Marching cows to Lehman losses

Keystone

Almost every article published by swissinfo.ch contains a percentage, an age, an amount of money or some other figure. Here’s a round-up of the most interesting statistics to appear in the past week’s stories.

Monday

300

Switzerland has launched a new platform to help reduce the number of non-assisted suicides. It is part of a long-running government strategy to bring down the number of suicides by 25% by 2030 – in other words, to prevent about 300 suicides per year.  

Tuesday

270,000

Every year, more than a quarter of a million cows march up to the top of mountains in Switzerland and then march down again. The migration starts in early summer as they are taken to alpine pastures and ends in early autumn when they return to the valleys.

Tuesday 

115

Between 2014-2017, Switzerland began 115 anti-corruption investigations against corporations and individuals conducting trade abroad, according to Transparency International. The NGO says that makes Switzerland an active anti-bribery enforcer, but nevertheless called on the country to do more.

Wednesday

44

In the past almost two-thirds of Swiss territory was covered by snow; now it is less than half, according to satellite data gathered over the past two decades. Between 2005 and 2017, some 44% of the country had “little or no snow”, compared to 36% in the previous ten years.

Thursday

40,000

A lack of IT professionals could leave the Swiss sector with a shortfall of no less than 40,000 specialists by 2026, according to an industry association. The high demand for specialists is stimulated by the rapid digitalisation of business and administration.

Friday

1.2 trillion

On September 15, 2008, the US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, sparking the most volatile period of the global financial crisis. The meltdown of the bank resulted in $1.2 trillion worth of creditor claims, as University of Zurich professor Marc Chesney outlines.