Switzerland

The Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, was built between 1929 and 1936 to serve as the headquarters of the League of Nations. It has served... as the home of the United Nations Office at Geneva since 1946 when the Secretary General of the UN signed a Headquarters Agreement with the Swiss authorities, although Switzerland did not become a member of the UN until 2002. An architectural competition held in the 1920s to choose a design for the complex described the project as follows: The Palais, whose construction is the object of the competition, is intended to house all the organs of the League of Nations in Geneva. It should be designed in such a way as to allow these organs to work, to preside and to hold discussions, independently and easily in the calm atmosphere which should prevail when dealing with problems of an international dimension. A jury of architects was selected to choose a final design from among 377 entries but was unable to decide on a winner.
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The Asian Development Bank is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia. The... bank admits the members of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and non-regional developed countries. From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 67 members - of which 48 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside. ADB was modeled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with member's capital subscriptions. At present, both the United States and Japan hold 552,210 shares, the largest proportion of shares at 12.756% each. China holds 228,000 shares , India holds 224,010 shares , the 2nd and 3rd largest proportion of shares respectively. The highest policy-making body of the bank is the Board of Governors composed of one representative from each member state. The Board of Governors, in turn, elect among themselves the 12 members of the Board of Directors and their deputy.
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The Zangger Committee, also known as the Nuclear Exporters Committee, sprang from Article III.2 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear... Weapons which entered into force on March 5, 1970. Under the terms of Article III.2 International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards must be applied to nuclear exports. Between 1971 and 1974, a group of 15 nuclear supplier states held a series of informal meetings in Vienna chaired by Professor Claude Zangger of Switzerland. The group's objective was to reach a common understanding on: the definition of "equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material;" and the conditions and procedures that would govern exports of such equipment or material in order to meet the obligations of Article III.2 on the basis of fair commercial competition. The group, which became known as the Zangger Committee, decided that it would be informal and that its decisions would not be legally binding upon its members.
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Partnership for Peace is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization program aimed at creating trust between NATO and other states in Europe and the... former Soviet Union; 22 states are members. It was first proposed as an American initiative at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Travemünde, Germany, on 20–21 October 1993, and formally launched on 10–11 January 1994 NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium. Twelve former member states have subsequently joined NATO. On April 26, 1995 Malta became a member of PfP; it left on October 27, 1996 in order to keep its security intact. On March 20, 2008 Malta decided to reactivate their PfP membership; this was accepted by NATO at the Summit in Bucharest on April 3, 2008. During the NATO summit in Riga on November 29, 2006, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia were invited to join PfP after which they joined PfP on December 14, 2006. Cyprus is the only European Union member that is not participating.
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The Paris Club is an informal group of financial officials from 19 of some of the world's biggest economies, which provides financial services such... as war funding, debt restructuring, debt relief, and debt cancellation to indebted countries and their creditors. Debtors are often recommended by the International Monetary Fund after alternative solutions have failed. It meets every six weeks at the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and Industry in Paris. It is chaired by a senior official of the French Treasury, currently the Director General of the Treasury [Ramon Fernandez]. The club grew out of crisis talks held in Paris in 1956 between the nation of Argentina and its various creditors. Its principles and procedures were codified at the end of the 1970s in the context of the North-South Dialogue. In the 1990s, the club began to treat the HIPC and non-HIPCs differently. The club began to grant increasingly larger debt reductions for the HIPCs.
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The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university... in the City of Zurich, Switzerland. Like its sister institution École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne , it is an integral part of the ETH Domain that is directly subordinate to Switzerland's Federal Department of Home Affairs. ETH Zurich is consistently ranked among the top universities in the world. It is considered the best university in continental Europe by the Shanghai Ranking ARWU, the Times Higher Education Ranking and the QS World University Ranking. It is currently ranked 7th best university in the world in Engineering, Science and Technology. 21 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to students or professors of the Institute in the past, the most famous of them being Albert Einstein in 1921, and the most recent being Richard F. Heck in 2010. It is a founding member of the IDEA League and the International Alliance of Research Universities . It is a member of the CESAER and Top Industrial Managers for Europe networks.
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The Zurich Universities of Applied Sciences and Arts , located in the city of Winterthur, with facilities in Zurich and Wädenswil, is the second... largest University in Switzerland after the University of Zurich. Currently, the university has 4 institutes , covering architecture and civil engineering, health, linguistics, life sciences and facility management, applied psychology, social work, engineering and management and law… All 36 schools The Zurich Universities of Applied Sciences and Arts were founded in 1998. The ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences was founded in September 2007, when the previously independent institutions Zurich University of Applied Sciences Winterthur, University of Applied Sciences Wädenswil, the School of Social Work and the School of Applied Psychology in Zurich merged. The former Zurich University of Applied Sciences Winterthur was itself made up out of schools with long histories: the Technikum Winterthur was founded in 1874 as Switzerland's largest engineering school, and the Höhere Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungsschule was established in 1968.
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The University of Bern is a university in the Swiss capital of Bern and was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the Canton of Bern. It... is a comprehensive university offering a broad choice of courses and programmes in eight faculties and some 160 institutes. The university is an international leader in certain fields of research, such as space research. Teaching and research activities are conducted on an interdisciplinary basis. For instance, the University of Bern is home to four of the National Centres of Competence in Research Climate , North-South , Trade Regulation and TransCure . With around 15,400 students, the University of Bern is a medium-sized Swiss university. Aside from the programmes and courses on offer, the attractions of the university include Bern's central location and quality of life, which is rated as one of the highest in the world. The University of Bern operates at three levels: university, faculties and institutes.
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Jean-Stéphane Bron is a Swiss film director. Born in 1969 in Lausanne, Jean-Stéphane Bron graduated from the School of Fine and Applied... Arts of Lausanne . After Known to Our Departments and The Way I Look at You, he directed for his first theatrical release Corn in Parliament, among the biggest hits in Swiss cinema. His documentary films have been awarded various distinctions in Europe and the United States. In 2006, he made My Brother Is Getting Married, his first fiction film. Cleveland versus Wall Street, a film that recreates a fictional trial between evicted Clevelanders and bankers blamed for the financial crisis of 2007–2010, which was selected for the Director's Fortnight sidebar of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, is his fifth feature-length film.
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Vincent Pérez is a Swiss-born French-speaking actor and director of Spanish heritage. He is best known internationally for playing the title... character Ashe Corven in The Crow: City of Angels, and for starring in Queen of the Damned, playing Marius de Romanus. Some of his notable films in French cinema include Cyrano de Bergerac, Le bossu, La Reine Margot and Indochine. In 1995, he was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in the World. Vincent Pérez was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, he is of Spanish and German descent. He commenced acting studies in Geneva, followed by the CNSAD and completed his training at L'École des Amandiers in Nanterre. He started acting in theatre before starring in films. His breakthrough role was starring opposite Gerard Depardieu in Cyrano de Bergerac. He was nominated for a César Award. He has since appeared in various films and his onscreen leading ladies have included Catherine Deneuve, Kim Basinger, Isabelle Adjani and the late Aaliyah. On television, he starred in Paris enquêtes criminelles, the French remake of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Pérez starred as Lieutenant Vincent Revel.
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Maurice Jean Béjart was a French-born dancer, Swiss choreographer and opera director who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He... was the son of the French philosopher Gaston Berger. He was born in Marseille, France in 1927. Fascinated by a recital of Serge Lifar, he decided to devote himself entirely to dance. In South France days, he had studied under Mathilde Kschessinska. In 1945, he enrolled as a corps de ballet at the Opéra de Marseille. From 1946, he had studied under Madam Rousanne , Leo Staats, Madam Lyubov Egorova and Olga Preobrajenska at "Studio Wacker," and etc. in Paris. In 1948, he was also formed with Janine Charrat, Yvette Chauvire and then with Roland Petit, in addition he had studied under Vera Volkova at London. In 1954, he founded the Ballet de l'Étoile company . In 1960 he founded the Ballet du XXe Siècle in Brussels . In 1987 he moved to Lausanne in Switzerland, where he founded the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, one of the most famous and successful dance companies in the world.
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Elizabeth Southerden Thompson, Lady Butler was a British painter, one of the few female painters to achieve fame for history paintings, especially... military battle scenes, at the end of that tradition. She was married to Lieutenant General Sir William Butler. Born at Villa Claremont in Lausanne, Switzerland, she specialized in painting scenes from British military campaigns and battles, including the Crimean War and the Battle of Waterloo. The Roll Call , The Defence of Rorke's Drift, and Scotland Forever featuring the Scots Greys are among her better-known works. She wrote about her military paintings in an autobiography published in 1922: "I never painted for the glory of war, but to portray its pathos and heroism". She was the daughter of Thomas James Thompson and his second wife Christiana Weller . Her sister was the noted essayist and poet Alice Meynell. Elizabeth began receiving art instruction in 1862, while growing up in Italy. In 1866 she went to South Kensington, London and entered the Female School of Art.
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Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the... capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields. A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire.
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France , officially the French Republic , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands... located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km , just behind that of the United States . Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world.
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Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the... Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres , and its highest point is 3,798 metres . The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
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Liechtenstein, officially the Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the... west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over 160 square kilometres , and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan. Liechtenstein has the highest gross domestic product per person in the world when adjusted by purchasing power parity, and has the world's lowest external debt. Liechtenstein also has the second lowest unemployment rate in the world at 1.5% . Liechtenstein is the smallest yet the richest German-speaking country in the world and the only country to lie entirely within the Alps. It is known as a principality as it is a constitutional monarchy headed by a prince. Liechtenstein is divided into 11 municipalities. Much of its terrain is mountainous, making it a winter sports destination.
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