The Women’s March on Washington, timed to coincide with Donald Trump’s first day in office as U.S. president, has spread around the world – including Geneva. Currently, there are plans for 62 similar marches in 31 cities on 21 January, according to Women’s March Geneva organiser Karen Olson. Olson, a former interpreter for the United […]
6 Swiss news items that made international headlines in 2016
Last night, Swiss broadcaster RTS presented the six Swiss news items garnering the greatest international attention in 2016. The first news peak occurred in January with eyes focused on the World Economic Forum in Davos. This was the second most reported Swiss event in world media. Then in February, the Swiss story gaining the year’s greatest […]
Private funds and UN agencies need to cooperate more, says president of Oak
A Walk in the Park with Kathleen Cravero-Kristoffersson, the president of Oak Foundation. Cravero-Kristoffersson has always had one objective: to improve lives, especially for women. Sometimes this has meant putting her life on the line. Now president of Oak Foundation, a private family foundation headquartered in Geneva, she is focussed on issues of social and environmental concern, […]
Magic mat to check shoes at Geneva airport
Tribune de Genève You arrive very late at the airport. You run to the security check area lucky enough to find there is no queue. Unfortunately the time it takes to remove your shoes, have them scanned, and put them on again, is enough to make you miss your flight. Or, the person in front […]
Geneva unveils big tax changes
Le Matin. After nearly ten years of European Union opposition to preferential company tax deals, Switzerland’s government agreed in 2014 to do away with such arrangements. Under current rules Swiss cantons can offer preferential tax rates to certain companies, mostly multinationals with most of their activity abroad. In Geneva, these special rates mean certain companies pay tax […]
International Geneva gets a new magazine in English
A new English-language magazine for international Geneva, called Global Geneva, launches its pilot issue this week. Le News interviewed the magazine’s co-founder and editor, former Le News editor, Edward Girardet, to find out why he started it and what it’s all about. Over a coffee with Edward in the UN cafeteria, he points out the window at […]
A pilgrimage to Geneva’s cemetery of Kings, with artist and writer John Berger
British writer and artist John Berger – 90 years-old on 5 November, 2016 – has lived in the nearby French Haute-Savoie since the 1970s and has made a name celebrating the vanishing culture and life of European peasants. But as Peter Hulm points out, Berger is also a surpising fan of bourgeois Geneva, and of […]
Author of false bomb alert at Geneva airport gets huge bill
Le Matin. On 14 October, the author of a false bomb alert was sentenced to six months prison after arriving at Geneva airport the day before, and declaring there was a bomb on board an Aeroflot aircraft he was trying to catch to Moscow. The flight connected to another from Moscow to India, where the man […]
Swiss against recognising islam as an official religion
20 Minutes. According to a poll taken by the newspapers Matin Dimanche and SonntagsZeitung, only 38% of those polled thought it would be a good idea to give islam the same status as christianity and judaism in Switzerland. Of those in support, 18% said yes, while 20% were somewhat in favour. The remaining 62% were against or […]
Swiss-based man to climb the equivalent of Mount Everest to get his message out
In 2014, Australian forester Scott Poynton used a cartoon to convince the head of the world’s largest palm oil company to stop destroying tropical forest to produce its product. This month he’s putting on his lime-green hiking boots and hitting the trail to keep men alive. Starting from Lake Geneva, Scott will climb the Jura peak, La Dole, […]
