tagged w/ Swiss
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I recommend that you select 1080pHD and watch it in full-screen so as to see all the subtleties of this outstanding drumming - this Swiss drum corps is deemed to be the best in the world, just like Swiss watches!
Spool down to the first comment I posted on this thread, to see another outstanding performance by these Swiss amateurs.
Happy New Year!I recommend that you select 1080pHD and watch it in full-screen so as to see all the... more
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It's Romney Girl! The Agenda Project and RomneyGirl.org have taken a brand-new spin on the Aqua hit, "Barbie Girl." And they have produced a music video, slamming Mitt Romney for his failure to release tax returns. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v4PWW301JM&feature=player_embeddedIt's Romney Girl! The Agenda Project and RomneyGirl.org have taken a brand-new... more
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sitsi
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1 year ago
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A 54-year-old man has admitted sexually abusing more than 100 mentally disabled children and adults in care homes in Switzerland and Germany during almost three decades, in what Swiss police described Tuesday as an unprecedented case.
The abuse took place in nine different care homes where the unidentified man had worked as a therapist since 1982, police in the canton (state) of Bern said.
Police have identified 122 of the victims, with the youngest being 1 year old at the time of the crime. Forty-two of the victims were over 18.
The man was arrested in April 2010 and has been detained since, but authorities only released details of the case Tuesday to prevent the investigation from being impeded by media interest, police said.
The head of Bern police's special investigations unit, Gabriele Berger, told a news conference in Bern that the evidence against the man includes photos and hours of video recording the abuse.
She said he had gone about his crimes deliberately, in many instances choosing victims who were unable to speak.
The case came to light in March, after two male residents of a care home informed their parents of sexual contact with the therapist.
The man was subsequently arrested at his home in the Bernese Oberland, in central Switzerland. Police said he has cooperated with investigators since his arrest, describing himself as a pedophile.
The man admitted sexually abusing 114 mentally disabled patients, some of whom also were physically impaired, police said. He also admitted eight further cases of attempted abuse, authorities said. Most of the victims were male, they said.
The majority of cases have passed the statute of limitations, police said. Under Swiss law, the man can only be prosecuted for 33 of them, they said.
"One of the central questions of this investigation is how such levels of abuse could go undetected for so long," said Berger.
The man had been investigated on allegations of sex abuse in 2003, but that probe was dropped due to conflicting evidence, she said, adding that that case would be reopened.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41369952/A 54-year-old man has admitted sexually abusing more than 100 mentally disabled... more
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It seems to be a tax avoidance news day, with the Guardian reporting on a new deal which could allow Britons to avoid paying £40bn during a time of budget cuts.
"Murphy is a former KPMG accountant who wrote a report for the TUC in 2008 detailing how wealthy individuals and corporations based in the UK were avoiding £25bn a year in taxes. He said losses to the taxpayer could balloon over the next few years as more people move their accounts to Switzerland's lower tax regime."-Guardian
The quote is from Richard Murphy who heads tax research, he also states the lowered tax regime could effect the competitive nature of UK banks. The deal also means the UK tax authority would be limited in inquires into the tax affairs of a British individual.
"MEP Sharon Bowles, who chairs the European parliament's influential economic and monetary affairs committee, welcomed the deal but said she was concerned it lacked a retrospective element. She warned that Europe faced a €250bn (£223bn) tax fraud bill every year that governments must tackle."-GuardianIt seems to be a tax avoidance news day, with the Guardian reporting on a new deal... more
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After several incidents where low level breaches of security released thousands of confidential bank files and identities the Swiss government has stepped in and ruled that it will refuse all requests for assistance from people using data that was obtained illegally.
While the government will assist in investigations involving legitimately obtained data it will review each request to ensure its legality.
http://rt.com/Top_News/Press/eng.htmlAfter several incidents where low level breaches of security released thousands of... more
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More info here: http://www.ecobold.com/reusable-water-bottle-sigg/
This reusable water bottle by Swiss company SIGG is not only an eco-friendly bottle, but also a safe water bottle that's BPA-free. If you don't already own a reusable water bottle, please think twice. In the US alone we use over 30 Billion plastic bottles, that's 3.5 Million bottles every hour. On top of that, 80% of the water bottles don't get recycled. In fact, they end up in landfills, oceans, rivers, and even on birds stomachs, that's right: birds eat the water bottle caps and they even feed it to their babies thinking it's food. Its heartbreaking to see that we could avoid that. Another main reason to use reusable aluminum bottles such as SIGG's is that most plastic water bottles are made with BPA, which is a synthetic material that can cause several problems, in between cancer, obesity and neurological problems, according to several researches that have been done.
SIGG bottles have been out and about for over a century and they're a very honest and upfront company. I know that a few years ago they were having some problems with BPA in the lining, and when we asked them about it, they didn't hide behind the bush, they responded right away and said that the lining had been replaced since 2008 and is now 100% BPA free.
According to their site, what differs SIGG from most other reusable bottles is that their bottles are manufactured from a single piece of pure aluminum. They say: "SIGG bottles are perfectly extruded for uniform, seamless construction ensuring leak-proof performance and extreme durability."
Where to take my reusable water bottle? You can take it to work, to the gym, while running, exercising, camping, you can even leave it in your car. Some people even freeze water inside the bottle and use as ice on ice coolers!
SIGG carries a big collection of several different styles, colors and sizes, they even have BPA-free reusable kids bottles, lots of designs to choose from.
A little history about SIGG:
They were founded in Switzerland in 1908 and they were producing a range of goods covering thousands of household and sports articles. They started producing the first single-color coated drinking bottles in 1980. In 1999 SIGG decides to focus on the production of the SIGG bottle and in 2008 they celebrated one hundred years of existence!
Highlights:
- Reusable
- Saves money
- Safer for your health
- Saves our environmentMore info here: http://www.ecobold.com/reusable-water-bottle-sigg/
This reusable... more
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It should have been a simple Harley meeting, counting 200 members, but from the entire continent, 30.000 Harley bikers came to this small town, Lugano, counting just 60.000 inhabitants. The result? the whole region was invaded, every single street of the town were filed with bikes, and least but not least, one of the biggest and funniest fest started in a peaceful city. Those Harley bikers were so fine that the whole thing became a memorable day.It should have been a simple Harley meeting, counting 200 members, but from the entire... more
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Co-sponsored by BMI, along with the Sandestin Resort and Southwest Airlines, the first annual Sandestin Music Festival will divert voluntary donations collected at the festival to support the National Audubon Society and its efforts to help birds and other wildlife affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico... http://actorschecklist.com/wordpress/?p=64Co-sponsored by BMI, along with the Sandestin Resort and Southwest Airlines, the first... more
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Sometimes we would walk to a nearby restaurant, where he would eat something very simple. Or we would go to a bookstore, searching for yet another book by Kipling or Conrad in an English edition for friends to read to him. People would stop to greet him, and he would jokingly tell me they must have mistaken him for someone else. His fame as a writer seemed to burden him, and he often regretted that he had to go on living so that Borges the writer could weave his literary fantasies. http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/section-table/339-jlborges-on-life-and-death-interviewSometimes we would walk to a nearby restaurant, where he would eat something very... more
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worrg
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3 years ago
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Makers hopeful that maiden voyage of world's largest solar-powered catamaran will prove that the sun can fuel the world
Considering its 85 tonnes and its potential to shape the future of maritime travel, the launch of Türanor was a surprisingly reserved affair. The world's largest solar-powered boat made a gentle plop as it was lowered by a huge crane on to the waters of the Kiel firth in northern Germany today, and triggered the polite applause of onlookers – mainly fishermen and shipyard workers. "We've made it, she's safe, and she floats," whispered its owner, Immo Ströher, with tears welling in his eyes.
But the real challenges for the gleaming white catamaran still lie ahead, as its makers seek to use it to prove that the sun can fuel our world.
Next year, after an intense testing phase, Türanor – the name, inspired by JRR Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, means "power of the sun" – will embark on her maiden voyage, a round-the-world trip during which her two-man crew will attempt to chase the sun in order to capture as much available solar power as possible and navigate her at an average speed of 7.5 knots.
Ströher's granddaughter christened her today by smashing a bottle of champagne against her teak deck, and pronouncing: "May you always have plenty of water under your bows, and sun on your deck."
The 31-metre-long multi-hull vessel, the brainchild of Swiss former ambulance driver Raphael Domjan, is topped by scores of photovoltaic panels, with a total area of more than 600 sq metres, that covers most of the catamaran's surface. Additional panels are attached to outriggers on its starboard, port and stern sections, that can be retracted in stormy weather. The solar energy, which will be stored in the largest lithium ion battery in the world, will power the vessel's silent, pollution-free electric motor.
"The mission of the skippers will be to chase the sun," said Dany Faigaux, a member of PlanetSolar, the Swiss team behind the ambitious project. "Up until now, sailing navigation has involved working with the three parameters of the waves, wind and tide. But we've added two new dimensions – namely, sunlight and the lithium ion battery. It's a completely new form of energy management."
The £16m catamaran – chosen for its energy-saving ability to "slice" rather than "ride" through waves – will store energy in its batteries by day. It can run on its stored energy in the absence of sunlight for around three days at 7.5 knots, the speed of an average oil tanker. At slower speeds it could run for up to 15 days, according to its makers.
Türanor, which will travel along an equatorial route – to take most advantage of the sunshine – will be helped by French meteorologists who will advise the most efficient path along which to steer it according to current conditions and forecasts.
If it is a particularly cloudy day, they might recommend a diversion to sunnier parts, even if the route turns out to be longer. "Its all about maximising its energy efficiency," said Faigaux.
The 34,000-mile journey will take the vessel across the Atlantic, the Panama Canal, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean over a scheduled 160 days. The voyage is intended not so much to revolutionise sea travel – the technology requires the vessel to be as light as possible, so it would not be suitable for heavy container ships – as to prove the under-exploited potential of solar energy.
"We want to be the Phileas Fogg of the 21st century," said 38-year old Domjan, the project's pioneer. "But beyond Jules Verne's dream, our project is meant to serve the environment and to enable solar energy to replace fossil fuels, and to motivate engineers and scientists to develop these technologies," he said. Appropriately, one of the patron's of the project is Jean Verne, the great-grandson of the French author of Around the World in Eighty Days.
"I don't know why no one has tried it before," added Domjan, whose company also boasts what they say is the world's only solar-powered computer server. "But what we want to show is that all the technology that is in this boat is technology you can already find on the market, rather than just in the lab, and all of it can be applied to our normal, everyday lives."
Gerard d'Aboville, his fellow skipper for the forthcoming voyage, is no stranger to maritime challenges, having become the first person to row across the Atlantic Ocean in 1980.
"We'll have to learn a new kind of navigation," he said. "It's very different from any of the other challenges I've faced, which is what makes it so interesting. It's strongly symbolic for the future of solar energy, but I would not dare to say that tomorrow a merchant boat or a passenger plane will be powered by the sun."Makers hopeful that maiden voyage of world's largest solar-powered catamaran will... more
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One of favorite things to do when I visit another country is reading the newspaper. As I'm sure you've guessed, I've always got a hankering for consuming as much news as possible - but there's another reason. I love to see the lens through which another country sees the stories out there in the world. What are the important local issues and which international issues are deemed appropriate. Yesterday, as I was checking in to the hotel I found the Turkish English-language daily: Hurriyet Daily News.
This was yesterday's cover:
Yeah - a little bit of a different perspective over here.
What's in today's paper? Monday we looked at the story of the Switzerland voting to ban minarets. Turkey, as a country that's vying to be the first Muslim-majority member of the EU, has a unique perspective on this issue. Both Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan spoke out against what they saw as a violation of basic human rights. I thought this quote from Erdogan was the most resonant: "I am speaking as Prime Minister of a country, of a civilization that proved mosques and synagogues can co-exist on the same street for centuries." Here's a link to the story online.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan: The right choice?
- Welcome to Istanbul
- 1 in 4 US children on food stamps - Real Recovery
- While you were feasting: Swiss minarets, bin Laden blunders, Iran nuclear enrichment
- Hasn't this just been a whole year of Black Friday? - Real RecoveryOne of favorite things to do when I visit another country is reading the newspaper. As... more
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I flew into Istanbul, Turkey a few hours ago. Coasted above the Mediterranean along the coastline from the European side as the city grew to our left. And grew. And grew. (PS - Istanbul is huge. LA huge.) The rolling hills of the city are carpeted with buildings and punctuated every now and then by minarets. That was the most striking feature of the skyline for me. These little spikes jutting up higher than their surroundings. (It's exactly the sort of skyline the Swiss just voted to avoid.)
Pictures to come, I promise.
What am I doing in Turkey? I was invited to come speak at a conference by Internews, an organization that describes itself as "an international media development organization whose mission is to empower local media worldwide to give people the news and information they need, the ability to connect, and the means to make their voices heard." So you can see where the connection to Current is.
I'm speaking (tomorrow) about recent developments in journalism, both good and bad. How, in the US, the business of journalism is in crisis but within that crisis is great opportunity. Using new technologies that open media up to a wider range of voices we could actually save/improve/fix/better journalism. It's actually why Current was founded and it's what I spend a lot of my time thinking about.
I'm going to focus on my favorite examples of new directions in journalism. Here's a few of them:
- ProPublica's Reporting Network which asks you to help them report their stories
- Demotix, a photography citizen journalism site
- Spot.us which works to "crowd-fund" journalistic work
If you have any favorite sites you think I should include, let me know. Otherwise, I'll let you all know how the speech goes over. And, hopefully, I'll be able to introduce you to some folks from around Asia and Europe who are here for the conference (the list of countries represented boggles the mind: Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, etc, etc).
Also - what about Turkey? Any burning questions you'd want asked of the Turks? I'll ask 'em!
Stay tuned!
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- 1 in 4 US children on food stamps - Real Recovery
- While you were feasting: Swiss minarets, bin Laden blunders, Iran nuclear enrichment
- Hasn't this just been a whole year of Black Friday? - Real Recovery
- The recession visualized - Real Recovery
- California's education crisis - Join the group on CurrentI flew into Istanbul, Turkey a few hours ago. Coasted above the Mediterranean along... more
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Like most good Americans, I spent the last four days stuffing myself to the brim with foodstuffs and then laying about sofas in front of dimly-pulsing televisions making lazy, slow-tempo jokes. And if you did the same then you might not have had time to keep up on your news, so here's three stories from around the world you might not have caught.
It wasn't Thanksgiving in Europe and the Swiss went ahead and held elections on Sunday. In what's being interpreted as a symbol of anti-Muslim backlash, over 57% of the voters said yes to a constitutional ban on minarets atop mosques. Swiss approve ban on mosque minaret construction posted by: kyleanderson
A Senate Report released over the weekend claimed that Osama bin Laden was "within reach" of American troops in Tora Bora in 2001. Unfortunately, then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld ignored calls for reinforcements and bin Laden slipped away into Pakistan, where he's believed to still be today. The report comes as President Obama is preparing to give a speech (Tuesday) outlining his plans for Afghanistan. Senate report: Rumsfeld decision let Bin Laden escape posted by: bansheewail.
Iran, in defiance of censure by the UN, announced that its cabinet had approved the construction of 10 new nuclear enrichment facilities. Yeah, 10. Why build a couple more when you can go for double digits? Iran approves plans for 10 new uranium enrichment plants in defiance of UN censure - posted by: ras_menelik.
What else is going on out there? Anything else a big story from this weekend you think people missed? Post it on Current News.
Recently on the Current News Blog:
- Hasn't this just been a whole year of Black Friday? - Real Recovery
- The recession visualized - Real Recovery
- California's education crisis - Join the group on Current
- Update to Philippines story: 46 dead
- Who killed 30 people in the Philippines?Like most good Americans, I spent the last four days stuffing myself to the brim with... more
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Masked men have stormed a packed casino near the Swiss border city of Basel, making off with hundreds of thousands of francs (dollars), prosecutors say.
The gang consisted of 10 men who arrived in two cars just after 0400. they smashed their way in brandishing machine guns and pistols.
The French-speaking gang ordered the 600 guests and employees to the floor while they emptied registers.
The Grand Casino describes itself as the "Swiss Las Vegas" on its website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8591624.stmMasked men have stormed a packed casino near the Swiss border city of Basel, making... more
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According to a report out of consonant-heavy Swiss gaming site GamesMarkt, Switzerland's parliament recently passed a law that could lead to an across the board ban on "violent" games being sold in the country. Apparently a proposal was inked last month that aimed to remove games which require "cruel acts of violence against humans and human-like creatures for in-game success" -- a proposal that has apparently been passed by the Swiss National Council.
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/24/proposal-in-swiss-government-could-ban-violent-games/According to a report out of consonant-heavy Swiss gaming site GamesMarkt,... more
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If you're going to make a xenophobic poster, at least make it original:
The Algerian government has formally protested to Paris about a poster which associates its flag with Islamisme, or radical forms of Islam. The poster shows France covered by an Algerian flag and a forest of mosque minarets. The slogan reads: "Non à l'Islamisme".
It closely resembles a poster published by a nationalist party in Switzerland
before a mosque-building referendum last November. The Swiss advertising agency that devised the original poster said it planned to sue Mr Le Pen's party, the National Front, for plagiarism. (Joshua Keating, Foreign Policy)
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/10/french_racists_steal_poster_idea_from_swiss_racistsIf you're going to make a xenophobic poster, at least make it original:... more
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snic
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added this
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3 years ago
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Libya's Muammar Gaddafi has called for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland, as an ongoing diplomatic row between the two nations heats up.
This comes after a recent Swiss vote against the building of minarets and, leading Gaddafi to say Muslims must boycott the country.
It may also be linked to the arrest in Geneva of his son in 2008 followed an alleged assault on two servants.
A Swiss foreign ministry spokesman has refused to comment.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8537925.stmLibya's Muammar Gaddafi has called for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland,... more
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In 1922, Margaret Sanger wrote The Pivot of Civilization with an introduction by eugenicist H. G. Wells. The Rockefeller Foundation "enthusiastically supported the concept of 'eugenics,' which encourages the reproductive efforts of those deemed to have 'good' genes, while discouraging or stopping procreation by undesirables. But Rockefeller and others were anxious to go even further to mold America's breeding patterns along evolutionary lines." [1] John D. Rockefeller Jr., per the advice of Raymond B. Fosdick, provided financial backing for Margaret Sanger's Planned Parenthood movement. [2] Sanger, a feminist and birth control activist established the first family planning clinics in New York City. Several U.S. foundations financed eugenic research, including the Carnegie Institution, which funded Davenport's eugenic studies at Cold Spring Harbor, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which gave grants in the 1930s for eugenic research at the Galton Laboratory at University College in London and to the Cornell Medical School in New York. [3]
Advocates for population control and the study of eugenics include Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Wilson, president of Harvard and Irving Fisher, president of Yale and president of the Eugenics Research Association in the 1920s plus a host of other very public vocal figures. [4] President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court where he served from 1902 to 1932. Holmes was an advocate for selective breeding and issued the sterilization verdict in the case of Carrie Buck in 1927. He said, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough." [5] Sir Frederick Pollock, a Pilgrims Society member and law professor at Oxford, was the editor of Law Quarterly Review from 1885 to 1919. He was in close communication with Harvard-educated Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. during a sixty-year period of time. Researcher Charles Savoie maintains that the Pilgrims Society was closely connected to America's Supreme Court for more than a century. [6]
The Rockefeller Foundation financed what is known as Psychiatric Genetics, a new specialty. The Foundation restructured medical training in Germany including managing the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Eugenics and Human Heredity under the direction of Swiss psychiatrist Ernst Rudin, supported by his trusty protégés, Otmar Verschuer and Dr. Franz J. Kallmann. In 1932, the British eugenics' movement appointed Dr. Rudin as president of the worldwide Eugenics Federation. The eugenics movement promoted the killing or sterilization of burdensome people, individuals that Henry Kissinger referred to as "useless eaters." [7] Rockefeller funded the Kaiser Wilhelm Eugenics Institute in Germany, founded in 1927.
The Bush family joined John D. Rockefeller and the British Royal Family in sponsoring the eugenics initiatives that gave rise to Hitler's racial hygiene programs. Prescott Bush was later found guilty of trading with the Nazis during WWII. According to court records, the Rockefeller family and their Standard Oil Company supported Hitler more than they did the allies during the war. In fact, one judge declared Rockefeller guilty of treason. Dr. Gary Glum documented the insidious eugenics programs to create a "superior race," which were initially sponsored not by Adolph Hitler, but by the American elite like the Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harriman, Morgan, DuPont, Kellogg and Bush families. [8]
More at the link:In 1922, Margaret Sanger wrote The Pivot of Civilization with an introduction by... more
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The police chief in charge of security at the World Economic Forum in Davos has been found dead in what is believed to be a suicide.
Swiss police said the body of their commander, Dr Markus Reinhardt, had been found in his hotel room.
The shock announcement came as political and business leaders began arriving in the Swiss mountain resort amid fortress-like security for the start of the annual blue-chip meeting.
A police statement said: "Dr Markus Reinhardt, commander of the Graubuenden cantonal police... was found dead in his hotel room (in Davos) in the morning. All indications point to a suicide."
Suicide, my a$$.The police chief in charge of security at the World Economic Forum in Davos has been... more
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