Following this week’s compromise Lima Climate Change agreement, which basically keeps the global initiative on track with governments promising to bring forward their commitments until next year’s pivotal Paris conference, the question now is whether this will finally mean real action. It’s taken a long time for politicians and select business interests to acknowledge that […]
Swiss democracy and xenophobia: Need for more open debate
Last week’s Le News editorial questioning whether the over use of Switzerland’s referendum system was actually undermining democracy through too much democracy received considerable reaction, much of it irate. Clearly, we had touched on a sacred cow, even if not of the Swiss Brown or Simmental variety. How dare one criticize Swiss democracy? It has […]
Switzerland’s initiatives: Too much democracy?
Взять онлайн займ на карту. The overwhelming vote on 30 November against even more limited immigration (Ecopop); an end to special tax rates for wealthy foreigners and minimal gold reserves enabled the Federal Council in Bern, which had opposed all three initiatives, to sigh with relief. What the government did not need were more obstacles […]
Hoch Schwyz! – Who’s really Swiss in sports?
This week’s incredible Davis Cup victory, Switzerland’s first, was proudly wowed by Swiss both at home and abroad, including those who vehemently oppose migrants coming to this country, whether through last February’s anti-European Union vote and this month’s 30 November referendum. At least two of this month’s federal and cantonal initiatives are particularly xenophobic. The […]
Switzerland’s Anne Frank Legacy: Beyond frontiers and religions
Several weeks ago, I travelled to Basel with my wife and 14-year-old son to see an old family friend, Buddy Elias, now 88 and the last living relative of Anne Frank. The first cousin of Anne, Buddy had emigrated to Switzerland in 1931 with his family from Frankfurt, two years prior to the Nazi takeover. […]
Geneva ranked as best city in the world
While currently draped in November fog, Geneva might not seem to be the most liveable city in the world. When my wife first came here some years back in mid-winter, she did not even realise that Geneva was surrounded by mountains until one of those heavenly days suddenly lifted the grey from the end of […]
US Elections: What does the Republican victory mean for Switzerland?
It is often joked that the election of a US president should be the responsibility of voters world-wide, regardless of nationality. Any presidential decision in Washington, whether to send troops to contend with Ebola in West Africa, or to start a new war in Afghanistan or Iraq, tends to affect the planet as a whole. […]
State slavery: Swiss victims seek redress
Swiss, both young and old, often forget how quickly their country has changed over the past 50-odd years, and just how backward many parts were, both in the way of life and public attitudes, at the end of World War II. As a child during the late 1950s and early 60s, I travelled every summer […]
A global fund for reporting: Who should pay?
At last week’s Women’s Forum in Deauville, many participants said they wanted the private sector, governments and society-at-large to respond more effectively – fewer words, more action – to global humanitarian and development concerns. Whether clamping down on female genital mutilation or the need for companies to assume more socially responsible roles, there were at […]
Editorial comment: Can you be a good Swiss?
In an article highlighted last week by SwissInfo, a Swiss government-funded information service, a new survey on what is a Swiss has been issued by a group of artists, historians and sociologists fifty years after a controversially censored ‘Gulliver’ questionnaire was carried out during the Swiss National Exhibition in Lausanne in 1964. Basically, the landmark […]
