A recent case in the canton of Bern reveals the risks of moving to a municipality where they speak a different language. A Brazilian women married to a Swiss national found this out the hard way, according to the newspaper 20 Minutes. After moving from a French-speaking municipality in the Canton of Neuchâtel to the […]
Archives for 2019
Vevey’s Fête des vignerons set to make large loss
With the celebration over, attention has shifted to the cost of the Fête des vignerons, Vevey’s once-in-25-year winegrowers festival. As the bills come in it looks like the festival will make a loss of CHF 16 million, according to the François Margot, who was interviewed by the newspaper 24 heures. Fête des Vignerons: “Le manque […]
FILM: BLINDED BY THE LIGHT, RED JOAN
13 September 2019. By Neptune BLINDED BY THE LIGHT (Music of My Life) **1/2 What is it about Indian/Pakistani guys and these iconic rock musicians?After the great biopics on Freddy Mercury and Elton John, come these feel-good films, first about an Indian fellow who taps into the Beatles music (“Yesterday”, by Danny Boyle of “Trainspotters” […]
Steep drop in violence among young men in Switzerland
After quadrupling between 1995 and 2008, acts of violence among men aged 15 and 24 in Switzerland dropped by 56% between 2008 and 2017, according to a recent analysis by accident insurer Suva. In 2017, there were around 1,600 violent offenses, compared to around 3,600 in 2008. The number of cases has been broadly flat […]
Nearly 8% of Switzerland’s population has suicidal thoughts
Suicide prevention is a global challenge. Globally, around 800,000 people take their lives every year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). In 2016, not counting assisted suicides, around 1,000 people in Switzerland took their own lives, a rate of 12 per 100,000, a rate comparable to the average across Europe. To understand suicide better, […]
Tobacco use costs Switzerland 5 billion francs a year
Health care in Switzerland is funded by a mixture of taxes and health insurance premiums. Much of the insurance premiums paid are compulsory with no discounts offered to non-smokers. According to figures recently published by the Swiss association for smoking, the annual direct medical costs of smoking are CHF 3 billion (2015), or CHF 350 […]
Swiss nationality stripped from a dual national for the first time
For the first time, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) has stripped a dual national of their Swiss nationality, according to a government press release. The man, who has been sentenced to several years in prison, was convicted of creating propaganda and recruiting fighters for a banned islamic terrorist organisation. Article 42 of the Federal […]
The remarkable rise of Switzerland’s GDP per capita
In 1998, GDP per person in Switzerland was CHF 59,693. Recently published statistics put the figure at CHF 80,986 in 2018, a rise of 36%. When Swiss GDP per capita is expressed in globally comparable US dollar terms its rise is even greater. In US dollar terms Swiss GDP per capita grew from US$ 41,497 […]
Housing vacancies rise in 20 Swiss cantons
Recent figures show an annual 4.2% rise in the number of vacant homes in Switzerland, extending a trend that started 10 years ago, according to the Federal Statistical Office. At the start of June 2019, there were 75,323 vacant homes, representing 1.66% of Switzerland’s total stock of homes. However, high vacancy rates in some regions […]
E-cigarettes to be taxed in Switzerland
Switzerland’s Federal council supports advice from a public health commission to tax e-cigarettes, according to Le Matin. The plan to tax e-cigarettes forms part of an update to Switzerland’s tobacco laws, which are to be extended to include other products containing nicotine. In addition, the proposed rules will ban e-cigarette use in non-smoking areas and […]
