We all know the famous Swiss ‘neutrality’ has always been about money.
Via: @cspan
"Bill Browder on Switzerland enabling Russia's invasion of Ukraine: "The Swiss government wants to be seen to be doing something, but when it comes to reality, the Swiss government doesn't want to anything because there's such a lot of money to be made off of dirty Russia money.""
How a 150-year-old Zurich fraternity is adapting to the present.
Utonia is not the largest, but perhaps the most Zurich-like of all the Zurich student fraternities: Their caps are blue like the lake, their ribbons white-blue like the coat of arms of the city and the canton of Zurich, and the name is reminiscent of the local mountain.
It seems out of step with time. But closing themselves off to change would be their downfall.
A comedian in #Switzerland says he asked #AI to generate a trailer for the 1937 musical drama 'Heidi.' You'll laugh or cry or both watching it. https://youtu.be/0A2-Af5JEWU
Police evacuate Swiss mountain villages as wildfires spread
Swiss police ordered the evacuation of several mountain villages in the canton of Valais on Monday as a forest fire spread, which was still burning the next day.
1/ Read this report on Swiss / Russian #oil#trading:
In #Switzerland, a key hub for oil trading, many traditional players have pulled out of the market only to be replaced by opaque, “pop up” traders whose buying and selling activity is uncannily similar to some firms based in the Alpine nation. It's almost impossible to track who is behind these new traders and whether Swiss nationals and companies are involved.
2/ Public Eye’s report also highlights the activities of Sunrise, which collected the equivalent of four shipments – nearly 400,000 tonnes of crude oil – from Kozmino in September 2022. In the Swiss commercial register a company called #SunriseTradeSA registered in Geneva in 2020 at a trustee. Its spartan website says the company trades crude oil, refined petroleum products and petrochemicals globally and across Russia.
3/ In 2022, a company called Sunrise X Trading was registered in Hong Kong. A definite link between the two is hard to establish in the absence of a formal investigation by authorities. SWI efforts to contact the Swiss company were unsuccessful.
4/ “Switzerland still does not have a public register of the beneficial owners of companies, and it is only when an investigation is opened that the authorities can access this data. That’s a real problem,” says Agathe Duparc, a Public Eye researcher.
5/ The rise of these so-called “pop up” traders and their #Swiss ties have been the subject of investigations by the FT, Public Eye, and Global Witness. Two companies in particular – with doppelgangers outside Switzerland – have been a source of intrigue: Paramount and Sunrise. They are shrouded in secrecy making it almost impossible to ascertain their ownership and whether they have violated sanctions or the price cap.
6/ “The problem is we don't know who is behind these companies because they often have no websites, there is no way of contacting them,” says Mai Rosner, a senior campaigner at Global Witness. “They are very opaque and we don't know ultimately who is controlling them.”
Tomorrow sees the first sessions of a five-day celebration of anarchist thought in the Swiss border town that hosted the visionaries of a definitive, and historic, break with Marxism.
I'd somehow managed to never spot this golden ball embedded in the floor of the Zurich main station (HB). Intriguing! It's got something to do with Dieter Maier but not sure what! It's the 'Centenary Ball of the Association of Masters of None [or Nothing] 2008-2108'.
Anyone with a knowledge of #Zurich / avid fans of #Yello know what it's about before I ruin the suspense by Googling?
Basically, in this tale a farmer's girl lost her way in the forest and stumbled across a hut inhabited by seven dwarves. She asked them for a place to stay for the night, and received it (after the dwarves argued about who would get the honor of giving up his bed for the girl)....
TIL of a folk tale named "Death of the Seven Dwarves" (www.digitale-sammlungen.de)
Basically, in this tale a farmer's girl lost her way in the forest and stumbled across a hut inhabited by seven dwarves. She asked them for a place to stay for the night, and received it (after the dwarves argued about who would get the honor of giving up his bed for the girl)....