20 Minutes. The 100,000 signature mark required to launch a popular vote was reached in June 2017. Yesterday the Swiss Federal Chancellery validated 107,075 of the 107,455 signatures collected completing the first significant official milestone. The initiative is demanding four weeks of paid leave for fathers, to be taken within the first year of the […]
Geneva councillor Pierre Maudet ready to give up French nationality
Tribune de Genève. According to Tribune de Genève, Geneva councillor Pierre Maudet is ready to give up his French nationality. Maudet recently put himself forward to replace Didier Burkhalter, the federal councillor, equivalent to cabinet member, who announced his resignation in July. The issue of Maudet’s dual nationality was raised by Céline Amaudruz, a Geneva-based […]
More than 3 planets needed if we all lived like Swiss residents
If every one the world’s 7.5 billion people lived like the residents of Switzerland we would need 3.1 planets to live sustainably according to calculations by the Global Footprint Network. In aggregate, humanity has been living on credit since 2 August 2017. This means we are depleting earthly resources available to future generations of humans and everything […]
Geneva lags well behind Zurich in airport ranking
A recent airport ranking by Handelszeitung ranks airports around the world. 65 aviation experts looked at airport architecture, atmosphere, passenger flow, staff friendliness, relaxation, recreation, restaurant and shopping areas. Geneva airport at rank 50 is far behind third-placed Zurich. Two asian airports, Singapore (first) and Hong Kong (second) take the top spots. Changi Airport in Singapore offers free-to-access […]
Swiss Rail advert triggers accusation of sexism
According to various newspapers, Swiss Rail placed an advert on a job portal at ETH, a university in Zurich, offering work to cunning vixens, “schlaue Füchsinnen” in German. Successful applicants need to dress up as foxes, including fox tails, and run around train stations with posters informing travellers of alternative train connections. 20 Minutes reported […]
FILM: Un vent de liberté – an Iranian woman fights for her liberty
4 August 2017. UN VENT DE LIBERTÉ (INVERSION) ***1/2 (vo Farsi) Niloofar, a young, attractive woman in her mid-thirties, never married, lives with her elderly mother in Tehran. She has a flourishing clothing business and a budding romance going on. There is also a brother and his family living near by, and a sister who is […]
46 percent of Switzerland’s plant and animal life at risk from human activity
A recent government report sets out a long list of fungi, plants and animals that are extinct or at risk from human activity. 3% of the 10,350 native species studied have already disappeared, 5% are on the verge of extinction, 11% are in danger, 17% are vulnerable, and 10% are potentially threatened. These percentages add up to 46%. The […]
Median Swiss salaries by occupation, region, gender and immigration status
If you have ever wondered how much employees in Switzerland get paid you can check with the online tool Salarium, created by the Swiss government. The information is compiled from a database of numbers from a salary survey done in 2014. After entering five required bits of information: region, business sector, occupation, professional position and working hours, the […]
What one Swiss university learned by following student smartphone wifi signals
Researchers followed students on the EPFL campus in Lausanne, Switzerland, for ten days, by tracking their mobile wifi signals. Thanks to help from IT services at the university, researcher Antonin Danalet was able collect information on the movements of 2,000 individuals via their wifi signals over a period of ten days. By linking wifi access point […]
World’s longest foot suspension bridge in Switzerland
The bridge, accessible from the town of Randa near Zermatt, was opened on 29 July 2017. The 494 metre footbridge forms part of the Europaweg walking trail, one of Switzerland’s most famous. The two-day hike links Grächen and Zermatt. In 2010, the previous bridge was closed because of ground instability. Since then hikers have had to […]
