Americans On Track To Enter Switzerland Again; Swiss stork census causes sky high confusion; Basel Stadt Minimum Wage

News For 15 June 2021

A travel ban has been in place for travellers arriving from "third countries" into Switzerland since the Coronavirus Quarantine rules went into effect last year.  There has been a small list of countries outside the Schengen region, which have had the travel ban lifted already, including Israel, Thailand and 10 others.  The Federal Health Council has now announced that Americans that can prove full vaccination, will be allowed into the country starting June 28.  A final statement will be issued by the authorities on June 23.  

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Counting the young stork population in Basel Zoo, otherwise known as ringing, is a job for the local fire-brigade. Last Monday, the turntable ladders were put to use, as they unravelled their way up to the sky-scraping nests. Warned by the noise of the presumed approaching danger, the adult storks took off up into the sky, hoping to function as a decoy. The remaining youngsters had no other choice than to play dead, which made for a speedy ring attachment on the lifeless creatures. This means that the new stork population is now all set for their first flight due south in August.

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Basel-Stadt now has a statutory minimum wage of 21 francs and is also now the first Swiss-German canton to introduce a statutory minimum wage. The project was backed by the left-wing social democrats and Greens, and opposed by parties from the centre and the right. The new minimum wage in the canton will thus be fixed at CHF21 per hour, although exceptions are foreseen: for example, for salaries already negotiated through collective bargaining agreements, for internships lasting less than six months, for employees who mostly work abroad, and for on-call workers who work less than 70 hours per year. At the national level, the issue was put before voters in an initiative launched by trade unions in 2014, with a resounding 76.3% of Swiss rejecting what would have been the world’s highest nationwide minimum wage of CHF22.