GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Health Organization is expected to declare polio a global health emergency as the World Health Assembly convenes in Geneva this week.
Bruce Aylward, director of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative at the WHO, said Thursday 24 May that “Over the last 24 months on three continents – in Europe, in Africa and in Asia – we have seen horrific explosive outbreaks of the disease that affected adults, and in some cases 50% of them died”.
The Global Initiative has launched an emergency plan to improve vaccination coverage in three countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria, where transmission of the disease had never been halted. The plan is summed up as a “relentless pursuit of the unvaccinated child”.
WHO spokeswoman Sona Bari says there is a renewed sense of urgency to eradicate polio, “We really are at a tipping point between success and failure”.
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an acute viral disease which can lead to partial or full paralysis, and is transmissible from person to person. The WHO had originally set 2000 as a target year for the full eradication of polio. Logistical problems in Nigeria, ongoing fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan which made it difficult to reach children who needed to be vaccinated, as well as anti-Western rumors spread my hard-line Pakistani Muslims saying that the vaccines lead to infertility, all obstructed vaccinations drives.
Margaret Chan, who was reappointed Wednesday 23 May as WHO’s Director General, said the organization was operating in “emergency mode” against polio.
Swiss dismantle “large” contraband scam that could endanger bee population
Swiss Alpine bee
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Customs officials working closely with the federal agriculture office have uncovered a scam to bring in cheap and possibly unhealthy bees from abroad, in large numbers, by convincing farmers that these are Ticino born and bred bees.
The world’s bee populations are under pressure from disease and given that one-third of the world’s agricultural crops require bees for pollination, maintaining a healthy bee population is crucial.
Bern says that since the introduction of Asian bees 25 years ago farmers have had to treat their beehive populations or risk losing them completely.
Dozens of colonies of bees were killed by Swiss authorities when the contraband bees were discovered. Farmers with depleted populations had ordered the so-called Ticino bees but the timing of the breeding raised suspicions.
UN Independent Commission on Syria says more than 200 deaths since ceasefire began
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The UN Human Rights Council holds country reviews regularly and many are heated, but this week in Geneva several meetings have turned up the heat under accusations of human rights abuses.
Cuba appeared before the UN Committee Against Torture Wednesday 23 May to say it has no express definition of the crime of torture but is considering one. The Miami Herald in the US, in a scathing article, describes the Cuban delegation’s appearance before the Geneva commission as a “stout defense”, with the group “denying ‘each and every’ complaint of mistreatment but delicately parsing its words when it came to other alleged abuses.”
Bahrain came in for sharp criticism during its periodic review before the Human Rights Council earlier in the week. Protesters have rallied on several occasions in the past year, with concern voiced by other governments over clashes in the streets. “Bahrain’s response – that all is well and there are no political prisoners – simply doesn’t fly,” says Juliette de Rivero, Geneva director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s time for Bahrain to stop denying the problem and take genuine steps to end the country’s human rights crisis.”
Thursday 24 May the UN’s Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria noted that more than 200 people have died since the 12 April ceasefire was to start in Syria, information based on interviews carried out in Geneva and with people in the region around Syria. The group has not been allowed to enter the country. UPI carries a lengthy story on the report.
Solar-powered plane makes first intercontinental flight, must pass over Pyrenees
Solar Impulse made its first international flight in November 2011, to Paris
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Solar Impulse, the elegant airplane powered only by solar cells, left Payerne shortly before 08:30 Thursday 24 May, and headed towards the Jura and into France.
Pilot André Borschberg expects to land this evening, after midnight, at Madrid Barajas Airport where the plane will have a three-day technical check before flying on to Rabat in Morocco, 28 May at the earliest, for its first intercontinental flight.
By 10:00 the plane was flying at 3,880 metres, at close to 100kph.
The flight can be followed live.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Hewlitt-Packard, which has its Europe-Africa-Middle East head office in Meyrin, Geneva, announced Wednesday from its head office in California that it expects some 27,000 employees, about 8 percent of its global workforce “to exit the company” by the end of 2014. Details about where the job cuts will take place have not yet been provided, although the company says that early retirements will play a key role. Bloomberg reports that the enterprise services unit will see more cuts than other parts of the company, but the staff reductions will affect every part of the company.
The annoucement accompanied quarterly financial news of a 3 percent fall in revenue.
Links to other sites: Bloomberg, Hewlitt-Packard, Reuters
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Ireland and Switzerland have agreed to a double taxation treaty, subject to the agreement of both countries’ parliaments, that will limit withholding tax to no more than 15 percent on gross dividend amounts. A crucial detail welcomed by the cantons and business associations, according to Bern, is that “there will be no withholding taxes on dividends paid to the national banks of the two countries or to pension funds.”
The agreement Wednesday 23 May is part of a new double taxation treaty, the latest in a series negotiated with other countries to ensure that Switzerland is in line with OECD provisions on the exchange of information.
The Irish agreement also states, says Bern, that “If, however, a company holds a stake of at least 10% in the capital of the distributing company, the dividends will be exempt from withholding tax.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Hundreds of dolphins washed up on Peruvian coasts earlier this year died from “natural causes”, and not from explosions in offshore oil exploration, says Fisheries Minister, Gladys Trevino.
An earlier study by the environmental group Orca, which tested 30 dead dolphins found on Peru’s northwestern coast, suggested that explosions had caused the deaths. Tests had shown broken ears and damaged organs, which may have triggered the deaths.
Trevino said that a government study by Peru’s Maritime Institute (Imarpe) ruled out oil exploration as being responsible for the die-off, and that viral and bacterial infections could also be excluded as lethal causes. “It’s not the first time that this has happened”, she said referring to similar incidences of dolphin deaths in New Zealand and Australia.
Peruvian scientists contest Imarpe’s results, saying collection of samples was late, making research more difficult as the material would be often decomposed.
Thousands of dead seabirds, including pelicans were also found in the same area since the beginning of the year. Trevino said there will government report on the cause of those deaths, but suggested that it was related to a “food problem”.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss financial surveillance body Finma will be keeping a closer eye on Swiss banks, particularly the two big banks UBS and Credit Suisse, under rules approved by the governing Federal Council Wednesday 23 May. Finma will work more closely with corporate auditors and strengthen its field team with the goal of keeping a close eye on banks’ risks.
Finma was established in 2009 shortly after UBS was bailed out by the federal government. Its activities cover the entire financial industry. Under the new rules, drawn up based on Finma’s initial three years of experience, banks have an ad hoc Finma unit that will work more closely with the central bank and bank surveillance groups abroad to keep a close eye on the banks’ markets activities.
Supervisory Instruments and the Organisation of FINMA, report prepared for the Federal Council, November 2011
Riddes lumberyard fire set by children
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A huge fire that destroyed a lumberyard in the centre of the village of Riddes last weekend was set by five children, police in canton Valais say. The fire late Ssunday 20 May caused heavy damage but no injuries, and the A9 autoroute was closed for more than two hours due to smoke.
The two oldest in the group, both aged 13, have been turned over to juvenile authorities, but the three younger children, ages 6, 7, and 9 have been released because of their age. The group entered the building and lit a fire for fun at about 18:00 say police. They then left and the fire smouldered before it suddenly took off at 21:45 and was noticed. The foehn wind was blowing hard Sunday evening and police evacuated about 100 people whose homes were near the fire, as a precaution.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – “25 words”, a low-budget first documentary by Liu Shen about three sisters who shared Red Cross messages during the second world war, has taken a bronze medal at the WorldFest-Houston International Independent Film Festival, the oldest independent film festival in the world.
He began the film shortly after one of the sisters, a former neighbour of his in northeastern China, died at age 98. Her two sisters were in their 90s and he says in an interview for the Red Cross Resource Centre that he felt the pressure of time as he realized the importance of telling their tale. The three lived in Nanjing, China, Berlin, Germany and Berkeley, California, USA during the war and the messages gradually relay their family tale.
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – A growing shortage of qualified labour in Switzerland, according to research carried out for online employment agency Monster.ch, is encouraging companies to reconsider older workers. The prognosis for those over 50 is brighter than in the past, with 75 percent of companies saying they see recruitement of people over age 50 as a solution to the shortage of qualified workers.
That said, only 37 percent of them are actually regularly hiring people over age 50. And 34 percent say they do not want to keep people on as salaried employees once they reach age 65.
The research was carried out through interviews with 500 of Switzerland’s largest companies from November 2011 to March 2012. It indicates that companies consider close to 35 percent of jobs difficult to fill and they turn to neighbouring countries to look for applicants, particularly for IT and research and development posts. That figure is expected to climb to more than 46 percent by 2015. Combined with changing demographics, with an aging work force, older workers may have a better chance of finding work in the future.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Trafigura, the world’s third largest commodities trading company, announced it will be moving its legal headquarters from Geneva to Singapore, lured by lower taxes and proximity to China.
Trafigura Pte, a Singaporean incorporated entity will become the company’s headquarters for its trading division later this year, with its chief financial officer, Pierre Lorinet, moving to the southeast Asian city. He will join a team of 150 traders already there. The Financial Times reports that the company will maintain its team of traders in Geneva.
Geneva competes with London, Zug, Dubai and Singapore as the world’s largest commodities trading center, due to it low corporate taxes and access to trade financing. But whilst Geneva and Zug offer trading houses rates as low as 10 percent as compared to 24 percent in London, in Singapore those rates could be as low as 5 percent.
Geneva is the base for other major commodity traders including Gunvor, Vitol and Mercuria.
Links to other sources: Reuters
Tour du Pays de Vaud bike race starts Thursday on a road near you
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud police warn that roads in the area will be blocked for brief periods starting Thursday 24 May to accommodate the Tour du Pays de Vaud cycling race. Motorists are being cautioned to take care and to be aware that roads around the race will be closed about 10 minutes before the cyclists pass.
Here are the areas and times affected, but note that times will change depending on the race:
Thursday 24 May
Prologue, Moudon, first departure at 19h00, end towards 20h30, parcours de 2’960 mètres en ville, sur route fermée.
Friday 25 May
1ère étape : Cully - Bex, de 15h30 à 18h30 environ, via Rivaz - Saint-Saphorin - Corseaux - Vevey (15h42) - La Tour-de-Peilz - Clarens - Montreux (15h51) - Territet - Veytaux - Villeneuve (15h58) - Rennaz - Roche - Aigle - Bex (16h24) - Canton du Valais - Lavey-les-Bains (17h57) - Lavey-Village - “La Pelouse” - Bex.
Saturday 26 May, morning
2ème étape : Ollon - Leysin, de 09h00 à 11h30 environ, via Aigle - Yvorne - Roche - Rennaz - Crebelley - Chessel (09h24) - Porte du Scex - Canton du Valais - Bex (10h11) - Les Fontaines - Antagnes - Ollon - Aigle - Le Sépey (10h58) - Cergnat - Leysin.
Saturday 26 May afternoon
Aigle - Aigle, course contre la montre, de 15h30 à 19h00 environ.
Le parcours sera interdit à la circulation de 14h00 à 19h30 environ.
Sunday 27 May
3ème étape : Froideville - Epalinges, de 09h00 à 12h30 environ, via Villars-Tiercelin - Peney-le-Jorat - Corcelles-le-Jorat - Mézières - Châtillens - Oron-la-Ville (09h32) – Canton de Fribourg - Chavannes-sur-Moudon - Chesalles-sur-Moudon - Curtilles - Marnand (10h14) - Granges - Canton de Fribourg - Combremont-le-Grand (10h48) - Prahins - Ogens - Bioley-Magnoux - La Tuilière - Oppens - Pailly (11h17) - Fey - Peyre-Possens - Villars-Tiercelin - Froideville - Montheron (11h47) - Chalet-à-Gobet - Vers-chez-les-Blanc - La Claie-aux-Moines (12h03) - Les Trois Chasseurs - Montblesson - Epalinges
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A painting depicting South African President Jacob Zuma with his genitals hanging out was defaced by two men wielding cans of paint at a Johannesburg gallery Tuesday 21 May.
Earlier Tuesday morning, a judge announced that a three-man court would listen to Zuma’s and the ruling African National Congress party’s challenge to have the painting, entitled “The Spear” by Brett Murray, on public display.
The Soviet-style painting, which the ANC called “crude, rude and disrespectful”, had been already sold for $14,000. The gallery’s lawyer, Greg Palmer said the owners were filing a charge for malicious damage.
Security at the Goodman Gallery was slow to react, after a first man covered the face and genitals with red paint. A South African reporter present at the time of the vandalization said she thought the act was a part of a performance art piece. A second man then painted over the piece with black paint before being apprehended.
Zuma, who has four wives and 21 children, was acquitted of rape charges in 2006. During the trail, he admitted having had unprotected sex with an HIV-positive AIDS activist.
Links to other sources: BBC, Associated Press, AllAfrica
©2012 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Four climbers died while returning from the summit of Mount Everest, over the weekend, Nepali officials report.
All four climbers, from Germany, China, South Korea and Canada, died along the Southeast Ridge route, at altitudes of over 8000 meters above sea level. This area is also known as the “death zone”, as it becomes nearly impossible to survive the treacherous conditions, including low oxygen levels for more than 48 hours.
Eberhard Schaaf, a 61-year-old German participating in the Eco Everest Expedition to remove accumulated garbage left on the mountain, died Saturday 19 May of cerebral edema, according to Ang Schering Sherpa, as reported on the Everest News website.
Shriya Shah, 32, a Nepali-born Canadian, who had dreamt all her life of climbing the summit, and a South Korean climber, Song Won-bin, 44, also died on Saturday. The first good weather days for climbing this spring were Friday 18 and Saturday 19, which lead to an estimated 150 climbers attempting the ascent each day. Nepali mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha told the Associated Press ”There was a traffic jam on the mountain on Saturday. Climbers were still heading to the summit as late as 2.30pm, which is quite dangerous”.
The body of Chinese climber Ha Wenyi, 55, who had been missing since the weekend, was found near to where the other climbers died.
Ang Tshering Sherpa explained “Most of these deaths occur due to high altitude sickness”.
In unrelated incident, fire damages Renens train station and bikes
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vandals have damaged the high-tech Hydroptère experimental “flying boat” moored in Morges, causing as yet uncalculated damages, says Vaud police.
And in a separate incident, which may have been an accident, a fire has damaged the roof of the east side of the Renens train station and a number of motorbikes and mopeds parked outside.
The fire occurred late Monday 21 May. A passerby alerted the fire department that the area where bikes are parked to the east of the station was on fire, at 23:15. The roof of the building was destroyed as far over as the underground pedestrian path.
Hydroptere in water for two weeks, was on “orange alert” for new Lake Geneva speed test
The experimental catamaran, being developed in collaboration with EPFL in Lausanne, suffered at least CHF10-20,000 in damages during the night of Sunday to Monday, and it appears that the attack may have been more than random vandalism. Some 80 screws were unscrewed, toppling the masts, and the inside, which houses highly confidential technology, was “visited”.
The incident occurred just four days before the group was to present its “Hydros” project publicly. The group says there is at least suspicion that the vandalism was designed to look like negligance.
The Val d'Anniviers is home to a number of small resorts with very high percentages of second homes
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Canton Valais was the one holdout in a recent federal vote where the Swiss agreed to limit the number of second homes, and resort-rich Valais is the canton the most affected by the decision.
Angry cantonal groups and politicians found some comfort Monday 21 May when Doris Leuthard, minister for the environment, told 70 commune leaders meeting in Sierre that the new rules, currently under development, will not apply to existing homes.
The hot question is whether or not communes can approve building permits between now and the end of the year, when the new ordinance is expected to be published and come into effect.
Franz Weber, ecologist who was behind the popular initiative that passed by less than 51 percent 11 March 2012, has said the law should be respected from the day of the vote, while many communes, with building permits pending, have argued that they should be given time to fall in line.
Building permits: issue them at your own risk
The new law calls for no more than 20 percent of a commune to be second homes. Some communes, such as Saint-Luc in the Val d’Anniviers, have well over 70 percent.
Leuthard told the local leaders that while they could go ahead with issuing building permits, they do so at the risk of their decisions being overturned later by a court.
Three storey brick building is largest ever moved in Europe
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – It’s only a 60-metre ride, but the passenger is unusually large. Oerlikon railway station is being enlarged and the three-storey brick building must be moved to make room for the expansion. The building’s new owner, Swiss Prime Site, says this is the largest building ever moved in Europe: 80 metres long, 12 m wide and 6,200 tons.
The removal is a CHF12 million job, but when the CFF said it would have to tear down the 123-yer-old building that has housed, since the start, Machines-Outils Oerlikon (MFO), locals objected and rallied to save the building. It will take 20 hours to slide it down the rails to its new home.
Swiss German television’s web site is carrying the move live, which at 3kph makes for a relatively slow-moving news story. Or you can look at the animated version the new owner has created.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi will be in Geneva 14 June, her first stop abroad since being released from house arrest by Myanmar/Burmese authorities earlier this year. The head of her country’s National League for Democracy (NLD) will speak at the International Labour Organization‘s 101st international labour conference. Some 4,000 delegates from around the world will be attending the conference.
Suu Kyi has accepted the invitation of ILO Director-General Juan Somavia to address the plenary of the conference on the morning of 14 June, the ILO says in a statement.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A former Rudgers University student convicted of spying with a webcam on his gay room-mate who then committed suicide was sentenced Monday 21 May to 30 days in prison in a US court.
The sentencing of Dharun Ravi, 20, who had filmed Tyler Clementi, 18, kissing another man in his dorm room, and twittering about the incident days before Clementi killed himself, was criticized by both sides in the case. Ravi, an Indian national, could have received up to ten years in jail, but instead was given three years probation in addition to the jail term, and was ordered to get counseling on cyber-bullying and “alternate lifestyles” and to pay $10,000 to help victims of hate crimes.
The prosecution’s lawyer, Bruce Kaplan said he would appeal the New Jersey court decision, saying the jail term was insufficient. A gay-rights organization in the northeastern state, Garden State Equality issued a statement saying that whilst it objected to a ten year term, the 30 day term was not enough. “This was not merely a childhood prank gone awry. This was not a crime without bias”.
Ravi’s lawyer, Steven Alman, said his client had been “demonized by the gay community” and objected to the sentence, complaining that the case was “being treated as if it’s a murder case”.
As he announced the judgment, Judge Glenn Berman said he had not heard Ravi apologize once, and felt that while he did not think he had acted out of hate towards Clementi, he was guilty of “colossal insensitivity”.
The case sparked a debate in the United States on the issues of anti-gay bullying, teenage suicide, hate crime laws and the use of new technology by young users.
Links to other sources: BBC, NPR, Associated Press
Bright news is that 2013 should be better
Swiss Alps, winter 2012
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Glum news out of Bern for the Swiss tourism industry Tuesday 22 May won’t surprise anyone: the strong franc and weak euro are hurting the tourism industry this year. The latest forecast for the summer season is a drop of 1.7 percent overall, but 3.4 percent for tourists from abroad.
Two factors that are saving the situation somewhat are strong demand at home, with the Swiss visiting their own country, and continuing strong demand from Asia. Seco, the economics ministry, notes that while strong demand from Asia’s emerging economies helps, they remain too small a share of overall tourism to make up for significant losses from neighbours France, Italy and Germany.
The glum outlook follows a morose winter season, down 3.4 percent compared to the previous year, but with Swiss resorts showing a 6 percent drop despite wonderful snowfalls, due to poor weather in December followed by bitter cold in February.
The forecast for 2013 is brighter, expected to rise 1 percent with a 2.7 percent for 2014.
Traffic jam on the A9 last Wednesday evening
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Smart highways could be around the corner in Switzerland, with EPFL, the federal polytechnic institute in Lausanne, undertaking a study to improve traffic flows by using stoplights to enter highways, with funding from the Swiss Federal Roads Office.
There may be a growing sense of urgency to resolve highway traffic jams; Lausanne recently argued for more money more rapidly for trains in order to smooth out timetables for public transport and thus reduce city traffic jams. And EPFL says some recent studies show that from 2009 to 2010, an only 2.6 percent increase in highway traffic raised the number of reported traffic jams by a third.
The team has already concluded that a more effective solution would be monitoring and regulating traffic flows over a longer stretch to reduce traffic jams. The goal is to develop intelligent traffic management systems to optimize traffic flow on highways in real-time, by enforcing variable speed limits on highways and setting up traffic lights on the highway’s access ramps, EPFL says in a statement.
Lights can cut delays by 10-20%
“Experience from around the world has shown that ramp metering can reduce delays on highways by between 10 to 20 percent,” says Nikolas Geroliminis, head of the Luts (laboratory of urban transport systems) programme at the university. “Reduced congestion leads to less stop-and-go traffic, less gasoline consumption and CO2 emissions.”
Traffic lights to enter highways date back decades and are used in many parts of the world, but Switzerland’s situation has two special features. Entry ramps are very short in many areas and traffic jams in urban areas, with narrow streets, can quickly spread back from the autoroute entrance to city centres.
System-wide strategy needed
“What we need is a strategy that can control the influx of cars on all of the highway access points simultaneously to adapt to the queue on the road,” says Geroliminis. he explains. Queues on access ramps and highway congestion can be reduced by controlling speed limits and highway access across a large portion of the network, he argues.
His research group is developing an algorithm to control the traffic lights and speed limits. “Using data obtained from traffic monitoring devices mounted along the highway and on access roads, the algorithm would act as a virtual traffic warden, smoothing traffic by regulating the speed limit and restricting traffic flow onto the highway in real-time”, the EPFL statement says.
The team has selected two frequently congested highway segments they say, one of them in Vaud, to provide traffic data and serve as a test sites for their models.
The data obtained could be used to test the fesability of their method using computer simulations. The next question is whether the roads office would be willing to fund a full-scale field implementation of their strategy, but backing could well come from the regional development programme and the city of Lausanne, which are looking to improve traffic flows in the next decade.
Dr Margaret Chan up for election to head WHO for second term
Dr Margaret Chan (archives)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Health Organization’s 192 members are meeting for five days in Geneva starting Monday 21 May. The assembly will elect a director general and current head Dr Margaret Chan, with solid backing from the board, looks set for re-election.
Chan, in her opening remarks Monday, emphasized the progress made by countries whose governments have shown “the importance of national ownership and leadership.” She cited India’s polio eradication programme, Ghana’s commitment to guinea worm eradication, noting that “during the first quarter of 2012, cases of this disease dropped 67% compared with last year, and now number just over 100.” And Namibia, which “is leading a group of 8 neighbouring African countries in a joint effort to eliminate malaria.”
Funds are tighter, and it’s time to get back to the basics, “shift to thrift” and be innovative, says Chan
Chan characterized the last decade as a golden one for world health, on many levels, but arguing against the doomsayers who believe the opposite is now true.
“At the start of the decade, the Millennium Development Goals showed how much the perception of health had changed, from a drain on resources to a driver of socioeconomic progress. In that golden decade, governments, in both donor and recipient countries, made the health agenda a top priority. Money for health development more than tripled. Substantial results followed, with a particularly strong impact on deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and childhood illness.”
More than 60 countries now pushing for universal health coverage
The director general saved her strongest words, in an upbeat message about where health is headed, for a shift towards universal health coverage.
“Following publication of the 2010 World Health Report on health system financing, more than 60 countries have approached WHO seeking technical support for their plans to move towards universal coverage.
“What we are seeing goes against the historical pattern, where social services shrink when money gets tight. I think this drive to expand coverage is a powerful signal. Despite deepening financial austerity, the will to do the right thing, the fair thing, for people’s health prevails.”
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Shhh, Bill Clinton was in town. And Sean Penn tagged along. But a loud silence surrounded the visit by former US President Clinton, who gave a “private” keynote speech (no journalists invited) to participants in what IMD business school labelled an “Inspire for Excellence” regional symposium Sunday 20 May at 17:00.
Clinton’s topic, at a forum focusing on why sustainability is important, was Embracing Common Humanity”.
Seats started at CHF550 and all proceeds are to go to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) that he founded in 2005. Its members are organizations from the private and public sectors, and civil society who want to maximize their efforts to create a cleaner environment, alleviate poverty, and increase access to health care and education.
Police in Vaud were prepared for the visit but also for the unplanned, according to 24 Heures, which cites Vaud gendarmerie head Olivier Botteron as saying that when working with the US Secret Service, the program changes constantly. The newspaper says that Penn, who is devoting himself to helping rebuild Haiti, popped up from the Cannes Film Festival in southern France.
Consumers see inflation as stronger and expect it to increase in next 12 months
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss consumer confidence is rising, with the quarterly index of Seco, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs showing a marked increase in two key areas. The survey carried out at the end of April shows that “consumer expectations regarding the development of the overall economic situation reached -2 points in April (compared with -29 in January). There was also an improvement in the expectations concerning unemployment (+49 in April com-pared with +71 in January),” according to a statement from Seco.
The two areas that remain virtually unchanged, however, are assessments of the future development of consumers’ personal financial situations (+0 in April compared with +1 point in January) and “the assessment of their future savings opportunities (+20 compared with +22 points in January)”.
A number of changes are taking place in the way the survey is carried out, starting with a change in the research institute doing the research, but it will also cover an additional two to three weeks and will include 1,200 rather than 1,100 households. A key change is that Italian speakers from Ticino are now being inclluded; in the past the surveys were run only in French- and German-speaking Switzerland.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Scuffles and arrests marked Sunday’s Occupy Chicago protest against the Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) meeting being held in Chicago, Illinois, USA, the Chicago Sun Times reports. Some streets in the city centre have been blocked and traffic redirected at times. About 2,000 journalists are covering the two-day summit, the first held in a US city other than Washington, DC. President Obama, who hails from Illinois, is attending the summit Monday.
Links to other sites: Chicagonato, Nato, WGN-TV, Chicago
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The annular eclipse by the moon of the sun, leaving only the famous ring of fire showing around the edges of the moon, was visible in parts of Japan and the US, including California and New Mexico, but bad weather blocked the view of it in some areas, including Vancouver, Canada. NPR reports that it was the first time in 25 years that an annular eclipse has been visible in Japan. Nasa’s web site in the US nearly crashed, according to the Los Angeles times, because of the high number of visits.
Links to other sites: Los Angeles Times, Nasa, NPR, Vancouver Sun
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – They said it themselves: “to make the Europa League, the goal seemed unattainable not long ago” but Sunday troubled football club Servette defeated Basel 2-1 in a surprise finish, to earn their way into the league. Swiss champion Basel put out its B team and left its stars on the bench, but FC Servette nevertheless showed its mettle to win smartly.
The Geneva club continues to fight for its life, with new president and owner Hugh Quennec trying to raise enough money to keep the club in business.
Riddes fire Sunday night, village centre lumberyard destroyed, no injuries
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A lumberyard in the centre of the small town of Riddes, between Martigny and Sion in canton Valais, went up in flames around 22:00 Sunday night 20 May, causing heavy damage but no injuries.
Police say an investigation has been opened, with no clear cause for the fire at the moment.
The lumberyard was destroyed and wood that was stored nearby was calcified.
Police closed the A9 autoroute until shortly after midnight because of heavy smoke and high winds.
Twelve homes near the fire were evacuated and the commune put up close to 100 people for the night.
Villagers are being told to keep their windows closed Monday because of smoke in the air.
100 neighbours evacuated from Riddes fire as a precaution, with high winds blowing
