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+42 +1
A Swiss village has banned refugees, and decided to pay a £200,000 fine instead
A Swiss village, one of the wealthiest in Europe, has refused to take in its government imposed quota of asylum seekers, voting to pay a fine of £200,000 instead. The residents of Switzerland’s alpine resort Oberwil-Lieli, where there are 300 millionaires among a population of 2,200, voted “no” in a referendum over whether to accept just 10 refugees. Swiss government proposals had outlined a quota across its 26 counties in order deliver on promise to take 50,000 asylum seekers across the country, but Oberwil-Lieli voted by 52 per cent to 48 to reject the refugees.
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+21 +1
First commercial carbon-capture plant set to open in Switzerland
What is the best way to get rid of greenhouse gases? The Swiss company Climeworks thinks the answer is to feed them to a greenhouse. The company is now building what is expected to be the world’s first plant to do so commercially. The firm expects to be opening the plant near Zurich in September or October. The plant will suck carbon dioxide out of the ambient air and sell it to an agricultural company to spur the growth of lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes.
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+38 +1
Switzerland 'rejects basic income', poll projections suggest
Projections from a referendum in Switzerland suggest voters have rejected a plan to introduce a guaranteed basic income for all.Some 78% of voters opposed the plan, a GFS projection for Swiss TV suggested. The proposal had called for adults to be paid an unconditional monthly income, whether they worked or not. Supporters said since work was increasingly automated, fewer jobs were available for workers. Switzerland is the first country to hold such a vote. No figure for the basic income had been set, but those behind the proposal suggested a monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs...
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+24 +1
Chess legend Korchnoi dies in Switzerland aged 85
Chess grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi, who defected from Russia to the West in 1976, has died in Switzerland aged 85. Born in 1931 in what is now St Petersburg, Korchnoi survived the siege of Leningrad during World War Two and is seen as one of the best players never to be World Champion. He was a four-time USSR champion and ranked number one in the world in 1965. However, he became convinced he had to leave the Soviet Union after being banned from playing internationally.
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+35 +1
Employee of Panama Papers Law Firm, Mossack Fonseca, Is Arrested in Switzerland
An employee of the law firm at the center of the leaks of the Panama Papers, which have revealed offshore wealth held in secretive accounts worldwide, has been arrested here on charges of data theft, one of the employee’s lawyers, Romain Jordan, said on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear what connection, if any, the person might have had with the Panama Papers, a trove of 11.5 million documents from a Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca. A consortium of news organizations began...
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+34 +1
EU tells Swiss no single market access if no free movement of citizens
Swiss-EU talks reveal determination of EU to make no concessions to UK over Brexit terms
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+2 +1
Opening of World’s Longest Tunnel is Mysteriously Bizarre
The bizarre opening ceremony of the Gotthard Base Tunnel under the Swiss Alps had many people puzzled and some wondering if it was satanic or worse. By Paul Seaburn.
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+27 +1
Switzerland, land of peace, sees gun sales soar after terror attacks
Business at Daniel Wyss’ gun shop has been brisk lately in the village of Burgdorf near Switzerland’s capital of Bern. He said the increased demand for firearms is triggered by a growing fear among the Swiss public that terrorists could attack their tranquil land at any time. As nations around Europe tighten their gun laws after a series of terror attacks in several countries since 2015, the Swiss are bucking this trend by turning to firearms for protection.
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+3 +1
Meeting to address British-Swiss ties post-Brexit - SWI swissinfo.ch
A delegation from Switzerland will visit Britain to discuss the countries’ future economic ties and agreements following Brexit. ...
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+8 +1
Up to 40% of asylum seekers in Switzerland ‘disappear’– report
Up to 40 percent of refugees who asked for asylum in Switzerland over the past three months reportedly disappeared from Swiss reception centers shortly afterwards, with their whereabouts unknown to the authorities. The country’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) confirmed that within the last quarter some 20 to 40 percent of refugees who have been assigned to reception centers have vanished from the monitoring system completely, Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reports.
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+17 +1
Swiss nuclear plants to remain on grid - SWI swissinfo.ch
Swiss voters have thrown out a proposal to close the country’s five nuclear power plants after 45 years in operation. The Green Party initiative was rejected by 54.2% of the vote, according to final results.
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+15 +1
Switzerland votes against strict timetable for nuclear power phaseout
People in Switzerland voting in a referendum have rejected a proposal to introduce a strict timetable for phasing out nuclear power. A projection for SRF public television showed the initiative failing by 55% to 45%. A majority of cantons (Swiss states) voted against the initiative. The plan, backed by the Green Party, would have meant closing three of Switzerland's five nuclear plants next year, with the last shutting in 2029.
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+23 +1
Looted Palmyra relics seized by Swiss authorities at Geneva ports
Swiss authorities have seized cultural relics looted from Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra, as well as from Libya and Yemen, which were being stored in Geneva’s free ports. The free ports provide highly secured warehouses where basically anything can be kept tax-free with few questions asked. The confiscated objects, from the third and fourth centuries, include a head of Aphrodite and two funereal bas-reliefs.
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+7 +1
ECHR: Swiss Muslim girls must attend mixed-sex swimming lessons
Switzerland has won a case at the European court of human rights over its insistence that Muslim parents send their children to mixed-sex school swimming lessons. The Strasbourg-based court ruled that Swiss authorities had not violated the right to freedom of religion by insisting that two Muslim parents send their daughters to mixed-sex swimming lessons.
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+15 +1
Vegan denied Swiss citizenship by neighbours annoyed at her animal campaigns
A woman in Switzerland has been refused citizenship, and therefore a passport, because her "annoying" vegan campaigning has rubbed her neighbours up the wrong way.
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+15 +1
Frustrated widow wants Liberals to expand assisted dying rules
Two years after a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada on doctor-assisted death, the widow of a man who travelled to Switzerland to end his life wants the government to ease the rules.
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+38 +1
'Government cuts denied me care I need so I've chosen to die'
Wracked with pain, and after eight years on morphine, Marie Lopez has finally chosen death over a life blighted by illness and cruel spending cuts. This once vibrant businesswoman has spent her every last penny paying for her own care after social services left her to suffer in agony.
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+5 +1
Bodies of Swiss Couple Buried in Glacier for 75 Years Are Identified
The mystery of what happened to Marcel Dumoulin, a shoemaker, and his wife, Francine, a teacher, had haunted residents of Les Diablerets for decades.
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+14 +1
Switzerland chainsaw attack: Five hurt in Schaffhausen
Police are hunting for a man who attacked five people with a chainsaw in the Swiss town of Schaffhausen. Franz Wrousis is alleged to have launched his assault at a health insurance office shortly after 10:30 local time (08:30 GMT). The attack sparked a manhunt involving more than 100 officers from both Switzerland and Germany.
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+21 +1
World's longest pedestrian suspension bridge opens in Switzerland
The world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge opened in Switzerland on Sunday, a ribbon-thin span nearly a third of a mile long that challenges hikers to proceed in places at nearly 28 stories above ground. Officials in the south of Switzerland unveiled the bridge after just 10 weeks of construction. It measures 1,620 feet long and rises as high as 278 feet above the Grabengufer ravine. The span is also impossibly narrow, at just 25.6 inches wide.
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