Switzerland

Swiss Central Bank: cash will live for many years

The Swiss central bank sought on Monday to allay fears among citizens that bank notes could eventually be phased out as a result of global money-laundering rules or the rise of alternative payments systems.

Among other benefits over cashless payments, cash provides "more effective budget control" and can be used without any technical know-how, while it also offers a comprehensive protection with regard to financial privacy, SNB’s deputy head Fritz Zurbruegg said.

It has been speculated for some time that Switzerland may have to do away with cash, especially high value banknotes, to get rid of its tag of being an alleged ‘safe haven’ for black money stashed by foreigners.

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Assisted suicide: from Canada to Switzerland for the Last Day

Canadians choose to travel to Switzerland to end their own lives last year, as Parliament passed a new law permitting doctor-assisted death that was widely criticized as too restrictive.

Dignitas, the Swiss organization that offers suicide assistance to those with chronic, degenerative or terminal illness said 131 Canadians became members in 2016. It says 11 Canadians came to them in 2014, seven in 2015, and with the new law in place, five Canadians still travelled to Switzerland for assisted death feeling that new Canadian law did not leave them options at home.

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Are you bored? Maybe you are a lawyer in Emirates

If you find yourself stifling yawns and counting down the minutes on the clock every single day that you’re in work, it could be because you work in one of the world’s most boring jobs.
A list of the 10 most boring jobs was released by employment specialist Emolument, that asked 1300 workers across 14 sectors if they were bored at work.

Law professionals are the least upbeat employees, with 80% saying they were bored at work, and chief executives were just as bored as junior employees. Being legally bored was put down to the repetitiveness of researching cases and rulings in a junior lawyer’s working week.

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Sanofi and Lonza: joint-venture will build $285 mln biologics facility in Switzerland

French drugmaker Sanofi and Swiss manufacturer Lonza, a supplier to the pharmaceutical, healthcare and life-science industries, announced Monday that they have entered into a strategic partnership to establish a large-scale biologics production facility in Switzerland. The initial investment will be around 290 million Swiss francs (€270 million), to be split equally between each company.

Pending regulatory approvals, the facility, through a 50-50 joint venture, will be located in Visp, Switzerland, Sanofi and Lonza said in a joint statement. The initial phase of the facility will commence construction in 2017, it is expected to be fully operational by 2020.

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Switzerland: cross-border workers rose again

The number of cross-border workers commuting to Switzerland for jobs has risen by more than a quarter since 2011, the Swiss statistics office (BFS) said on Thursday.

At the end of 2016, 318,500 cross-border workers were active in Switzerland, an increase of 11,300 over the previous year. Lake Geneva (37.2%), northwest Switzerland (22.8%) and the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino (20.2%) remain top destinations for commuters from across the border. In the same five-year period the total number of working people in Switzerland (including residents and non-residents) rose by 7.8%, to 5.1 million.

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Ticino, the Swiss canton, could see its local bitcoin

Ticino, the canton in southern Switzerland, has revealed its plans to issue its own local digital currency for everyday use. The future cryptocurrency called Ticinocoin (TIC) is a brainchild of computer scientists Claudio Rossini and Michele Fiscalini.The developers have already tested the currency: the pilot phase of the project was completed last week, Tribune de Geneve reported.

Regional virtual currency based on the blockchain technology is expected to stimulate the local economy offering faster, more transparent and less expensive transactions.

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Nestlé to focus on reducing sugar programm in its products

A report released by the Maltese Presidency and the European Commission on Wednesday says that childhood obesity should be tackled at an early stage and that schools can play a positive role in encouraging healthy eating habits.

“Considering the amount of time that children spend at school, as well as the fact that in many European countries students consume at least one daily main meal there, schools are an ideal environment for supporting healthy behaviours,” the report states.

Childhood obesity in Europe is increasing: in 2010, about one in three European children between the ages of six and nine were overweight or obese, while 2008 estimates were only about one in four.

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Swiss anti-migration campaign becomes a Tv Series for African spectators

Switzerland has launched a campaign to discourage Nigerian immigration based on drama. Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) is spending $450,000 on filming a TV series with African actors showing the perils of living in Europe illegally, which will be shown on Nigerian television.
Speaking to reporters, the spokesman for SEM, Lukas Rieder, said that one of the objectives of the series was to make clear that there are few chances of being granted asylum and the trip does not worth the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean.”Human traffickers tell potential migrants that Switzerland is paradise, it’s El Dorado. But that’s not true. We want to provide objective information about the dangers of passage, and the dangers of living in Switzerland without a permit, for example.”

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