Every year the government invests 60 million of tax payers money into the advertising both here and abroad of Swiss products. Roughly one third of it is used to advertise cheese, milk, eggs and meat products. Greenpeace finds it ridiculous that tax payers money should go towards advertising non sustainable and climate damaging products; and as a consequence they have put a motion forward in parliament calling for the ban of tax payers money to be used for the advertising of the above mentioned products. The commission for economy is countering that the advertising is more about promoting Swiss products versus imported products than promoting the consumption of more of these products.
If there is one thing the Swiss like to brag about, it is the punctuality of their trains. SBB boast that 92% of trains arrive on time. However this is not the case of trains that connect with foreign destinations, in particular trains arriving from Germany. Some of these lines such as trains from Munich or Karlsruhe tend to be late between 75% to 85% of the time. The Germans say that this is because these are some of the busiest lines on their network. At least we do not have trains late due to leaves on tracks, like in the UK!
The department store Manor seems to be having a really tough time right now, not only are the employees complaining about working conditions, rumours of selling the company is making the rounds and the CEO was replaced nearly ovenight. Now the touted partnership with French company FNAC seems to be faltering too. FNAC was brought in to take over the sale of books and electronics but after one year FNAC is stepping away from 10 of the 27 Manor shops where the company was implanted. Leading to speculation that this collaboration is not going to make it either.
When the former CEO of Novartis left the company in 2013 he claimed to have moved to Monaco, which would mean that he wouldn’t have to pay taxes in Switzerland. However the Zug tax department didn’t believe him and have gone through things such as where flew to and from and what the water consumption in his apartment in Monaco versus in his villa in Risch was. They came to the conclusion that he continued to live in Switzerland and is therefore obligated to pay taxes here. It is unclear how much he owes.
The mass that spewed out of the sewer near the train station last thursday has been identified as fat. How and why this fatberg came to be remains unclear.
Temperatures are back into the plus this week, potentially reaching a balmy +7° Celsius on wednesday. It will be mainly overcast down here, but the sun should be shining in the mountains.
