10 September 2013: Young woman found dead in apartment Basel; It’s becoming even more difficult to find a flat in Basel these days; Basler Faces Sentencing after Gambling Clients’ Funds

A 31 year-old Swiss woman has been found dead in an apartment on Gundeldingerstrasse in Basel.  The woman had been stabbed multiple times when she was found this morning in the apartment which police say wasn’t her home. Basel police have interviewed neighbours but continue to seek information from witnesses.

The discovery was prompted after the body of a 39 year-old man was found early yesterday morning on railway lines under the Münchensteinerbrücke nearby. The man was killed by a passing train and police are investigating whether the two sudden deaths are related.

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Adrian Hilti is a digital  entrepreneur with a difference. Not long ago he set up an online social network for language students. So successful has the project been that the 39 year old Basler now has a total of 26 employees.

It all started in 2007 when he was at an international business school in Madrid. "Although I was in the Spanish capital,* he said, “English was spoken by virtually everybody. And the idea of a social network for students came to him.

Six years later, and the service is now being used by more than 35 million students worldwide with an extra 40 thousand coming on board the online platform every day.

Hilti explains that the business model is based on users helping one another. If one user corrects some else’s exercise set in the free section, virtual points are earned that can be exchanged for non-free products  available in the site’s more advanced non-free pages.

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A 46 Year old Basel man will appear before a Judge this Wednesday to hear his sentence for squandering 6 and a half million Francs of his Clients' money at a local Casino.  The man was operating a real estate management firm and misappropriated client rents and deposits.  His scam was broken up late in 2008 with his firm bankrupt, but that didn't stop him from taking another job with another firm and stealing money there also.  Appearing before the Basel Criminal Court late last week, the man begged forgiveness for abusing the trust of his clients and family and blamed his predicament on a gambling addiction. 

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Now here’s a sobering tale for those on the lookout for somewhere to live in Basel. It seems that accommodation in the region has become so tight that the city’s only serious newspaper, the Basel Zeitung, has launched a major competition designed to find out exactly how difficult is it the find a flat in the area.

Experts are saying the shortage of suitable accommodation in Basel is becoming as serious as Zurich, with stories becoming more frequent of hopefuls taking weeks and even months to go through the process of viewing property, completing application forms and beating off the competition before they’re successful in finding themselves a place to call home.  Now the newspaper is asking readers We want to know how people looking for a home to experience the situation. One of the questions reads: Have you been looking for your dream home for two years or more? Maybe it’s time to look further afield. Stay tuned for the paper’s results. They’re guaranteed to make depressing reading.

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And finally, the BVB has got a new fight on its hands. It’s not fare dodgers or Saturday-night hooligans, but apparently software glitches. Oh dear. The error decided to strike after the company tried to implement improvements to the software driving the electronic signs at bus and tram stops. The result was by yesterday morning, no less than 78 of the information screens – about one quarter of the total - went blank on Monday morning.

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