ORGANOIDS Revolutionising biomedical science: mini-brains in a vat By Celia Luterbacher, Lausanne AUG 2, 2016 – 11:00 Many people know that cancer is made up of cells. But equally important is the extracellular matrix, which surrounds those cells and inhibits or promotes their growth. (swissinfo.ch) Miniature organs and cancers grown […]
Jul 31,2016 – JORDAN TIMES – HANS-PETER LENZ On August 1, citizens in Switzerland and abroad celebrate the founding of the Swiss Confederation in 1291. Some 725 years ago, representatives of the three Swiss original Cantons secretly met on an isolated mountain meadow to swear to each other mutual support […]
CROWD INNOVATION Vote on fresh ideas to tackle immigration policy By Urs Geiser JUL 25, 2016 – 17:00 Workshops in Lausanne and six other Swiss cities generated ideas that help promote a fresh approach of the country’s immigration policy (foraus.crowdicity.com) How to break a perceived stalemate in Switzerland’s immigration policy? […]
The girl was staying in a centre for asylum seekers in Zweisimmen. Photo: Vasile Cotovanu Young migrant injured after jumping from window Published: 28 Jul 2016 10:03 GMT+02:00 A 15-year-old girl due to be deported from Switzerland is in hospital after jumping from a window on Wednesday morning. The girl, […]
Record-breaker By Susan Misicka Jul 26, 2016 – http://www.swissinfo.ch Despite a few clouds along the way, the adventure was a blue-sky triumph. (Keystone) Solar Impulse – the Swiss solar aircraft – has completed the first-ever round-the-world flight by a solar plane. The record-breaking flight covered more than 40,000km without a […]
Source: ET GENEVA: A woman who wanted to stop her husband boarding a plane at Geneva has admitted making a false bomb threat, prosecutors said on Wednesday, after hours of tightened security that caused traffic chaos around the airport on the French-Swiss border. More:
Source: BBC By Eric Weiner Although many countries are saddled with stereotypes, in Switzerland’s case they’re dead on. The alpine nation really is highly efficient. And meticulously punctual. Clean, too. […]
PODCAST A new take on old ghost stories By Celia Luterbacher http://www.swissinfo.ch SUBSCRIBE ON iTUNES DOWNLOAD MP3 FILE JUL 3, 2016 – 11:00 A University of Bern researcher argues that Victorian ghost stories can shed light on our understanding of culture, religion, and even modern-day science’s struggles with the mysteries […]
NASTY FOREIGN PESTS Asian insects make a beeline for Switzerland By Samuel Jaberg www.swissinfo.ch SEP 11, 2012 – 11:00 The Asian longhorn beetle arrived in Switzerland in wooden pallets Mountains, seas and deserts used to provide considerable barriers to the movement of plants or animals, but Switzerland has […]
Source: Swiss Info A one-year pilot project offering religious and spiritual guidance to asylum-seekers of the Muslim faith has been launched in Zurich. Christian and Jewish religious services of the […]
IMMIGRATION Asylum seekers lose status over home visits JUL 3, 2016 – 11:07 Anyone applying for asylum in Switzerland is not allowed to return to their country of origin. If they do so, they risk losing their recognised status as a refugee (Keystone) Almost 200 asylum seekers lost their official […]
Photo: P Cutler Court fines Muslim father in latest swimming lessons row Published: 30 Jun 2016 08:59 GMT+02:00 A Muslim father was fined in Switzerland on Wednesday for refusing to allow his daughters to take swimming lessons at school, in the latest case exposing the challenges of integration in the […]
Source. Dawn GENEVA: Swiss authorities have rejected the naturalisation application of two Muslim girls who refused to take swimming lessons at their school alongside boys, reported USA Today. The girls, aged 12 and 14, refused to take the compulsory lessons claiming their faith prevents them from swimming with males. The Basel residents […]
PROTEST STUNT Duo defy first day of Ticino headgear ban By Stefania Summermatter JUL 1, 2016 – Nora Illi on the streets of Locarno in defiance of the headgear ban (Ti-Press) A Swiss woman, who has converted to Islam, and a French-Algerian businessman are facing fines after defying a new […]
RELIGION AND GENDER Why Islam? The story of three female converts By Sibilla Bondolfi JUL 1, 2016 – 11:00 Nora Illi, an officer of the Islamic Central Council Switzerland (ICCS), at an event in May 2010. (Keystone) With a burka ban coming into force in part of Switzerland on Friday, […]
Swimming lessons are compulsory in Basel’s education system. Photo: Daniel Orth Muslim school kids must swim to be Swiss Published: 28 Jun 2016 09:57 GMT+02:00 Authorities in Basel have denied two Muslim teenage girls a Swiss passport because they refused to participate in school swimming lessons and residential camps on […]
POST-BREXIT SOLUTIONS By Simon Bradley JUN 28, 2016 – 17:42 An awkward day for British Prime Minister David Cameron, in Brussels for the first post-Brexit EU meeting (Keystone) Post-Brexit Britain is likely to opt for a Swiss-style solution – rather than a Norwegian model – to oversee relations with the […]
Slow return Sending rejected asylum seekers home in depth: Asylum in Switzerland .http://tp.srgssr.ch/p/swi/embed?urn=urn:swi:video:42247752 Jun 27, 2016 – 15:47 When a request for asylum is rejected, the applicant is supposed to leave the country straight away. Not everybody does, and there are vast differences in how the cantons deal with this. (SRF/swissinfo.ch) In […]
Participants at the Europride festival in Zurich in 2009. File photo: AFP Priests to protest Swiss Pride march with Latin prayers Published: 23 Jun 2016 Thousands of people are expected to gather in the picturesque Swiss city of Fribourg this weekend to take part in French-speaking Switzerland’s 15th annual Pride […]
The fire broke out in a baroque confessional. Photo: St Gallen Police Tourists put out fire in historic Swiss church with holy water Published: 22 Jun 2016 10:21 GMT+02:00 A couple of quick-thinking tourists earned the praise of police on Tuesday when they used holy water to put out a […]