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Dear Friend of Switzerland,
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 Democracy & Government
Switzerland Gets High Marks
Humanitarian
Search and Evaluation Team Back from Japan
Innovation
Switzerland Is Carving the World's Largest Railway Tunnel
Lifestyle
Marco Grob: Capturing the Essence of a Person
Dear Reader,
The U.S.-Swiss Bilateral Conference of Women recently held in Berne, Switzerland, sported a dazzling array of female powerhouses from both nations. Female ambassadors, corporate titans, politicians and journalists compared notes on women's advancement in both nations, where we are and where we need to go.
U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland Donald S. Beyer's remarks were noteworthy. He said the next step for women is to "engage the men."
I'm sure there are feminist leaders in the United States who could recite thousands of instances where men have been engaged in the women's movement. But true enough, I agree with Beyer that more fully engaging men to work toward women's advancement is a fantastic next step.
Doris Leuthard recently stepped down as Switzerland's chair of the Governing Council (Federal Council, Ed.). She was one of Switzerland's first female presidents and the first woman to lead it when the majority of council members were women. The Swiss governing council is composed of seven members who rotate in and out of the presidency. Four are women. Another woman is the current President, Micheline Calmy-Rey.
Clearly, the Swiss have done a better job of engaging the men than American women have done, at least on the political front. Though Switzerland beats us when it comes to promoting female politicians, advancement of Swiss women has not extended into the pay and business realms.
Oddly enough, the United States and Switzerland have just-about-equal pay gaps (women earn just under 80 cents for each dollar earned by men in both nations) and similar numbers of women sitting on corporate boards (fewer than 15 percent of board seats filled by women.) But Swiss women comprise a much greater percentage of members of Parliament than we have women in Congress - we boast a mere 17 percent.
I asked Leuthard how she was able to rise to the top of Swiss politics. Switzerland is a relatively conservative country. The word "quota" is not popular and even Swiss women abhor the idea of being pushed to the apex of political power as tokens.
Nonetheless, she told me the Swiss party system allows party leaders to list their favorite candidates at the top of voters' ballots, and the parties believe in proportional representation. This commitment to proportional representation (as opposed to quotas) is what allowed her to get elected to Parliament in the first place, and then rise once she arrived.
Which brings me back to Beyer's remarks about engaging men. American women have made great progress, but we still face that pesky old glass ceiling and getting more men involved in women's advancement may be just the ticket to crack that ceiling. Women must engage men to help women break barriers in the career world and in home life as well. If women help men understand that when men promote women, they are making it easier for their own daughters to succeed, that might be just the push we need.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Erbé
Bonnie Erbé is host and Executive in Charge of the PBS program, To the Contrary and writes for Scripps Howard News Service.
A similar version of this column was originally written for Scripps Howard News Service.
Switzerland Gets High Marks
Condensing multifaceted issues in indexes is a recognized way of handling complexity. Take national competitiveness, for example, a multidimensional and at the same time relative concept and therefore ideal for inclusion in an index. Switzerland usually gets high marks. Why? One of the important reasons why Switzerland scores well in indexes is human talent. This factor plays a crucial role in indexes. A broad-based educational system like the Swiss one is very closely linked to future economic prosperity and Switzerland's ranking in a selection of other indexes.
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Search and Evaluation Team Back from Japan
The Swiss Humanitarian Aid team of experts sent to Japan on a search and evaluation mission has returned to Switzerland. The twenty-three specialists in rescue operations accompanied by nine search dogs were dispatched to Japan on Saturday, March 23, following the violent earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. The Swiss rescuers operated in an area some 62 miles north of the city of Sendai and about 93 miles from the Fukushima I and II nuclear power plants. With the help of trained dogs and special detection equipment, the team managed to locate three people under the debris.
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Switzerland Is Carving the World's Largest Railway Tunnel
AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd, a subsidiary of Swiss Federal Railways, is creating a flat rail link for future travel through the Alps. At the heart of the new transalpine rail route is the Gotthard Base Tunnel. The world's longest tunnel should become operational at the end of 2016. This pioneering achievement of the 21st century will bring major improvements to travel and transportation systems in the heart of Europe. As of March 1, 2011, 93,986 miles, or 99.62%, of the total of 94,349 miles of tunnels, galleries and passages of the Gotthard Base Tunnel had been excavated. 
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Marco Grob: Capturing the Essence of a Person
Is that really me? Being photographed is a rather unpleasant experience for most of us. We usually don't like what we see in the picture. Marco Grob, the award-winning New York-based Swiss photographer, has a unique talent for approaching his subjects in a direct and intimate, but at the same time respectful way. Marco Grob's portraits of personalities such as President Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Douglas, Uma Thurman, Jeff Bridges, Colin Firth, Sandra Bullock, Buzz Aldrin, David Lynch, Pink, Sir Elton John, Roger Federer, and many more unveil more than just the usual face of famous celebrities. Switzerland Calling spoke to Marco Grob about his secrets for success.
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