According to Amnesty International's latest report on global human rights abuses, Swiss public discourse is increasingly racist and xenophobic. Although Switzerland generally did very well in the report, as might be expected, Amnesty criticised the campaign and referendum last year which voted to ban the construction of minarets, saying it created religious conflict.

They quoted the report from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) which worried that it was legal to vote on something which they say infringes human rights. The rightwing Swiss People’s Party came in for some flak for using racist images in its campaigning. The commission also questioned the effectiveness of current criminal law against racism and called for better training for legal professionals who work with it.

The director of St Gallen Prison has been suspended for stealing. He's accused of taking cleaning materials and cigarettes worth around 1000 francs from the jail and is being investigated by police. Apparently accounting irregularities put investigators on his trail. He risks losing his job, plus any sentence he gets from the criminal investigation. Not to mention the sniggers of the inmates as he walks the corridors of the prison…

The BBC reports that a Swiss court has upheld the appeal of a man who was fined for rambling naked. The court in Appenzell ruled that the naked hiking did not amount to "indecent behaviour". A prosecutor was quoted as saying the ruling should not be seen as giving blanket permission for people to walk naked in the area. Swiss federal law states that public nudity is not a crime but the case was the first since Appenzell allowed naked hikers to be fined. Appenzell has become a popular destination for those who like to hike in their birthday suit, but many locals are unhappy about the trend.

The hiker in question was fined 100 francs after eyewitnesses complained that he had been hiking in full view of a communal barbecuing area. They also say he walked past a care home, whose residents saw him. The court lifted the fine, while local authorities will cover court costs of about 870 francs.

The 47-year-old defendant said he had been hiking nude for two years and that most people were friendly towards him.

Expatica.com reports that a 36-year-old Serbian man died on Sunday after he was shot in the chest during a gunfight in Martigny, in French-speaking Switzerland. Apparently the fight broke out between a group from the Balkans and some Portuguese from Cape Verde. Police in Canton Valais say they don't know yet what started the fight but think that it escalated from the two groups trading insults with each other in the town's main square. The police said a pistol with a silencer has been found but they're still looking for the other weapon used.

There's been bad news for Novartis, the Basel-based pharmaceutical giant. Last week an American court found them guilty of sexual discrimination and ordered them to pay over 3 million dollars to a group of 12 female ex-employees in compensation. The jury found that Novartis had discriminated against women over pay and promotion and because of pregnancy. This week, the court ordered the firm to pay another 250 million dollars in punitive damages.  It's the biggest ever employment discrimination verdict according to Bloomberg.

However the story doesn't end there. The judge who presided over the case told the two sides to return to court tomorrow so that a figure on back pay for lost wages and promotions for the women in the case can be set. Worse still, the 12 women in the original case are part of a group of over 5,500 women named in the class action. Even if only 2/3 of them come forward to give evidence and claim compensation, then Novartis could end up having to pay out over a billion dollars.

Novartis said that they had high standards for diversity and inclusion for its staff and that they were disappointed by the outcome of the case. Their lawyer didn't comment after the verdict but said last week that the firm planned to appeal.

At least 4,000 people took part in a protest against nuclear power in Switzerland yesterday. The demonstrators were calling for an end to talks about building new atomic power stations in Switzerland and the dumping of nuclear waste. There's a referendum planned for 2013 about whether to build new nuclear power plants to provide Switzerland's energy but the protesters claim that renewable energy technology could provide all the electricity the country needs just as well as atomic power. They marched from Aarau to Olten via the nuclear power station at Gösgen and included representatives from parliament and from Greenpeace.

Novartis has lost the sexual discrimination case it was defending in the US and will have to pay millions in damages according to Business Week magazine. An American court ruled that the firm had discriminated against female sales staff in the US and awarded the 12 plaintiffs damages of 3.4 million dollars. The bad news doesn't stop there however - the jury is to decide today how much money Novartis will have to pay in punitive damages as a result of the guilty verdict - the sum could be much higher since the lawyers for the women at the centre of the case said they're looking for 200 million dollars.

The lawyers for the women accused Novartis of discrimination in pay and promotion, sexism and allowing a so-called "boys' club atmosphere". Apparently one woman told the court that she had been told to get an abortion after she announced that she was pregnant.

Novartis said that it was disappointed by the verdict and plans to appeal.

Property owners in Switzerland will no longer have to pay tax on the equivalent rental value of their homes, according to the website Geneva Lunch. They say that the government has decided to abolish the levy in order to simplify the Swiss tax system. In order to pay for the change, homeowners will also lose the right to claim mortgage interest relief and to deduct the cost of maintaining their houses when making their tax declarations. The only exception to the change is for first time buyers who will be able to claim mortgage interest relief of up to 10,000 francs a year per couple and half that for a single person. That benefit will drop by 10% a year and so will disappear after 10 years.

The FT says that one of the reasons why there hasn't been the expected flood of UK bankers into Switzerland is that, even with the 50% top rate of tax in Britain, the highest paid staff there can still earn double what they would here. Even the less exalted staff can get a quarter more if they stay in the UK rather than coming to Zurich or Geneva.

Financial recruitment specialists Selby Jennings say that only London and New York are big enough centres to be able to offer many banking jobs paying mega salaries and so they think that, despite its tax advantages, Switzerland probably won't tempt many Brits and Americans away from their respective cities.

There's increasing criticism of a top Swiss immmigration official about his remarks that Nigerian asylum seekers have criminal intentions when they come to Switzerland. Yesterday the Platform for Reflection on Anti-Black Racism called for Alard du Bois-Reymond, director of the Federal Migration Office, to resign. He had said that Nigerian asylum seekers “were not coming to seek asylum but to do illegal business”. He added that many ended up as petty criminals or drug dealers. Amnesty International said the comments were “unacceptable".

Du Bois-Reymond defended his position, saying that 99.5 % of Nigerian asylum requests last year had failed. Only one Nigerian was granted Swiss asylum, out of about 1,800 applications.

Switzerland needs new laws to be able to break up Credit Suisse and UBS in an emergency, because the size of the banks is a threat to the rest of the economy, a Swiss government panel has said. The Bloomberg news agency reports that the government may bring in laws to create so-called “bridge banks” to run the parts of the banks which are most important to Switzerland’s financial system.

The measures are needed because taken together, the two Zürich-based banks are more than four times the size of the whole Swiss economy. The government wants to set up a system so that if there's another crisis like the one last year, the important parts of the business can carry on without having to pay billions to rescue the whole bank.

Switzerland is in a special situation because the economy is dominated by big firms, the collapse of any one of which would have a huge impact on the country.

Swiss President Doris Leuthard is going to meet the pope at the Vatican to mark the swearing in of 30 new recruits to the Swiss Guard. During the visit on 6^th May she will have a private audience with Pope Benedict. New guardsmen are sworn in every year in May in St Peter’s Square at a ceremony which also commemorates 147 Swiss Guards who died in 1527 defending Pope Clement VII during the Sack of Rome.

The Swiss Vatican Guard was founded more than 500 years ago and is known as the smallest army in the world with only 110 men. It reports to the pope and is financed by the Vatican.



Reuters report that an Uzbek prisoner held at the Amercian military prison at Guantanamo Bay has been sent to Switzerland for resettlement. The prisoner is the latest to be moved from the jail. Guantanamo Bay has long been criticized by human rights activists and foreign governments. Obama and other critics say the prison has become a recruiting symbol for anti-American militants.

The US Justice Department didn’t say who the Uzbek national sent to Switzerland was. Last month Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said he will get immigrant status and be eligible to work. Switzerland agreed to take the Guantanamo detainee on humanitarian grounds and said that he posed no danger, having been cleared for release in 2005.

*****************************************

Angela Merkel says Germany will buy a list of alleged tax evaders hiding money in Switzerland, if it is genuine. The BBC reports that up to 1,500 Germans are alleged to have stashed millions in secret bank accounts across the border. The information is apparently being offered by an IT specialist who once worked at HSBC in Geneva. 

However Doris Leuthard, Switzerland's president, has warned foreign governments against using illegally acquired bank data to pinch tax evaders; she says that governments should not use information obtained from criminals. According to the media reports, the secret informant approached the German fiscal authorities and demanded 2.5 million euros for the data; according to some estimates the information could net the German taxman as much as 200 million euros in recovered taxes.

 ****************************************

 A new British government safety campaign warns young Brits against the dangers of drinking in the mountains. Swissinfo reports that posters with the slogan “Don’t catch your death” have been put up at Geneva airport and several Swiss ski resorts to raise awareness among British tourists of the risks of binge drinking on a skiing holiday.

The initiative was jointly launched in Switzerland, France and Italy just before the Christmas holidays to target the one million British tourists visiting the Alps this winter.

According to British diplomats, more than 30 Britons were involved in alpine accidents last year, half of them under 25. Many died because they underestimated the risk of drinking at high altitude.

However Swiss police, tourist authorities and ski resorts largely reject the notion that there is an alcohol problem with British holidaymakers. One bar owner said that Brits don’t usually go over the top, especially with the current dire exchange rate.