Новости за 03.04.2024

Vertical wind turbines could produce more electricity if optimised with tweaks identified by Swiss researchers. As they are quieter, require less space and are less dangerous for birds, such vertical wind turbines could compete with conventional models in the long term, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) announced on Wednesday. Vertical wind turbines have been around for some time. However, their development has faced challenges in terms of physics, according to the SNSF. As their axis of rotation is perpendicular to the wind... Читать дальше...

Salaries and bonuses for the executives of large Swiss companies rose again last year. Although multi-million salary packages have been the subject of public criticism for years, shareholders waved them through. In 2023, 17 of the 23 companies represented in the Swiss Leader Index (SLI) that have already published their annual report paid their CEOs more than in the previous year. On average, CEO salaries and bonuses rose by 3.3% compared to the previous year, according to an analysis by the news agency AWP. Читать дальше...

Inspired by cockroaches, Swiss researchers have developed a new drone which can push away obstacles and move past them. In the future, it will be used to measure biodiversity in remote areas. Environmental monitoring in areas with dense vegetation is a major challenge for scientists, according to a press release issued by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) on Wednesday. Although it is possible to take samples from individual branches, it has not yet been possible to penetrate further into the canopy. Читать дальше...

The Swiss People’s Party is making a new attempt to limit immigration into Switzerland. It has submitted its initiative "No to 10 million Swiss! (sustainability initiative)". The Swiss People’s Party submitted 114,600 signatures to the federal chancellery in Bern on Wednesday. It demands that a new article on "sustainable population development" be added to the constitution. According to the initiative, the population of permanent residents must not exceed ten million people before 2050. The government... Читать дальше...

There will be a changing of the guard at the top of Swiss Re by the middle of the year. The reinsurer's Board of Directors has appointed Andreas Berger as Group CEO who will start on July 1, 2024. He succeeds Christian Mumenthaler, who will step down. Berger joined Swiss Re in March 2019 as CEO of Corporate Solutions and member of the Executive Board, according to a press release issued on Wednesday. He previously held various management positions at Boston Consulting Group and Gerling and Allianz, among others. Читать дальше...

Offering ageing workers a chance to retire later could help plug Switzerland’s historic labour shortage in some key sectors. The Swiss recently voted against raising the pension age to 66, but could there be some wiggle room?

Professor Debjani Bhattacharyya shares with SWI swissinfo.ch her insights on India’s upcoming elections. The tension between federal states and the central government is a hot topic. The free trade agreement between Switzerland and India is clearly not. Bhattacharyya is historian from India currently teaching at the University of Zurich. She holds the chair of the history of the Anthropocene. Her research, for instance, traces how British colonial rule shaped the ecology of West Bengal, in the process creating Kolkata ... Читать дальше...