Birs (river)

The Birs (French: Birse) is a 73-kilometre (45 mi) long river in Switzerland that flows through the Jura region and ends as a tributary to the Rhine between Basel and Birsfelden. It is the most important river of the Swiss Jura.

Course

The Birs has its source in a spring near the Col de Pierre Pertuis at 762 metres (2,500 ft) above sea level a little southwest of Tavannes in the Jura bernois. It starts as a proper river; the large amount of water is the product of an extended underground river system.

The Birs runs through wider valleys (Vallée de Tavannes) and narrow gorges. Near Delémont, the capital of the canton of Jura, it joins the Sorne and the Scheulte. Between Soyhières and Liesberg, it leaves the French-speaking part of Switzerland and enters the canton of Basel-Landschaft. In Laufen it forms a waterfall, which was the source of power and of the name of the city.

At the gorge of Angenstein, the river runs into the Birseck, the lowland by Aesch. Between Aesch and Dornach, the Birs is rich in fresh-water crabs, the native species of which are now threatened by the American red crab. Earlier, the Birs was polluted and dammed, but it has largely been restored to its original state.

BIRS

The BIRS Index is a share index of the 12 largest companies listed on the Banja Luka Stock Exchange (BLSE), established on 1 May 2004. BIRS stands for Berzanski indeks Republike Srpske, which is Serbian for The Stock Exchange Index of Republika Srpska, an entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The constituents of the index are determined semi-annually, on 15 May and 15 November. Component companies must meet a number of requirements set out by the BLSE. The highest value of the index to 22 September 2006, was on that day, at 2073.24.

Other indices on the Banja Luka Stock Exchange are the FIRS (an index of 13 privatisation-investment funds) and ERS10 (an index of 10 companies from the power utility sector).

As of 30 August 2006, the largest company by market capitalisation was Telekom Srpske a.d. Banja Luka, with the market cap of over BAM 1bn (€538m). All of the companies listed on this index include the abbreviation a.d. (akcionarsko drušvo) at the end of their name, indicating their status of a public limited company.