Switzerland’s second largest phone company by revenue, Sunrise Communications Holdings SA, released its results on 26 March 2015 showing a smaller loss for 2014 than for 2013. Sunrise listed on the Swiss stock market (ticker symbol: SRCG) on 6 February 2015, in the largest Swiss IPO since 2006. This allowed it to repay some of […]
Archives for March 2015
Destination Miami – beyond the neon and beaches
Flying home to visit my family in Miami, I often wonder who among my fellow passengers is visiting the “Magic City” and who is returning from a European vacation. For me on my last trip in February, the answer was simple. Winter is high season for snowbirds and they come for a reason: it is […]
Swiss coffee capsule war hots up
Jean-Paul Gaillard the boss of the Swiss coffee capsule maker Ethical Coffee Company (ECC) said recently that he expects sales of his coffee capsules to exceed those of Nespresso, owned by Nestlé Group, within three years, according to the newspaper Tribune de Genève. Unlike Nespresso capsules the Nespresso-compatible ECC ones are biodegradable. According to ECC’s […]
CERN blows a fuse
After planning to restart the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva on 23 March 2015 it has now been delayed for several weeks. A short circuit in one of the powerful magnets that power the particle beams is responsible. Because the magnets are chilled to close to absolute zero it will need to be warmed […]
Vaud residents could be costing Geneva millions
A recent study commissioned by Geneva City’s management looks at the costs of running the City. The total cost was CHF 290 million in 2013. After contributions from neighbouring communes including those in France, Geneva City was left with a net bill of between CHF 180 and 200 million. It is estimated that around 60% […]
Cinderella
CINDERELLA ***1/2 “Always have courage and be kind”. What better advice could be given to a loved one, especially from a parent to a child? That is the delicate thread that winds through this latest version of the classic fairytale Cinderella, directed by the multi-talented Kenneth Branagh (the man who brought Shakespeare to the masses) […]
Why Geneva’s unemployment is higher than Zurich’s
Most think Switzerland has low unemployment, however, aggregate figures mask large regional differences. Underneath the overall national rate of 3.5% (February 2015), lie cantonal rates that range from 1.1% in Obwalden to 5.8% in Neuchatel. Zurich, currently at 3.6% typically hovers around the national average, while Geneva, currently at 5.6% is consistently 2% higher than […]
Germanwings black box found
The black box from the Airbus A320 that crashed in the French Alps yesterday has been found and is being analysed in Paris. The box is damaged however it should still contain useful information. The aircraft descended rapidly but probably no faster than an aircraft would while landing. Why it descended so low continues to […]
Airbus A320 crashes in French Alps
An Airbus A320 en route from Barcelona to Dusseldorf has crashed in the French Alps according to BFMTV in France. The aircraft is flown by Germanwings, the low-cost airline owned by Lufthansa. According to Agence Presse (AP) it is unlikely there will be any survivors among the 150 people on board. It was also reported […]
Continued rise in cross-border workers entering Switzerland
At the end of 2014 there were 287,100 foreign residents crossing the borders of Switzerland to work. This army of day-tripping workers, called frontaliers in French, would fill around 5,000 buses and exceeds the combined populations of the Cantons of Neuchatel and Jura. The cantons with the highest number of cross-border workers were those with […]
