A key bilateral accord with the European Union on open labour markets has won a clear majority at the ballot box. Switzerland’s rightwing parties, which forced the nationwide vote, suffered a defeat on Sunday February 8, as nearly 60 per cent of voters backed the government and a broad alliance of parties, organisations and the business community.

Official results show 59.6 per cent of the electorate approving a proposal to continue a labour accord with 25 EU states and at the same time extend the agreement to the newest members Bulgaria and Romania.

Politicians, diplomats and business leaders were especially pleased with the result. The decisive margin sends a clear message to Brussels that Switzerland wants to foster relations with the EU, especially in the tough economic climate, said Georg Lutz, a political scientist at the Social Science Research Centre in Lausanne.

The vote was closely followed in Brussels because a no vote would have ended a series of economic accords laboriously hashed out between Switzerland and the EU and hampered relations already strained over Switzerland’s banking secrecy laws.

Even clearer than Sunday’s approval by Swiss voters of a key labour accord with the European Union was the positive mood in the Swiss press the day after.

But is chasing deals with the European Union such a good idea when the EU seems at times to have no direction of its own?

Roger Federer has come up once again short versus his nemesis Rafael Nadal. He hasn’t beaten him in over a year, and despite Nadal disputing an epic semi-final in Melbourne, was unable to win his 14th Slam at the Australian Open and equal Pete Sampras’ record. Versus Nadal, Federer is slowing getting a reputation for choking.

So the question is, can Roger ever climb back on the number one throne and knock off that cocky Spaniard? Or has his time come and gone, and he must know accept the crumbs Nadal is prepared to leave him?

Early last year, Roger had an excuse for defeat – mononucleosis. The effects lasted a long time and it wasn’t until the US Open that he seemed to start firing on all four cylinders again. But since then, major results have been few and far between. So is this the end for Roger?

tennis

Swiss companies are like firms from all over the world: they are hoping to make it big in China. Many are hoping especially to strike gold at the Beijing Olympic Games by using the world’s largest sporting event to sell their products and services in one of the fastest growing international markets. They even have a temporary base in Beijing, the House of Switzerland. In doing so, they are displaying a very pragmatic outlook, preferring to ignore problems such as human rights abuses in Tibet in favour of their bottom line.

One has to wonder though if this approach is even worthwhile given the way the Chinese consider business. Chances are if you have a good product it will be copied and the Chinese authorities will do nothing to protect your intellectual property. Some major companies prefer to put up with this kind of piracy, betting that their sales in China will be good enough to overcome their losses to counterfeiters and makers of cheap knock-offs.

The Swiss Showband is performing alongside the world’s most prestigious military formations at this year’s military tattoo in Basel. The 130-strong music/dance team was recruited from across German speaking Switzerland, and has been practicing its unique show for a year now. (swissinfo, Julie Hunt)

A controversial Swiss-Iranian gas deal is still causing a stir a few weeks after it was signed. The deal, worth up to €22 billion, is being criticised yet again, this time by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League. The Jewish association has posted ads in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times as well as others stating that Switzerland is financing terrorism. The US government, the World Jewish Congress and Israel have already complained about the deal, with the American authorities asking for details to see if violated UN sanctions.

The Swiss foreign ministry has responded that the agreement was no different to those signed by other parties with Iran, including the European Union. If only the Swiss foreign minister had not been there for the signature, perhaps no one would have noticed… But since she insisted on wearing a headscarf to a meeting with the Iranian president, she made sure everyone noticed she was true to her feminist beliefs.

Iran

The head of Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, has finally called it quits as his institution’s losses from the US subprime crisis continue. Chairman Marcel Ospel announced his departure on April 1, saying he had decided to leave to help restore confidence in the bank, which has has lost nearly SFr40 billion in the American property market mess.

Mind you he has always believed that he is right and the others wrong. The outcry provoked by his massive salary in years past didn’t even bother him, even though he has regularly been one of the country’s top two earners. Nor did he seem to mind being portrayed as the villain who encouraged the collapse of national carrier Swissair by turning off the credit tap and waiting for the government to resurrect the airline as Swiss.

The latest round of losses were enough to see Ospel finally come unstuck, with him cast as being the prime culprit for the bad news and described by some as UBS’ biggest liability. The bank’s image has taken a hammering at home, and there are more than a few Swiss home-owners and businesses wondering how the institution got into such a pickle – gambling for high stakes on the US property market – when loans in Switzerland are only handed out if stiff conditions are met.

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Swiss tennis star Roger Federer is not a robot. He has admitted to succumbing to a bout of mononucleosis – glandular fever – and blames the dread disease for his bad start to the year. (Who has he been kissing lately? I thought was a teenie illness.) His “horror” stretch includes losing to eventual champion Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open semi-finals in January and crashing out in the first round of the Dubai Tennis Championships last week.

tennis

Worried the Americans might bomb your home by accident one day? You do have to wonder when they send their military staff to exclusive resorts in the Swiss Alps – at least what the person who wrote this thought. For some reason Garmisch-Partenkirchen is in Switzerland… This is probably no laughing matter if it is any indication of how geography is taught in American schools. The task facing the National Geographic people is looking more and more like the Eiger North Face.

The Swiss should probably be worried: there are people in Schaffhausen who still remember when US bombers hit the city during the Second World War. But the US military and friends aren’t alone in screwing up – CNN managed to once show a map placing Switzerland somewhere near the Czech Republic. And the Swiss probably shouldn’t crow too much about their geographical prowess. It’s not always great either!

P.S. The Swiss army did invade Liechtenstein by accident not that long ago…

geography

Sweaty t-shirts shouldn’t be a turn-off according to a new dating website. ScienceMatch.com promises to increase chances of better sex, fertility and lasting relationships with less risk of cheating. The bold claims are based on a Bern scientist’s odour attraction research. Claus Wedekind’s studies focused on genes that play an integral role in a part of the immune system known as the major histocompatibility complex (MHC).

Wedekind recruited female volunteers to smell three-day-old men’s t-shirts and rate the most attractive. After analysing the DNA of both the men and women he found a clear correlation between odour attractiveness and differences in MHC. All this science doesn’t come cheap though: the dating service cost clients $1,995 (SFr2,200) alone for the DNA analysis that checks immune system compatibility.

dating

Armed robbers have made away with what could be the biggest heist in Swiss history: SFr180 million worth of paintings by Cezanne, Degas, Monet and Van Gogh. Zurich police said four paintings were stolen on Sunday from the Bührle Collection, one of Europe’s finest private museums for Impressionist and post-Impressionist art. It is the biggest theft ever committed in Switzerland – overtaking SFr75 million stolen from a Zurich’s main post office a few years ago – and chances are in Europe as well.

It follows hot on the heels of the theft of two Picassos less than a week ago from a culture centre in nearby Pfäffikon, a town that is home to some of the country’s wealthiest people. Why the paintings were stolen in both cases remains a mystery, although there has been plenty of speculation it might have been for a private collector – or how about for ransom?

crime