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Towel thrown
Top Swiss negotiator resigns
Michael Ambühl, Switzerland’s top diplomat in ongoing tax and banking negotiations with both the United States and countries in Europe, will step down at the end of August, it has been announced. [...]
Swiss politics
The big bad foreigner in poster art
Illegal money
Cabinet drafts unique law on dictators’ assets
Free trade accord
Chinese prime minister praises deal with Swiss
On his first visit to Europe, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang has praised a free trade deal with Switzerland, saying it would help Beijing open up its economy. [...]
Human rights report
Amnesty flags Swiss asylum law
Swiss banking woes
Minister says end to US tax dispute in sight
Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf says a resolution may be not far off to end a long-running dispute with the United States over Swiss banks accused of helping wealthy Americans evade billions of dollars of taxes. [...]
Changes at the top
Surprise shake-up marks Glencore Xstrata meeting
Formula for success
Chinese parents drive baby milk powder boom
Basel’s Schola Cantorum
Old music becomes new art
On a sunny day in Basel, delicate tunes waft through the windows of the Schola Cantorum, the world’s oldest institution for the study of “old music”. Eighty years on, that term - and the school’s role - is constantly being re-defined. [...]
Medical advances
Gender testing to help avoid genetic diseases
A new test called Microsort will allow couples with certain serious hereditary disorders to choose the sex of their baby in order to reduce the chance of passing on an active form of their disease. [...]
Aerial mapping
Successful takeoff for Swiss commercial drones
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In depth
Flying free
Government asks Solar Impulse for rent
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The Solar Impulse aims to fly around the world in 2014 (Keystone)
Swiss taxpayers have been footing the bill – amounting to more than SFr1 million ($1.04 million) - to house the Solar Impulse project at its base at Dübendorf military airfield near Zurich since 2007. Now the government wants the project to pay up.
Swiss public radio revealed on Tuesday that the Federal Audit Office had established there was no “legal basis” for Solar Impulse not to have paid rent for the use of the hangars at Dübendorf or Payerne in canton Vaud.
SFr700,000 worth of modifications made to the Dübendorf hangar in order for it to house the giant solar plane were also picked up by the government.
Sponsored by Deutsche Bank and Omega, the Solar Impulse project aims to fly the first fully solar-powered plane around the world in 2014 to promote the use of clean energy.
A spokeswoman for the defence ministry, which operates the Dübendorf airfield, said although it had requested rent from Solar Impulse in February last year, “Solar Impulse has not yet signed the lease”.
The ministry has also asked Solar Impulse to pay rent to cover costs from 2014.
A spokeswoman for Solar Impulse said the matter was being discussed with all government departments concerned.
Solar Impulse tests limits of endurance
The world’s first round-the-world flight by a solar-powered aircraft is a step closer to reality following the successful simulation of a 72-hour non-stop flight. [...]
PlanetSolar prepares to enter pirate waters
After a brief stop-off in Mumbai, Switzerland’s PlanetSolar is presently hugging the coastline of Pakistan on its 50,000-kilometre solar round-the-world voyage. [...]
Energy breakthrough
Solar plane ends first intercontinental flight
Solar Impulse, a huge experimental solar-powered plane, landed in Morocco's capital late on Tuesday night after a 20-hour trip from Madrid in the first transcontinental journey by a craft of its type. [...]
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