Man Collapses at SBB from Mysterious Stab Wounds; Pepper Spray Gang Rounded Up; Basel Men Seek Work Life Balance; Litter Campaign a Success

Early Friday morning at approximately 5 am a 42 year old man stumbled into the SBB rail station and collapsed.  The man approached a station security worker apparently seeking help before his collapse.  Upon inspection, the man was determined to be a Romanian national with multiple stab wounds and cuts on his body.  The security worker alerted police and emergency services and the man was promptly delivered to the hospital emergency room and is expected to survive.   Authorities report that in what's believed to be a related incident, a few hours before the wounded man stumbled into the SBB a violent confrontation took place on Webergasse in Kleinbasel.  The description of witnesses fit the victim and another man believed to be in his 40s.  Police are seeking information relating to the cause of the conflict, and those involved, as well as the circumstances of how the wounded man managed to get to the SBB from the scene of the altercation.

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In 4 separate incidents Saturday night in Claraplatz involving 3 men and a woman, a gang of youths approached the victims asking for a light for their cigarettes.  Whether the victims were able to accommodate the gang or not did not matter, as they were subsequently attacked with pepper spray and incapacitated at which point they were kicked and beaten to the ground.  The gang of four to five young men and two or three women then fled in the direction of the Kaserne.  In similar incidents the night before, two young men were attacked near the DreiKoenig hotel by a similarly sized gang using similar tactics.  

Fortunately, shortly after the incident on Saturday night, police were able to apprehend three alleged perpetrators, two 16 year olds and a 17 year old, all males.  The remaining members of the gang are still being sought by the police and prosecutors office.

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Bashi Dürr, 37, Basel's Director for the Departent of Justice made national headlines recently when he announced his intention to begin working 1/2 days in order to have more time to attend to his family's needs.  Following suit, the Basel Department of Equality, which has been actively promoting more part-time work for men, has initiated a new campaign targeting men's attitudes and companies hiring practices.  Leila Straumann, Equality Officer at the Basel office, says the effort is important: only one in seven men work part time where more than half of women do leaving most of the family care in traditional roles.  It seems her campaign has been effective in that 90 percent of working men polled report they'd be interested in a reduced traditional work load to attend to their families. Interestingly, companies with family friendly measures, which provide equal time off or flexible work arrangements for both sexes have 8% higher productivity measures according to recent bureau of labor statistics.  Needless to say, some more conservative views reject the possibility of men holding certain jobs like high political office, and being able to attend to family needs and emergencies.

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Thanks to a three month "drucksack" campaign by the canton, it appears more trash is finding its way into the appropriate waste bins.  The little green plastic garbage bags were given away at various shopping centers like Coop which were decorated with scannable QR codes.  When deposited into one of 29 special bins with scanners, one was automatically entered to win instant prizes, and weekly cash jackpots.  With a total of 900,000 bags to distribute and 60,000 available prizes, the program appeared to successfully contribute to the increased disposal of waste.  In Swiss fashion, the University of Applied Sciences of Northwestern Switzerland, is studying a host of data collected about the program to gauge the effectiveness of the incentives and their necessity.  Based on the outcomes of the study, it is expected the city will resume the program in the future.