OCT 18, 2016 – Asylum seekers play cards in a chalet near Villars-sur-Ollon in the Vaud Alps (Keystone) Requests for asylum in Switzerland were down by almost half in the third quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2015, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) reported […]
Pilgrimage from China to Oerlikon By Thomas Kern, Luigi Jorio POLITICS Religion Several thousand people gathered in Zurich on October 14 to see the Dalai Lama, the highest authority in […]
Source: The Guardian By Harriet Sherwood; Religion correspondent The Church of England is considering dropping its legal requirement to hold weekly Sunday services in churches with small and declining congregations. […]
Image copyrightRUSSIA TODAYImage captionBroadcaster RT is backed by the Kremlin NatWest bank has frozen the accounts of Russia’s state-run broadcaster RT, its editor-in-chief says. Margarita Simonyan tweeted: “They’ve closed our accounts in Britain. All our accounts. ‘The decision is not subject to review.’ Praise be to freedom of speech!” RT […]
The economist exposes the flaws of the common currency, but his solutions for reform don’t convince A protester burns a euro note during a demonstration in Athens, June 2015. Photograph: Reuters John Kampfner Monday 22 August 2016 It’s two months since Britain’s worst foreign policy blunder of the modern era […]
Source: The Daily Beast In 79 C.E. Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the nearby cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in thick layers of volcanic ash. There was no time to suffocate; most died not from the poisonous gas but were instead flash-heated into immediate rigor mortis. The eruption froze the final […]
10/14/2016 Sophia von Bonin Co-founder of Re:Start CARSTEN KOALL VIA GETTY IMAGES What if we viewed the influx of refugees into Germany as an opportunity rather than a crisis? This was the question I asked myself, together with a group of young Berliners, when over 800,000 refugees arrived in Germany last […]
Aisha Dow Local council elections have traditionally revolved around the three Rs: rates, roads and rubbish. But for Casey Council, a rapidly expanding and multicultural municipality in Melbourne’s south-east, a new R appears to be taking centre stage: religion. It came to a head in April. With police officers […]
File photo: Martin Abegglen Published: 12 Oct 2016 The Swiss people will go to the polls next February to vote on whether it should be easier for third generation immigrants […]
ISLAMIC STATE OCT 15, 2016 – Since 2001, 77 Swiss have left the country for conflict regions to take part in jihad (Keystone) According to Markus Seiler, head of the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS), hardly anyone from Switzerland wants to join the Islamic State (IS) anymore. In an interview with […]
Source: The Local The threat from Volker Kauder, a key member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, follows a similar warning by Justice Minister Heiko Maas, in a growing sign of German politicians’ frustration with such websites.”The time for round-tables is over. I’ve run out of patience,” said Volker Kauder, chairman […]
It was just one year after the second world war ended, which brought death and destruction over Europe, when three young Muslim Missionaries from British India, arriving via England, stopped over in Switzerland on 13th October 1946. The actual destination was Germany, but at that moment the entry was […]
BHUMIBOL OBITUARY The late Thai king’s youth in Switzerland By Luigi Jorio OCT 13, 2016 King Bhumibol of Thailand, who reigned for seven decades, died in hospital aged 88(Keystone) Thailand’s […]
Sir John Sawers says Moscow has shifted balance of power but criticises Boris Johnson’s call for demo outside embassy Sir John Sawers: ‘We are not treating Russia and China as major powers that can cause us a great deal of damage.’ Photograph: Elyse Marks/Edelman/PA Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor Wednesday 12 […]
You can’t have an isolationist policy on climate change, global terrorism, weapons deals, international cyber-crime, the Zika virus epidemic or the refugee crisis – and you can’t have an isolationist policy on birth Holly Baxter @h0llyb4xter 28 comments It is pointless for Theresa May’s Government to demand passports before giving […]
Oct 10,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – MARK LEONARD People used to think that the most important decisions affecting Europe were made in Paris, Berlin or Brussels. But in recent months, as the European Union has confronted the refugee crisis, and the Syrian conflict that is fuelling it, Moscow and Ankara […]
When a Syrian peasant woman approaches our table in a small Ottoman restaurant, the locals step forward to give her coins. It puts to shame the liars of the Brexit campaign and their hatred of the foreigners who supposedly threaten little England Robert Fisk Kilis @indyvoices 176 comments Syrian refugees […]
Source: The Guardian By Simon Jenkins As desanctified, secularised buildings owned by the community or local trusts, ailing churches may just survive. More Muslims go to mosques than Anglicans go to […]
Flouting the rules? Photo: AFP, Richard Juilliard Geneva police to lift ban on bearded officers Published: 07 Oct 2016 10:12 GMT+02:00 Canton Geneva police intend to fall into line with the rest of the country and lift a centuries-old ban on officers sporting beards, in a move likely to please […]
Queen Margrethe’s comment came in a wide-ranging interview with Der Spiegel. Photo: JAN WOITAS/Scanpix Published: 04 Oct 2016 00:57 GMT+02:00 With Denmark once again engaged in a national conversation about what makes one ‘Danish’, Queen Margrethe II told German newspaper Der Spiegel that she represents “all people who are citizens […]