Geneva airport warns about luggage scam; the canton of Geneva could vote again on Sunday store opening; and more news in our roundup on Friday.
Geneva airport warns passengers about ‘lost luggage scam’
On its website, the airport is alerting passengers about several fraudulent sites “which falsely claim to be associated with our organisation.”
“These websites, which pretend to sell lost luggage, are clear attempts at scamming,” airport’s management said.
Anyone who comes across such sites should be aware that Geneva Airport never sells lost luggage, so these claims are fraudulent.
If unsure about the legitimacy of such sites, pay attention to the following:
- Unusual or strange URLs that do not match the official domain name GVA.CH.
- The absence of footers with links to terms and conditions or legal notices.
- Menus that are not clickable or functional.
Geneva could vote again on Sunday openings
While the right-wing majority in the cantonal parliament approved a plan to open shops on two Sundays a year, the left has announced it would launch a referendum against it.
This wouldn’t be the first time.
In 2016 already, Geneva voters agreed that stores could be open on three Sundays a year, provided that a comprehensive collective labour agreement (CLA)to protect employees existed in the sector.
However, these negotiations never came to fruition.
In 2019, a two-year experimental law was proposed to allow these openings without a CLA, but it was refused in a 2021 referendum.
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Swiss rental housing market remains under pressure
Construction of new housing in Switzerland is stalling. However, according to a real estate study by Raiffeisen bank, low interest rates are boosting hopes for more housing.
While an average of 7.3 new apartments was planned per 1,000 residents annually between 2004 and 2017, this figure fell to just 5.5 between 2020 and 2024.
However, these numbers, which refer to submitted building permit applications, don’t consider the fact that apartments increasingly have to be demolished to create new housing.
Today, for every 100 new apartments, 17 existing ones are demolished or converted to allow for denser development.
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Switzerland wants to protect railway owls
The so-called ‘eagle owls’ often perch on railway masts, which can prove fatal to this endangered species because of the risks of electrocution.
A third of eagle owls found dead in Switzerland succumb to this type of accident, the Federal Office for the Environment (BAFU) said in a press release on Thursday.
To prevent future deaths of this kind, BAFU is collaborating with the national railway company SBB as well as with the Rhaetian Railway to “implement targeted measures to secure dangerous masts.”
Concretely, they remove the nests and regularly clean up and sanitise the railway lines to keep the owls from perching there.
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