TheRepublic.com - Switzerland News

Switzerland beats US, faces Sweden for world title

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:15:40 -0400

STOCKHOLM - Reto Berra made 29 saves, and Nino Niederreiter, Julian Walker and Reto Suri scored to help Switzerland beat the United States 3-0 on Saturday in the world hockey semifinals.

Family of adventurers takes on Mauna Kea

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:12:20 -0400

HILO, Hawaii - Biking to the top of the 13,796-foot Mauna Kea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island might seem like a daunting undertaking for many people, but it's just another adventure for a globe-trotting Swiss couple with their four children.

Pat McQuaid to run for UCI president again

Thu, 16 May 2013 06:20:18 -0400

AIGLE, Switzerland - Pat McQuaid will stand for a third term as president of the International Cycling Union after being endorsed by the Swiss federation.

Geneva auction sells huge diamond for $26.7M

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:19:48 -0400

GENEVA - A huge diamond unearthed in Botswana commanded an unearthly price of $26.7 million from Christie's auction house Wednesday amid the spring ritual of well-heeled bidders flocking or phoning in to Geneva's luxury sales.

IOC to chart out India's return to Olympic fold

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:07:07 -0400

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - The IOC will issue a "roadmap" for India's return to the Olympic fold after both sides reached agreement Wednesday on the terms for lifting the country's suspension.

Swiss to crack down on business, sports bribery

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:14:03 -0400

GENEVA - The Swiss government wants to broaden its anti-corruption laws to make bribery a criminal offense in almost all cases.

Swiss: 1,500 money-laundering cases last year

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:53:47 -0400

GENEVA - Unpaid fees lead to safe deposit caches of suspicious paintings and expensive jewelry. A foreign client's offshore deposits turn up possibly forged documents from the sale of tanks and high-caliber weapons to an African defense ministry.

EU court finds Swiss assisted-suicide laws vague

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:49:11 -0400

GENEVA - An elderly Swiss woman who would rather end her life now than decline further in health found sympathy Tuesday from the European Court of Human Rights, which called on the Swiss to clarify their laws on so-called passive assisted suicide.

IOC proposes global betting monitoring system

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:12:04 -0400

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - The IOC is proposing the establishment of a global system for monitoring any suspicious betting patterns during major sports events.

CAS rejects Zenit appeal, hurts title bid

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:00:45 -0400

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - The Court of Arbitration for Sport says it has rejected Zenit St. Petersburg's appeal against a technical defeat, hurting the team's chances of winning the Russian league title.

Nations agree to new chemical ban, export controls

Fri, 10 May 2013 15:51:09 -0400

GENEVA - A summit on chemicals and hazardous wastes ended Friday with an agreement to globally phase out a widely used flame retardant and to accept stricter requirements for disclosing information about exports of four other chemicals.

CAS allows wrestling body meeting in Moscow

Fri, 10 May 2013 14:27:28 -0400

LAUSANNE, Switzerland - The Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland has given wrestling's governing body the go-ahead to hold a congress in Moscow despite a suit filed by the organization's former president.

31 detained in probe of $50M Belgium diamond heist

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:52:19 -0400

BRUSSELS - Unlike the brilliant thieves in "Ocean's Eleven," it appears that those behind the clockwork-precision, $50 million diamond heist at Brussels Airport may not get a Hollywood ending.

Rival Anne Frank charities in dispute over archive

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:48:54 -0400

AMSTERDAM - Two organizations bearing Anne Frank's name are in a bitter dispute over the possession of the Frank family archive, in an echo of a court battle they fought in the 1990s over which one had the right to trademark the Holocaust victim's name.

Germany plans tighter control of managers' pay

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:42:17 -0400

BERLIN - The German government plans to give company shareholders a greater say in setting managers' pay - a proposal aimed at curbing perceived corporate excesses along the same lines as a measure approved by voters in neighboring Switzerland earlier this year.

Spain refuses to hand over ex-HSBC worker

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:22:58 -0400

MADRID - Spain's National Court on Wednesday ruled against extraditing a former HSBC employee to Switzerland, where he faces charges of stealing and revealing client information.

UN: Global youth unemployment rate is rising

Wed, 08 May 2013 08:53:06 -0400

GENEVA - Youth unemployment is likely to rise globally to 12.8 percent by 2018, wiping out gains made in the recent economic recovery, the U.N.'s labor office said Wednesday.

Diplomats: Brazil wins race for next WTO director

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:17:59 -0400

GENEVA - The World Trade Organization has settled on Roberto Azevedo of Brazil, a well-known diplomat and consummate insider in Geneva circles, to serve as its director-general for the next four years, officials said Tuesday.

Visit Wisconsin home of world's stinkiest cheese

Tue, 07 May 2013 15:44:35 -0400

MONROE, Wisconsin - The sign above the bar in Baumgartner's Cheese Store and Tavern warns visitors about the perils of sampling the $3.25 house specialty - a slab of Limburger cheese on rye bread slathered with onions and mustard.

Nations at nuclear meeting say too many on alert

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:19:32 -0400

GENEVA - More than 100 nations concluding a round of global nuclear talks Friday expressed alarm that many nuclear weapons are kept at a high-alert level and are still being modernized, despite a promise to get rid of them.

Mata: Chelsea deserves to be in Champions League

Wed, 01 May 2013 14:30:58 -0400

LONDON - Closing in on the Europa League final, Chelsea midfielder Juan Mata seems ill at ease in the continent's second-tier knockout competition.

UBS posts $1 billion net profit in first quarter

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:32:45 -0400

GENEVA - A first-quarter net profit of $1 billion thanks to strong investment banking and wealth management sent shares in Swiss bank UBS AG surging up well more than 5 percent Tuesday on the Swiss stock exchange.

'Clumsy' Sepp Blatter cleared of any wrongdoing

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:33:01 -0400

Despite being labeled "clumsy" for his part in one of FIFA's biggest corruption scandals, Sepp Blatter was cleared of any criminal or unethical wrongdoing in a case involving millions of dollars in bribes for World Cup contracts.

Egypt walks out of nuclear talks in Geneva

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 23:08:37 -0400

GENEVA - Egypt walked out of a round of global nuclear talks in protest Monday, saying other nations are not acting quickly enough to establish the Middle East as a zone free of nuclear weapons.

Nadal to play at Federer's hometown Swiss Indoors

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:05:14 -0400

BASEL, Switzerland - Rafael Nadal is scheduled to play at Roger Federer's hometown tournament for the first time in nine years.