A WAITING GAME Afghan refugees find their feet in Bern By Gaby Ochsenbein DEC 2, 2016 – Maryam und Mahdi have German lessons twice a week with Fritz (swissinfo.ch) Applying for asylum in Switzerland is a long process. And those who come seeking refuge still have to get on […]
EXPLAINER Swiss immigration quotas: where do we stand? By Marc-André Miserez POLITICS SOCIETY NOV 29, 2016 – Immigration quotas would put Switzerland at odds with EU free movement policy (Keystone) February 2017 is looming large as a deadline for Switzerland to implement immigration quotas approved by voters back in 2014. […]
UNACCOMPANIED MINORS By Stefania Summermatter NOV 25, 2016 – 11:00 An unaccompanied minor sits in a transit centre for asylum seekers in Davos (Keystone) The number of migrant children arriving in Switzerland unaccompanied by a parent has increased tenfold in the past decade, with more than 2,700 asking for asylum […]
NOV 24, 2016 – 15:08 An extended mission in Kosovo, only smaller (Keystone) After more than a decade of helping to keep the peace in Kosovo, Switzerland plans to maintain its armed contingent in the western Balkans country but is reducing the size of the force. The Swiss cabinet on […]
POVERTY CONFERENCE NOV 22, 2016 – Making ends meet can be hard in an expensive country (Keystone) Although Switzerland has a reputation for being exceptionally wealthy, more than half a million people in the country are affected by poverty. A national conference to try and stop the number growing took […]
CROWDSOURCING By Anand Chandrasekhar IN DEPTH: INDIAN INTERSECTION NOV 15, 2016 – 11:00 Sabnis taught himself to use 3D computer graphics software through YouTube videos (Parth Sabnis) Would you hire a complete amateur living halfway around the world to design a Swiss watch, costing tens of thousands of dollars? It […]
FACES OF THE WORLD By Rainer Roduner and Roland Schm Switzerland has 8.3 million inhabitants, a quarter of whom are migrants from 193 countries. One person from each appears in a new photo book, The Switzers, by photographers Reiner Roduner and Roland Schmid. For Roduner, who initiated the three-year […]
Swiss soldiers are wearing boots made in Romania. Photo: AFP/Fabrice Coffrini Workers paid minimum for Swiss army boots Published: 18 Nov 2016 09:18 GMT+01:00 The Swiss army is manufacturing boots for its soldiers in Romania at the cost of just two francs an hour, according to a television report. According […]
MODERNITY VS TRADITION By Isobel Leybold-Johnson NOV 17, 2016 – 11:00 Marriage between a man and a woman? That is what is being debated in canton Zurich (Keystone) Voters in and around Switzerland’s biggest city will soon decide on whether to define marriage in the constitution as between a […]
“READ!” NOV 15, 2016 – 16:17 German police officers carry seized evidence during an anti-terrorism raid in Berlin on November 15 (Keystone) Switzerland has opened criminal proceedings against several people suspected of links to terrorist organisations, after morning raids at hundreds of homes in Germany. The investigations have been opened […]
HASTY EXIT NOV 16, 2016 – LeVine hosted an all-night election watching party in the capital Bern on November 9 (Keystone) The US ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein Suzan G. LeVine, has announced that she will be leaving Switzerland for America on the same day the new US president will […]
Hillary Clinton and Micheline Calmy-Rey. Sebastien Bozon/AFP Published: 14 Nov 2016 The Swiss foreign ministry is in the spotlight for donating nearly 500,000 francs to the Clinton Foundation in 2011, when Switzerland and the US were locked in a dispute over tax evasion. The donation, revealed by the Schweiz am […]
REBUILDING BOOM NOV 12, 2016 – swissinfo.ch The average age of the around 84,000 dams in the US is 52 years (Keystone) Companies like Sika and LafargeHolcim want to be a part of US President Elect Donald Trump’s plans to rebuild crumbling roads, bridges, tunnels and airports infrastructure. While the […]
CHEAPER CHOCOLATE By Anand Chandrasekhar NOV 8, 2016 – Toblerones come in a variety of sizes from 8g to 4.5kg (Keystone) The introduction of lighter, more affordable versions of the Swiss-made chocolate for the British market has sparked indignation in the UK. Swiss versions will remain unchanged. Mondelēz International, an […]
RELIGIOUS INTEGRATION By swissinfo.ch NOV 7, 2016 – 11:07 Almost two-thirds of respondents said there was no place in Switzerland for Islam (Keystone) Almost two-thirds of people living in Switzerland do not think Islam should be recognised as an official Swiss religion, according to a survey. A similar proportion believes […]
Source: Swiss Info There is neither a reason nor a legal basis to monitor all mosques and imams as a preventative measure, the head of the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) […]
AFTER THE RAID Muslim association suspends Winterthur mosque NOV 6, 2016 – 13:07 Police raided the mosque premises on Wednesday and temporarily cordoned off the immediate area (Keystone) The umbrella association of Islamic organisations in Zurich (VIOZ) has suspended a mosque that was raided by police on Wednesday. An […]
FINAL VERDICT NOV 4, 2016 – 14:51 The Imam Centre in Volketswil, canton Zurich was the planned site of a kindergarten that was denied its operating permit by Switzerland’s highest court (Keystone) Switzerland’s highest court has ruled that canton Zurich correctly denied an Islamic society’s request to open a […]
Source: Toronto Star In a public sermon on Oct. 21, the Ethiopian imam allegedly called for the killing and denunciation of Muslims who refused to participate in prayers at the […]
CYBER CRIME OCT 30, 2016 – Excerpts of the Attorney General’s criminal order were published by Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag on Sunday. (Keystone) The Swiss Attorney General’s Office has sentenced two Islamic State sympathisers this year, including the moderator of a large jihadist online forum. The former moderator is […]