Category Archive: 3.) Swissinfo Business and Economy

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24 hours inside a new Swiss prison

2022-06-14

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Over 800 people volunteered to be locked up in a Zurich prison last month to test the new facility. SWI swissinfo.ch reporter May Elmahdi-Lichtsteiner was one of the lucky inmates selected for the trial. The Zurich cantonal authorities recently came up with the unusual idea to give the detention facility and staff a test run before the prison starts taking real inmates. The pilot project was intended as a good way of “ensuring the proper...

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Trafigura posts record half-year profit as commodities volatility intensifies

2022-06-14

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2022-06-14

Geneva-based Trafigura reported record half-year profits as volatility and disruption in commodity markets, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, supercharged earnings for the world’s biggest traders.

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Tax on airline tickets wins sky-high public support

2022-06-13

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2022-06-13

Almost three-quarters (72%) of respondents to a Swiss survey are in favour of increasing the price of airline tickets for climate reasons.

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Hotel booking platforms to face legal restrictions

2022-06-12

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2022-06-12

Parliament has approved restrictions on online reservation platforms to protect the Swiss hotel sector.

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Credit Suisse pushed for spyware sales at NSO despite US blacklisting

2022-06-11

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2022-06-11

Credit Suisse pushed for NSO Group to keep selling its Pegasus spyware to new customers just weeks after the US blacklisted the Israeli cyberweapon manufacturer, saying authoritarian regimes had used its hacking tool to silence dissent.

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Switzerland wants to play key role in rebuilding Ukraine

2022-06-10

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2022-06-10

The Swiss are hosting a major international conference on reconstruction in Ukraine at the beginning of July. The agenda and a participants’ list are currently taking shape.  However, it’s unclear how much international enthusiasm this event – and its aims – will garner in the end.

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Sustainable investments boom in Switzerland

2022-06-09

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2022-06-09

The volume of sustainable investments in Switzerland increased by almost a third last year, reaching an all-time high of CHF1.98 trillion ($2 trillion). 

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Meet Yello, the techno aliens from Zurich outer space

2022-06-07

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Hailed as pioneers of techno music and still filling halls in the wake of a career spanning four decades, the Zurich duo has just won the Swiss Grand Award for Music. Speaking to SWI swissinfo.ch, they explain the secret to success: not to care about success at all. Boris Blank is the musical brains, but he confesses that he can’t read a score. Dieter Meier is the singer who learned how to sing on the job. Together they are Yello, probably the...

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Oerlikon to sell Russia business to local owners

2022-06-05

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2022-06-05

Swiss industrial firm Oerlikon has announced that it will hand over ownership of its business in Russia to local management. In a brief statement released on Thursday, the Oerlikon Group said it had entered into an agreement with the local management team to sell all its operations in Russia. “The business will continue to operate independently under the new owners,” said the company.

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The world is at a turning point, but it was business-as-usual in Davos

2022-06-04

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2022-06-04

It's easier to make lofty pledges about saving the world when the world isn't battling multiple crises. The World Economic Forum’s programme last week included the word “crisis” 42 times. Throughout the four-day event, "crisis" was uttered on panels on climate change, in interviews on the war in Ukraine, and in conversations on food shortages held around lavish buffet tables.

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Swiss set aside CHF100 million in Ukraine development funding

2022-06-03

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2022-06-03

The Ukrainian funds available to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for 2022 will not affect projects elsewhere, an official said on Thursday. Before the Russian invasion in February, the SDC had earmarked CHF25 million ($26 million) for development and cooperation projects in Ukraine; parliament has since boosted this by CHF61 million, SDC director Patricia Danzi said on Thursday.

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Swiss block re-export of armoured vehicles to Ukraine

2022-06-02

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2022-06-02

The Swiss authorities have vetoed Denmark's request to send Swiss-made armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) recently rejected Denmark's bid to provide about  20 Piranha III infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine, Swiss public television, SRF, said on Wednesday.

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Why young people no longer want to work in hotels

2022-05-31

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The Swiss catering industry is finding it hard to attract staff – apprentices included. Young people are turning their backs on the long and irregular hours that come with working in hotels. The Covid pandemic has not helped.

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China stalling on trade talks with Switzerland, say papers

2022-05-31

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2022-05-31

Switzerland wants to update its 2014 free trade agreement with China, but Beijing refuses to talk, owing to criticism of its human rights record, report the NZZ am Sonntag and SonntagsBlick newspapers.

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Swiss supermarket products for children have too much sugar

2022-05-30

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2022-05-30

The overwhelming majority of products with packaging designed to appeal to children contain too much sugar, salt or fat, report Le Matin Dimanche and SonntagsZeitung newspapers.

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Ukraine war hits supplies of food packaging material

2022-05-30

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2022-05-30

Switzerland is considering emergency stockpiling of plastic packaging as the Ukraine war brings a world shortage of packaging material, reports the NZZ am Sonntag.

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Economic divide: how equal is Switzerland’s wealth distribution?

2022-05-27

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2022-05-27

While the gap between rich and poor has been steadily widening in many countries, the situation in Switzerland has remained stable over the past decades, according to recent statistics. Yet while income distribution in the Alpine nation is relatively egalitarian, wealth is more concentrated in the hands of the rich.

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Switzerland and Germany seek to conclude gas solidarity deal

2022-05-26

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2022-05-26

Swiss and German ministers have agreed to negotiate a solidarity agreement to help each other with gas supply issues in an emergency. The announcement was made on the side lines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting taking place in Davos.

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How ‘Davos Man’ hijacked capitalism

2022-05-25

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2022-05-25

The global elite are gathering in the Alps this week for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. Journalist Peter Goodman, author of Davos Man, argues that these billionaires are a “separate species” who have become so powerful that they’re writing the rules for the rest of us.

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Russian oligarch ‘handed Swiss company over to wife’

2022-05-25

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2022-05-25

The effectiveness of sanctions against Russia have again been called into question as it emerged that an oligarch transferred his stake in a fertilizer company to his wife. The move has apparently thwarted European Union sanctions that Switzerland also enforces.

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