Новости за 21.02.2018

The country has moved up two places in Transparency International’s (TI) 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking joint third alongside Finland and Norway. The global watchdog group’s annual index, published on Wednesday, found that only New Zealand and Denmark are perceived as being less corrupt than Switzerland. Despite dropping one percentile point overall, the Alpine nation jumped from fifth to third in a study that analyses perceptions by business people and country experts of the level of corruption in the public sector. Читать дальше...

The deadline of 20 years to exchange recalled banknotes should be abolished, the Federal Council suggested on Wednesday. The current system, which was introduced in 1921, operates under the assumption that discontinued notes which are not returned to the bank within the exchange deadline have either been lost or damaged. In a proposal to parliament, the Federal Council suggests that this rule is no longer in keeping with the reality of modern life. Life expectancy and the population’s mobility has increased dramatically in recent years... Читать дальше...

Zurich Women’s Football Club (Damenfussballclub Zurich, DFCZ) was founded on February 21, 1968 – the first officially recognised women’s football club in Switzerland.  Ladies had been getting together for unofficial kickabouts in the French-speaking part of Switzerland as early as the 1920s, but the Swiss Football Association did not allow them to play official matches. Even after DFCZ's founding, until 1971/1972 female teams were allowed to play only if they were affiliated to a male club. Because of this rule... Читать дальше...

Zurich Women’s Football Club (Damenfussballclub Zurich, DFCZ) was founded on February 21, 1968 – the first officially recognised women’s football club in Switzerland.  Ladies had been getting together for unofficial kickabouts in the French-speaking part of Switzerland as early as the 1920s, but the Swiss Football Association did not allow them to play official matches. Even after DFCZ's founding, until 1971/1972 female teams were allowed to play only if they were affiliated to a male club. Because of this rule... Читать дальше...

The Swiss government has approved plans for a trans-border national park in southern Switzerland.  The Federal Council has approved an international treaty with Italy, as well as the necessary amendments to park regulations, announced the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) on Wednesday. Eight municipalities in the canton of Ticino are planning the new park, which will include an area in neighbouring Italy. Now there will be a referendum where citizens... Читать дальше...

The Office of the Attorney General’s and the public prosecutor of the Canton of Bern have declared that they do not have the competence to investigate the revelations of illegal subsidies in the ongoing PostBus scandal. The two offices released a joint statement on Wednesday to announce that they would not be taking up the case, one week after the Federal Office of Transport (FOT) filed an official complaint. For one of them to open judicial proceedings, sufficient suspicion of an infraction... Читать дальше...

A Spanish court has issued an arrest warrant for Catalonian separatist leader Anna Gabriel, who is currently in Switzerland. An extradition order was not issued.  The Spain-wide arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday by the Supreme Court in Madrid, after Gabriel failed to show up for a hearing accusing her (and others) of rebellion and sedition.  On Tuesday she denounced “political persecution” in interviews with the Le Temps newspaper and Swiss public radio RTS. However, the court in Madrid... Читать дальше...

The Federal Council adopted on Wednesday an independent report stating that Switzerland’s sex education system is up to international standards in teaching youth about the biological and psychological aspects of sexual development. The report was prompted by a complaint lodged by Ticino parliamentarian Fabio Regazzi, who claimed that the images adopted by the official ‘Love Life’ campaign (see photo) were beyond the comprehension of children, and thus damaging. However, the report said that the imagery posed no threat to children. Читать дальше...

What do Céline Dion, Switzerland’s fourth national language Romansh and Swiss television all have in common? 10 years ago: Switzerland and Austria were the hosts of the 2008 European Football Championships. The same year saw Kosovo declare its independence from Serbia. Switzerland was the first country to recognize Pristina and to start diplomatic relations with Europe’s youngest country. 30 years ago: This was the last time Switzerland won the Eurovision Song Contest. Responsible for this was one Céline Marie Claudette Dion... Читать дальше...

Chief physicians at Swiss hospitals earn up to CHF2.5 million ($2.7 million) per year, a study has found.  Most earn between CHF350,000 and CHF1.5 million, according to a salary specialist who looked into the matter for Swiss public television. Urs Klinger has been researching the topic for five years. His figures are based on data from 174 Swiss hospitals. + How do health costs in Switzerland compare with those in the US? “One in four head or attending doctors (not employed by the hospital but... Читать дальше...

The boom days of adopting children from abroad are over – nowadays hardly anyone is adopting in Switzerland. There are several reasons for this. The airplane was full of children, Elena, Tom and Rhea (all names changed) can recall it clearly. But Myra was too small to remember. All four were adopted by Swiss parents in the 1970s. Their own parents could not or did not want to care for them anymore. Around 1,200 children from South Korea were adopted in Switzerland during this time. Many of them still meet up at the Dongari association... Читать дальше...

It's notoriously difficult to gain university places in medicine and veterinary science in Switzerland, so a growing number of Swiss are going to Romania to study instead. (RTS/swissinfo.ch)  There are reputable universities for medicine and veterinary science in Cluj, Romania's fourth most populous city in the northwestern part of the country. Teaching is in French and English, and the qualifications are recognised in Switzerland and European Union countries. Since Romania became a member of the EU in 2007... Читать дальше...

Can agroforestry fight soil and air pollution?

A proposal to scrap the mandatory licence fee for services of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) has lost more ground, according to a major opinion poll. The survey, published on Wednesday ahead of a nationwide vote on March 4, found that nearly two out of three people will reject the initiative. The initiative was launched by the youth chapters of the two major parties on the right of the political spectrum. Support for the initiative dropped 5% compared with a previous poll carried out... Читать дальше...