Can this be true?

So this afternoon I was flipping through the Financial Times (and no, I don't mean that to sound elitist--it's circulated around our office, and while I enjoy it, I'd read Parade or the Billings Gazette if they came to my office regularly), and I came across an article about a study listing desireable cities for Asian expats. I probably wouldn't have paid much attention, but something caught my eye...sure enough, it mentioned Basel. So I found the press release from the study, and it turns out that Basel was named the 10th best city in the world for Asian expats (I can't help but wonder if my Japanese colleagues would agree with that assessment). I noticed that the press release said that Basel was considered the top location for Europeans, so I poked around and while I can't be sure I'm reading this correctly because it's in German, I think they consider Basel to be the top city for expats in Europe. There actually are a lot of things about Basel that make it expat-friendly (no Basel-bashing here tonight), but I'm still not sure if I had to pick any city in Europe to live in that it would be my number one. Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Paris, London, Madrid, Rome? You bet. But Basel? Go figure. (Incidentally, there has been a full-scale war of letters to the editor in the FT for the past week about whether Switzerland is a wonderland or hell on earth. More on that later...)

(I was pleased to note that ever since I was invited to Karachi, I've been saying that the only places I'd want to visit less are Baghdad and Kabul. Sure enough, the study for Asian expats named Karachi the third-worst city to live in behind...Baghdad and Kabul! It's actually considered worse than Haiti, Palestine and Sudan. Suffice it to say that while I'm sure it has its charms, I don't feel so bad about trying to get out of a trip there...)