Basel Considers More Time Off For New Dads; Medical Cannabis Program Pondered; Curling Championships Underway at St. Jakobs; Basel Fasnacht On Unesco Short List

News For 5 April 2016

  A proposal for a law currently under consideration by Basel's Grand Council would guarantee 8 weeks of paternal leave for new dads.  Currently, the law only guarantees 10 days for those parents employed by the canton.  In the private sector, the legal minimum is one or two days of paid leave.  The policy goal of extending the paid leave to dads too is to negate the career setbacks which are commonly associated with women taking time off to care for a new baby.  While private employer's groups consulted for the pending legislation struck a positive tone in supporting gender equity with regard to careers and parental leave, they stopped short of full support for a legal mandate, suggesting instead that employees use paid vacation time for their needs.  Others expressed concerns that any new laws would weaken traditional parenting gender roles and that the state should not meddle in family work and child rearing decisions.   *********************************

The Basel Municipal Health Department in association with the University of Basel Psychiatric Clinics is planning a pilot project for the distribution of medical marijuana.  Unlike other cantons currently experimenting with similar programs, the Basel one will focus exclusively on those with documented medical needs and the prescription of a doctor.  While the criteria and delivery of the program is being worked out, it is hoped that pending Federal Approval will also pass in time for the program to begin later this year.  The agencies also intend to fund an associated research project to study the long term effects of the drug on registered users.  Basel will join Bern, Thun, Winterthur, Zurich and Geneva as the other cantons participating in the new cannabis related programs awaiting Swiss Federal approval.

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Friday night marked the beginning of Curling's World Cup event at Basel's St. Jakob's Arena.  The winter sport famous for teams of men and women playing a version of shuffleboard on ice with large 20 Kilo stones had its annual world championship event in Basel last time in 2012.  This year's competition will run until April 10th, and expects approximately 50,000 visitors to the arena, a large uptick in attendance thanks to the Swiss Women's gold-medal win two years in a row in 2014 and 2015.  Complicating this year's event is the construction that has been going on at the arena in preparation for the UEFA soccer championships in May. The construction will be temporarily halted so that vibrations do not prevent the perfect layer of ice being laid down for competitors.  

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The Swiss interior ministry has asked the United Nations to recognise the Basel Carnival - or - Fasnacht as its locally known, as a globally important cultural phenomenon. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization known as UNESCO announced Switzerland’s official submission on Thursday. A decision on whether to include the carnival on its list of things that reflect an “intangible cultural heritage of humanity” will be made by November 2017. The three-day Basel Carnival combines music, spoken dialects, and arts and crafts, and is widely known throughout and beyond Switzerland as one of the world’s few Protestant carnivals.

Only one other event has been proposed for inclusion on the UNESCO list. Last year, the Swiss cabinet announced it was nominating the Vevey Winemaker’s Festival. Both the Basel Carnival and the Winemaker’s Festival come from a shortlist completed by the Swiss cabinet in October 2014. UNESCO will only accept one submission a year from each country.