Switzerland

Spain opposes extradition of Swiss bank data thief

"Swiss authorities want Hervé Falciani, a French-Italian citizen arrested in Barcelona in July 2012 and then granted conditional release, sent back to Switzerland to face charges of breaching banking secrecy. The files, which were subsequently relayed by French investigators to their counterparts in the United States, Spain, Italy and several other European Union countries, led to a raft of prosecutions. He told the court he obtained the files from colleagues and said the information was so abundant that 'if printed, it would fill an entire freight train.' Falciani said he informed Swiss authorities in 2008 but they refused to let him make an anonymous complaint." Continue reading →

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Swiss Space Systems aims for low-cost satellite service

"A new Swiss-based company said Thursday it would offer low-cost satellite launches which it claims could be a quarter of current market rates. Swiss Space Systems-S3 said its goal was to offer launches for 10 million Swiss francs (8.1 million euros, $10.5 million) using unmanned suborbital spaceplanes that could carry satellites weighing up to 250 kilos (550 pounds). The company said it planned to open such a spaceport by 2015 at the Payerne airfield in western Switzerland, which has already been used by the Solar Pulse sun-powered aircraft of Swiss astronaut Bertrand Piccard." Continue reading →

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Swiss solar-power plane set for trans-US flight

"The experimental Solar Impulse plane, which has made several trips since its maiden flight in 2009, will take off on May 1st on a transcontinental tour split in five stages. 'We are ready to do this flight across America,' said Solar Impulse co-founder Andre Borschberg during a press conference at a hangar in Mountain View, near San Francisco. A non-stop flight would take approximately three days travelling at the aircraft's cruising speed of around 43 miles (70 kilometres) per hour. 'We have limited ourselves to fly a duration maximum of 24 hours,' said Borschberg, who will share the piloting duties with Solar Impulse president Bertrand Piccard." Continue reading →

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Italian-Switzerland border checks strike gold

"Italian finance police had a lucky find on Easter Sunday during a routine check of a family car crossing into Switzerland: they discovered gold ingots worth about €4.5 million concealed in false compartments. The car was driven by a 53-year-old Italian resident of the Swiss canton of Ticino, described by the police as the legal representative of a Swiss company. He was travelling with his wife and three children, apparently going for an Easter trip. The man was immediately charged with money laundering. The ingots and the car were seized. There has been an upsurge in the smuggling of gold from Italy to Switzerland in the past few months." Continue reading →

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Americans fall out of favour with Swiss banks

"Already battle-scarred from the hard lessons of recent years, Swiss banks are taking a very cautious approach when it comes to the introduction of FATCA. The US law requires banks around the world to report information on American account holders to Uncle Sam. There are also concerns that FATCA’s collateral damage could extend beyond the home front into the business world. If an American owns more than 10 percent of a company, it is reportable to the IRS. The worry is that this rule may make it harder for US entrepreneurs to find business and banking partners, shutting them out of attractive investment opportunities." Continue reading →

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Which Nation Has the Most Per-Capita Government Spending on Healthcare?

"Is it Canada or the United Kingdom, which are famous (or, if these stories are any indication, infamous would be a better description) for single-payer healthcare systems? Is it Sweden, the home of the cradle-to-grave welfare state? Or France, the land of the world’s most statist people? How about Italy or Greece, nations that have spent themselves into fiscal crisis? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. The United States spends more money, on a per-capita basis, than any of those countries." Continue reading →

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Seized drugs stolen from Fribourg police building

"Red-faced police in the canton of Fribourg are admitting that 34 kilograms of hashish and marijuana seized by officers from drug offenders has been stolen from a warehouse. Police had stored 28.6 kilograms of hash and 4.8 kilograms of pot, seized from three different investigations, in a building in Châtillon, near the city of Fribourg. The drugs were likely stolen in late November or early December last year but the theft was only recently noticed, according to media reports. Cantonal police said they discovered that a metal bar on one of the windows at the rear of the warehouse had been sawn off on December 5th." Continue reading →

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Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage – Backup. Sync. Share. Access Everywhere.

"Wuala is a secure cloud storage, made in Switzerland. As the Swiss knife of cloud storage, it covers all the essential needs for professional and personal use: with Wuala, you can store your files securely online, share them with select others, access them from anywhere, setup automatic backups of your local data, or synchronize whole folders to the cloud. Wuala employs client-side-encryption to achieve a unique level of security. All data is encrypted locally, before it is uploaded. Your password never leaves your computer. Nobody - not even we as storage provider - can access your data without your authorization." Continue reading →

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Swiss expats unhappy with FATCA deal

"Swiss citizens who live abroad have made their displeasure with their home country known regarding its planned implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). The U.S. law has been agreed to by Switzerland and is set to go into effect in 2014. Some 76,000 Swiss citizens who currently reside in the U.S. are being told they cannot hold Swiss bank accounts, or are now being charged higher fees, according to the OSA." Continue reading →

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Swiss to Vote on Initiative to Return Gold Stored in the US to Switzerland

"Enough signatures have been collected for an initiative to force a vote to ensure that the Swiss National Bank: 1. Stops selling gold reserves. 2. Keeps 20% of its assets in gold (currently 10%). 3. Repatriates gold held abroad (including in the US). The Swiss People’s Party (UDC/SVP), the Christian Democrats (PDC), and the Liberal-Radical Party (PLR) are in the process of writing an initiative to anchor bank secrecy in the Constitution, with some exceptions for criminal investigations." Continue reading →

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