemoon on flickr)
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Charlin Chaplin’s metal statue, on the Lake Geneva shores, is missing its cane! According to Gerard Amoos, Vevey’s public space director, the cane has been missing since early April.
It is not the first time that Charlot‘s cane has been taken from the statue, although in 1989 the cane was found in the Lake Geneva waters.
The cane will be replaced with the original one returned in 1989, according to Amoos.
More casts will be made, just in case.
Greenpeace protesters dressed as orangutans swing into action for Nestle annual meeting (photo: ©2010 Herbi Ditl on flick: http://www.flickr.com/photos/herbivore/)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Nestlé annual general meeting held at the Palais Beaulieu in Lausanne promised to be a relatively dull business session, compared to the UBS one the previous day. But that was before Greenpeace protesters dressed as orangutangs crowded the area outside the meeting and two of them were spotted by an AFP reporter abseiling into it and dangling above the discussions.
Greenpeace and the company have been at odds over the Vevey group’s use of palm oil, which the environmental group says is playing a significant role in destroying forests and the habitat for orangutans.
Philippe Braunschweig, founder, Prix de Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Philippe Braunschweig, who, with his wife Elvire Kremis Braunschweig, founded the Prix de Lausanne in 1973, died Saturday 3 April of cancer. The Prix de Lausanne has become one of the world’s most prestigious dance competitions for students ages 15-19.
Braunschweig, age 82, was one of the heirs to a Swiss watchmaking firm in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and he eventually became the head of Portescap, the family business. He studied dance on the side, in France, and married a dancer. The couple lived in La Maison Turque, a house by Corbusier, in Vevey.
He is survived by a daughter and son, and their children and grandchildren.
Links to other sites: Le Prix de Lausanne, Le Temps (Fre), New York Times
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A woman was killed when several cars hit her on the A9 autoroute Wednesday 10 March, shortly after midnight, near Villeneuve in the direction of Lausanne. Police are asking witnesses to phone them: +41 21 644 44 44.
The woman had a very high alcohol level of 2.40/1,000 when she was taken as a victim to the hospital in Montreux following a domestic incident. Police had been called at 21:30 on the emergency number 117 to an apartment block in Vevey, where a man and woman were fighting; she had slight injuries to one hand and was treated at the Montreux hospital, then released.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Did he or didn’t he? The ages-old dilemma of judges and juries in the face of conflicting evidence has brought a tale of money, adoption, sibling rivalry and murder back into the headlines in the Lake Geneva region. A 46-year-old man put behind bars for life in 2008 for murdering the aging mother who adopted him and a close friend of hers, purportedly for money, is being tried again because of new evidence. The two women were found dead 24 December and the man’s sister disappeared that day.
A bakery employee, who only saw the story once the man was sentenced, came forward to say that she had in fact waited on the women at a time when police say they were already dead, a detail which could unravel the public defender’s case.The accused murderer has complicated the case from the start by handing out different versions of what happened.
Monday the imprisoned man told the court that he had made up the various stories about his actions under pressure from police. He now says that he played no role at all in the deaths.
The women were found dead 24 December 2005. The accused man’s brother has argued that he should not be allowed to touch any of the family’s considerable fortune, made in real estate.
Background, GenevaLunch
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Food multinational Nestlé says its profits fell by more than 40 percent in 2009 compared to the previous year largely because of a hefty profit in 2008 from the sale of Alcon eye-care company. Net profit in 2009 was CHF10.4 billion, down from CHF18b in 2008.
Sales slipped from CHF109.9b to CHF107.6b but the company says that new markets, particularly in Africa and Asia, are growing well. CEO Paul Bulcke, Nestlé chief executive struck a positive note: “With organic growth of 4.1 percent achieved in last year’s challenging environment, we were able to grow substantially faster than our industry.”
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Trains between Vevey and Lausanne were delayed during the morning rush hour, with no service from Vevey towards Lausanne for an hour. An “accident to a person”, the CFF and police euphemism for someone being run over by a train, was the cause of the delays. The police have not confirmed if it was a case of suicide, as reported by local media.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Food multinational Nestlé says it has closed its milk production plant in Zimbabwe after the government pressured it to take milk from a non-contracted supplier 19 December during a surprise visit from government officials. Two days later, Monday, two of the plant’s managers were called into the Harare police station for questioning, then released. President Robert Mugabe and his unity government partner Morgan Tsvangirai have both reacted with dismay to the closing, and observers in southern Africa are calling it a setback for the unity government, which has been working to convince foreign investors and aid groups to return to the country.
Title: New Year’s Eve lake cruises
Location: Lake Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: New Year’s Eve lake cruises from Vevey, Montreux, Le Bouveret, Villeneuve (haut lac), Lausanne, and Geneva with on-board dinner and party. The haut lac cruises will see the Vevey fireworks display.
Adults CHF199, children 10-16 years, CHF99, children 6-9 CHF49, under 6 free. Cruise includes meal, wine, water, tea, coffee and midnight champagne.
Reservations absolutely recommended: Infoline +41 (0)848 811 848 – www.cgn.ch
Check individual ports for exact sailing times. Enjoy! Happy New Year!
Start Time: 19:30
Date: 2009-12-31
Update 18 November Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Anne-Sophie Pic, head chef at the Beau-Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne, has been given a prestigious second star by French-based Michelin Red Guides, whose new guide to Switzerland comes out 19 November. The Beau-Rivage is one of only thirteen 2-star restaurants in Switzerland. Pic leads the way for the Lake Geneva region, which continues to boast two of Switzerland’s three three-star restaurants, Philippe Rochat in Crissier, canton Vaud and Le Pont de Brent in Montreux, Vaud.
Swiss restaurants have a total of 101 stars, making it the country with the highest number of starred restaurants per inhabitant.
Michelin’s new guide to Tokyo is also out (it goes on sale in Europe only in February 2010). The city now has the highest number of 3-star restaurants in the world, with three. It also has more stars than any other city, 261, and Michelin refers to it as “world leader in gourmet dining.”
Two other restaurants which currently have one star are in line to receive a second star: Auberge de Floris in Anières, canton Geneva and Homann’s Restaurant in Samnaun, canton Graubuenden.
Michelin gave new single stars to three restaurants in Geneva, awarding them to chefs:
