Yes, it was a funny remark. Where I live in the super efficient USA the twice a day Amtrak train is in average a couple of hours late (and it has been up to 10 hours late). It is sometimes so late that they load the passengers on buses. I know trains are not a priority here and are underfunded and all that but still...

My compares-met .I win

I win Big time

Define importance ! If it means dominating, than Switzerland NEVER was important. If it means a position to mediate, it still IS important, even if in a minor way. Swiss embassies still have the representations of other nations in many spots on earth. Switzerland still has meeting places (Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Davos, Lugano, St. Moritz etc etc for many people. Interesting was to see that many important leaders arrived here in Zurich AFTER the WEF Davos had ended. But Switzerland NEVER had a "leading role", its "importance always was on the discreet side. A highlight of course was when Foreign Minister Traugott Wahlen in 1962 arranged the conference in Evian which lead to the independence of Algeria. In order to protect the Algerian "rebels" of that time (in French terminology "North African terrorists"), Mr Wahlen made all of them temporary Swiss diplomats with Swiss diplomatic passport, and kept them back in Zurich, as he feared the Deuxième Bureau. They were not allowed to either Lausanne or Geneva. .... Since then, when Air Algérie approaches Cointrin from the South, they always fly slightly to the left of Evian and then softly turn right before turning sharply left again, and while Evian is visible on the right, the Captain states in Arabic, French and English that you on your right have the cradle of Algeria ! This of course was unique. But ever since, uncounted numbers of more or less discreet meetings have taken place here. THIS is the importance. And still is.

Sure, while such were the "Fast trains" between Zürich and Schaffhausen in the early 1960ies :




while this here below was the famous Crocodile (Krokodil-Lokomotive)

and
and
while this here was one of the locomotives still in service between Schaffhausen
andSingen-Konstanz in about 1962


and here above one of the locomotives in use for the trains from Schaffhausen to Singen and Konstanz in about 1962
an-----d

Remember them,good ol` time to Natasha I left out the d on purpose

I am not going to restart the debate but here is another myth:

You would think there were billions of CHF looted in Swiss bank accounts.
The Volcker commission audit cost CHF 300 million and gave its final report in 1999. It determined that the 1999 value found was CHF 95 million. Most of those accounts were however belonging to the French aristocracy and wealthy French industrialists that wanted to shelter their money. Only CHF 17 million could be directly traced to holocaust victims.

I think there is an important difference between now and the cold war era, though. As the old imperial powers of Britain and France (as well as other European nations) were withdrawing from their empires in the 50s and 60s, there was a struggle between the American and Russian superpowers to capture these newly independent nations for their spheres of influence. Therefore a country like Switzerland that was clearly independent of both of the superpowers was a vital mediator in diplomatic disputes of this kind.

In the post 1990 world, this kind of competition for influence has changed dramatically, as the world is no longer divided between two competing super powers and their respective spheres. That is not to say that these kinds of negotiations don't happen anymore, and that the Swiss don't facilitate this kind of thing anymore, just that the eyes of the world no longer bother to see these things anymore, because the focus is elsewhere.

Robin

This article really has no depth IMHO..The things he writes about Switzerland anyone may be able to find on the internet and then put a few sentences together. At the end it says he "lived and worked in Switzerland" but when?...Not many on this forum have been more of a critic of Switzerland than me but seems likes he's pissed off because Switzerland is not trying to be PC "politically correct"...Regardless of whether we like it or not Switzerland will call a spade a spade. Countries that have a imprudent habit of being afraid of the very people they allow to integrate have the most problems and working towards their own demise...
UK is speaking about allowing Sharia law in order to integrate certain immigrants and USA is thinking about another amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants because they don't want to seem "uncharitable"... Commonsense gets thrown out the window...
I feel like strangling the Swiss from time to time for sure...but they are orderly and trying to keep their country "presentable"...No group is going to come into Switzerland and make it "unSwiss" whatever that may be...
They are small but they hold to their principles...Well more power to them...

Just one comment:

For the sake of argument, let's assume this assertion is true---although it probably isn't. Why would learning one common language as a lingua franca lead to the "death" of Switzerland?

Edward J. Cunningham
Derwood, MD

When did the Swiss ever stop speaking Schwizerdütsch?

Edward J. Cunningham
Derwood, MD

More information at the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_J...st_Swiss_banks

One of the comments following the article:

Could be...

Oh I absolutely agree, don't get me wrong. But all these ugly concrete blocks they built in the 70s and 80s (and even in the 90s to our shame) ought to be razed to the ground! What I'm talking about is the reviving of previously undesirable or industrious locations like Zürich West (Technopark) They're doing an excellent job in changing the whole place and its character in a relatively short time, it's projects like these that give me hope that CH finally escapes the great standstill I experienced in the 90s (I was a teenager back then and found most parts of Zürich extremely depressing).

Oh and all that crap about the anti-anti-Swiss crowd getting excited... we aren't. We're just critisizing a bad and unsubstantiated article.

Just to quickly go back to the train topic; yesterday I caught a train in Leichtenstein at 15.01 (precisely) to travel back to Zug, with an estimated arrival time of 17.01 (precisely). There were two changes, both of which happened exactly on time and from the predicted platforms and, guess what, I arrived bang on time!!

This would NEVER happen in the UK.

Wow, I am so glad to hear that - was it April 1st??!!

That's right. Under Obama, many people are looking for "Change"; albeit quarters, dimes and nickels.

Everybody gets lucky once in a while!

Damn, this UK must have excellent public transport. About four months ago I was less lucky when I took an intercity Greyhound bus (huge Volvo) from Johannesburg to Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. Instead of 10hour long trip, it took us more than 15hours because the bus broke down along the way and we had to stop in garage, but we still arrived safely and intact. Opposite applied to other bus though which burnt down completely and the people had to wait on side of the road to be picked up from the middle of nowhere.

What I find "grubby" in Switzerland is this infestation of tags and graffiti on public and private property.
I got red blobbies for saying such a thing last time (apparently some people think it is very artistic).
In California tags=gangs which is why they make me pretty uncomfortable. They usually disappear within 24 hours at most.

So are we to listen to what a failed UK Labour politician has to say???

This is the same Denis MacShane who was found to have been fiddling expenses along with a catalog of gaffes throughout his career. He and his cronies have run the UK into the ground, as much as he may wish ill on CH, I cannot see the Swiss letting things slip like the UK has!

Yeah, the tagging here in Basel sucks; it's just a mess. I don't think it carries the same gang related message that it does in, say, the Bronx. It's just rubbish graffiti by people with no artistic talent.