Free Republic

"...Yet this pastoral playground is the home base of Marc Rich, the former fugitive billionaire commodities trader, who was pardoned by Bill Clinton in his last day as U.S. president in early 2002. It is also the headquarters of Xstrata PLC, the mining powerhouse which Monday bought 19.9 per cent of Canadian nickel giant Falconbridge Ltd., putting it in position to launch a potential takeover bid for the company. Xstrata often gets mentioned in the same breath as Mr. Rich. Both are part of the huge trading community drawn to Zug by extremely low taxes, privacy and comfortable surroundings. (Canadian...

The Institut Montana, a boarding school near the Swiss town of Zug, is hoping to reap dividends from its association with John Kerry, who was a pupil there 50 years ago. The Democratic presidential hopeful won yet another primary election in the American state of Wisconsin on Tuesday. RELATED ITEMS "He was the best student of the elementary school." A school for presidents (Broadband) A school for presidents (58K Modem/ISDN) Learning multiculturalism in Leysin The Institut Montana has changed little since United States Democratic presidential frontrunner John Kerry attended it as a student exactly 50 years ago. The Montana has...

Zug's tugged heartstrings The people in the hamlet of Zug, around 25km south of Zurich, are getting interested in American politics, now that Senator John Kerry is leading the pack of democratic hopefuls for president. Mr Kerry spent two years studying at the Institut Montana Zugerberg, a local boarding school, when his father was a diplomat in Berlin in 1954. During his time at the school, Mr Kerry rubbed elbows with the offspring of kings (Spanish, anyway) and other blue-bloods, such as Habsburg-Lothringens, Bourbons, Rothschilds and Bacardis. Whether this youthful hobnobbing will help him win the hearts and minds of...