Swiss Identity

Campaign aims to eradicate measles

This content was published on Oct 24, 2013 The Federal Office of Public Health launched on Thursday in Bern the Swiss campaign to eradicate measles by 2015 – which would require an 85 to 95% immunisation rate. This would result in just a few isolated cases of the disease. The office said that it wanted to remind people that the infectious respiratory disease…

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Former UBS banker accepts to face US court

This content was published on Oct 24, 2013 The independent investment adviser was arraigned last week in Florida before being released after posting $750,000 (CHF670,000) bail. The Fort Lauderdale court where he is due to go on trial in late November also gave him permission to return to Switzerland. The former banker was indicted in 2011 on charges of conspiring from 1993 to…

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Swiss Greenpeace activist talks of detention

This content was published on Oct 23, 2013

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Pressure builds up on Qatar World Cup

This content was published on Oct 20, 2013 Domenico Scala, chairman of FIFA’s audit and compliance committee since last year, questioned plans to stage the competition in the blistering heat of the Qatari summer and warned of dire consequences if corruption was found to have tainted the award. “Awarding the World Cup to Qatar in the summer was not the best decision, irrespective…

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‘Martial arts brought us together’

This content was published on Oct 20, 2013 Talk to Swiss people about China and they think of chop suey and kung fu. “Cooking and kung fu are our two best-known skills among the Swiss. Stars such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li are very popular here,” Wu Yongmei tells me as I arrive. And it’s thanks to kung fu that…

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Fake drugs intercepted by Swiss customs

This content was published on Oct 18, 2013 The Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products, Swissmedic, said Friday the tablets were counterfeits of the Xanax compound made by Pfizer. They were found in four crates that weighed over 400 kilogrammes. Swissmedic said in a statement that laboratory tests showed the intercepted tablets contained no active ingredients, adding that they could not be recognised as…

Culture

Myths set to sparkle in capital location

This content was published on Oct 17, 2013 For the third year in a row, parliament square will boom and sparkle for 25 minutes twice daily – at 7pm and 8.30pm – until December 1 (except for November 24-25). More than 500,000 people were wowed by last year’s free display. This year, for the first time, the show takes the form of a…

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Hitzfeld to quit after World Cup

This content was published on Oct 17, 2013 Hitzfeld, who will be 65 in January, said in a statement released by the Swiss Football Association that it was “the most difficult decision of my career”. He made his announcement on the day Switzerland rose to seventh place in the FIFA world rankings, making them one of the eight seeded teams for the World…

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Probing the depths of plastic pollution

This content was published on Oct 16, 2013 Florian Faure points his tweezers at the surface of a murky cocktail he has just extracted from the Rhône River west of Geneva. “That’s a plastic pellet and those are polystyrene balls,” explains the environmental researcher from Lausanne’s Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). Time for a final sample. He leans over the edge of the…

Culture

No easy solutions for Swiss museums

This content was published on Oct 15, 2013 In a case where a painting resurfaced and was identified only after it was exposed as part of a collection donated to the museum, Kunsthaus Zurich responded favourably and quickly to a restitution claim made in the name of the surviving descendants. “Madame La Suire” by Swiss painter Albert von Keller belonged to a Jewish…

Swiss Identity

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