High-profile Geneva lawyer Charles Poncet thinks FIFA, the world football body headquartered in Zurich, should no longer be based in Switzerland because it is “doing considerable harm to the image of Switzerland, all the more so because its head, Sepp Blatter, is Swiss.” FIFA is under fire for alleged corruption in the choice of Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup. Its ethics committee is currently investigating.

For the past 18 months, Swiss authorities allegedly have been covering up the presence of highly radioactive material, which in some areas emits radiation of well over 100 times the permitted amount. According to Le Matin, 120kg of highly radioactive radium-based paint, originally used by the watchmaking industry to make watch faces visible at night, was found in an old dump near the town of Biel/Bienne in the Canton of Bern.

Le Matin reports that cantonal and local authorities kept the radioactive waste secret so as not to worry the town’s 50,000 inhabitants. Exposure to the substance for more than three hours would be equivalent to the total amount of time allowed for radioactive exposure per year.

Radium has been banned since 1963 because of its high levels of radioactivity. An infamous case in the 1930’s illustrated the dire effects of radium exposure. The “Radium Girls”, a group of women in the US who painted watch faces, later suffered serious health effects after they ingested radium by routinely licking their brushes to give them a finer point. Their exposure to radium caused serious health problems, including bone cancer.

François Bochud, president of the Federal Commission in charge of monitoring radiation (CPR), maintains that he had not been informed and has blamed the local authorities. For their part, these officials say that the Swiss Federal Department of Public Health (OFSP) should have informed residents. The OFSP has announced that over the next year, it will be inspecting former watchmaking workshops in the Jura region for radioactive contamination.

Europe and the US have lost 45% of their bees.

Given that 80% of Switzerland’s crops and wild plants rely on bee pollination, there is growing concern about the continued decline of Europe’s bee populations. Greenpeace and the European Alliance to Save Bees and Agriculture maintain that excessive use of highly toxic pesticides is largely responsible. The chemical companies, notably Bayer and Syngenta, beg to differ.

Switzerland has 20,000 beekeepers with 170,000 hives, many in urban areas where declines have been less serious, even non-existent. This, they say, is because town or suburban hives are not affected by industrial pesticides. “I have had no problems but my bees roam nearby gardens, not farms, ” said one amateur beekeeper in Lausanne. It’s a different story in the countryside.

Last December, based on the European Food Safety Authority’s ruling that neonicotinoid pesticides, or neonics, pose huge risks to bees, the European Commission imposed a two-year ban on three products. Switzerland has proposed similar restrictions. Germany’s Bayer and Basel-based Syngenta have lobbied against the move, arguing that the EU’s research has shown no real evidence. Instead, factors such as loss of habitat, diseases, viruses and nutrition have caused the declines. Their PR operations say they are working with farmers to reverse the loss of bees on a sustainable basis, a claim Greenpeace considers dubious. The reality is that governments need to come up with the science to clearly explain what is causing our bee populations to die, and what needs to be done.

World Wildlife Fund-Switzerland (WWF) and Pro Solar, an initiative of Swissolar, have launched a joint petition calling for a levy of CHF 0.10 per kWh on electricity produced from non-renewable energy sources. The organizations believe that this would help reduce impact on the environment without putting undue pressure on households and the wider economy.

More than half of Switzerland’s electricity comes from coal, nuclear power, or natural gas. The petition proposes that the full cost for such energy be borne by those who use it, and not the whole community. Citizens who continue to use “dirty power” would pay CHF 25 more per month for their electricity.

“With a tax on dirty power, we introduce the principle of polluter-pays,” says WWF’s CEO, Thomas Vellacott. President of Swissolar, Roger Nordmann, who is also a National Council member, believes that the government “simply wishes to replace Swiss nuclear power by purchasing foreign dirty power”. The proposed tax would rake in CHF 1.1–1.8 billion and could be used to promote renewable energies as well as help households move towards cleaner energy.

Bern With last month’s unemployment figures at 3% – the lowest in 25 years according to Bern’s Secretary of State for Economy (SECO) – Switzerland’s good economic prospects are proving increasingly attractive to foreign companies despite the gloom of the 9 February anti-mass immigration vote.

Based on an Ernst & Young (which now calls itself EY) report published earlier this week, Switzerland remains a strong draw for investors by its ‘exceptional’ advantages. Roughly one quarter of 800 international companies surveyed by the Basel-based company said that they intended to invest in Switzerland, while only eight percent envisaged reducing their activities located on Swiss soil. For the bulk of these companies, Switzerland’s political, social and fiscal stability is considered the main reason. Further cited draws are the quality of skilled workers and low corporate taxes. EY notes that most companies expected Switzerland to remain attractive in 2020.

Some foreign business interests, according to recently interviewed financial sources, are currently based in France, but exploring Switzerland as an option because of what one Lyon-based entrepreneur described as “increasingly frustrating economic constraints.” These dissatisfied companies include ones located in the Rhone-Alp region bordering Switzerland.

According to one American CEO of a medium-sized business in Paris with a 10 million Euro annual turnover, “it simply is no longer worth investing in France. Not only are the administrative shenanigans so constraining and time-consuming, but social obligations just don’t make it worthwhile.” He is now exploring whether to move to Switzerland or Belgium.

The same message is being heard from numerous other French businesses, particularly young entrepreneurs, who are regard France as ‘hopeless,’ ‘stifling’ or ‘unimaginative’. Many have already re-located to places like London, Shanghai, Los Angeles and Singapore. Over one half of France’s top business graduates, including those from the prestigious ‘Grandes Ecoles’ which have produced most of France’s leaders and – as one commentator noted – “are the one’s responsible for France’s mess”, are reportedly leaving for overseas. “These are people Switzerland needs to attract,” noted a representative from the Canton of Vaud’s Economic Development Agency.

At the same time, key Swiss industries, notably the hospitality sector, continue to voice concern that depending on what happens over the next three years with the implementation of the 9 February vote, they might not receive the necessary qualified workers for Swiss hotels and restaurants. The IT industry, including companies located at EPFL’s Innovation Park, also stresses the need to ensure continued access to top graduates regardless whether from France or India. Lausanne now ranks alongside Silicon Valley as one of the world’s key innovation centres.

Not everyone, however, agrees with Bern’s just released employment figures. According to the Federal Statistics Office, which uses the International Labour Organization’s method of calculation, unemployment is higher than SECO’s figures, notably 4.8% for the first 2014 trimester compared to 4.6% for the same period last year. It is also 9.8% for under-25 year olds compared to 8.3% in early 2013.

SECO, however, maintains that May was still better than January’s 3.5%. It also says that the under-25 unemployment now stands at 2.7%. Switzerland, too, ranks far more favourably than most other European countries, including Germany, for the last quarter of 2013. Only Norway has a lower unemployment rate. Manpower, a Swiss-based employment agency, agrees that Switzerland’s situation is improving and argues that the work market is expected to improve even more based on its own surveys of client companies.