There are a million questions that come up during an international move, and one of the most pressing for families is: Where do I send my kids to school? This is no simple question. Finding and vetting schools and arranging enrollment can be a challenge, and the choice of a school can shape a family’s social life and cultural adjustment.
"Circuits Dead, There's Something Wrong"; TagesWoche To Shutter; Roofie Rally; SBB To Get Serious Samolians
News For 6 November 2018
Early Tuesday morning fixed land lines provided by Swiss telephone operator UPC have been disrupted. According to UPC 8% of its Swiss customers are affected by the outage. In Basel in particular, business customers of UPC like the Merian Iselin Klinik and Telebasel have had no telephone service via their main carrier. This meant that patients could not make or receive calls at the hospital nor could the hospital conduct its normal course of business taking appointments and communicating with vendors. Spokeswoman Alexandra Bini of UPC assured the public that the company is working hard to restore service, although no specifics were provided.
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November 16 will be the last issue of Basel based TagesWoche Magazine according to its publishers and backers at the Foundation For Media Diversity. The weekly magazine has been running continuously for the last seven years. According to publishers, the magazine simply did not manage to generate the revenue necessary for its continued operation. Andreas Miescher, board member of the Foundation For Media Diversity, has said that despite the discontinuation, the funds that were promised to TagesWoche will be diverted to a new project started in 2019 to continue its mission.
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In a striking report on Monday by Basler Zeitung, there's been a noticeable increase in the number of patients testing positive for knockout drops at the Basel University Hospital. In 2017, 21 patients tested positive for GHB - the anesthetic drug often surreptitiously added to someones drink to cause them to black out. The number of patients is more than three times the prior year. Although authorities fortunately have not seen a similar increase in sexual crimes, the drug is often used to disable victims.
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Last Wednesday, the Swiss Federal Council reported that it has decided to increase its investment budget for the SBB from 11.5 to 11.9 Billion Francs. By comparison, AMTRAK, the public rail system serving the entire United States, a landmass roughly 200 times larger, has annual revenue of 3.3 Billion Dollars, and has 0 allocated for investment. The rail operator intends to increase the number of regularly scheduled trains serving city stations, expand tunnel capacity into the Valais (a major tourist destination), enhance the number of double decker cars and improve infrastructure at many stations throughout the country.