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Posts Tagged ‘nature’

Moving mountain: Eiger continues to spark awe and fear

Posted in Travel, tagged , , , , , , , on July 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The Eiger North Face, as seen from Kleine Scheidegg © Susan Vogel-Misicka

The Eiger North Face, as seen from Kleine Scheidegg © Susan Vogel-Misicka

Seventy-five years ago, a quartet of German and Austrian climbers were the first to summit the Eiger by climbing its feared north face.

Earlier this month, I got an up-close impression of the “death wall” from the safety of solid ground.

Click here to find out why the Eiger North Face continues to attract top alpinists as well as ordinary tourists.

And for more on the backstory of the reportage, you can listen to the related podcast.

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Swiss regret Rio’s lack of “vision and commitment”

Posted in Current affairs, Environment, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the plenary session of the UN Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (© UN Photo/Maria Elisa Franco)

Although the Rio+20 sustainability summit ended without delivering the vision or commitment needed for the future, Switzerland says the process is not dead.

It is a view shared by the Swiss media following the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development – which closed on Friday after 193 nations agreed on a lackluster accord that largely reaffirms the goals of its predecessor, the 1992 Earth Summit.

“Based on its ambitions, the results of Rio+20 are very modest. But there were still some small successes,” stated the Saturday edition of the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper. These successes included sustainability goals and the introduction of a so-called green economy, defined as creating “well-being” and jobs without damaging ecosystems.

Click here for the whole story on swissinfo.ch.

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Bern says yes to nuclear power plant

Posted in Environment, tagged , , , , , , on February 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

The nuclear power plant in Mühleberg near Bern opened in 1972.

The people of canton Bern in Switzerland have voted in favor of building a new nuclear power plant in Mühleberg to replace the old one there. Meanwhile, voters in canton Nidwalden reiterated their lack of interest in hosting a nuclear waste repository in Wellenberg. Though non-binding, the recent ballot box results show that nuclear technology remains controversial in Switzerland.

Read the whole story here:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/internal_affairs/Bern_says_yes_to_nuclear_power_plant.html?cid=29485452

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Tapping into alternative energy for the soul

Posted in Travel, tagged , , , , , , on August 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Solid as a rock: the place of power in Engstlenalp, canton Bern

Switzerland is rich in mystical places where the weary can supposedly refuel by soaking up geobiological energy. I decided to check out a few such spots.

Read the whole story here:

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/Tapping_into_alternative_energy_for_the_soul_.html?cid=19674092

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Mammoth findings on display in Lucerne

Posted in Animals, tagged , , , , , , , on February 15, 2010| 1 Comment »

Taxidermist René Heim works on a 60,000-year-old mammoth tusk.

Wide-bucket excavators aren’t the tools of choice for archaeological digs, but sometimes you can’t be too picky. An astute workman was quick to realize the machine he was operating struck something special at a Lucerne-area gravel pit. That “something” was a 45,000-year-old mammoth tusk, about 180 centimetres long and about 50 centimetres in diameter at its thickest part.

Read the whole story here: http://www.swisster.ch/news/society/mammoth-findings-display-lucerne-museum.html

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