Traffic Jams a Growing Reality for Switzerland; Switzerlanded: Its not just an opinion; Swiss Schools Stress Early Language Training; Basler Kantonal Bank Sets Deadline for Fraud Claims

The office added that the number of traffic jams also grew by 3.7 percent in 2013.

Motorists spent a total of 20,600 hours in stopped traffic on highways, with heavy traffic responsible for three-quarters of the holdups, according to the statistics.

Interestingly, the number traffic jams caused by accidents fell by four percent, while those caused by roadworks fell by 12 percent.

The office also said that commercial trucks travelled fewer kilometres on Swiss roads last year.

Of course, all of these statistics mean the federal parliament is under pressure to increase capacity on motorways.

It is expected to announce investments for improvements around the country, Swiss broadcaster RTS reported on Tuesday.

Last week we reported that expats living in Switezerland had coined a new phrase "being Switzerlanded" to express surprise or displeasure with among other things the high cost of goods and services.  Well, a new report released a week ago by the International Comparison Program in the US confirms suspicions that Switzerland is, in fact uniquely expensive.  Comparing the purchasing power and expenditures of consumers in 177 countries, Switzerland came out on top, besting Norway, Bermuda, Australia and Denmark for having the highest price level indexes.  The statistics were compiled for the year 2011, the latest year for which all the data was available, and is ranked using a calculation which levels prices for currency based impacts.  Other countries in the top 10 were Sweden, Japan, Finland and Luxembourg.

After a five year pilot program testing language education in pre school age kids, hansjorg lüking, head of Youth Family and Sports Department of Education has declared positive results.  Basel-Stadt will now seek to permanently roll-out the program throughout the canton.  Parents are first notified a year before their child is ready to enter Kindergarten in the Swiss School system that their child is eligible for the adjunct German language education program.  By this time last year, almost 400 children had successfully completed the program, and subsequent language tests revealed significant improvements in learning agility related to language.  Kids who sign up can expect a 2 and a half day per week program which seeks to identify and address student's weaknesses in the high german language - the program is free to participants with the costs borne by the canton of Basel Stadt.  

ASE Investments was once a high flying asset manager based in canton Aargau Fricktal that came to an inglorious end in 2012 when it was revealed to be a fraud.  At first it seemed all of its 800 customers had a complete loss of their investments.  Caught up in the affair, is the Basler Kantonal Bank or BKB that had referred 500 of those customers to the asset manager and was found subsequently by FINMA (the Swiss financial markets supervisory authority) of failing to limit risks and supervising the accounts of its customers and the activities of the fraudulent fund and its managers.  This was good news for the defrauded investors who successfully pressed the Bank to make financial reparations on behalf of the fund.  By mid april of this year approximately 90% of the defrauded clients had accepted a settlement which replaced a substantial part of the lost assets.  The bank is now seeking to put the painful episode behind them, which saw the termination of Hans Rudolf Matter BKB's director at the time of the scandal in addition to three other employees.  the bank has demanded that the remaining 10 percent of victims accept the terms of the settlement by mid June or be left to seek individual legal or financial recourse.