Volume 1, Number 1 MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2011

Helvetia Gazette.News and views from across Switzerland5.— CHF / £4.00 GbP / 4,50€ eur / $7.50 CND / $7.00 uSD / ¥530 JPY INTerNATIoNAl eDITIoN

GAZeTTe.CH

Right-wing parties tumbleFederal council election nets five new faces

Associated Press

BERN - Swiss voters backed moderate parties in their gen-eral election on Sunday, and the nationalist Swiss People’s Party lost ground after mount-ing a campaign heavy on anti-immigrant sentiment.

The nationalists were pro-jected to take 25.9 percent of the vote for the lower house, a drop from four years ago, according to projections from the public television station SF early Monday.

On the left, the Green Party

also suffered a surprising set-back, taking 7.9 percent of the vote. Both the People’s Party and the Greens were projected to lose seats in Switzerland’s lower chamber, the 200-mem-ber National Council.

The results halted 20 years of steady growth by the People’s Party in parliamentary elec-tions, which are held every four years. The party, which drew just 11 percent of the vote in 1987, rose to capture 28.9 percent in 2007, while support eroded for two of the major center-right parties, the Free Democrats and the Chris-tian Democrats.

Two other centrist parties – the Conservative Democrats, who split from the People’s

Party in 2007, and the Green Liberal Party – were the ben-eficiaries of the nationalists’ decline. The Green Liberals in particular rode a wave of an-tinuclear sentiment stoked by the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan in March.

The number of political par-ties in Switzerland makes for intense haggling after every election, as each group de-mands fair representation in the country’s seven-member cabinet, which governs by consensus despite the some-times widely differing views of its members.

Despite its setback, the People’s Party won the most votes, and it immediately laid

claim to two seats in the cabi-net, whose ministers run fed-eral agencies and take turns serving as president for a year.

The party’s campaign warned that immigrants were spoiling

a nation that has been an oasis of stability.

Almost one in five residents of Switzerland was born else-where, one of the highest pro-portions in Europe.

PHoTo CourTeSY oF SwISS FeDerAl CouNCIl

The eight elected council members, from left: Johann Schneider-Ammann, Didier Burkhalter, Doris Leuthard, Micheline Calmy-Rey, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Corina Casanova Ueli Maurer and Simonetta Sommaruga.

Caviar from the Alps?Fish heated by train-tunnel wind

Carol Copley Reuters

FRiBouRg - Dressed in a surgeon’s white garb, “Caviar Meister” Tobias Felix slits open the slimy, grey skin of the sturgeon on the table in front of him to reveal Switzer-land’s latest luxury delicacy.

Costing up to 1,275 CHF for 250 grams, “Oona” – meaning “extraordinary” in Celtic – is the name of the Alpine coun-try’s first Swiss caviar.

The product came about thanks to a brainwave by en-gineer Peter Hufschmied who decided to use the mountain stream that tumbles out of the north end of the Loetschberg railway tunnel with a tempera-ture of 20 degrees Celsius to breed fish that thrive in warm water.

Some 35,000 Siberian stur-geon were released into the balmy waters six years ago.

They sturgeon have since produced some 300 kg of caviar for the current winter season.

Switzerland has the second highest proportion of million-aire households worldwide, at 9.9 per cent, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

The country is also one of the world’s top consumers of caviar per capita. The fish farm in Frutigen in the Ber-nese Oberland plans to grow its shoal to 60,000 sturgeon, making it possible to produce three tonnes of caviar annu-ally, of which two tonnes will be dedicated for export.

It’s a project that has locals seeing green.

“Caviar” continued on p. 4

IndexFeature 3Ideas 5News 2Shutterbug 6Sports 8

Three Swiss now face nuclear arms charges

U.S. offers immunity to banks who disclose IDs

Katie Reid Reuters

A father and his two sons have been charged with involve-ment in the smuggling ring of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb who sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya, pros-ecutors said Tuesday.

The three Swiss men were engineers who worked with

centrifuges – used to enrich nuclear material – and became friends with Khan, say media.

The Khan network trafficked nuclear material, equipment and know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea for two decades before Khan’s 2004 arrest.

Non-nuclear power Switzer-land is not authorized under the global Non-Proliferation Treaty to possess documents related to nuclear weaponry.

Cathy Bosley Reuters

U.S. officials are offering 11 Swiss banks, among them Credit Suisse, a deal that al-lows them to avoid criminal prosecution in exchange for revealing details of their U.S. offshore business to Washing-ton, a paper reported Sunday.

Famed for the care with which it protects account hold-ers’ anonymity, the Alpine state has been forced to act by a series of U.S. probes into alleged tax evasion by Ameri-cans concealing their assets in Swiss banks.

In 2009, the Swiss parlia-ment approved a deal to al-low UBS to reveal details of around 4,450 U.S. clients and pay a $780 million fine to end lengthy tax proceedings that had threatened the future of the country’s biggest bank.

The Swiss government has been in talks with U.S. author-ities for months to try to get an investigation into 11 banks

dropped, in return for expected hefty fines on the banks and the handing over of the names.

Credit Suisse and Basler Kantonalbank are among the banks under investigation.

Citing an unnamed source, the newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported that 11 banks would each be offered a deal like the one to which UBS agreed.

In exchange, the banks would have to accept U.S. requests for administrative assistance in tax evasion cases that would mean delivering all informa-tion on their U.S. offshore business via Bern to the Unit-ed States, the paper reported.

The paper described a meet-ing between Swiss officials and representatives on Friday in Bern. The paper said banks would likely accept the deal.

Yet a spokesman for the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters, which rep-resents the Swiss government in negotiations with the U.S., said talks were still ongoing.

Klausjagenour coverage on p. 6

Kim Jong-un is set to take over his father as leader of North Korea. See our ex-clusive footage of Jong-un as a high-schooler in bern.gazette.ch

ASSoCIATeD PreSS

DYlAN C. roberTSoN Helvetia Gazette

BREAKING ONLINE

Peter Popham INM

LugANo - Talk to the en-thusiasts and you will quickly learn that there are few things on Earth more magnificent than a St. Bernard dog.

Marco Polo, on his journeys through China, was introduced to the Tibetan Mastiff, “tall as a donkey”, he declared later, “and with the roar of a lion”. St. Bernards are their clos-est European cousins. If you believe the experts, they have been bounding around in the Alps for 2,000 years.

But now the St. Bernard risks being torn once and for all from the place after which it was named. The one picture everyone carries around of a St. Bernard is of this huge dog, a small barrel of brandy strapped to its throat, rescuing unfortunate travellers caught in the snow and ice.

The barrel of brandy was always, sadly, a myth but the person-saving task was real enough, and lasted for cen-turies. The Great St. Bernard Hospice, 2,500 feet up the Alps on the way to Mt. Blanc, was for centuries a life-sav-ing institution at this peril-ous crossroads on the roof of

Europe. Everybody who was everybody came through St. Bernard’s Pass: Hannibal, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Sten-dahl. If you wanted to get into Italy the quick way before they bored the tunnel, this was the way you came. But if fate was to bring you here late or early in the year, your chances of getting buried alive in an ava-lanche, or merely succumbing to the cold and altitude, would be extremely strong. In which case you would normally die - and if you didn’t it was be-cause one of the St. Bernards kept by the monks, their great size complemented by their in-credible senses of hearing and smell, came to rescue you.

Now, sadly, that whole ex-traordinary tradition risks be-ing snuffed out. The monks at St. Bernard’s are down to four, including Father Hilary. These days the dogs no lon-ger serve any purpose. “It’s not that some other breed of dog has taken over,” says Giovanni Morsiani, president of Italy’s Saint Bernards club, “but they’ve been supplanted by the inventions of man: he-licopters, mechanical diggers, sensors.”

It’s nearly 40 years since the St. Bernards of St. Bernard’s last performed their traditional function.

The only reason they remain is for visiting tourists. But

the experience is frequently disillusioning: long gone are the monks photographed for National Geographic in 1957 who practically lived with the dogs. The dogs’ living conditions have deteriorated. In 1957 they were housed in a barn of a building behind the hospice, but in recent years they have been confined to small kennels, far too small for them to exercise prop-erly. When the snow and ice closed in recently the monks moved the dogs to the mu-

seum for warmth, as a tem-porary measure. But that was considered inadequate, too, and they have now all been moved to the main Augustine monastery in the Swiss town of Martigny.

The Swiss authorities say that the conditions in which the dogs are kept do not satisfy Swiss law and at this point the monks are ready to throw in the towel. They can no longer, they say, afford to keep their enormous companions, each of which gets through five

pounds of horsemeat and dog meal per day.

It’s a sad conclusion. The an-cestors of today’s St. Bernards have been high in the Alps for about as long as the people and are ideally built for the condi-tions: big enough to trundle unbothered through deep snow drifts; strong enough to haul sleds loaded with sup-plies like a train of huskies; endowed above all with amaz-ing hearing and smell, so they can hear an avalanche coming critical seconds before their

human companions. They can also sense whether humans buried, under the snow and ice or in the wreckage of an earth-quake, are alive or dead, which at the scene of a major disaster is a faculty of obvious impor-tance. Then there is the sheer benignity, which is harder to explain or understand.

When they find a traveller unconscious in the snow, they instinctively cover them with their bodies to raise the blood temperature. They instinc-tively lick their face, repeat-edly. If there are several dogs at the spot, one will stay with the victim while the others set up a hullabaloo of barking, to bring help.

For a long time St. Bernard’s hospice was the only place in the world to find St. Bernards. At the place where they origi-nated they are now penned up in nasty cages, a burden to monks who no longer have any use for them.

This week the monks launched an appeal for funds, with the collaboration of Italy’s St. Bernards club and the Italian and Swiss towns closest to the hospice, to en-able the monks to hire two specialised dog handlers and build new, decent kennels, so the connection of the St. Ber-nards with St. Bernard’s may be preserved.

Costly tradition hits doghouseA2 | NeWS HelVeTIA GAZeTTe · gazette.ch · monday, december 19, 2011

High-tech rescue gear and expensive diet are putting famed St. bernards out of commission

reuTerS FIle PHoTo

Though they can detect avalanches, these huge dogs eat five pounds of meat and grain daily.

ANJA NIeDrINGHAuS aSSociated PreSS

Though generous discounts still bring skiers to the resort town of Verbier, the dry weather often shortens their stay.

Matthew Saltmarsh NYT

gENEVA - As this compact Swiss city pushes to enhance its reputation as a host for international organizations, there are likely to be some local casualties. In fact, there may already be one.A tussle encapsulating the

tensions between the city’s international aspirations and local realities is playing out in microcosm at a prime property in the heart of Geneva’s inter-national district.The site, Le Domaine du Châ-

teau de Penthes, dates to the 14th century and comprises six buildings, including a museum on Geneva’s military history, a restaurant and education and conference facilities.A foundation that has been

managing the site and museum for decades has a lease with the owner, the Geneva region-al government, that expires early next year. The problem is that the regional government, or canton, will not disclose its plans, leaving the foundation in limbo and unsure whether it should stay and invest, try to relocate or close down.The canton has signaled,

however, that it favours rede-veloping the site as a retreat for international organiza-tions. “We are the owner and we will do what we want with it,” said Olivier Coutau, the canton’s representative for in-ternational organizations.

Squeezed among the United Nations Palace, the U.S. and Italian diplomatic missions and the city’s Botanical Gar-dens, Château de Penthes oc-cupies a prize location in a city in which good real estate is scarce, real estate values have soared and zoning laws are strict.The site has about nine

hectares of tree-dotted land, open to the public, offering panoramic views over Lake Léman and of Mont Blanc. For many residents, the do-main’s gardens offer bucolic relief in an increasingly crowded city.Benedict von Tscharner, the

foundation’s president, and his b a c k e r s say they have been trying to get a re-s p o n s e from the canton on its plans s i n c e 2008.Geneva already is home to

165 diplomatic missions, 23 international organizations and 250 nongovernmental organizations. An estimated 30,000 people work for non-governmental organizations and diplomatic missions in the city. The local govern-ment extends incentives for international and diplomatic missions, including waiving rents and arranging favorable financing.Yet that may not be enough.

A message is filtering down from the top that Geneva

Can Geneva do local and global?

Dry winter is ‘snow joke for Swiss tourism

Cathy Bosley Reuters

ZüRich - Armed with snow canons and cut-price hotel deals some of Switzerland’s ski resorts, already belea-guered by the strong Swiss franc, are grappling with an-other obstacle – no snow.

A dry November has forced several ski resorts to push back the start of the season, the latest in a string of bad news for hoteliers who have struggled to fill beds as the soaring Swiss franc deters for-eign holidaymakers.

Not to be disheartened, Da-vos-Klosters nestled in eastern Switzerland employed no less than 250 snow canons to get

pistes ready for the season start – a week later than scheduled.

Some 3,000 winter sport en-thusiasts trekked to the resort lying 1,560 meters above sea level last weekend to slide down the 6 km of pistes made from artificial snow, long white stretches on an other-wise brown and green land-scape.

Despite the delayed start, Yves Bugmann, finance direc-tor of Davos-Klosters moun-tain railway, remained unper-turbed for now.

“The losses so far are mar-ginal and can be recouped through cost cuts,” he said. “Even so, a good start is the basis for a successful season.”

Tourism, which contributes some 5 per cent to Swiss gross domestic product, has come un-der pressure due to the strong Swiss franc that rose by more

than 20 per cent against the euro earlier this year and flirt-ed with parity in August – the height of the summer season.

Although the Swiss National Bank set a cap of 1.20 CHF to the euro on September 6, many hoteliers still regard the cur-rency as overvalued and say the tourist sector needs a good win-ter to stave off job cuts.

Veronique Kanel, spokes-woman for the Swiss tourism organization, said there was no cause for alarm yet.

“However, should this situa-tion last until mid-December, the lack of snow coupled with the strong Swiss franc would be extremely worrying,” she said.

Switzerland had its last heavy snowfall on October 19, but the Federal Office for Me-teorology is forecasting snow Friday evening, ending a five-week drought.

To lure price-conscious ski-ers and stop locals from stray-ing to slopes over the border, Davos is offering free lift passes to those who book an overnight stay.

This is just one initiative as part of the project ‘Franc-ly Switzerland’ run by the tour-ist board, which aims to sell the country, a favorite winter haunt of the rich and royalty, as an affordable destination.

Boasting many snow-capped peaks, Saas Fee in southwest-ern Switzerland poked fun at snow-poorer resorts in a video showing winter sports fans at-tempting to ski and sledge and on grassy fields.

“We regret that snow enthu-siasts are forced to carry out such questionable activities and invite you to enjoy the start of the winter season with us,” Saas Fee said in a mock news video.

Olivier Coutau

A Swiss FrankensteinA weak euro has sent the Swiss franc soaring, with devastating effects on the country’s export-driven economy. The Guardian’s Helen Pidd travelled to Kreuzlingen, a village in Thurgau canton, 10 minutes from the German border. like all of Switzerland, townspeople are struggling with less tourism and nearby attractive prices.

A3 | FeatUremonday, december 19, 2011 · gazette.ch · HelVeTIA GAZeTTe

PHoTo CourTeSY oF SwISSmINT.CH

In the Karussell shopping centre in the Swiss town

of Kreuzlingen on Thursday, all was quiet. At noon in the Ca’Puccini cafe, one white-haired lady nursed an empty coffee cup.

The opticians: empty. H&M: two browsers. In the Import perfume shop, the saleswoman said she had served just eight c u s t o m e r s since 8:30 a.m. “It’s un-believable,” she sighed. “I went on holi-day for three-and -a -ha l f -weeks and came back to this. Look! There’s nobody here.”

She knew where everyone was: “Germany. Over there.” She nodded her head back-wards. Her problem is that “over there”, just a 10-minute walk away, is the medieval uni-versity town of Konstanz. And since the Swiss franc (CHF) stormed to a record high last week, reaching almost 1:1 par-ity with the euro (down from 1.3 CHF to the euro last year) after global currency traders piled in, more and more Swiss shoppers have abandoned the motherland to snap up bargains across the border.

Meanwhile, the Lago mall over inW Konstanz was bus-tling. In DM, a local phar-macy, the Städler family from the Swiss town of Maur were stocking up. In their trolley were multiple cans of Axe deodorant for their two teen-age sons (€3.25 compared with 6.20 CHF), family-sized bottles of Head & Shoulders shampoo (half the price back home), and various products from L’Oréal no longer avail-able in their local supermarket – due to a standoff over whole-

sale prices between the co-op and the manufacturers.

“It’s ridiculous really,” said the dad, Marco. “Everything is at least half the price, some-times a third of the price back home. I’d be prepared to pay a premium, maybe 20-30 per cent, to shop back home, but not 50% or more. I’d be mad.”

The Städlers were not just benefiting from the unusually clement currency exchange rates: they were also able to claim back the 19-per-cent sales tax charged on almost all German goods. After a hard

day’s shop-ping, all they had to do was pop into cus-toms on their way back home and ask for a stamp on the green tax refund forms they received

in each shop.

Stamps and statisticsLast Saturday, the tiny road

border crossing between Kon-stanz and Kreuzlingen had a record day. “We were stamp-ing 380 an hour at one point,” said Robert Helfrith, a customs spokesman. “Last year we stamped 5 million forms; in the first six months of this year we had already stamped 3 million, so we’re looking at a 20-per-cent increase in Swiss shop-ping trips in Konstanz year-on-year.”

In his office at Konstanz town hall, Friedhelm Schaal, the head of economic de-velopment, presented more statistics. On the wall was a printout of the previous day’s currency fluctuations; when he gets to his desk each morning, the first thing he does is look at how the franc is performing. The stronger it gets, the richer his town becomes. “We have an annual sales volume of €550 million and 30 per cent of that comes from Swiss cus-tomers,” he said. “By the end of this year we’re expecting that percentage to rise to 35-38 per cent.” And that’s not all: “The average Swiss customer spends 30 per cent more than the average German.”

By the Limmat river in Zürich on Thursday after-noon, Christian Bruggers, the manager of Teddy’s Souvenir Shop, was looking at a rath-er different set of accounts. “We’re still getting the same number of tourists, they’re just not spending as much,” he said, as his colleague rang a few francs for a fridge magnet through the till. “As with the

cuckoo clocks, the proper ones [155-2,500 CHF] – no one is buying those right now. But what can I do? I can’t lower my prices. My costs are still the same.”

The Milligan family from Berkshire, U.K. were brows-ing. “We’ve had a bit of a shock with the prices,” said Debbie, on holiday with husband Rob, daugh-ter Ellen, 13, and son James, nine. “We were in Frank-furt a few days ago and bought three pretzels for €1.75. Here we saw one pret-zel on sale for 7 CHF. Breakfas t in our ho-tel, just an o r d i n a r y N o v o t e l , costs 28 C H F . W e ’ v e been going to the su-permarket and making our own.”

The Swiss government is so worried about losing tourists that it re-cently gave the na-tional tourist board an extra 12 million CHF for marketing. “It’s a worry for us,” said Daniela Bär, a spokeswom-an for Schweiz Tourismus.

“We don’t have our figures yet but we’re expecting a 5-per-cent decrease in tour-ist numbers on last year.” The lesser-known mountain regions are the worst hit, she said. “The cities get a lot of business travellers who aren’t as price-sensitive, and the big-hitting mountain resorts, like the Matterhorn and the Jung-fraujoch, will be fine too. But the smaller places are already suffering.”

Until the financial crisis, the franc traded in a relatively nar-row band. But since then, it has strengthened 40 per cent on a trade-weighted basis, snapped up by panicked inves-tors seeking havens from dol-lars and euros.

Feeling deflatedThe Swiss National Bank

(SNB) has warned that what the billionaire entrepreneur Christoph Blocher this week described as the “catastroph-ic” overvaluation of the franc could tip the country into re-

cession and deflation. It is also causing losses for millions of east E u r o p e a n h o m e -own-

ers w i t h mortgag-es in francs, as well as for European banks hold-ing franc-linked derivatives contracts. Less likely to garner sympathy are the ultra-rich Swiss-domiciled hedge fund traders who are grumbling that their lavish bonuses – often paid in dollars – are suddenly worth less than they thought.

But for many wealthy Swiss residents, many of whom own homes abroad, the situa-tion has left them even richer. Drinking outside Zürich’s Churchi am Wasser restaurant, a group of software developers were toasting the success of a new project.

“My disposable income has gone through the roof recent-ly,” said Martin Taylor, 41, a British IT manager who has a euro mortgage on a house in the Netherlands. “In Holland, I paid

52-per-cent income tax. Where I live, in the canton of Zug, I pay 5.6 per cent”.

But it is the traders panic-buying francs who have really left Switzerland in a precarious position, according to angry business leaders. These “specu-lators” were recently criticized by Nick Hayek, chief executive of the Swatch group, who told them to “stop messing with our Swiss franc.” Christoph Raz, a producer of Emmental cheese, said this week that he had already lost 17 per cent of exports. Serge Gaillard, direc-tor of employment at Switzer-land’s state secretariat for eco-nomic affairs, predicted big job

losses this autumn if the franc remained high.

Fifty per cent of Switzerland’s robust, stable economy relies on exports, and it’s this sector the SNB was trying to shore up earlier this month when it start-ed trying to devalue the franc by flooding currency markets.

So far the experiment has had only modest success: on Friday the franc had fallen back to about 1.13 against the euro.

Scan here to share your thoughts on the ongoing currency crisis.

“Since the financial crisis, the franc strengthened 40 per cent, snapped up by panicked investors seeking havens from dollars and euros.”

Analysis Product Kreuzlingen Konstanz Difference

One kilogram of bananas

3.20 CHF$3.55

€1.59$2.15

39%$1.40

Nivea Visage cleansing wipes

5.95 CHF$6.60

€2.25$3.08

53%$3.52

Dove roll-on deodorant

5.95 CHF$6.60

€1.95$2.64

60%$3.96

Pampers diapers (x40)

25.95 CHF$28.78

€8.65$11.72

59%$17.06

H&M plain white vest

7.90 CHF$8.76

€4.95$6.70

24%$2.06

Data source: The Guardian. Calculation and conversion to Canadian dollars by Dylan C. Robertson.

DYlAN C. roberTSoN HG

“Enough is enough” reads a statement from a co-op fighting franc price-gouging.

GeNerATeD bY I NDexmuNDI.Com

This table shows some of the extensive price differences between Switzerland and bor-dering Germany. It’s because of low prices like this that many are crossing the border to buy necessities.

This chart demon-strates the Swiss franc’s fluctuation with the euro. because eu-rozone members are Switzerland’s main source of trade and tourism, the franc’s sharp rise in value this August was traumatic. It seems to be gradu-ally stabilizing.

Luigi Jorio SwissInfo

BERN - On December 12, 2008 Switzerland officially opened its borders to citizens of the Schengen area and broke its physical isolation from its European neighbours.

Systematic checks at the border have been abolished but the fight against crime has become more effective thanks to better international collabo-ration.

By entering the “borderless” Schengen zone – comprising European Union members (without Britain and Ireland), as well as Norway and Ice-land - Switzerland took a step closer to joining the large Eu-ropean club. The Swiss people approved the move in 2005.

Switzerland’s international airports form one of the prin-cipal entry points into the old

continent. Under Schengen the Swiss authorities have there-fore had to assume a gate-keeper role to help tackle the flow of illegal immigrants into Europe from third countries.

Thanks to tighter judicial and police cross-border coopera-tion, Schengen has become a useful crime-fighting tool. The Dublin Convention, which has also been in force since 2005, has also resulted in better man-agement of asylum requests by member states.

“Switzerland is in a special situation seeing as it’s not part of the European customs union,” explained Rodolfo Contin, chief of staff at the Swiss Border Guards HQ.

“Systematic checks on peo-ple have been abolished but, unlike other states, other cus-toms controls have been main-tained, such as on goods.”

Mobile customs controls in border regions and on the main rail links have been stepped up as compensatory measures, said Contin. At Swiss airports,

which were given the Schen-gen-friendly stamp of approv-al in March 2009, passenger checks from third countries have become “systematic and rigorous”, he noted.

Yet the system is not infal-lible. Swiss border guards have been asked to take on additional responsibilities to manage the flow of 650,000 people and 350,000 vehicles that cross national borders ev-ery day. But they say they need

additional staff. Both houses of parliament

last week supported a motion to increase border personnel and salaries. The senate urged the government to review staffing levels by the end of 2010.

The head of the Swiss bor-der guards, Jürg North, gave a positive overview of Swiss integration in the Schengen zone and replied indirectly to right-wing fears that Schen-

gen could cause an increase in crime.

North praised stronger cross-border cooperation, partly resulting from the Schengen Information Service (SIS), a database which lists stolen objects, false documents and people wanted by another Eu-ropean country in connection with serious crimes.

“Thanks to the SIS we have identified 5,958 delinquents, of whom 60-70 were particu-

larly dangerous criminals,” he recently told the Südostsch-weiz newspaper, adding that four kilograms of drugs were seized every day.

The Schengen security sys-tem also foresees a common visa policy. Whoever is in possession of a three-month Schengen visa to travel to Ita-ly, for example, can visit Swit-zerland without additional for-mal procedures.

According to Switzerland Tourism, introducing a single European visa has been espe-cially significant for visitors from China, Russia and India.

“For travel agencies, it has become much easier to include Switzerland on European cir-cuits,” said spokesperson Ve-ronique Kanel.

Visa-free gets stamp of approval

Caviar: ‘It’s a bit like washing gold, only it’s black’“Caviar” from p. 1

“We’ve already received en-quiries from Russia, Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi,” said Andreas Schmid, head of mar-keting and sales at Oona. “It’s partly to do with the fact that Switzerland has a reputation for good quality.”

In the caviar laboratories, chilled to between four and seven degrees Celsius, the del-icacy, synonymous with Rus-sian tsars, is collected entirely by hand.

First the sturgeon are scanned using ultra-sound technology to check that the roe (eggs) are ripe and ready for consump-tion. Once the sac of eggs is removed from the fish, Felix rubs the mass over a metal sieve-like bowl to separate them from the membrane and remove traces of blood.

“It’s a bit like washing gold, only it’s black,” said Felix, Switzerland’s only Caviar-Meister, who says he never tires of sampling the delicacy. “It’s great. I get paid to eat caviar every day.”

Then a large pair of tweezers is used to pick out any eggs that are discolored. A fine, powder salt is added to the caviar to draw out the mois-

ture, and make it glisten like black pearls.

Oona is sold under four dif-ferent grades. The best-quality one is eggs handpicked by Felix to have a minimum di-ameter of 2.6 mm, around just five per cent of the total caviar produced.

A 30-gram tin costs 215 CHF, positioning it in the upper-end of caviar brands.

Here today.Here tomorrow.

Taking in some Tunes aT The BundesplaTz

A4 | NeWS HelVeTIA GAZeTTe · gazette.ch · monday, december 19, 2011

After three years, shared-border Schengen agreement is being hailed by Swiss and neighbours. Though still no plans to join eu

Scan here to share your thoughts on the Schengen agreement.

PHoTo CourTeSY oF FlICKr uSer wArreNSKI

Border crossings like Brogeda are now only used for inspecting industrial transfers.

Simon Bradley SwissInfo

gENEVA - Gorka Cruz is not your typical Geneva banker. Every winter he hangs up his suit and tie to prepare for several months’ humanitarian work in India.The young financier has many

other strings to his bow – and guitar. He recently scored an online hit with his humorous song and video clip “Global Economy” about an impending economic meltdown.“On average I spend six

months here and then six months there, but we’ve got a visa problem with India and can only stay three months, so I’ll have to see how I can stay longer. I’ve got Swiss-Spanish dual nationality, so maybe I can find a solution,” he told swissinfo.ch, sipping a cup of tea on the terrace of the Café du Soleil in Geneva.Cruz is used to this slightly

odd routine, as he has been

shuttling back and forth be-tween Switzerland and India for the past five years.The 33-year-old, who studied

philosophy, Spanish and so-ciology at university, has just finished a three-month mis-sion at a Geneva hedge fund. Before that he worked for four years at Barclays Bank in Ge-neva in their back office.“I want to go to India, so I

earn my money here in order to finance my stay there. When I’m in Geneva I don’t spend very much going out to restau-rants, in order to save,” he said.His love of India dates back to

1999 when he began visiting to learn yoga and meditation.In 2001, he met Saswot

Sourav, the blind founder of an NGO behind the Children’s Hope orphanage in the town of Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu. From 2005 to 2010, Cruz

travelled to India to lend a hand at the orphanage “from morning to nightfall” dealing mostly with administrative and financial matters.The 20 orphans from the cen-

tre are now being looked after by local foster families funded

by the NGO. This winter Cruz is about to start a new mission.“It’s about helping protect the

banks of the Ganges; local ma-fias have appropriated land to build on and people have cre-ated a movement to stop that,” he said. “Saswot’s always got lots of projects going on.”Cruz is very comfortable

with this nonconforming dual exis tence, which to some might seem rather contradic-tory.“I didn’t

study fi-nance but landed in the industry

by chance; it’s a job like any other,” he said. “I don’t have any ethical problems; that’s what the world’s like.” Ironically, the work in Geneva

seems to help him personally.“It’s good for me. It’s struc-

tured with deadlines,” he said. “There are moments when it’s stressful but it’s also very com-fortable. It’s a holiday com-pared with the work in India.”

Banker invests in giving

Gorka Cruz

DYlAN C. roberTSoN Helvetia Gazette

A man listens at the weekly concert in front of the federal parliament house in Bern. Last Tuesday the Thurgau Police Band performed as part of a rotating canton schedule.

mICHAel buHolZer reUterS

Long the world’s top caviar consumer, Switzerland now makes some of its own black gold.

Helvetia Gazette.News and views from across Switzerland

markus Spillmann Publisherrené e. Zeller Managing editorFelix müller online Bureau chief

Fredy Greuter editorial Page Headlukas Häuptli Politics editormichèle reis Public editor

Dylan C. robertson editor-in-chief

mIKe PeTerS Helvetia Gazette

Helvetia Gazette inc. banhofstrasse 23, Zürich, 9003 Switzerland

LEttERs to thE EditoR

Bye bye, black sheepAN ENd to thE sVp?

The Swiss People’s Party, known as SVP, lost dramatically in last week’s elections.

Good riddance.The party, long an embarrassment to Swit-

zerland, is an extreme right-wing, nationalist organization which opposes immigration and the Schengen agreement, a shared European free-travel zone.

The party made worldwide headlines in the run-up to the 2007 national election with its infamous black sheep ad, which featured an illustration of three white sheep standing on a Swiss flag, one of which is kicking a single black sheep across a line. The ad, which reads “for increasing security,” had blatant racist undertones and promoted a party that wants strict border controls and mass deportations of for-eigners.

In that 2007 election, the party scored 28.9 per cent of the popular vote, making it the single largest party on Switzer-land’s National Council.

In November 2009, the SVP successfully campaigned for a ban on the construction of minarets. The country was flooded with an illustration featuring minarets tearing through a Swiss flag while a black niqab-clad woman glared at onlookers.

The ban made little sense. Muslims only make up five per cent of the Swiss population, and most come from Turkey and Balkan coun-tries, areas with relatively liberal forms of Islam where niqab wearing is uncommon. Prior to the ban, the whole country only had six mosques, four of which had minarets.

The SVP has published other offensive ads. One against naturalization features hands of varying skin tones prying into a tray of Swiss passports. Another features menacing black

crows standing over Switzerland’s borders.Illustrations of immigrants as conniving ani-

mals are not that different from Nazi posters depicting Jews as rats.

SVP has used emotional propaganda to ad-vance its political objectives. Using ads un-imaginable in Canada, it creates an “other” out

of foreigners, making Swiss citizens fear and mistrust a large number of the people they en-counter every day.

The party’s rise has been reminiscent of the fascism of the 1930s, when multiple European states urged citizens to cling to their national identity with a fervour that resembled or even incorporated religion. Dictators ruled, regular people reported their neighbours for thought crimes, and genocide was committed on a ter-rifying scale.

Luckily, Swiss voters have turned to a more rational political discourse. But citizens ought to ask themselves: how did such a crazy party become so popular in the first place?

PHoTo CourTeSY oFSCHweIZerISCHe VolKSPArTeI

The SVP often used not-too-subtle imagery in advertising to advance its racist policies.

It’s good to be clean, but I’d rather be happyI have to confess, I have

always been a bit intimi-dated by the Swiss devotion to cleanliness.

It all began not long after I arrived in Switzerland when, as a new mother, I was invited for coffee by a woman who had had her baby in the same hospital as me.

I found myself sitting in a kitchen which seemed more suited to open heart surgery than a cosy chat about feeding routines and diaper rash.

The surfaces gleamed, the floor was spotless, even the babies were squeaky clean – apart from mine, who was only squeaky.

But, a few years on, I have become more used to Swiss hygiene standards so, when it

came to moving house, I knew I was expected to leave my old home immaculate.

Sure enough, I got a letter saying the hygiene inspector would be there at 10 o’clock on a Monday morning.

He arrived, punctual to the nanosecond – a dapper little man in a maroon jacket and beautifully pressed trousers.

His name was Herr Sch-weizer – or Mr. Swiss in Eng-

lish – and he had even brought a spare pair of shoes to wear inside the house.

I should have recognized the warning signs when I no-ticed that Herr Schweizer, who was no taller than me, some-how managed to look down at me over the top of his glasses.

But I had spent the best part of three days cleaning and I was confident I would pass the inspection with flying colours.

“Let’s start in the kitchen,” said Mr. Swiss and I trotted ea-gerly after him. I was particu-larly proud of the kitchen – old postcards and invitations were gone from the walls, so too was the odd blob of spaghetti sauce, vintage 2002.

But Herr Schweizer was not impressed. He was too busy

unscrewing my taps.“Look”, he said pointing to

the inside of a pipe I’d scarce-ly known existed. “All these calcium deposits, you’ll have to get rid of them.”

We moved on to the ce-ramic hob. Mr. Swiss bent over it. I could see his reflection in its pristine surface – he could see s o m e t h i n g else.

He produced a razor blade from his pocket and scraped gently – a tiny black speck floated upwards.

“Still dirty”, he said.An hour-and-a-half later we

were still in the kitchen, but mercifully almost finished, just one drawer to go.

Herr Schweizer pulled it open to reveal three old fish knives, a cork, two bottle openers and what looked sus-

p i c i o u s l y like a lock of child’s hair.

This time he said noth-ing. He just sighed and added the drawer to his list.

The list grew ever longer and I realized I had at least another day’s cleaning ahead of me.

It gave me a chance, during the scrubbing and polishing, to reflect on why it is the Swiss

attach so much importance to cleanliness.

A friend of mine says it is the crowded this small and mainly mountainous coun-try. Space is limited; most of the seven million inhabitants live in apartments so keeping things clean and tidy is neces-sary just to live comfortably.

My own interpretation has to do with the role of women in Swiss society – those with children often do not work.

A recent survey revealed that the average Swiss woman can spend at least two hours – every day – on housework.

The very idea exhausts me, but it probably saves them the ordeal I went through at Mr. Schweizer’s hands.

From bbc.co.uk

If you build it, will they come?Robert Libman’s ideas (“Re-place parking lots with peo-ple,” Opinion, Dec. 12) would encourage speculation, not land development.Parking-lot operators are

not real-estate developers. In most cases such land was in-herited, or purchased based on the parking-revenue potential and density laws at the time. All that this increased allow-ance for density and height will achieve is to hike land values, which would permit the parking-lot operators to re-finance and realize additional “non-realized capital gains” (i.e. take the value out of the property without paying taxes) while waiting for the addi-tional inflation of their land. Until there is a realistic solu-tion to the parking needs of the downtown core, I don’t doubt that this will simply raise the costs of parking.Maximization of return on

investment is directly related to the price of the land, which in turn is determined by the density proposed by the plan-ners of the potential project.In the so-called public con-

sultation, which if I under-stand correctly is for property-owners only, the “merits of the projects” seem to be profitabil-ity and maximization of same. What property-owner would not want an increase in his or her land evaluation based on an adjacent development?Talk about a catch-22 scenar-

io, and a conflict of private in-

terests with our need for public urbanization.

Ken LondonFribourg

Stop harassing us with bad dataRe: “Workplace harassment linked to higher wages” (Busi-ness, Dec. 12).The author of a Vanderbilt

University Law School study attempts to make a correlation between wages and incidence of sexual harassment.Joni Hersch lists a number

of professions that have both a high incidence of sexual harassment and a high salary. She lists, in order of preva-lence: mining, followed by construction, agriculture, for-estry, fishing, hunting, trans-portation and utilities.She notes that the lowest in-

cidence occurs in education and health services.Hersch has failed to observe

that the top fields where ha-rassment occurs are over-whelmingly male-dominated, while the lowest harassment fields are overwhelmingly fe-male dominated. So, in the male-dominated

fields, a woman is isolated from female support. She is outnumbered by men. Sheer numbers of men in these fields — and not the salaries — is the detail of interest. Also, since women are paid less than men, naturally the fields where women dominate would reflect lower salaries.But Hersch is adding two

and two, and coming up with

20. She says that companies pay premiums for workplace hazards that cause death and disability. And she extrapolates from

health risks to harassment risks. Then she concludes, “In-dustries where the risk of sex-ual harassment is high must pay more to attract and retain good employees.”This is unbelievable logic.

Can this professor really imag-ine that managers sit down and analyze how much putting up with harassment is worth?

Amy Beth ThompsonToronto, Canada

Kids are no angelsRe: “Home is where bullying begins” (National, Dec. 12).I am a recently retired sec-

ondary school teacher and, yes, there is all kinds of bully-ing among students. But, no one seems to mention

the very real bullying of teach-ers by students.This is not unusual and can

be very subtle. And if a teach-er cannot deal with it strongly and effectively it is a huge problem.No one wants to look incom-

petent and while, I have to tell you, I miss the kids. For the most part, I appreci-

ated and tried to sympathize with and understand them,.Life in a classroom is no bed

of roses. It takes thick skin.But I’d do supply work just

to be able to have spend time with young students.

Anne CurranGeneva

Imogen FoulkeshOLES iN MY ChEESE

A5 | ideaSmonday, december 19, 2011 · gazette.ch · HelVeTIA GAZeTTe

Ideas Online: How to deal with the high franc?See our Ideas Online section for even more insightful commentary. This week, Gazette columnist Berner Schöggi examines Switzerland’s options for dealing with its soaring currency. gazette.ch

“The surfaces gleamed, the floor was spotless, even the babies were squeaky clean — apart from mine, who was only squeaky.”

Klausjagenin KüssnachtThere’s no Coca-Cola Santa for citizens of Schwyz canton.

Ever year the town of Küssnacht am Rigi welcomes 20,000 visitors to partake in Klausjagen (literally: St. Nicholas chase), a midnight festival of light and sound.

A parade goes through the town as men with ornate homemade paper lanterns spin, farmers make a ruckus marching with horns and cow bells, while teenagers give sweets to children. Originally a centuries-old pagan festival, the celebrations are now part of the deeply Catholic canton’s character.

The festival takes place on St. Nicholas’ Day, December 6. This year was as loud as ever, and Gazette photographer Dylan C. Robertson was on the scene.

A6 | SHUtterBUG HelVeTIA GAZeTTe · gazette.ch · monday, december 19, 2011

Klausjagenin Küssnacht

Clockwise from top: lanterns parade through the town, the train stop that welcomes 20,000 visitors in one night, a St. Nicholas lantern, groups of men hold large lanterns on their shoulders, Mr. Klaus arrives, farm-ers welcome him with horns and bells, a look at the city by night.

A7 | SHUtterBUGmonday, december 19, 2011 · gazette.ch · HelVeTIA GAZeTTe

SPORT IN BRIEFFiFa MaY BOOT SwiSS Over TranSFerSFIFA has threatened to ban the Swiss Football Association if it fails to impose a transfer ban on FC Sion by January 13.

The group on Thursday up-held a decision by football’s European ruling body UEFA to refuse FC Sion re-entry to the Europa League after the Swiss club breached player re-cruitment rules.

Sion had been put under a transfer embargo over signing Egyptian goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary, but proceeded to sign six players in the summer.

Sion then fielded five of the six players during the Europa League play-off tie against Celtic and were kicked out of the competition as a result.

AGenCe FrAnCe-preSSe

BaSel TruMpS Man uFC Basel pulled off a historic victory on Wednesday night, knocking English football gi-ants Manchester United out of the Champions League.

Basel’s 2:1 victory at home saw three-time champion Man U exit contest in the group stage. A draw would have been enough to take them into the knockout rounds.

Goals from captain Marco Streller and striker Alex Frei ensured the English side’s hu-miliation and Basel’s place in the last 16.

SwiSSinFo

Federer SwOOpSrecOrd Six aTp TiTleSRoger Federer held off a re-silient Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Sunday for his record sixth ATP World Tour Finals title, winning 6-3, 7-6 (6), 6-3 at the season-ending tournament.

Federer failed to serve out the match at 5-4 in the second set, then wasted a match point in the tiebreaker.

Playing in his 100th career final, Federer broke for a 5-3 lead in the decider and served out the match at love, sealing his 70th career title with an easy volley.

ASSoCiATed preSS

MexicO win OpenS JBrduBAi - Switzerland se-cured a win on the opening day of the FIFA Samsung Beach Soccer Intercontinental Cup that got under way at The Walk JBR last Friday.

Switzerland overcame a spir-ited fight from Mexico before winning 4-3 in the second match on the opening day.

The eight-team competition pits continental champions with World Cup winners.

GULFnewS

liTScher BeST OF u23Felt Ötztal X-Bionic team rider Thomas Litscher, 22, has been recognized by the Swiss cycling federation as its “Best Young Rider” for 2011.

One of the sport’s top young stars, the cross-country rider had a breakout season, win-ning both the Swiss National Championship and the World Championship in the Un-der-23 category. The award was announced November 30 at the Zürich Six Day race.

SporTpreSSe

cuche, Meier are TOpSome like it cold: both Credit Suisse athletes of the year are winter sports specialists.

Didier Cuche, 37, is still at the top of his ski form with World Cup titles in downhill and super-G.

Ice queen Sarah Meier, 27 is “living a dream” since win-ning the European Champion-ship in Bern after a foot injury plagued her for years.

GeneVALUnCH.Com

A8 | SPort HelVeTIA GAZeTTe · gazette.ch · monday, december 19, 2011