Switzerland

Switzerland is experiencing another heat wave this summer after a short period of cooler temperatures. In numerous regions, the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology (MeteoSwiss) measured temperatures of over 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) shortly before noon.

This Saturday, canton Valais saw the temperature reach 31.8 degrees at 11:30am., according to MeteoSwiss. The city of Chur in canton Graubünden also saw temperatures over 31 degrees. Exceptionally high temperatures are also anticipated in higher altitudes.

This has led authorities in Switzerland to apply a heat danger level 3 until Wednesday for areas lower than 800 metres above sea level. In canton Ticino, the danger level is 4, with level 5External link being the highest danger level.

In Switzerland, a level 3 heat warning is issued when the daily average temperature is above 25 degrees for a span of three or more days. After three consecutive days of an average daily temperature of 25 degrees Celsius or higher, MeteoSwiss classifiesExternal link this as a heatwave. According to MeteoSwiss, these danger levels mean greater risk of an adverse reaction to human health.

Temperatures are not foreseen to decrease on Monday. MeteoSwiss expects temperatures over 20 degrees in the lowlands in the early morning and temperatures up to 34 degrees in the afternoon. According to MeteoSwiss, the “zero degree limit”, the altitude above which the temperature drops below zero degrees Celsius, will rise to around 5,200 metres.

Several cantons have activated a heatwave plan. Earlier this week a Swiss construction union called for a construction stop due to the high temperatures, citing health and safety concerns.

Thomas Greminger, who heads the Geneva Center for Security Policy, says the West needs to consider a plan B with Russia to ensure the long-term stability of Europe. This includes dialogue with Russia.

“Stability in Europe can only exist with, not against, Russia,” said Greminger in an interview in the NZZ am SonntagExternal link. “The condition, of course, is that Moscow is ready to play by the rules again.”

Before leading the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Greminger was the Swiss ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from 2010 to 2017. He then became the organisation’s secretary general. During that time, he was involved in trying to de-escalate tensions after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

In the NZZ interview, he called for the West to start thinking about options beyond the current plan of indefinite military support to Ukraine. “You need a plan B,” he said. “At some point it will boil down to the question: do you want a very long, very expensive war – or an end to the conflict, even if that is unsatisfactory?”

A plan B would include, in his view, negotiations on a ceasefire, which would then lead to discussions about territorial claims. While this will have a political price for Ukraine, he believes that a temporary solution could be found and renegotiated when a new government is in power in Russia. He said that the Geneva Centre for Security Policy has been working on security guarantees that Ukraine should have in the future.

“I am convinced that one day we will have to talk to the Russians again and try to come back to certain cooperative elements in European security,” said Greminger. “Pure confrontational politics is too expensive and too risky in the long run.”

Switzerland’s role Switzerland can play an important role in the humanitarian field and in reconstruction, said Greminger, but it should do more than that. It can also be generous in taking in refugees. It can also “discreetly encourage dialogue”. This wouldn’t be as an official mediator but that “doesn’t mean that you can’t do a lot behind the scenes”.

He believes that Geneva could play a role, as it has in the past, as a location for talks even through informal channels. The Russians “value the good infrastructure and expertise in Geneva. They are much more pragmatic than the official position suggests,” said Greminger.

At the annual congress of the Swiss Abroad in St Gallen on Saturday, around 100 Swiss gathered to draw attention to their concerns in the run-up to the Swiss federal elections in October.

According to the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA), 800,000 Swiss citizens live abroad. The OSA appealed for the political rights of the Swiss Abroad to be guaranteed, primarily through the ability to vote electronically.

As such, the Swiss Abroad welcomed the decision by the Federal Council last week to allow electronic voting for cantons Basel-City, St Gallen and Thurgau for a limited number of voters for the upcoming federal elections in October.

In addition to e-voting, the Swiss Abroad are also calling for virtual administration services to move forward, freedom of movement, obstacles for social insurance to be removed and for funds for the development of Swiss schools abroad.

The event was attended mainly by Swiss nationals living in the European Union, but also included Swiss Abroad from Argentina, South Africa, Israel and Thailand, the OSA told the Keystone news agency.

The Swiss population in 2023 is expected to increase by much more than official statistics predicted, argue some real estate experts. This leaves the country ill prepared to deal with a surge in housing demand, they say.

“The problems start with the fact that the official population forecasts are constantly too low,” Hans Holdener, CEO of Helvetica Property Group, told the NZZMagazinExternal link.

Real estate consulting firm Wüest Partner predicts that the population in Switzerland will increase by a record 148,000 in 2023. This is significantly higher than the increase of 70,000 people estimated by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) in its reference scenario.

In response to an NZZ request, the statistical office said that the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine are difficult to predict.

According to the Wüest Partner firm’s model, the main growth driver is the labour market. It forecasts net immigration of 91,000 workers based on a 2% growth in employment.

The real estate firm also predicts that around 48,000 people from Ukraine will be added to the resident population. After 12 months residence in Switzerland, people with protection status S, which includes Ukrainians who fled the war, are officially counted as part of the permanent resident population of Switzerland. A birth surplus of 8,000 people also contributes to a small part of the growth.

Last year, Switzerland’s population increased by 55,000 households or 74,000 people to reach around 8.8 million. This figure doesn’t include refugees and asylum seekers.

On Saturday evening, a technical glitch on a funicular railway above Lake Thun in canton Bern resulted in the evacuation of 140 people.

Two technical malfunctions occurred on a funicular railway line above Lake Thun on Saturday night, reported Swiss tabloid, 20 MinutesExternal link. An electrical switch suffered a glitch and the affected train wagons had to be driven to the station using emergency diesel engines. However, during the trip, an additional error ensued which made the initial error impossible to correct. This resulted in a complete stop of the funicular operation.

Around 140 guests dining in the Niesen Kulm restaurant had to be evacuated. At 10pm, two Swiss rescue organisation (Rega) helicopters were used to fly out the diners. “Our first priority in this situation is our guests,” said managing director of the Niesenbahn funicular service, Urs Wohler, to 20 Minutes. Pregnant women, children and the elderly were evacuated first.

While the mountain hotel has eleven rooms, the hotel was fully booked and was not able to accommodate the trapped diners. The individuals were flown to the Reichenbach airfield in canton Bern. The evacuation was completed at around 1:30am.

This is not the first time the Niesenbahn funicular railway has suffered a technical malfunction. In 2019, around 300 guests were evacuated after one of the funicular’s clutch was damaged in the same section of the tracks.

The diners evacuated received free tickets for a return visit. As of Sunday morning, the funicular to the Niesen Kulm remains closed.

In a joint Swiss-British sting operation, authorities recovered a 15th-century Chinese vase worth about 2 million pounds (CHF2.25 million) and broke up a criminal gang believed to have been stolen from a Geneva museum.

The London Metropolitan Police Service made the announcement after a London court on Friday found two men guilty of charges related to the gang’s effort to sell the vase. A third man pleaded guilty to similar charges earlier this year, and two other men who were arrested in London are awaiting trial in Switzerland for their alleged role in the burglary. All five are from southeast London.

The vase, which dates to the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty, was one of three items stolen from the Museum of Far Eastern Art in Geneva in 2019.

London police said they worked with Swiss authorities on the investigation after an auction house alerted them that someone had e-mailed them seeking a valuation for the stolen vase.

Officers working undercover offered to buy the vase for 450,000 pounds ($505,500) and meet at a central London hotel, where the first suspect was arrested.

“The organised crime group involved in this offending believed they could commit significant offenses internationally and that there would be no comeback,’’ said Detective Chief Inspector Matt Webb, from the Met’s Specialist Crime unit.

“They were mistaken, highlighting the strength of our relations with international law enforcement partners and our ability to work across international boundaries.’’

The lucrative market for stolen Chinese antiquities has led to several high-profile heists in recent years, including thefts from British museums and auction houses in 2012 that netted jade bowls, figurines and other items worth millions.

The Chinese network supplier is said to have deployed spies in Denmark. This has sparked concerns by Swiss politicians given Huawei's strong presence in Switzerland.

This past June, Bloomberg news agencyExternal link reported that the Danish telecom group (TDC) in Copenhagen, Denmark was the target of espionage by Huawei, for an upper-hand in a bid against Swedish telecommunications company, Ericsson for a 5G network contract worth CHF175 million ($198 million). The spying accusation came despite Huawei having committed to a “no-spy” deal with the Danish government.

Huawei had proposed a similar “no-spy” deal with Switzerland in 2019, however, no concrete agreement was reached. Huawei confirmed this information to the newspaper, the Tages-Anzeiger.

Swisscom and Sunrise, the two major telecommunications operators in Switzerland, both use Huawei equipment in their networks. Sunrise has built its 5G network together with Huawei.

Swiss politicians express concerns. Parliamentarian Jon Pult, who heads the telecommunications commission in the House of Representatives, says he has no reliable knowledge of espionage against Swiss telecommunications operators. However, he told the Tages-Anzeiger, "it wouldn't surprise me," referring to Huawei.

Pult says he is against considering Huawei as a supplier of critical infrastructure in Switzerland because the company is an instrument of the Chinese Communist Party. He advocates a ban on the use of network parts from companies that are either directly or indirectly controlled by a foreign government.

For parliamentarian Hans Wicki, president of the Senate telecommunications commission, the espionage claims in Denmark damage the credibility of Huawei. He calls for a “zero-trust approach” towards suppliers from telecom providers. This is the only way to prevent data leakage from the networks, Wicki says.

The so-called “zero-trust model” is a security concept that distrusts all services, users and devices. No distinction is made inside or outside your own network. All users or services must prove their authenticity before they can access infrastructure.

Sunrise taking precautions

Sunrise, Huawei's most important customer in Switzerland, rules out having been the victim of similar espionage. "Sunrise was not and is not spied on by Huawei," says a company spokesman to the Tages-Anzeiger. However, Sunrise will continue to take precautions. "Sunrise addresses these claims in its contacts."

Sunrise told the Tages-Anzeiger that it operates company-wide cyber security management processes. These processes do not focus on individual suppliers, but Sunrise says that no one can "preclude an attack by any third country with intelligence means via any components".

Huawei denies any wrongdoing in Denmark. A spokesman for Huawei in Switzerland told the Tages-Anzeiger that the company takes the concerns of its customers "in terms of security and trustworthiness very seriously".

Swiss neutrality and its interpretation remains a question that needs to be addressed says president of Ruag, Swiss state-owned defence contracting firm.

In an interview with Neue Zürcher ZeitungExternal link (NZZ) about Ruag's ability to operate within the Swiss legal and political frameworks, Ruag President Nicolas Perrin stated that, in an increasingly connected world, the question of neutrality and its interpretation will come up more often.

Switzerland will have to make a decision on NATO membership, Perrin said in the interview. He would not reveal whether he personally favours Swiss membership of NATO or not, “'it is a political question” Perrin told NZZ.

Perrin's reluctance to answer questions about Switzerland's neutrality comes at the heels of the resignation of Ruag's CEO, Brigitte Beck. Beck stepped down earlier this August after less than a year in the position. The reason for her resignation was said to be controversial statements made on Switzerland’s neutrality policy.

When asked about Ruag's relationship to suppliers abroad and the regulatory framework in which Ruag operates, Perrin said that he doesn't believe that it is worthwhile to produce arms and ammunition completely within Switzerland, as the export legislation is very strict. "Independent production only makes sense if you really produced every component in Switzerland, and that's not realistic," he said. The Swiss market is too small. However, Perrin does not believe that full state-control over Ruag would be more efficient or innovative.

While Perrin does not believe it is viable for a fully autonomous arms and ammunition process within Switzerland, he thinks the focus should be on an autonomous IT sector. His company has long been a systems operator, he said. "With the new technologies, on the other hand, independence is becoming increasingly important. I prefer that we are autonomous in the IT area."

Only a fraction of medicine was sold in smaller quantities since authorities recommended the measure to deal with medicine shortages.

Pharmacies throughout Switzerland dispensed smaller quantities of medication 1,400 times in April and 1,300 times in May, according to data provided by the Swiss Association of Pharmacists (Pharmasuisse) to Swiss public television SRF. Information for June isn't available, but experts expect the numbers to be lower.

This is considered a small success to deal with drug shortages. The sale of smaller quantity packages represented only a fraction of the total medicine sold.

This past March, a panel of experts recommended to stop the sale of big packages of medicines containing nine active ingredients. The move was an attempt to reduce waste and allow products to be sold to more patients during supply disruptions.

Although patients were to continue to receive the prescribed dosage, they may only receive a half or quarter of the original package. This allowed pharmacists to give the rest of the package to another patient.

The effort to repackage medicine turned out to be more difficult than expected, Enea Martinelli, Vice President of PharmaSuisse told SRF. The effort for repacking and the paperwork associated with this so-called partial delivery is great. “The costs are not really covered. Therefore, the motivation to do it is rather low,” he said.

Christoph Amstutz who heads the medicine department at the Federal Office for National Economic Supply said that he would have also hoped for more repackaging. “It is the first time that we have communicated such a measure," he said to SRF. He also said in the future these measures should be better communicated.

He added that the pressure should ease when it comes to antibiotics thanks to expanded production in Austria by the Swiss generics firm Sandoz, which will spin off from Novartis this autumn.

Switzerland, like much of Europe, has been experiencing shortages of a growing number of medicine. In August, pharmaSuisse indicated that the supply problems are affecting all medicine ranging from anti-diabetes drugs to opioids and antibiotics.

A Swiss citizen was arrested in Myanmar for creating a film that allegedly insulted Buddhism.

Didier Nusbaumer was arrested on August 8 along with 13 Myanmar nationals, including a 12-year-old girl, the Myanmar state-run newspaper, Myanma Alinn, newspaper reported on Saturday.

Insulting Buddhism is a punishable offense in Myanmar, where religious nationalism has surged in recent years, reports The Associated PressExternal link. About 90% of Myanmar people are Buddhist.

The news report said that 52-year-old Nusbaumer wrote, filmed and edited the 75-minute long film titled, Don’t Expect Anything, which was posted on YouTube on July 24. Short clips from the movie spread on social media including on TikTok and Facebook, drawing rebukes from Buddhist nationalists in Myanmar.

“Although the people in the film’s main roles are Buddhist, they behaved inappropriately and degraded the dignity and morals of monks through their physical gestures and dialogue," the media report said.

Authorities have not said where Nusbaumer or the other 13 arrested are being held.

Myanmar has been ruled by a military junta since February 2021, when it seised power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Nusbaumer is not the first foreigner to be detained in Myanmar after being accused of insulting Buddhism.

In March 2015, a New Zealand citizen who was arrested together with two Myanmar nationals, was sentenced to a two and a half years prison sentence with hard labor for insulting Buddhism after having published an online advertisement that showed a psychedelic depiction of Buddha wearing DJ-style headphones. He was deported the following year.

In October 2016, a Dutch tourist was jailed for three months with hard labor for insulting Buddhism after he unplugged a loudspeaker used by Buddhist monks to broadcast a late-night sermon in the country's second-largest city, Mandalay. He was deported after serving his jail term.

The Badenfahrt festival, which takes place roughly once a decade, has begun in the town of Baden, northern Switzerland. This year around a million visitors are expected to take part in one of the country’s largest city festivals.

The BadenfahrtExternal link has been held 13 times at irregular intervals since 1923, most recently in 2017. This year, its centenary, the motto is “Neo”, which the organisers say refers to the fact that they are “on the threshold of the next century of the Badenfahrt”.

The ten-day event in canton Aargau has been defined by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as an example of intangible cultural heritage. Since 2017, the Badenfahrt has been on the UNESCO list of “living traditions of Switzerland”.

A 40-member organising committee has been busy for two years preparing for the festival, which features 100 clubs and associations from Baden and the region that will run their own bars and restaurants. At the end of the event they will compete for the award of “most beautiful festival tavern”.

On Sunday afternoon, 30 groups with more than 1,500 people will take part in the big parade through the city centre.

In the 19th century, the "Badenfahrt" referred to the trip to Baden's spa for a cure. In addition to the benefits of warm baths, this trip also promised "all kinds of pleasures for the heart and mind", the festival's organising committee pointed out.

Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) has reported “mixed results” for this year’s summer holiday season. Although almost all scheduled flights could be carried out, it experienced numerous delays.

“The stability of our flight operations was pleasing, but punctuality was not,” said Oliver Buchhofer, SWISS’s head of operations, on Friday.

He said conservative planning using buffers – for example by rostering more reserve crews and providing reserve aircraft – had paid off, both in terms of aircraft and staff. The stability of flight operations was correspondingly high: SWISS said it had been able to operate 98.9% of scheduled flights during the summer holidays.

From July 15 to August 15, the Lufthansa subsidiary operated a total of 12,870 flights. However, almost half of these (48%) were not punctual – defined by SWISS as taking off within 15 minutes of the scheduled time of departure.

When it came to arrivals, a quarter of flights were delayed – touching down more than 30 minutes after the scheduled time of arrival. “We did not live up to our standards here,” Buchhofer admitted.

Around 90 goods trains a day will be able to travel through the Gotthard Base Tunnel from Wednesday. In addition, around 20 goods trains will use the panoramic route. Passenger services are also to be improved from Thursday.

The track-changing gate in the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which was severely damaged on August 10 after a goods train derailed, had been successfully replaced by a mobile gate, the Swiss federal railways said on Friday. In the coming days, necessary adjustments would be made in the signal box. In addition, test runs were necessary, it said.

For freight traffic, the opening of the east tunnel would bring significantly more flexibility and would be a relief for customers, it said. From Wednesday, 110 goods trains a day will be able to travel through the Gotthard axis.

Initially, transit trains stationed in Switzerland and abroad would run, the federal railways said. These could not be diverted via the panoramic route because of their corner height. To ensure that all goods could be transported, goods trains will continue to be rerouted via the Lötschberg-Simplon axis and the Brenner route.

Passenger trains will remain diverted via the panoramic route. From Thursday the number of seats will increase because more maximum-length trains will run. Day trips to the southern canton of Ticino will be also possible, the federal railways said.

Regarding international passenger traffic, most of the cross-border trains to and from Italy will run directly again from Thursday. Travel time will thus be increased by 60 minutes instead of up to 120 minutes.

The federal railways rejected requests for a general price reduction owing to the longer journey time. It did, however, announce that from Thursday it would probably offer discounted tickets on connections to and from Ticino.

After nine years of work and planning, the new main building of the Inselspital, the University Hospital Bern, was officially inaugurated on Thursday. The total cost of CHF670 million ($760 million) makes it the most expensive hospital in Switzerland.

“This is a major investment in the future of the Inselspital Group, and consolidates our position as a leading university hospital,” said Bernhard Pulver, chairman of the board of directors.

The ultra-modern complex in the Swiss capital spans 18 floors and 82,000 square metres. It has 532 beds and replaces the old building constructed in 1970, next to which this new tower was erected.

Addressing an audience of 200 guests, Pulver praised the fact that the budget and timetable had been kept to, “despite the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis”.

The new building has been named Anna Seiler House, after the Bernese citizen who was responsible for setting up a 13-bed hospital during the plague epidemic of 1354.

Open days will be held on Saturday and Sunday, and more than 7,000 visitors are expected. The new building is set to open for business on September 18.

The bishopric of Basel has admitted that it made procedural errors in its handling of a case of alleged sexual abuse.

“This is a failure that must not be repeated,” said Bishop Felix Gmür on Friday.

The bishopric of Basel, based in Solothurn, was reacting to an article in the current affairs magazine Beobachter which said a Nigerian auxiliary priest working for the diocese of Basel had sexually abused a minor on several occasions between 1995 and 1998.

The victim reported the abuse to the Catholic Church in 2019. A commission of the bishops’ conference recognised the woman as a victim and paid her compensation of CHF15,000 ($17,000). According to Beobachter, however, the abuse had no consequences for the alleged perpetrator.

The bishopric said in a statement on Friday that the article in Beobachter was an opportunity to “recognise the mistakes that have been made, correct them immediately and avoid them in future”. The procedural errors would have caused additional harm to the person concerned, it said.

“The bishop deeply regrets this, as well as the fact that the right of the person concerned to dignified treatment and to a procedure in accordance with canon law has not been respected in the past,” it said.

The bishopric said the case was currently being examined in Rome to ensure that justice is done.

It explained that when the victim denounced the abuse, a criminal complaint was lodged with the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland. Due to the statute of limitations, the complaint was closed. A preliminary ecclesiastical investigation had also been opened to ascertain whether there was sufficient evidence to initiate criminal proceedings under canon law, it said.

Second mistake

According to the bishopric, the person in charge of the preliminary investigation was of the opinion that this was not the case. He therefore wrongly assumed that the person concerned had to sign documents. In the absence of a signature, the preliminary investigation was closed without the case being reported to Rome.

This was a second mistake, it said. According to the obligation to report under canon law, the case should always have been forwarded to the competent authority in Rome.

For this reason Gmür has re-examined the case and corrected the error, the bishopric said in its statement. All the files were sent to Rome on July 4.

In 2010 the Swiss Catholic Church finally accepted responsibility for cases of sexual abuse by priests that had earlier come to light. In 2019 it was reported that over 300 victims had come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against priests in Switzerland since 2010.

An investigation published by lawmakers in the United States claims that Credit Suisse did not review all available records during its probe into bank accounts held by Nazis in the decades after the Second World War.

According to an independent reviewer’s report published by the Senate Budget Committee, just under 1,000 of 65,000 sets of records were available electronically for review, Reuters reported on Thursday.

On top of failing to include numerous relevant records in its probe, Credit Suisse also prevented the former probe ombudsman from seeing "critical" materials, the report said. "Out of respect for Holocaust victims and their families, we cannot turn a blind eye to these shortcomings," Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the panel’s ranking member, said in a statement.

AlixPartners, the consulting firm Credit Suisse hired to conduct the probe, and the former ombudsman did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. A spokesperson for Credit Suisse referred Reuters to its April statement, reiterating its concerns over the ombudsman's work.

In 2020, Credit Suisse commissioned an investigation into allegations by the Jewish human rights organisation Simon Wiesenthal Center that the bank had held Nazi-linked accounts and had failed to disclose them.

A list of 12,000 Nazis who are said to have lived in Argentina from the 1930s onwards has been found in Buenos Aires. Many of those Nazi sympathisers reportedly paid money into one or more accounts at Schweizerische Kreditanstalt, which later became Credit Suisse.

This is not the first time that criticism has been levelled at the former Swiss bank’s investigation. Earlier in April, some top US Senators said Credit Suisse had deliberately hampered the investigation into Nazi assets and in July they accused the group of failing to follow through on pledges to cooperate with the probe.

The Swiss pharma giant plans to offload its generics unit on or around October 4, it said on Friday. Shareholders will receive one Sandoz share for every five Novartis shares held.

Novartis shareholders will vote on the details of the plan at an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on September 15, a year after the Basel-based firm announced its plans to split Sandoz into a separate entity, Reuters and other media reported on Friday.

“If Novartis shareholders approve the proposed special distribution at the EGM, the spin-off will be implemented through the distribution of a dividend-in-kind of Sandoz shares to Novartis shareholders, and of Sandoz ADRs (American Depositary Receipts) to Novartis ADR holders,” the company said in a statement.

The Swiss drugmaker’s plan to separate out its generic drug unit Sandoz is aimed at focusing on the production of more lucrative patent medicines. In 2021, following mounting pricing pressures in the US off-patent medicines sector, Sandoz was put under a strategic review by Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan.

The generics unit accounted for around 10% of Novartis’ core operating profit of $16.7 billion (CHF14.6 billion) in 2022 and the drug company is now planning to divest almost one-fifth of its business in terms of sales.

Last year Sandoz sales rose by 4% to $9.25 billion, and are are expected to continue growing by a mid-single-digit percentage annually until 2028.

Thirty-six people have drowned in Swiss waters so far this year, according to the Swiss Lifesaving Society. Last year saw the highest number of drowning victims in almost 20 years.

A total of 63 people drowned in Switzerland in 2022, almost 40% higher than the long-term average, the organisation said in a statement on Thursday. Of these, 51 were male.

Not since the heatwave summer of 2003 have so many people drowned in Swiss waters as in 2022, it said.

Sixty of the fatal accidents occurred in open waters, with 34 in lakes, 23 in rivers and three while diving. Three people also drowned in swimming pools.

Expected heatwave

The long-term trend with regard to the age of the victims continued in 2022. The first accumulation of fatal drowning accidents is observed for the 15-30 age group with a total of 12 cases. However, older age also came into focus for the first time: last year, 26 people older than 65 drowned in Switzerland.

Whether the trend will continue this year is difficult to assess, said a spokesperson for the Swiss Lifesaving Society. The more hours of sunshine, the more demand there is for cooling off at bodies of water, and the more the risk of accidents increases, he said.

In view of more sunshine, there is thus a risk of a large number of drowning victims in Switzerland again this year.

On Thursday MeteoSwiss, the federal meteorology and climatology office, warned of a heatwave across the country expected to start this weekend, with local temperatures of up to 35°C.

The Swiss army will concentrate its efforts back on defending the country, army chief Thomas Süssli said at a media conference at which he explained the army’s future direction.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine was a real turning point for security in Europe, Süssli told the media on Thursday. This return to power politics has led to many countries re-arming more and more, he said.

“However, the Swiss Armed Forces are a product of the Armed Forces Reform 21,” Süssli said. At that time, the army was clearly oriented towards protection tasks and troop numbers were reduced. “But now we are seeing a clear deterioration in the security situation.”

For this reason, Süssli wants to refocus the army on defence. “We want to increase the defence capability,” he said. How this is to be done is summarised in a report.

Unlike in quiet times, in this report the army refrains from reforms aimed at a specific year. These would have no effect because the environment and technology are constantly evolving. Instead, it wants to focus on “adaptive further development” in the coming years: on small steps that can be implemented more quickly.

Combat training abroad

Süssli also called for greater international cooperation, especially with NATO, the EU and neighbouring countries. In this way, Switzerland could make a contribution to security in Europe.

What's more, he believed it was important to strengthen Swiss ground forces. “A battle in Switzerland would unavoidably also take place in urban, built-up areas,” he said. However, the military bases in Switzerland tend to represent a rural Switzerland.

For this reason, Süssli wants to send Swiss soldiers abroad, where more urban training facilities are available. However, such training would have to be carried out on a voluntary basis because, according to current law, Swiss army personnel cannot be obliged to take part in courses abroad.

Süssli was optimistic that a first battalion of volunteers would be found for an exercise abroad. However, he said, the army was also looking into building its own facility. Not yet approved

Cyber and espionage defence is also to be strengthened. Furthermore, the army is examining whether it should use old systems longer than planned, for example Stinger missiles, anti-tank weapons, mine launchers and vehicles.

“We are examining what we should keep. A lesson learned from the Ukraine war,” Süssli said.

Politically, the plans for better defence capabilities have not yet been approved. However, the report is to form the basis for the drafting of the Dispatch on the Armed Forces 2024. The price tag is likely to cause discussion: in a first step, the army wants CHF13 billion ($14.8 billion) for 2024 until the 2030s.

Local temperatures of up to 35°C are expected to hit Switzerland this weekend, MeteoSwiss, the federal meteorology and climatology office, has warned.

Danger level 3 will apply across the country from Saturday until Wednesday below an altitude of 800 metres. This includes a considerable risk of circulatory problems and physical discomfort for people, MeteoSwiss said on Thursday.

Local temperatures of up to 33°C are expected as early as Friday.

According to private weather service MeteoNews, the heatwave is expected to peak on Saturday and towards the middle of next week. It said absolute record values were possible locally and especially at higher altitudes. Drought and forest fires

MeteoNews expects the zero-degree line – the height at which the temperature goes into the minus – to rise to over 5,100 metres above sea level by Monday night. This could break the previous record of 5,184 metres set on July 25, 2022, in Payerne, canton Vaud.

With the extreme temperatures, glaciers would be even more affected by increased ice melt, it said.

The drought will also worsen, MeteoNews added, as August in particular was too dry, especially in western Switzerland and in parts of the Valais and Ticino. This is reflected, among other things, in the current high risk of forest fires in parts of the Valais and Geneva, it said.

On Thursday the national alert app Alertswiss of the Federal Office for Civil Protection issued a forest fire warning for parts of canton Geneva.

The Swiss Freedom Movement has launched a popular initiative calling for a ban on electronic voting (e-voting). The group wants to make postal voting more secure.

The federal popular initiative “For a secure vote and election” was submitted to the Federal Chancellery on Tuesday, according to a statement by the Swiss Freedom Movement on Wednesday evening.

Richard Koller, president of the Swiss Freedom Movement and a computer scientist, said electronic voting should be banned as it “will never be secure”.

The group wants postal voting to be made more secure, in particular for the vote reply envelope sent to Swiss citizens to meet additional security criteria. These must be supplied by the municipalities after an election has been accepted and must be neutral, not coded and have internal security printing, the group said in a statement.

The Swiss Freedom Movement were behind a 2020 initiative to make vaccination consent mandatory and a 2021 initiative to prevent any future phasing-out of cash.

The use of e-voting is an ongoing issue in Switzerland. The Swiss government has authorised the cantons of Basel City, St Gallen and Thurgau to trial electronic voting in the October elections for a limited number of voters.

The decision comes after the same three cantons were allowed to use the Swiss postal service’s new e-voting system for the June 18 national votes. The cantons and Federal Chancellery viewed the first use of the new system in a popular vote as a success.

The previous time e-voting was used in federal elections was in 2015, when it was authorised for 132,134 voters in the cantons of Geneva, Lucerne, Basel City and Neuchâtel.

A pilot project to allow e-voting in some cantons was abandoned in 2019 amid technical and security concerns, much to the dismay of the Swiss diaspora around the world who argue that the lack of e-voting reduces voter turnout and is a threat to democracy.

The number of non-Swiss living in Switzerland rose by a net 47,200 in the first half of 2023, most of them from EU/EFTA countries. The government puts this down to the strong demand on the labour market and structurally low unemployment.

Net immigration into the permanent foreign resident population increased by 9,384 people to 47,200, according to the figures published on Thursday by the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM). Of these 32,487 were EU/EFTA nationals and 14,713 were third-country nationals.

The immigration trend was already noticeable last year, after an unstable phase during the Covid pandemic. In the first half of 2023, around 45% of the new foreign workers were in short-term employment, while 55% took up long-term employment, according to the SEM.

Of the quota-based residence permits for workers from third countries, 41% of short-term residence permits and 41% of residence permits had been exhausted by the end of June 2023. German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish nationals accounted for half of the immigrant workers.

The economic situation and the internationalisation of the economy and society are driving companies’ demand for labour, the SEM said. Unemployment is at its lowest level in 20 years. In many professions, demographic replacement requirements in the form of retirements could be cushioned by workers recruited in Switzerland and abroad.

The strongest immigration for the purpose of long-term employment was recorded in branches of the industrial sector and within the service sector in the hospitality industry, planning, consulting and IT, trade and healthcare.

The 2030 Winter Olympics could be held in sites dotted across Switzerland using existing sports infrastructure, according to a feasibility study for a Swiss candidacy seen by Swiss newspapers.

Swiss Olympic and the winter sports federations are currently carrying out preliminary work into the possibility of a bid.

“The sports umbrella organisation Swiss Olympic and the winter sports associations are pushing ahead with their plans for the 2030 Winter Olympics in Switzerland at high speed,” Tamedia newspapers reported on Thursday.

According to their plans, the opening ceremony of the 2030 Winter Games would take place in Lausanne and the closing ceremony would be in Bern, the newspapers wrote.

The venues for the individual disciplines also seem to be largely fixed, they added.

“The plan is to hold the competitions from bobsleigh to alpine skiing wherever international championships in these disciplines are about to take place. In this way, existing or planned stadiums and infrastructures can be used. This saves money and protects the environment,” they said.

Ruth Wipfli-Steinegger, vice-president of Swiss Olympic, confirmed that possible sites had already been earmarked for 13 of the 14 sporting disciplines. These include Crans-Montana for Alpine skiing events, Davos for cross-country skiing and Zurich/Fribourg for ice hockey.

“The only thing missing is speed skating. The ongoing feasibility study will show how we deal with this. Outsourcing to another country is also possible,” she declared.

The Swiss Sports Parliament, Swiss Olympic’s top decisional body, will decide on whether to launch a Swiss bid on November 24. The International Olympic Committee is set to choose a candidate for the 2030 Winter Olympics in summer 2024.

Sports Minister Viola Amherd has said she is in favour of a Winter Olympic Games that are “sustainable, tailor-made for Switzerland and widely supported”.

Whether local voters can be convinced is another matter. In the past 35 years Switzerland has attempted to win the prestigious event eight times but has never succeeded.

In February 2017, voters in canton Graubünden rejected a proposal to host the Winter Olympics in 2026 – the second such bid to be turned down at the ballot box in four years.

Then in June 2018 voters in canton Valais said no to bidding for the 2026 Games. The bid was rejected in some of the largest ski areas in the canton, including Zermatt and Nendaz – the latter linked to the fashionable resort of Verbier. Crans-Montana and Saas-Fee were two mountain resorts where voters approved the bid.

The Alpine country has so far hosted the Winter Olympics on two occasions – in 1928 and 1948 – both times in St Moritz.

Glaciers around the world could lose up to half their surface area by the end of the century, with uncertain consequences for ecosystems, a study published on Wednesday says.

Depending on the extent of global warming, an area up to eight times the size of Switzerland will become ice-free by 2100, the study published in “Nature” magazine said.

This will lead to one of the fastest ecosystem shifts to ever take place on earth, glaciologist Matthias Huss from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich told the Keystone-SDA news agency.

So far, according to Huss, studies have largely focused on the melting ice masses. In the latest research however, the team from France and Switzerland focused on the ecology of newly emerging ice-free areas.

An understanding of these post-glacial ecosystems is important, the researcher said. In the future, they could provide a place of refuge for species which are being displaced elsewhere by warming.

Local biodiversity could thus increase, and as such, “these new ice-free areas must be protected”. Today, less than half of all glaciated areas enjoy such a status.

Meanwhile, protecting the remaining glaciers is also important, despite inevitable shrinkage, Huss added.

The researchers’ modelling shows that the retreat will continue at a similar rate up to 2040, regardless of what happens to the climate. After that, however, estimates differ depending on which climate protection measures are taken. While the area could be halved by 2100 without any measures being taken (a previous study was even more bleak), the loss could be limited to 22% with strong protection measures, the study found.

Besides ETH Zurich, researchers from the University of Freiburg and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) were involved in the study.

The government wants to boost the country’s network with more connections in suburban areas and a new nine-kilometre tunnel on the busy Lausanne-Geneva route.

The tunnel on the Lausanne-Geneva stretch is planned between Morges and Perroy, Transport Minister Albert Rösti said on Wednesday.

Such a tunnel should be easier to build than a previously planned third track, which would have meant difficult construction in a densely populated area.

The government also said the expansion of the Lötschberg base tunnel to two tracks should be done for the whole tunnel rather than only partially, as is currently planned.

More funding for the Brüttener tunnel and the expansion of the Stadelhofen station in Zurich is also mooted, as are expansions to Geneva and Olten stations.

The CHF2.6 billion ($2.96 billion) will also however be used to cover additional costs to projects ongoing for some time, but which have been delayed – for example, due to objections to the works and restricted timeframes for carrying out construction.

Meanwhile, in addition to requesting the money from parliament, the government has also approved a new long-term rail strategy to focus primarily on connections between urban agglomerations.

Rail services such as regional S-Bahn lines will be prioritised by the strategy, as well as an upgrade of suburban train stations, the government said.