14 February, 2012: 16 year Prison for Swiss Billionaire, Questions on Jet Fighter Purchase, New Weather Scare

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In what has been the largest ever case in Europe involving the misuse of asbestos, Swiss billionaire Stephan Schmidheiny has been sentenced by an Italian court to 16 years in prison.

In his former position as part owner of Eternit, the court in Turin had accused him of causing an environmental disaster and deliberately not allowing workers to follow standard safety measures in two of the company’s Italian factories. As a result, according to the charges, 3000 workers became sick, of which 2000 died of their illnesses.

In addition to his prison sentence, Schmidheiny has also been ordered to pay reparations of between 35 and 60 thousand francs to some four and a half thousand victims of asbestosis and their families. Lawyers for Schmidheiny said their client will appeal.

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Switzerland’s recently announced decision to buy 22 Saab Gripen fighter planes from Sweden is under review following the publication by Le Matin Dimanche over the weekend of a 2009 report saying the Swedish jets didn’t meet Swiss military standards.

The spokesperson for Ueli Maurer, the Swiss Defence Minister, said that Maurer had never seen the report, raising new questions about the approval process behind the Federal Council’s decision to buy the planes.

Parliament has called on Maurer to clarify the situation.

The 2009 confidential report was signed by the head of the Swiss Air Force. After candidate fighter jets were submitted to tests, the Gripen did not meet the minimum standards  while two other planes did. One was submitted by French company Dassault and information has surfaced in the past few days that the Dassault bid was also lower.

The Federal Council is now reviewing the decision, with the lower house of parliament strongly criticising the way the choice was handled. The upper house’s security commission announced yesterday that it will review the decision after the Federal Council makes its recommendation. But, it underscored firmly, it expects to be provided with all information available, including the minutes of lower house committee debates, in order to determine if the choice was made fairly and honestly.
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While temperatures across the region have risen a little, meteorological experts are now warning of dangerous ice on the country’s lakes.

The coldest temperatures measured in the country this winter occurred last Monday morning on the Glattalp in Canton Schwyz: - 45.4 Celsius.

For the rest of this week the mercury is expected to continue its slow rise, although still below zero in many parts overnight.

Experts at the World Organisation for Meteorology in Geneva say that the depth and duration of the recent freeze and its relative late onset in the European winter are unusual, but far from unique. However, they fear that the slightly warmer weather will tempt people out onto frozen lakes. The problem, they say, is that the ice covering is still too thin to walk on safely.

Venturing onto the ice in Canton Zurich and most of Canton Schwyz is now against the law. For a safe depth of at least 12 centimetres, they say, a prolonged freeze of four weeks or more is needed. And we’re not expecting that, they say.

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And, staying with the elements, the Swiss Seismological Service said a moderate earthquake shook Switzerland with the epicentre in canton Zug and the Lake Zurich area. The Zurich-based service said Sunday that the magnitude-4.2 quake could be felt around much of Switzerland Saturday night, and some minor damage possible. There were no immediate reports of any serious damage.

Switzerland is an area of moderate seismic activity — most rumbles do not exceed a magnitude of 3 — with the last earthquake to cause serious damage occurring in 1991 in the southeast canton of Graubünden. However, Europe’s most devastating earthquake on record hit Basel in 1356. It was larger than 7 on the Richter scale. As well as destroying all churches and castles within 30 kilometres, most of the city was flattened, claiming the lives of at least 300 people in the city alone.

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31 January 2012

The Swiss finance ministry has confirmed that information relating to Swiss banks’ clients in the US has been transmitted to the tax authorities there.

The data was encrypted, however, and the Ministry says that access to the decrypting code, along with the names of client advisors, will only be given to the Americans on a case-by-case basis or when a tax agreement is in place between the two countries.
 
In December, 11 Swiss banks were given an ultimatum to hand over thousands of client names and pay billions in fines to avoid tax evasion prosecution in the United States.
 
The banks were under pressure to provide all correspondence with offshore clients over the past 11 years – with one deadline falling due at the end of December 2011 and the second, today.

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The Swiss public prosecutor has charged four men with leading an organised crime ring that is believed to be behind a wave of burglaries and shoplifting in Switzerland.

Swiss authorities said yesterday that four members of the so-called "Thieves in Law" criminal organisation have been convicted. The men are now in police custody.
 
Authorities said in a statement that they are investigating 30 others in the organisation whose members have a common fund, their own language and tattoos showing their rank and function.
 
The investigation began in 2009, but the organisation is said have roots dating back 20 years in the former Soviet Union.

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There could be new limitations on alcohol sales in Switzerland. Alcoholic beverages will not be taxed more but restrictions on sales will come in under new laws being put forward by the cabinet.

The government has dropped an earlier idea to push up prices to reduce consumption, saying that it now considers the rises disproportionate.

Retail sales would be banned between 10pm and 6am, while bars would no longer be allowed to have “happy hours” or offer unlimited drinks during that time.
 
The night time ban aims to protect young drinkers from alcohol abuse. Bars and restaurants will also have to offer three non-alcoholic drinks at lower prices than their cheapest alcoholic offering.

24th January 2012

Unions in Switzerland are campaigning for a minimum wage. Swissinfo reports that the signatures needed to call for a referendum on a minimum wage were given in to the governemnt yesterday, despite opposition from employers. Like in most western countries, the salary gap between rich and poor has become a yawning chasm - 30 years ago a typical manager earned up to 30 times more than their lowest paid staff, today it can be upto 1000 times.

The gravity of the situation has led to 3 people’s initiatives. 2 of them want to set limits on managers’ salaries. The third, handed in by the Trade Union Federation, wants a minimum wage for Switzerland of SFr22 an hour, or around SFr4,000 a month.

 The Swiss military has been mobilised for the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. A record number of soldiers – 5000 – are on duty at the meeting, to assist the police and set up securtiy at the event. They've got their work cut out due to the heavy snow which fell in the Alps, making setting up the 18km of fences rather harder work.

There have already been protests against the event, which is seen by many as elitist and exclusive – in Bern this weekend police charged around 150 people with breaching the peace during a demonstration.

The Guardian newspaper writes that the Swiss football club Neuchatel Xamax have been stripped of their license and removed from the Swiss Super League less than a year after being taken over by the Chechen businessman Bulat Chagaev.

The Swiss Football League said that the club was kicked out because it was suspected of using a faked bank document as a financial guarantee last year. Swiss media reported that the so-called bank letter had grammar and spelling mistakes.

Chagaev bought the club in May last year. Since then, he has sacked four coaches, several players and the entire administrative staff, leaving the club unable to print tickets for the opening game of the season. The club has five days to appeal.

So, bad news if you're a football fan in Neuchatel, good news if you live there and you like dancing. The Neuchâtel government has relaxed the canton’s ban on dancing on religious holidays. In future only Good Friday and Christmas day will be dancing-free. Upto now dancing had been banned on seven days a year, including Whitsun and Ascension



17th January 2012

A passenger who dozed off on the train has caused chaos on Swiss railways. The SBB said the man woke up, realised the train was leaving his station and pulled the emergency cord. The train stopped at a set of points, causing a short-circuit which closed four main lines into Zurich. This delayed almost 200 trains going all over the country. Three of the four lines are now open and the fourth should be up and running by 10 this evening.

Life isn't getting any easier for SVP supremo Christoph Blocher. He was grilled by police as part of an investigation into the leaking of bank data in the scandal which brought down the chairman of the Swiss National Bank. The chairman, Philipp Hildebrand, resigned as chairman of the Swiss National Bank last week, having been accused of insider trading after private banking details of foreign currency transactions were leaked.

The information was leaked by a Bank Sarasin employee to an SVP lawyer, who then contacted Blocher. Blocher told the President, thus making sure that the story wouldn't get hushed up, but insists that he did not handle original banking documents in the affair.

The Zurich prosecutor said Blocher had been interviewed to try to clear up exactly how the confidential bank data got out. He is not the subject of the criminal investigation.

People drink less from red cups and eat less from red plates according to researchers at Basel University. The team at the Institute of Psychology think red could be acting as a subconscious “stop” signal. The group asked male students to drink sweet drinks from plastic cups, half of which had blue stickers and the other half red.  The ones given red beakers drank about 40% less than the others, irrespective of what they thought of the taste.

In a second experiment, subjects were given ten pretzels on red, blue or white plates and told they could eat as many as they liked. The ones with red plates ate half as many as the others did.

The researchers say the experiments are a first step to understanding how colours influence eating. The study is being published in the scientific journal "Appetite".



10th January 2012

After the nuclear catastrophe in Japan last year, Swissinfo reports that an EU team of specialists has given the all-clear to Switzerland’s nuclear reactors for resistance, reviewing them on 37 points established in the wake of the Fukushima accident in 2011 However the Swiss government says it wants to check 8 more points before it's happy.

The Federal Inspectorate for Nuclear Safety says it won't wait for the EU report to be finished before doingits own review to be completed by June this year.

The European Union’s list of safety checks focuses on earthquakes, floods, extreme weather , electrical failure and crisis management. Switzerland wants further reviews to ensure the safety of rivers and streams below all the dams linked to nuclear plants

After the scandal surrounding the resignation of the director of the The Swiss National Bank last week, the SNB is going to toughen up internal rules for financial transactions made by members of its governing board.

A meeting of the bank’s council decided to subject all financial transactions made by members of the governing board in the last 3 years to review by external auditors. Until the regulations review is complete, members of the board and staff with access to privileged information must first obtain permission from the SNB’s chief compliance officer for foreign exchange transactions over Sfr20,000.

Sunshine is expected today and tomorrow in the alps, increasing the danger of avalanches after as much as 60 centimeters of snow fell over the weekend.

Two villages in the Berner Oberland had been cut off from the world since Thursday, as the Grimsel pass was closed because of avalanche danger. On Saturday, Andermatt was accessible again by train, with roads opening later because of snow.

Andermatt mayor Roger Nager said the closure and stranded guests did have an upside: “We had a great winter atmosphere. Guests could stroll or go through town on skis.”