The gathering of bone doctors

2023-01-12

Global stability is most threatened by rising food and energy costs, climate-related disasters and the risk of further military conflict, according to 1,200 experts canvassed by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

2023-01-10

The chocolate supply chain features many intermediaries from bean to bar. Those doing the hardest jobs at the bottom of the chain get a tiny portion of a bar’s price while those at the top make the most money.

Today, Ivory Coast and Ghana produce over 60% of the world’s cocoa beans and Switzerland has become synonymous with chocolate. This mutually beneficial relationship has come under strain in recent years. The West African countries are no longer satisfied with their meagre slice of $6 billion of the $120 billion chocolate industry. Switzerland, along with the European Union and the US, is unhappy about deforestation and child labour in cocoa growing regions of West Africa.

West Africa wants to change the status quo and is trying to renegotiate its role in the chocolate industry.

2023-01-10

The rate of unemployment in Switzerland fell to 2.2% last year, the lowest rate in 20 years, according to official statistics. At the same time, trade unions complained that wages were too low for many workers and demanded more pay. On Monday, the State Secretariat for Economic affairs (Seco) said the jobless rate fell from 3% in 2021 to 2.2% last year.

2023-01-07

A former top lobbyist for Uber says the firm wilfully ignored regulations when it began operating in Switzerland in 2013. Uber says it has since updated its working model. By choosing to act first and apologise later in implementing its gig-economy model, Uber “massively undermined” democracy in many countries, including Switzerland, former lobbyist Mark MacGann told Tamedia newspapers on Saturday.

2022-10-28

Swiss bank Credit Suisse is shedding thousands of jobs, selling off parts of its business and raising billions in extra capital in a bid to reverse a downward spiral in fortunes.

2022-10-24

A 48-year-old businessman in Geneva has been given a two-year suspended prison sentence for making a fraudulent claim for a Covid loan that was 100 times the correct amount. He was found guilty of fraud and forgery of documents.

2022-10-18

The first woman in Switzerland ever to be elected to a cantonal parliament was Raymonde Schweizer. This Social Democrat came from the industrial town of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Neuchâtel Jura. A trade unionist and feminist, she was elected on her first try in 1960, thereby becoming a trendsetter at a time when Swiss women were not even allowed to vote in national elections.

Not once but twice was Neuchâtel the setting for key developments in the decades-long exclusion of women from the country’s democratic system.

This episode is part of the series Swiss democracy hotspots with Claude Longchamp.

This series in several parts is tailored for our author: Claude Longchamp’s expertise makes him the man who can bring alive the places where important things happened.

Longchamp was a

2022-08-14

A large alpine solar power plant is to be installed on the dam wall of Lake Lei near Ferrera in southeastern Switzerland. The 1,800 square-metre plant is being built by the Zurich Electricity Company. Located at an altitude of 1,930 metres, the plant will comprise more than 1,000 solar units with a total output of 350 kilowatts, equivalent to the consumption of 160 households.