Zurich, Switzerland - (Rioters): The Swiss government has unveiled plans for their Doomsday Cuckoo Clock which gauges world credibility of its banking secrecy arrangements which have fallen so far behind internationally accepted standards that they are in line for a UN Iraqi Oil-for-Fraud nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Centuries of efficient money laundering, dictator sheltering and diplomacy obfuscating tradition have also come under intense pressure from the European Union which Switzerland has steadfastly dismissed as an irrelevant competitor in an international mug's game of hide and seek.
But all that is now set to change as Russian oiligarchs and Chinese plutocrats vote with their feet, stashing their new found billions in myriad Carribean offshore schemes recommended by chums of Lord Levy, the UK Prime Monster's Mr Cashpoint and blind trust portfolio bagman.
The crisis has now reached unprecedented levels and the necessity for Swiss banks and institutions to face the possibility of total meltdown of their greed-sheltering monopoly has become the government's top priority.
This week their new Doomsday Cuckoo Clock will be set at one minute to midnight with a warning that in six months time a new realignment of the minute hand will be inevitable unless the Gnomes of Zurich come up with a better scam than current chip 'n' spin arrangements on customers' plastic.
"If this doesn't work we'll be the world's number one laughing stock", said the governor of the Swiss Bank for Deconstruction and Embezzlement as he hurried to his weekly briefing session with World Bank CEO Paul Wolfowitz.
Expect an update later next week.
