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2012 Swiss Referendums
Twelve national referendums were held in Switzerland during 2012. On 11 March, voters across the country were asked five questions on employment leave, second houses, building society savings, the Fixed Book Price Agreement and gambling revenues. On 17 June, there were three questions on healthcare, foreign policy and home buying. On 23 September, there were three on a smoking ban, secure housing in old age and music lessons at school. A final referendum was held on 25 November on the Animal Diseases Act. Background Swiss law says that any issue can be put to a referendum if it attains 100,000 signatures to do so. The rules further state that for a measure to be nationally adopted into the constitution it has to get a majority of both votes and the number cantons that support the issue. March referendums The five topics of the March referendum were: # the federal popular initiative "six weeks of vacation for everyone;" # the federal popular initiative "an end to the limitless c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Swiss Alps, Alps and the Jura Mountains, Jura; the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, whereas most of the country's Demographics of Switzerland, 9 million people are concentrated on the plateau, which hosts List of cities in Switzerland, its largest cities and economic centres, including Zurich, Geneva, and Lausanne. Switzerland is a federal republic composed of Cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons, with federal authorities based in Bern. It has four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, Italian and Romansh language, Romansh. Although most Swiss are German-speaking, national identity is fairly cohesive, being rooted in a common historical background, shared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zoning Law
In urban planning, zoning is a method in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into land-use "zones", each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a single use (e.g. residential, industrial), they may combine several compatible activities by use, or in the case of form-based zoning, the differing regulations may govern the density, size and shape of allowed buildings whatever their use. The planning rules for each zone determine whether planning permission for a given development may be granted. Zoning may specify a variety of outright and conditional uses of land. It may indicate the size and dimensions of lots that land may be subdivided into, or the form and scale of buildings. These guidelines are set in order to guide urban growth and development. Zoning is the most common regulatory urban planning method used by local governments in developed countries. Exceptions include the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2012 Elections In Switzerland
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sports, where it commonly denotes the first, leading, or top thing in a group. 1 is the unit of counting or measurement, a determiner for singular nouns, and a gender-neutral pronoun. Historically, the representation of 1 evolved from ancient Sumerian and Babylonian symbols to the modern Arabic numeral. In mathematics, 1 is the multiplicative identity, meaning that any number multiplied by 1 equals the same number. 1 is by convention not considered a prime number. In digital technology, 1 represents the "on" state in binary code, the foundation of computing. Philosophically, 1 symbolizes the ultimate reality or source of existence in various traditions. In mathematics The number 1 is the first natural number after 0. Each natural numbe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Referendums In Switzerland
Voting in Switzerland (called votation) is the process by which Swiss citizens make decisions about governance and elect officials. The history of voting rights in Switzerland mirrors the complexity of the nation itself. The polling stations are opened on Saturdays and Sunday mornings but most people vote by post in advance. At noon on Sunday (''Abstimmungssonntag'' in German, ''Dimanche de votation'' in French), voting ends and the results are usually known during the afternoon. Switzerland's voting system is unique among modern democratic nations in that Switzerland practises direct democracy in parallel with representative democracy, which is why the Swiss system is known as a semi-direct democracy. Direct democracy allows any citizen to challenge any law approved by the parliament or, at any time, propose a modification of the federal Constitution. In addition, in most cantons all votes are cast using paper ballots that are manually counted. At the federal level, voting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swiss People's Party
The Swiss People's Party (, SVP; , PPS), also known as the Democratic Union of the Centre (, UDC; , UDC), is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Switzerland. Chaired by Marcel Dettling, it is the largest party in the Federal Assembly, with 62 members of the National Council and 6 of the Council of States. The SVP originated in 1971 as a merger of the Party of Farmers, Traders and Independents (BGB) and the Democratic Party, while the BGB, in turn, had been founded in the context of the emerging local farmers' parties in the late 1910s. The SVP initially did not enjoy any increased support beyond that of the BGB, retaining around 11% of the vote through the 1970s and 1980s. This changed however during the 1990s, when the party underwent deep structural and ideological changes under the influence of Christoph Blocher; the SVP then became the strongest party in Switzerland by the 2000s. In line with the changes fostered by Blocher, the party s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fixed Book Price Agreement
Fixed book price (FBP) is a form of resale price maintenance applied to books. It allows publishers to determine the price of a book at which it is to be sold to the public. FBP can take the form of a law, mandatory obligation on all retailers, or an agreement between publishers and booksellers. An example of a fixed book price law is French Lang Law and the German Buchpreisbindung. An example of a trade agreement is the former Net Book Agreement in the United Kingdom. The key idea of an FBP is to promote non-price competition between booksellers in order to promote the sale of little-known, difficult or otherwise culturally interesting books rather than catering only to blockbuster readers. To do so, an FBP is deemed to ensure that the booksellers that provide the corresponding presale services are able to recoup their higher costs with a guaranteed margin on blockbusters. Fixed book price systems, with various provisos, have existed in some developed countries since the begin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Committee Of The Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is a three-time Nobel Prize laureate. The organization has played an instrumental role in the development of rules of war and promoting humanitarian norms. State parties (signatories) to the Geneva Convention of 1949 and its Additional Protocols of 1977 ( Protocol I, Protocol II) and 2005 have given the ICRC a mandate to protect victims of international and internal armed conflicts. Such victims include war wounded persons, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants. The ICRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, along with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and 191 National Societies. It is the oldest and most honoured organization within the movement and one of the most widely recognized organizations in the world, having won three Nobel Peace Prizes (in 1917, 1944, and 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a United Nations Regional Groups, regional group basis. The headquarters of the Council are at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland. The Council investigates allegations of breaches of human rights in United Nations member states and addresses thematic human rights issues like freedom of association and freedom of assembly, assembly, freedom of expression, Freedom of religion, freedom of belief and religion, women's rights, Sexual orientation and gender identity at the United Nations, LGBT rights, and the Minority rights, rights of racial and ethnic minorities. The Council was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 15 March 2006 to replace the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR, herein CHR). The Council works closely with th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supranational Union
A supranational union is a type of international organization and political union that is empowered to directly exercise some of the powers and functions otherwise reserved to State (polity), states. A supranational organization involves a greater transfer of or limitation of state sovereignty than other kinds of international organizations. The European Union (EU) has been described as a paradigmatic case of a supranational organization, as it has deep political, economic and social integration, which includes a Single market, common market, Schengen Area, joint border control, a European Court of Justice, supreme court, and regular Elections to the European Parliament, popular elections. Another method of decision-making in international organisations is intergovernmentalism, in which state governments play a more prominent role. Origin as a legal concept After the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Albert Einstein spoke and wrote frequentl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Switzerland
Romandy ( or ; Arpitan: ''Romandia'')Before World War I, the term French Switzerland () waalso used ( or , , ) is the French-speaking historical and cultural region of Switzerland. In 2020, about 2 million people, or 22.8% of the Swiss population, lived in Romandy. The majority of the population lives in the western part of the country, especially the region along Lake Geneva, connecting Geneva, Vaud, and the Lower Valais. French is the sole official language in four Swiss cantons: Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, and Jura. Additionally, French and German have co-official status in three cantons: Fribourg/Freiburg, Valais/Wallis, and Berne/Bern. Name The adjective ' (feminine ') is a regional dialectal variant of ' (modern French ', i.e. "Roman"); in Old French used as a term for the Gallo-Romance vernaculars. Use of the adjective ' (with its unetymological final ') in reference to the Franco-Provençal dialects can be traced to the 15th century; it is recorded, as ', in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Home Ownership
Owner-occupancy or home-ownership is a form of housing tenure in which a person, called the owner-occupier, owner-occupant, or home owner, owns the home in which they live. The home can be a house, such as a single-family house, an apartment, condominium, or a housing cooperative. In addition to providing housing, owner-occupancy also functions as a real estate investment. Acquisition Some homes are constructed by the owners with the intent to occupy. Many are inherited. A large number are purchased as new homes from a real estate developer or as an existing home from a previous landlord or owner-occupier. A house is usually the most expensive single purchase an individual or family makes and often costs several times the annual household income. Given the high cost, most individuals do not have enough savings on hand to pay the entire amount outright. In developed countries, mortgage loans are available from financial institutions in return for interest. If the homeowner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
States' Rights
In United States, American politics of the United States, political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments of the United States, state governments rather than the federal government of the United States, federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Tenth Amendment. The enumerated powers that are listed in the Constitution include exclusive federal powers, as well as concurrent powers that are shared with the states, and all of those powers are contrasted with the reserved powers—also called states' rights—that only the states possess. Since the 1940s, the term "states' rights" has often been considered a loaded language, loaded term or Dog whistle (politics), dog whistle because of its use in opposition to federally-mandated racial Desegregation in the United States, desegregation and, more recently, Same ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
