Most aggressions against train staff in Switzerland are committed by foreign nationals; passengers flying out of the EuroAirport in Basel are experiencing massive delays; and more news in our roundup on Monday.
Foreigners commit most aggressions against SBB staff
SBB personnel have been subjected to increasing verbal and physical attacks from passengers in recent years — approximately 3,600 cases a year.
“The attacks are more violent than before,” SBB spokesperson Moritz Weisskopf told the media on Sunday, adding that most incidents involve aggression, harassment, threats, and exhibitionism.
According to latest data from the Office of the Attorney General regarding offences committed on SBB trains, more than half of the perpetrators are foreign nationals, mostly aged between 20 and 40.
Summer travel: Massive delays at EuroAirport Basel
Practically every flight departing from the EuroAirport is late; on average, the delays are between 20 and 30 minutes, but some take off more than an hour late.
The reason for these delays is that air traffic control tower at the airport is chronically understaffed and it is likely to remain so for a while.
The fault, however, doesn’t lie with the airport itself, or even with Switzerland, but rather with the French Civil Aviation Authority, which is responsible for air traffic control at the EuroAirport, located in the French community of Saint-Louis.
The authority recently reorganised its areas, impacTing the EuroAirport as well.
“This means that significantly more flights – both arrivals and departures —need to be monitored, which requires more personnel,” EuroAirport officials told The Basler Zeitung.
And “as it is not possible to fill these new positions quickly because training to become an air traffic controller takes around two years, the situation will remain tense for some time.”
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Coop ends free plastic bottle disposal
Until recently, customers could dispose of their milk, shampoo. or laundry detergent bottles free of charge in store recycling bins.
However, this is no longer the case since the introduction of the Recybag.
In areas where this new recycling system is already in place — namely, Basel-City, Basel-Country, Zurich, Bern, St. Gallen, Schaffhausen and Graubünden — Coop no longer accepts polyethylene (PE) packaging free of charge. (PET bottles, on the other hand, are not affected by this measure. A recycling fee of 1 cent per bottle is already included in the retail price).
So far, Coop is the only Swiss retailer to have taken this step. Migros, Aldi, and Lidl will continue to provide this service.
READ ALSO: How will Switzerland’s new waste bag for recycling work?
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Switzerland seeks to give new life to its wartime bunkers
The country is still dotted with military bunkers dating back to WWII.
They have been decommissioned since the 1990s, but the war in Ukraine is sparking new interest in bringing these facilities back to life.
Therefore, the army wants to restore some abandoned bunkers, particularly those that were equipped with mortars during the Cold War, and has launched a call for tenders to determine how to best use these disused structures.
These military installations will serve as defence hubs filled with advanced technology — ‘difficult-to-attack defence nodes’, as the army describes them.
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