Salon.com > Switzerland

The question libertarians just can’t answer

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:17:00 +0000

Why are there no libertarian countries? If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines?

It’s not as though there were a shortage of countries to experiment with libertarianism. There are 193 sovereign state members of the United Nations—195, if you count the Vatican and Palestine, which have been granted observer status by the world organization. If libertarianism was a good idea, wouldn’t at least one country have tried it? Wouldn’t there be at least one country, out of nearly two hundred, with minimal government, free trade, open borders, decriminalized drugs, no welfare state and no public education system?

When you ask libertarians if they can point to a libertarian country, you are likely to get a baffled look, followed, in a few moments, by something like this reply: While there is no purely libertarian country, there are countries which have pursued policies of which libertarians would approve: Chile, with its experiment in privatized Social Security, for example, and Sweden, a big-government nation which, however, gives a role to vouchers in schooling.

At least 31 people detained in $50 million diamond heist

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:31:00 +0000

BRUSSELS — Authorities claimed a major breakthrough on Wednesday in their investigation of a spectacular $50 million diamond heist, detaining at least 31 people in a three-nation sweep some three months after robbers pulled off the theft with clockwork precision at Brussels Airport.

A Frenchman who is believed to have been one of the actual robbers at the airport was arrested in France, while six to eight people were detained in Geneva, and 24 in and around Brussels. Police did not indicate what the other suspects’ roles might have been.

What’s more, police say they have proof that diamonds found in Switzerland were part of the cache that was spirited away in the brazen Feb. 18 robbery that ranks among the biggest diamond heists of recent times.After two months of investigation on some of the suspects, police moved in. Suspects in France and Switzerland were detained on Tuesday, and the following day Belgian police carried out a massive operation, with 250 police involved in 40 house searches.“In Switzerland, we have found diamonds that we can already say are coming from the heist, and in Belgium large amounts of money have been found. And the investigation is still ongoing,” said Jean-Marc Meilleur, a spokesman for the Brussels prosecutor’s office. He said police had also found luxury cars.

Meilleur was scant on detail, yielding no clues how police got on the trail of the suspects. Authorities were expected to announce later Wednesday how many of the detainees would be charged and arrested.

In Geneva, a police statement said that “a very important quantity of diamonds was seized” during the sweep “coming from the spectacular heist at Brussels airport.” While Belgian authorities spoke of six detentions in Switzerland, Geneva police put it at eight, including a businessman and a lawyer. Authorities were alerted when suddenly a member of a major criminal organization appeared in their city. The value of the diamonds was still being estimated.

It was the first breakthrough in a robbery that many had started comparing to an “Ocean’s Eleven”-type Hollywood script for its clinically clean execution during which no one was injured.

On a cold winter evening, the diamonds had been loaded on a plane bound for Zurich when robbers, dressed in dark police clothing and hoods, drove through a hole they had cut in the airport fence in two black cars with blue police lights flashing. They drove onto the tarmac, approached the plane, brandished machine guns, offloaded the diamonds, then made their getaway in an operation that barely took five minutes. Later that night, investigators found the charred remains of a van most likely used in the heist, but little else.

The stolen parcels contained both rough and polished stones. The trail ran dry until the surprise announcement on Wednesday.

Meilleur said that the man held in France is suspected to be one of the robbers. “This person has a very heavy judicial background in France and his extradition to Belgium has been requested.”

Belgian authorities said that about 10 of the 24 people detained in Belgium were known criminals. The suspects ranged in age from 30 to 50, they said.

The diamond industry, too, was totally caught by surprise by Wednesday’s developments. “But we can only be happy,” said Caroline De Wolf, spokeswoman for the Antwerp World Diamond Center.

___

Associated Press writer Frank Jordans contributed from Berlin.

Fight breaks out on Mount Everest

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

KATMANDU, Nepal – Nepalese mountaineering officials say they are investigating reports of a fight between three foreign climbers and local Sherpa guides on Mount Everest.

Dipendra Poudel of the Mountaineering Department said the three climbers -- from Italy, Switzerland and Britain -- were involved in arguments with some Sherpa guides on Sunday.

Poudel says both sides accuse each other of starting the fight, adding mountaineering officials based at the Everest base camp were investigating the incident.

Sherpa guides hired by the hundreds of Western climbers attempting to climb the world's highest mountain are the first ones to fix the ropes on the routes so their clients can climb to the peak.

The Sherpas are accusing the foreign climbers of starting the fight.

6 Indians accused of raping Swiss tourist appear in court

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 11:13:00 +0000

NEW DELHI (AP) — Six men accused of raping a Swiss tourist who was cycling with her husband in central India have been produced in court and charged with gang rape.

Police Superintendent Chandra Shekhar Solanki says the men were arrested in Datia district of Madhya Pradesh state and are poor farmers from nearby villages.

The men were arrested Sunday and charged on Monday.

The attack occurred Friday night as the Swiss couple camped in a forest in Datia district.

They told police that the woman had been raped by seven or eight men, but that it was dark and they could not be sure of the exact number.

10 best countries to be born in 2013

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 14:50:00 +0000

As 2012 comes to a close, marking the finish of a year of economic upheaval around the world (with no clear end in sight), the Economist Intelligence Unit posed the question: Which child born next year will be more likely to have a good quality-of-life? And, perhaps most importantly, what person entering adulthood in the 2030s will be gladdest to live where she or he lives? They call this the "born index” or "life satisfaction index," and it explains which countries lead the pack as the best place to be born in 2013.

America, which used to be number-one on this very same index back in 1988, has plummeted to number 16. It’s understandable in terms of our miserable healthcare system, growing social stratification and workplace policies; we hang out toward the bottom of the lists when it comes to maternal health, paid leave for parents or family sickness. And yes, we have zero mandatory vacation hours.

You’re being tricked into buying that awful sweater!

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 17:00:00 +0000

While you’re out doing your holiday shopping this month, you might notice a certain scent in the air. No, it’s not the Spirit of Christmas (or not just that, anyway). It’s the smell of pine. Or orange. Or fresh-baked cookies.

There’s a reason for that.

Savvy retailers use all kinds of sensory information to convey their brand, welcome you in, and put you in a frame of mind that they hope will lead to more sales. Their displays are arranged just so. Their wall colors are carefully chosen. The music burbling through their speakers hits all the right notes.

That fresh-baked-cookie smell is part of the package. The use of scents to lure customers in is the latest frontier in sensory marketing, with an entire industry supplying retailers with just the right aroma for their business.

The problem is, the science isn’t always there.

Legal assisted suicide does not promote death wishes

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 19:36:00 +0000

A new psychology study has found that the legality of assisted suicide does not increase a population's propensity toward death wishes.

The study, published in Frontiers in Psychology for Clinical Settings, looked at a small test group of patients suffering from Lou Gehrig's Disease in Switzerland -- a country where assisted suicide is legal if a terminal patient "has decisional capacity and the person assisting is not motivated by reasons of self-interest."

The report found that a "liberal legal setting" like that of Switzerland "does not necessarily promote the wish for assisted suicide." However, patients were found to be more willing to discuss the option with caregivers.