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SAN FRANCISCO -- COVID travel restrictions are slowly easing up, but rules keep changing and vary from one place to the next. So when a California couple booked a trip to Greece, they had no idea of the nightmare ahead. Greece had lifted travel restrictions and this couple had all the documents Greece requires. But the trip unraveled when they tried to connect to their flight in Switzerland. They were stopped at the gate and worse, the police came and arrested them. "I was shocked. I thought it was some kind of a joke, like we'd be able to just...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h1s6S4kotE

Something strange is going on. Why is the EU so keen to shoe-horn America back into the nuclear deal with Iran? Former US president Donald Trump ditched the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) deal three years ago and imposed heavy sanctions on the mullahs’ regime under his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign. Since then, the Iranians have boasted about how they have flouted the terms of the deal by accelerating their advanced centrifuge program and enriching uranium to almost weapons grade fissile status. The Biden administration is being ultra-cautious. But the EU’s high Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security, the Spanish...

Police have clashed with protestors in Bern at an unauthorised demonstration against COVID-19 restrictions. Hundreds of people gathered in the Swiss capital on Thursday night despite warnings from the authorities. "There were clashes in the vicinity of the rally," Bern cantonal police said on Twitter. Fireworks were set off and objects were thrown at police officers, who responded with a water cannon, rubber bullets, and irritant gas. Thirteen people were taken into police custody, they added in a later statement. Seven of those arrested "had already attracted attention at similar demonstrations". The police also confiscated masking material and objects such...

The European country will also allow same-sex couples to adopt children, and will allow lesbian women to use sperm donors to make children.(LifeSiteNews) – Switzerland became the latest European country to formally recognize same-sex “marriage” in law during a referendum Sunday. “Official results showed the measure passed with 64.1% of the vote while more than half of all voters approved in each of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, or states,” CBS News reported. “The vote – years in the making – is set to bring the Alpine nation into line with many others in western Europe and wraps up an often tense...

ZURICH (Reuters) - A potential lurch to the left in Germany's election on Sunday is scaring millionaires into moving assets into Switzerland, bankers and tax lawyers say. If the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), hard-left Linke and environmentalist Greens come to power, the reintroduction of a wealth tax and a tightening of inheritance tax could be on the political agenda. "For the super-rich, this is red hot," said a German-based tax lawyer with extensive Swiss operations. "Entrepreneurial families are highly alarmed." The move shows how many rich people still see Switzerland as an attractive place to park wealth, despite its efforts...

2021’s mild summer has another victim: the humble potato chip. As if the 2021 winter couldn’t get any worse, it’s now hitting us in the chip pocket. Because of 2021’s constant rainfall and general poor weather, Switzerland’s potato harvest is disappointing. When combined with a 30 percent increase in demand due to people sitting at home eating chips rather than going to restaurants, a chip shortage looms in Switzerland. Chips manufacturers do not have enough potatoes — and will need to import at least 20,000 tonnes from abroad. […] “Climate change can generally endanger the availability of agricultural raw materials,”...

A French climate activist has been arrested after the private email service ProtonMail cooperated with authorities after a court ruling, logging details of a user before providing it to the police to identify a French citizen. On Monday, Andy Yen, the founder and CEO of Proton, the company behind the Swiss email provider ProtonMail, published a statement saying that he deplored the way legal tools had been used to bring about the arrest of a French climate change activist, but claimed his service was still secure. “In this case, Proton received a legally binding order from Swiss authorities which we...

Tens of thousands protested in Switzerland on Saturday for the legalization of same-sex marriage in the Alpine country. The protests came ahead of a national referendum on Sept. 26 on the legalization of gay marriage, which has already been introduced in many other European countries including Germany, Austria, France and the Netherlands. Public broadcaster SRF reported that tens of thousands participated in the Zürich Pride parade, which had the slogan “You can do it. Marriage for everyone now.” …

U.S. President Joe Biden’s choice for ambassador to Switzerland is Scott Miller, a leading figure at the LGBT advocacy patron The Gill Foundation. The foundation has funded groups that have split Christian denominations and threatened religious freedom in the U.S. Miller’s same-sex partner is Tim Gill, a vocal LGBT activist and strategist who after the 2016 election claimed his movement was headed into conservative states to “punish the wicked.” Miller is a former finance executive and co-chairs the board of directors of the Colorado-based Gill Foundation with Gill. Among the critics of the foundation’s work is John Lomperis, United Methodist...

Via google translate: And the next step is a combination? It is inevitable. It is the next phase of the pandemic when Beta or Gamma become more infectious or Delta develops escape mutations. That will be the big problem for the coming year. Covid-22 could get worse than what we are experiencing now. How can we respond to this? If such a variant appears, we have to recognize it as early as possible and the vaccine manufacturers have to adapt the vaccine quickly. The emergence of this new variant is the big risk. We have to prepare for it. What...

Group warns in letter that lockdown laws violate fundamental rights.. Police in Switzerland have threatened to stop enforcing COVID-19 rules over fears that the measures are disproportionately undermining the fundamental rights of citizens. A group representing police officers in the Alpine country wrote a letter to the Swiss Federation of Police Officers (FSFP) warning of potential insubordination within the force over the enforcement of draconian laws. “If the measures were to conflict with the general opinion of the population, disproportionately limiting their fundamental rights, many police officers would no longer be willing to apply them,” the group wrote in the...

@jeremykauffman The US government won't allow a member of my company from Switzerland to fly to America. He's fully vaccinated and has a recent negative COVID test. What exactly is this supposed to be preventing???

Eurointelligence reports Swiss Reject Climate ChangeA climate change referendum in Switzerland just went down in flames led by 18-34 year old voters. After Switzerland dropped its negotiations with the EU, the country has now rejected a climate-protection law in a referendum. Concretely, they rejected all three parts of the law in separate votes: on CO2, on pesticides, and on drinking water. We agree with the Swiss journalist Mathieu von Rohr that this failure is not merely important in its own right, but symptomatic for the difficulties facing Green politics in general. It is one thing for people to pretend they...

US bishops’ conference denies any wrongdoing in ongoing Peter’s Pence lawsuit, blames parishionersWASHINGTON, April 28, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — In an ongoing case regarding the use of Peter’s Pence donations, lawyers for the U.S. bishops have asserted that parishioners were aware (or at least ought to have been) that their money could be used by the Holy See for any purpose, despite their own advertisement to the contrary.The Peter’s Pence lawsuit was originally filed in January 2020 against the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) by the Stanley Law Group based in Dallas, Texas, representing a Class Action brought by...

Swiss voters rejected a trio of environmental proposals on Sunday, including a new law intended to help the country meet its goal for cutting carbon emissions under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. A new CO2 law was narrowly rejected, with 51.6% of voters opposing it in a nationwide referendum conducted under the country’s system of direct democracy. The result was a defeat for the Swiss government which supported the new law that included measures such as increasing a surcharge on car fuel and imposing a levy on flight tickets. […] Also rejected was a proposal which would have made...

In Israel today a new government voted in by the Knesset the country's parliament. The vote ends 12 years of leadership by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The vote 60-59 with one abstention.... Naftali Bennett has been sworn in as the new Prime Minister... Congratulations for the new government fro other nations including US President Joe Biden. Mr. Bennett spoke with Biden by phone... A large protest drew tens of thousands onto the streets of Madrid today. Many Spaniards opposed to pardons for Catalan political leaders... The Mayor of Moscow declaring non-working days from June 15th to 19th due to increased...

Pell was reportedly reprimanded for “interfering in sovereign business” by looking into the Vatican Secretariat of State’s dealings with a Swiss bank with a long track record of violating fraud safeguards.The Holy See’s relationship with a disreputable Swiss bank triggered an internal dispute between the Secretariat of State and Vatican financial authorities. At the center of the conflict was a multimillion-dollar line of credit used to fund a controversial investment in London property speculation. Sources inside the Vatican’s Prefecture for the Economy confirmed to CNA that a substantial part of the $200 million used to finance the Secretariat of State’s...

I’ve posted before about how Williamstown (Kentucky) officials are instituting a “safety fee” for ticket-taking attractions in the city. If implemented, the city would charge Ark Encounter 50 cents per ticket to go towards things like fire trucks and police cars — all the things that make the city a safer place for residents and tourists. Using the estimate of 1.4 million visitors a year, this would amount to approximately $700,000 that Ark Encounter would owe the city annually. The Creationists at Ark Encounter, however, say they should be exempt from that charge because they run a non-profit ministry. You...

It may seem a bit ironic but the owners of Kentucky's Noah's ark attraction are suing their insurers over damage caused by flooding. In a federal lawsuit, the owners of the Ark Encounter are asking for a $1 million settlement after the attraction's insurers, Allied World Assurance Co. Holdings of Switzerland and three other insurance companies, refused to cover damage after heavy rains in 2017 and 2018 caused a landslide on its access road, the Courier Journal reports. Opened in 2016, the 510-foot-long wooden ark has been a popular attraction in Williamstown, Kentucky. The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages...