Word: switzerland
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...into interesting waters. He was a longtime adversary of Lee Kuan Yew, the leader of Singapore and a man much admired by un-adjectivally qualified conservatives, for what he saw as Lee's illiberal tendencies toward the press and opponents. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 1999, Safire had a long interview with Lee, which was posted online. It's still worth reading as an example of two first-class minds going at it hammer and tongs. He was critical, too, of some of the laws and policies that were adopted in the wake of 9/11, believing...
...Following the lead of Switzerland and a handful of other countries, Britain recently concluded a four-year trial in which longtime addicts were given daily heroin injections as part of a treatment program to eventually wean them off the drug. Now, with results showing the trial succeeded in reducing street-drug use and crime among participants, Britain could soon become only the second country in Europe to institutionalize the program. That would mean permanent, state-funded heroin clinics would be set up across the country to treat the most heavily addicted people. (See pictures of the dark path of drugs...
...Then came Gaddafi's suggestion that Switzerland be carved up like a wheel of Swiss cheese. During the G-8 summit in Italy in July, Gaddafi said Switzerland "is a world mafia and not a state," adding that the Italian-speaking part of the country should be returned to Italy, the German-speaking part to Germany and the French-speaking part to France. In an attempt to defuse the tension between the countries as well as to win the release of the two Swiss nationals being held in Libya, Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz traveled to Tripoli in August...
...current head of the African Union, he loses credibility when he comes up with outrageous comments like that," says Daniel Warner, a political scientist at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. Others see irony in Gaddafi's comments. "It's a paradox that Gaddafi wants to dismantle Switzerland because, as he claims, it is not a homogenous country, while Libya is divided by a desert into two regions that hate each other," says Baptiste Hurni, a Socialist parliamentarian who blogs about Libya. (Read "Libya Flips Over Swiss Detention...
...Despite the fact that Gaddafi is still holding the two Swiss nationals, many Swiss have found much to laugh about in his statements. The newspapers abound with tongue-in-cheek comments from readers who not only question Gaddafi's sanity, but also wonder how Switzerland would be divided up if the Libyan leader's motion were to be taken seriously. "Who is going to get the Matterhorn?" a reader asked in the Lausanne daily Le Matin. "Linguistically it belongs to Germany, but geographically it borders Italy." Another reader in Le Matin said he is "scandalized that Austria is not getting...