Diamond Thief Sentenced to 7 Years Imprisonment; Exotic Monkey Found Smuggled in Shoebox; Basel Police Director Courts Drugs Controversy; FCB Fans Use Facebook To Petition Video Game Maker

Captured in March of 2013, a 42 year old man that was accused of jewelry thefts at the Baselworld Jewelry shows in 2010 and 2011 was sentenced last week.  Though the man proclaimed his innocence throughout the hearing, prosecutors presented incontrovertible DNA and video evidence which put the man at the scene of the crime.  In all, the two thefts yielded diamonds whose value was in excess of 8 million francs for which prosecutors demanded 8 years imprisonment.  The judge ultimately handed down a 7 year sentence citing the man's involvement as ring-leader and previous criminal lifestyle.   During a routine border customs stop at the crossing between Lorrach and Basel, an officer heard an unusual sound inside a car.  Upon further inspection, a shoe box stowed behind the passenger seat of the vehicle held a legally-protected white tufted monkey.  Because this particular South American ape species is protected by international conventions, the monkey was seized and is held in quarantine by the Swiss Federal Agency for Nature Conservation.  The driver, is now also held in German custody facing violations of the German Federal Nature Conservation Act.   Bashi Dürr, Basel's Police Director has a radical idea: legalize, or at least decriminalize all drugs.  While in practice this would seem the most pragmatic approach as most people and politicians believe prohibition has failed.  Most people and experts however, also believe a more sophisticated approach is required that full decriminalization of all drugs.  70 percent of a recent Basel survey of ordinary citizens and experts believe that marijuana should be legalized.  On the other hand, most people and experts do not believe drugs deemed dangerous or highly addictive should be completely legalized.  Irene Abderhalden, vice director of the Swiss Addiction Foundation believes in a coherent policy on drugs similar to those governing the use and sale of alcohol.  She points out that drugs must be differentiated according to their dangerousness and to limit the publics ability to access it accordingly.  Although drug use was criminalized in Switzerland in 1975, the country and Basel in particular have significant recent history with attempts to decriminalize and control the sale and consumption of drugs.   A new Facebook page called "make St Jakob's Park stadium available in FIFA" has appeared on the social networking site - created by a 21 year old Basel student named raphael dorigo.  A die hard fan of the FIFA video game title (a european football game) published by the American software company Electronic Arts, raphael was inspired by his desire to see his home town stadium in the video game he spends so much time playing.  He went on to say that the performance of the FCB Team has achieved international acclaim after its recent and consistent appearances in the champion's league matches, and the stadium has also been the scene of some memorable international matches.  Although there is no word yet from the game publisher as to their intention to include the stadium in upcoming releases of the software, the petition has managed to garner some attention.  As of January 31, when the Facebook petition page was created, it has managed to attract almost 10,000 "likes" and has an active message and comment board.  Remo Master, the marketing communication manager at FCB has also taken notice, and was eager to join the chorus calling for the Joggeli (as the stadium is locally known) to be "in the game"