GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Kirsten Gillibrand is a senator from New York who has been in Geneva this week to raise campaign funds: she is going after part of her constituency, American voters from her state who live in Europe. Democrats from New York who live in neighbouring France and Switzerland are being given an astonishingly rare treat that could provoke envy among other Americans abroad: a member of the US Congress has noticed and is listening to them.

Her trip has drawn the ire of Republicans back home, however, in the conservative press, with the state chairman of the Republican party, Ed Cox, saying “Senator Gillibrand touts her un-passed ‘Upstate Works Act’ while sipping champagne, popping canapés, and filling her campaign coffers in the shadow of the Swiss Alps. She is clinking glasses overseas when she should be cracking heads in Washington to actually get a bill passed.”

The National Journal published an article on the trip. “Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman at the government watchdog group Common Cause, said the trip ‘shows the insane lengths that candidates and members of Congress go to raise money for their reelection campaigns.’”

The criticism of Gillibrand and underlying assumptions that Geneva = overseas Americans = wealthy Americans come shortly after James Fallows, writing  “The Fatca Chronicles” in The Atlantic, has cautioned Americans abroad that when they complain about lack of representation and  unfair tax regulations they are likely to be viewed as “whiners”:

“Something most overseas Americans don’t realize: The home-bound population does not view them as a hardship class. A known risk category for long-term expats is becoming whiners—I speak as someone who’s lived outside the U.S. for several multi-year stretches and has been known to whine,” he wrote 2 January in “The Fatca Menace”.

Americans living overseas, from Canada to Switzerland, have been complaining loudly in recent months about unfair treatment at the hands of the IRS, starting with double taxation and onerous financial reporting requirements, such as the FBAR and the impact of Fatca on their ability to have bank accounts in the countries where they live, pay rent or own homes and try to set aside retirement money.

Town hall meetings in Geneva and protests in Canada have made it clear that the complaints are coming, not from a handful of wealthy diletante expats, but from a large group of middle income Americans who happen to live outside the country and who ultimately help the rest of the world better understand the US through personal contact.

Many fall below the $92,000 earned income exclusion, the bar set by the IRS for double taxation, and they have been vocal in their complaints about how the system has nevertheless cost them unfairly and grossly.

A significant part of their complaint but one that has so far fallen on deaf ears in the US is that they are taxed without representation. True, an American abroad technically should have Congressional representatives to whom complaints and pleas for help can be sent, and these overseas citizens are supposed to be able to vote and can, in theory, help elect people who understand their concerns.

The system sounds fine on paper, but the reality is very different. For a start, many Americans who live overseas, especially long-term residents or children born abroad to US citizens, no longer or have never had addresses they can use in a US state, and your US address is the starting point for all congressional relations.

Offspring are told by some states, in order to vote and to have a congressional rep, to use a parent’s last address in a state, but this can make voter registration an onerous process. They are simply not eligible to vote in some states.

The Overseas Vote Foundation has been working hard to improve the situation, but few Americans in the US appear to be aware that for a large number of Americans overseas the basic representation and taxation rights that are so stridently defended during electoral campaigns sadly do not apply to all citizens.

Groups like Geneva-based ACA (American Citizens Abroad) have been working hard to draw attention to the issues.

But even if all US citizens abroad managed to find a senator or representative willing to listen to  them, this group is dispersed, so its voice remains weak. Their common concerns appear through a prism of all the states, so few politicians see them as having enough weight to be important.

Gillibrand isn’t just raising money for a campaign. She’s opened a conversation with a group of Americans who are often ill-treated by their own government because its elected leaders too often focus on larger vested interests. She should be given some credit by Democrats and Republicans alike for doing her homework and taking her responsibilities seriously.

A couple people with slow Internet connections, one in Cambodia and another on an island in Scotland, have had trouble loading the BSCC video about me and GenevaLunch, so I’m posting a smaller file version here, which should help. Enjoy it and let us know you like it, please!

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The hottest media story in Geneva in recent weeks has been about safety in the city, the rising rate of crime, the poor police response, the danger to foreigners visiting the city, the danger of foreigners bringing crime into the city: in short, Geneva, that haven of peace, isn’t what it used to be.

Here’s my suggestion: let’s lighten up and let the Swiss politicians fight it out.

Crime-fighting and politics, old bedfellows

Rising crime is a favourite topic of politicians everywhere in an election year, and citizens in Switzerland will elect their parliament later this year.

Geneva has had a tug of war over the police department for several years, so the themes of not enough support for the police, and its opposite, police are not being managed well, resurface like clockwork.

Swiss media have sunk their teeth into this story

World Radio Switzerland, WRS, kicked off the latest round by reporting on the mugging of the son of a US diplomat in mid-July. It was a story that deserved to be told. Illustré carried an interview with photos of the young man and the other Edipresse publications, notably the Tribune de Geneve picked up the thread and ran with it.

The initial story has been extended, in headlines, to not just one, but several international workers who are victims of assaults in the city. The message sent by the UN to its workers this summer, which prompted the news stories, was the result of not just one attack on a diplomatic family member, but two. There are plenty of other stories around, of course, as there are in any city.

WRS today published a story that begins: “From muggings in the middle of the night to burglar alarm scams—the public’s perception is that crime in Geneva is out of control. Many people have related their stories to WRS and other Swiss media as well social networking sites . . .” (Italics are mine)

Who is measuring public perception and how

The problem with media stories about public perceptions is that they are whatever the editors decide they will be, for unless you hire a creditable polling agency to survey a large sample audience, you simply don’t know: it’s too easy to find large numbers of people who will back any point of view for stories like this.

Do foreigners really believe Geneva is not safe? Is it less safe than it used to be? That it’s not a city where you can go out at night? That is doesn’t compare well to other cities around the world? And what kind of cities do you compare it to – ones of the same size or of the same degree of openness to the world?

We have two sources of information on public perception it seems: news media, part of whose job is to create stories that pull in audiences, and social media, who for all the large numbers of members they claim, tend to have the same relatively small and vocal groups speaking up on hot topics.

Crime in Switzerland low, compared internationally

So what’s the reality?

Geneva police statistics show crime up in the first half of 2011 compared to the previous year, but the figures were actually lower during the summer months. The city’s crime rate fell by 5 percent in 2010. It has the highest crime rate of Swiss cities, but to keep this in perspective, four of the city’s five murders in 2010 were cases of domestic violence and crime statistics have been harmonized nationwide only since 2010, so federal officials warn they should be read with caution.

Swiss crime statistics are low compared to other countries, for crimes recorded by police. Assault, for example: the Swiss rate is 2.9 per 100,000, compared to 281.6 for the US, 150.4 for New Zealand, 32.2 for England and Wales and 3.1 for Australia. France, to my great surprise, is at the bottom of the assault rates in major countries, with only 0.3 per 100,000. France’s rates for intentional homicide and rape are twice as high as Switzerland’s.

Car theft? Switzerland is the number one country for this. Draw your own conclusions.

Of course, these are based on figures recorded by police, and I’ve been hearing arguments that not all crimes are reported to the police. There is little evidence this happens more often in Switzerland than elsewhere, however. And comparative statistics are also a couple years old. In Geneva, crime went up in 2009, went down in 2010, appears to be going up again, but the percentages look high because the base is small.

The other public perception

Here’s my personal perception, my two bits based on a handful of conversations with others who have lived in the area for several years. I could say public perception corresponds to this:

• I don’t think Geneva is as safe as it was 25 years ago when I arrived, but I also don’t think Paris is as safe as it was 25 years ago when I left it, and I think this is probably true for many cities. There are more drugs, populations are larger, transient populations move around more easily.
• I think Geneva is nevertheless a much safer city than most but like any urban area, there are and will be muggings, thefts and worse. The police force probably does need beefing up, another remark that could be applied to most cities I know.
• Urban living requires paying close attention to your surroundings, avoiding situations and places where trouble is more likely to occur, stirred with a good dose of common sense. A city you don’t know is generally more dangerous, as is any city when you’ve been out drinking. And any city will feel more dangerous if you don’t tune out people who turn unfortunate personal experiences into generalizations. Your surroundings are as scary as your sense of drama lets them be, so if you don’t want to live in fear, trying reining it in.

I feel as sorry as anyone else for people who’ve run into trouble, through no fault of their own, and the young son and daughter of diplomats certainly didn’t deserve the treatment they got at the hands of thugs. I think the public should know about it.

But I don’t believe we should make them victims again, to suit personal or professional needs to dramatize what happened to them.

My own son was mugged at age 19 in Vancouver, his first month at university there (he managed to get away with minor injuries by running very fast, not always an option). I was held up at gunpoint in a dark courtyard in Paris, with insinuations about sex, when I had been there only a month, several years ago. When I had been in Geneva a short while a close friend was traumatized by a ghastly acid-throwing incident in the laundry room of a building, which disfigured a work colleague. The student apartment two girlfriends and I had vacated a week earlier one summer in Milwaukee was broken into by a drug hustler who had the wrong building; one of the girls who had just moved in was cruelly raped and beaten up.

Most people I know who live in cities have tales like this to tell. But urban life continues, and people find their own ways of dealing with safety issues and crime.

That doesn’t make for exciting journalism or social network chatting, though.

It’s time to be responsible news consumers and move on.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – I was intrigued by the headline “Ogaden diaspora protest outside the UN in Geneva” because I couldn’t think who the Ogaden were. I found out by visiting a web site for a group new to me, which might interest others, particularly in Geneva: The UNPO, which is not a new UN body but stands for the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.

The Ogaden are from eastern Ethiopia. Among other surprising things I learned: the Tsimshian are the only North American group that belong to UNPO; they are in British Columbia, Canada. I’m puzzled as to what makes their situation different from other First Nation people in Canada or Native Americans in the US.

Ssprueth Magers Gallery at Basel Art, 15-19 June

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The latest kid on the block to offer information on events in Switzerland is Marcus Berry, who formerly worked for WRG radio in Geneva before it became public radio station WRS, and for Swisster, which closed in December 2010. Berry’s new web site is called Inanyevent and proposes events listings country-wide, funded by advertising.

Berry’s venture joins a mushrooming collection of events listings on English-language sites.

The two most complete were both started nearly five years ago and have grown steadily: the events pages on GenevaLunch and on the AngloInfo site, both of which list regional events for the Lake Geneva area plus Swiss-wide major events of interest to the international population.

Several other sites (see list below), notably Know it All Passports and Leman Events offer a personal selection of what’s on. WRS radio offers a weekly selection and the many business clubs list their own and sometimes other groups’ events.

Relocation agencies and women’s clubs in most cities keep their own events lists and city guides: the quality varies considerably.

Web sites list events as a community service or for commercial reasons because they are “sticky”, with readers returning to a site where they know they can count on finding out what’s on. Returning visitors should hold appeal for advertisers, web business wisdom argues.

Here’s a selection of where to go to find out what’s on, in English, in the Lake Geneva region, but also in the rest of Switzerland. It iincludes only sites that are frequently updated and have a reliable track record, since several sites have started to list events then stopped or they list them erratically.

GenevaLunch volunteer has posted more than 2,500 events!

But first a well-earned word of praise for Laila Rodriguez, who has diligently volunteered for the past three-plus years to put together the GenevaLunch events lists.

Listing what’s on and finding the right balance between an incomplete list or an unwieldy one with some events of very limited appeal is far from an automatic or quick job, as many sites have learned to their dismay.

It takes time and good knowledge of the area covered to filter and get a good mix. Laila finds time every week for this behind-the-scenes unpaid labour of love, providing the international community with a valuable community service.

Next time you check out our events page think of Laila and smile, please, because she’s posted some 2,500 events for you!

Where to find out what’s on, Swiss and Lake Geneva region sites

Official tourism: Most Swiss cities list their own city events in English, useful for an overview (note: GenevaLunch events includes our selections from these) and Geneva-Annecy-Mont Blanc tourism offers events in English from over the border. Geneva, Lausanne, Bern, Basel, Zurich official pages. One of the best tourism/city guides/what’s on sources of information is the newly re-launched MySwitzerland web site.

Lake Geneva region + main Swiss events, a community service, GenevaLunch events page

Geneva region, business directory + commercial (advertising) featured events, Angloinfo

Personal weekly selection of events in the Lake Geneva region, Know it all Passport

Personal selection plus their own commercial events, Leman Events

Social media: Glocals.com offers a selection of local events posted by its readers, as does the English Forum, and both are Swiss-wide, but Glocals tends to be more active in the Lake Geneva region. The English Forum and its new “local” news site are both run from Sweden and Germany, which limits its value to input from forum members who are in Switzerland.

Mainly for tourists, commercial lists: What’s on When from Frommers

L’Hebdo has just published a story about the demise of Lausanne-based Swisster, which closed its doors in December 2010. GenevaLunch and other English language sites are mentioned as one of the likely causes. It’s true that there is probably some splintering of traffic due to the number of sites around, but these mostly serve different purposes and meet different needs. This is why GenevaLunch has always supported groups like glocals.com, Englishforum.ch, worldradio.ch, angloinfo.ch, lemanevents.ch, and more, believing that as a news provider, we are complementary and here to help the international community thrive.

Our traffic more than doubled in 2009 and again in 2010, and we’re well on the road to doing the same this year. We’ve done this on a tiny budget, with nothing like the backing of a large company like Edipresse. This is not meant as a criticism of Swisster, whose staff were good and the team made an effort. I believe, as editor of GenevaLunch, that there is a real need for online news in English that is tailored to a local/regional population, and that the key to success is getting the mix right.

As for the business model, we don’t have a magic wand, nor does anyone else in the media business right now, but we think it’s time to look further than the classic income source provided by advertising and find new and creative solutions that are the right size for each media.

Here’s my response to the Hebdo story:

G3 technology was a huge leap forward in telecommunications, maybe not quite the same as people landing on the moon, but it felt close. I remember the day I bought my first iPhone in Sierre, in canton Valais, and minutes later, riding up the mountainside in Switzerland (I wasn’t driving), I watched a clip my son had just sent from China, shots from a film he was making about riding a motorcycle across Tibet. The landscapes had a lot in common, and our so-distant worlds had just come together. It felt like a miracle.

So 4G should be the next great leap, right? Fourth generation wireless technology, that will bring us another set of miracles.

Not quite so, it seems. The ITU (International Telecommunications Union) in Geneva some months ago put out a tough definition of 4G, that next great leap, but the market players who had new products they were calling 4G didn’t make the ITU grade and there were no products on the market that could honestly be called 4G.

In the end, the market rules: US carriers kept saying in their advertising that they offered G4 and in early December, the ITU quietly backed down, according to David Twiddy, writing in the Kansas City Business Journal, and other tech watchers.

We consumers will have to wait a bit longer for the family video from the moon, in real time.

Links to other sites: Going Wimax, Slashdot

This is the speech 11-year-old Daniel Yuval gave in Geneva 29 November 2010 to the international meeting convened to review progress made on the Mine Ban Treaty since the Cartegena Summit in Colombia a year earlier.

Background story

Daniel’s words should set a fine example for politicians, straightforward, clear and to the point. Daniel, a landmine survivor, argues eloquently for the removal of all mines:

Daniel Yuval during a break in Geneva, 29 November 2010

Thank you, everyone, for letting me speak to you today. This is my first trip to Geneva. I am so happy Switzerland invited me to come. Thank you!

I want to tell you my story and ask for your help. We have a big problem in Israel—landmines. Most people in Israel didn’t know about it until this year.

Ten months ago, I went on a picnic with my family to the Golan Heights. It had just snowed, and I had never seen or played in the snow. The place is called Har Avital. My sister Amit and my brother Yoav and I were laughing as we ran into the field to make snowballs. My mom and dad were there, along with many other families.

Suddenly, there was a big “boom”. I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t feel anything at first. I didn’t know there were landmines under the snow, and all around us.

My dad came into the field to pick me up and carry me out. I told him not to worry, I would be okay. And, I told my brother and sister to hold tight to dad’s legs, so they wouldn’t get blown up, too.

Other parents took off their shirts to tie around my leg. Then a helicopter came to fly me and my sister to hospital. Only then I started to know what happened. I had stepped on a landmine.

When I woke up from the operation, the pain in my leg was bad. But, I started to think about something just as bad, that this could happen again to other children.

I spent more than three months in the hospital, and had almost 20 operations, to cut off my right leg below my knee, and to clean and fix my left leg. Many famous people called or visited me in the hospital. When Prime Minister Netanyahu called me, I told him, we have to do something to clean up landmines. I told Mr Netanyahu that no more children should ever get hurt from this weapon.

Jerry White and his friend Dhyan Or came to visit me in the hospital.

Jerry also lost a leg to a landmine in the Golan Heights. I asked them, “How do people get rid of landmines?” They told me that many countries do it. They said, “If we work together, we can try to stop any more people from getting hurt or killed.”

I am now the Youth Ambassador for the Campaign for a Mine-Free Israel. We are asking the government of Israel to pass a new law to clean up old minefields everywhere in Israel and the West Bank. I’m told there over 500,000 mines to get rid of. Some say, one million.

In March and May, I went to the Knesset and told them it was time to take action. I am asking everyone to support this new law. Help us clean up the mess. I believe we can do this by the time I graduate from high school in Israel.

Someone told me we need about 70 million dollars to do this. That is a lot of shekels, that I don’t have! But, I hope that the Israeli Government and others can make this happen. It is worth it, to make sure no more children get killed, or have to spend months in the hospital like I did.

Daniel Yuval, age 11, addresses Geneva followup meeting to Cartagena Summit on implementing the Mine Ban Treaty

Stepping on a landmine is terrible. It’s scary and painful, not just for me, but for my mom and dad, and my whole family. For myself, it was really hard work. I had to learn to walk all over again. But, the good news is, I have learned to run, and can beat some people in my class in the 660 metres. I also take kick-boxing and Judo, and play football.

I want to thank everyone in this room who is committed to getting rid of landmines. We in the Middle East have a big problem. But, we know it can be done. My neighbor Jordan joined the Mine Ban Treaty and is almost finished clearing all its minefields. I hope Israel will be next. I hope soon all the world will be free from landmines.

I thank you for listening to me and hearing my story. I want to thank Roots of Peace for bringing me here, and Mom and Dad for believing I can make a difference. Thank you!

A brief reminder as promised: we are a media partner for the Economist Conference in Geneva 2 December, on “Emerging innovation: what global companies can learn from emerging markets”, and if you quote GL/DC when you register you will be given a 15 percent discount.

Longtime Geneva resident

Alistair Henley, who lived in the Geneva area for a number of years, working for the IFRC (International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) has died near Kuala Lumpur. He was out walking in the jungle, “doing something he loved”, his family says, when he died suddenly. He is survived by his wife Deborah and three sons, Edmund, Giles and Guy, who attended the International School of Geneva.

Long-time fellow IFRC manager, Bob McKerrow, in May wrote a lengthy tribute to two IFRC men he says says he greatly admires, one of whom was Henley, who had worked for the IFRC since 1981. He includes this background: “He is currently director, Asia Pacific Zone responsible for managing the IFRC’s operations and general activities in the entire Asia Pacific region from the zone office set up in July 2007 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Before that he was head of the East Asia regional delegation based in Beijing from 2003 to 2007. He served as director of the development cooperation department in Geneva from 1995 to 2000 and head of the coordination department from 2000 to 2003.”

His most recent work included IFRC’s aid to Pakistan’s 2010 flood areas.

The family is suggesting that in lieu of flowers donations be made to the IFRC and a memorial site set up by friends provides details.