The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Soaring Swiss franc puts squeeze on German enclave Posted: 03 Sep 2011 01:53 AM PDT BUESINGEN (Germany), Sept 3 — Since a 19th-century treaty established a German village wholly within Switzerland, the people of Buesingen have become accustomed to navigating between Berne and Berlin. Yet for the residents of this leafy village of 1,400 on the banks of the river Rhine, the record-strong Swiss franc is generating even more heat than the summer sun.  File photo of a general view of Buesingen. — Reuters pic Rents and groceries are generally quoted in francs. But some residents receive pensions in euros, and income taxes are paid at German rates, well above those standard in Switzerland. Mayor Gunnar Lang said about 10-20 per cent of the village's residents are feeling the pinch due to the runaway Swiss currency, which has shot up 30 per cent against the euro since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis. About 100 people have in recent years chosen to leave Buesingen and move to Switzerland, to take advantage of lower taxes. With the franc not far from parity with the euro, still more may go. "That's leading those who are still here to start thinking about whether they should move to Germany too. That's really bad for Buesingen," Lang said, adding that the most frequent complaints were of rising rents and people being pushed into higher tax brackets with no change to their real income. In Switzerland, the strong currency is beginning to throttle the economy: exports are softening, corporate profits are slipping and politicians are warning of rising unemployment. At Buesingen's post office, Stenka Vonnau, who receives her salary in euros, said she considered moving or looking for a second job. Nearby, the restaurant Kranz has posted a billboard outside saying "euros OK" in a bid to draw in diners. Yet former sailor Ernst Winter, whose arms are covered in tattoos and who repairs horse bridles in a shop down the road, was less dour about the exchange rate despite receiving a pension in euros. "I used to work on boats and we had lots of currencies — China, Australia, who knows what." After quitting the sea for dry land, Winter decided to settle in Buesingen because he thought it was nice and has no plans to leave: "It's great. You're in two countries at once." After the two world wars there were efforts among the village's residents to join Switzerland, but after the Swiss began allowing EU citizens to take up residence without great hurdles, much of the impetus for changing sovereignty has been lost. Lang, who has been mayor for 21 years, said the people of Buesingen would just have to muddle through, as little help could be expected from authorities. Ending Buesingen's status as a geographical oddity is not a realistic goal, he said, because ceding it to Switzerland would require changes to both the German and Swiss constitutions. "They have trouble sorting things out for Buesingen that are far less important," he said. "So I don't expect they'll be able to change the constitutions to clear things up." — Reuters |
| Apple hunted lost item — clue points to new iPhone Posted: 02 Sep 2011 10:54 PM PDT  This is the second time that a prototype iPhone has been reported as having gone missing. — Reuters file pic Officers did not say exactly what Apple had lost, but they left a clue — the San Francisco Police Department's Friday press release about the hunt was called "iphone5.doc," an apparent reference to a new version of the mobile phone that tech industry watchers expect to be released soon. Apple declined to comment on the matter. Tech news service CNET this week said an iPhone 5, which has not been released, went missing in a San Francisco bar in July. SF Weekly, a local newspaper, yesterday quoted a San Francisco man as saying police had come to his house in July searching for a lost iPhone. Although a prototype of the iPhone 4 went missing in 2010, police said this time Apple had tracked "the lost item" to a San Francisco house and four police accompanied two Apple employees to the house. "The two Apple (security) employees met with the resident and then went into the house to look for the lost item. The Apple employees did not find the lost item and left the house," the police statement said. It did not say why police accompanied Apple security or the circumstances under which Apple employees "went into the house to look for the lost item". Police did not respond to a request for further comment. SF Weekly quoted a 22-year-old man who described himself as the resident of the searched house as saying the group identified themselves as police and that none had said they were working for Apple. They had traced the phone to the house using satellite-positioning software on the device but did not find anything in the house, he said he was told. The man, identified by SF Weekly as Sergio Calderon, could not be reached for comment by Reuters. Police, meanwhile, gave different versions of events during the day yesterday, while Apple has declined to comment at all. Hours before San Francisco police issued their statement about the search, SFPD spokesman Lieutenant Troy Dangerfield denied that police had been contacted by Apple in connection with any lost phone, or by the person visited by Apple security and the police. "No one has reported anything," Dangerfield told Reuters. In general, Dangerfield said SFPD requires a supervisor's approval for personnel who are not law enforcement officers to accompany police during investigations. "It's not routinely done at all," Dangerfield said. — Reuters |
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