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Switzerland's passion-charged baby-food libel trial (TIME, Feb. 16) has ended in something of a draw. The plaintiff: the multinational Nestle Alimentana, among whose myriad food products are powdered infant formulas marketed in less developed countries. The defendants: members of the Bern-based Third World Working Group. The group had distributed a German-language version of a British pamphlet that charged baby-food makers with causing the deaths of Third World babies by hard-selling their formulas to illiterate mothers incapable of preparing them properly. The Swiss pamphlet was entitled Nestlé Kills Babies. Two years...
...Bern-based Third World Working Group (which lobbies in Switzerland for support of less developed countries) published Muller's report-with a few changes. Muller had criticized the industry as a whole, but the Bern activists titled their pamphlet Nestle Kills Babies. They also omitted some of Muller's qualifying remarks and included a preface that singled out Nestle for an accusation of "unethical and immoral" behavior. Nestle sued for libel, and the trial began last November in Bern. The controversy has stimulated great interest throughout Switzerland, 80,000 of whose 6½ million inhabitants are Nestle shareholders...
...Instead, the movie is one long cheap shot. Honcho of the pageant is "Big Bob" Freelander (Bruce Bern), who is-you guessed it-a used-car dealer. His friends from the Jaycees are variously venal and small-minded; their wives, we are given to understand, are frigid. Big Bob's little boy is caught by the cops trying to take pictures of the contestants in their undies through a dressing-room window. He intends to sell them, of course. And so it goes...
...risen in value by 22% against the dollar and just under 6.5% against the mighty West German mark. Lately the franc's gyrations have been especially wild. Last week, as the franc bounced to a new alltime high of 2.47 to the dollar on the Zurich exchange, the Bern government took a drastic step to curb the unwanted popularity of Swiss currency. Retroactive to Oct. 31, nonresidents who make large purchases (equivalent to $20,000 or more) of francs and stash them in Swiss banks will have to pay negative interest-in effect, a penalty-at a painful annual...
...resentment many Swiss feel toward migrant workers, who are blamed for everything from the housing shortage to overcrowded nurseries and schools, Oehen's "over-foreignization" campaign struck a surprisingly responsive chord. "They take our jobs, and they work too damn hard," declared a middle-aged lathe operator in Bern who vowed to vote for the constitutional amendment. "All they care about is putting in overtime to make more money. If you'd let them, they'd be working Sundays as well...