Switzerland

Judges issued an arrest warrant for the uncle of the current Syrian president last year, in connection with war crimes committed in 1982.

The judgement by the Federal Criminal Court was published on Wednesday, a year after the court ordered the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) to put out a wanted notice.

The delay was reportedly due to a request by prosecutors to keep the warrant under wraps to increase its chances of success.

In 2021, the Office of the Attorney General already asked the FOJ to put out such a warrant, but the office refused, saying Switzerland was not competent since al-Assad was neither a citizen nor a resident here.

The FOJ also said that no Swiss were among the victims of the 1982 massacre in Hama, Syria, which was the background to the case.

However, the Federal Criminal Court disagreed, and said a Swiss procedure was legitimate on the grounds that the prosecution opened its investigation in 2013 while Rifaat al-Assad was staying in a Geneva hotel.

This presence is sufficient to establish Swiss jurisdiction in the prosecution of war crimes, the court said; it also makes it possible to launch an international search warrant.

Following through on it is likely to be more complicated however, as Rifaat – the younger brother of former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad – returned to Syria in 2021 after 37 years in exile.

The organisation Trial International, which in September 2013 filed the initial complaint against Rifaat al-Assad for war crimes committed in February 1982, said it welcomed the decision to demand an extradition.

However, “we can obviously regret that it was necessary to wait for the latter’s return to Syria to demand that he appears before Swiss courts”, a legal adviser to Trial International said.

In Syria, Rifaat al-Assad led the Defense Brigades, an elite unit accused of having committed atrocities and massacres during a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama in 1982.

Riots and military operations at the time reportedly left between 10,000 and 40,000 dead.

Walter Thurnherr, who has held the position as Switzerland’s “eighth cabinet minister” since 2016, will leave the job in December.

Thurnherr, 60, told journalists in Bern on Wednesday that his decision to bow out was not due to any political ill will, but that it was time to move on after decades in the civil service.

Before being named chancellor at the end of 2015, he had been secretary-general of the foreign, economics and environment/transport ministries.

Thurnherr did, however, say that the multiple crises over the past few years – Covid, the war in Ukraine, the Credit Suisse meltdown – meant the 2019-2023 legislative period had been the “worst” for Switzerland since the Second World War.

As head of the Federal Chancellery, Thurnherr is responsible for planning and coordinating government business. While not the equivalent of one of the seven cabinet ministers, he nevertheless takes part in weekly government meetings, where he has an advisory role – but no voting rights.

Thurnherr himself previously said that he “doesn’t see himself as the eighth government minister but rather the first among civil servants […] My power is limited, although I can still exert some influence. I can mediate, direct, coordinate and make proposals”.

Publicly he made a name for himself as a polished and rhetorically talented official, the Keystone-SDA news agency wrote on Wednesday.

His successor will be elected by parliament on December 13, along with a replacement for outgoing minister Alain Berset.

The government has considerably narrowed its projected deficit for 2023 to CHF1.5 billion ($1.71 billion) after – among other things – scrapping a CHF4 billion rescue mechanism for the electricity industry from spending estimates.

The government had said in June it expected a deficit of CHF4.8 billion for 2023 and CHF6.7 billion for 2024, largely due to extraordinary spending on Ukrainian refugees and the electricity sector.

On Wednesday, it cut its estimate for extraordinary expenditures by CHF4.5 billion, notably saying that a rescue mechanism for the electricity industry would “not be needed as things currently stand”.

It also cut its budgeted welfare spending on refugees from Ukraine by more than a third, saying it now expected some 66,000 arrivals from Ukraine for the year, down from the 100,000 accounted for in its budget.

Other boosts to the public coffers include the gradual selling off of the Ruag defence contractor and a CHF61 million windfall due to risk premiums linked to the massive state backing for the UBS takeover of Credit Suisse.

However, the government said, due to there being no profit redistribution by the Swiss National Bank this year – the bank made record losses of CHF132 billion last year – a CHF2 billion drop in receipts was recorded by the federal authorities.

The Federal Council 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.

Swiss voters abroad who are registered in any of the three cantons will be able to use the online voting method to elect members to the House of Representatives, a press release on Wednesday said.

Canton Basel City will also allow Swiss citizens with a disability to vote online, and in canton St Gallen a limited number of voters from municipalities that offer e-voting can also register. In all, the cantons are asking for around 65,000 voters to be authorised for e-voting in the national elections – around 1.2% of the Swiss electorate.

The decision “allows three cantons to gain further experience using Swiss Post's e-voting system,” writes the government. The Federal Chancellery has commissioned independent experts to review the e-voting system on a regular basis.

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. Ongoing debate

The last 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.

People from the occupied regions of Ukraine as well as breakaway parts of Georgia who have Russian-issued travel documents can no longer request a visa to enter the Schengen Area.

The government said on Wednesday it had taken over a corresponding European Union (EU) decision to exclude these regions from the Schengen open-border travel system.

Although it is not an EU state, Switzerland is a member of the 27-country Schengen Area and is therefore obliged to implement such decisions, the government in Bern said.

The new restrictions concern Russian-issued documents from the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine, as well as the two breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, which were declared by Moscow to be independent states in 2008 – a step which most countries around the world, including Switzerland, did not follow.

As for the date of issue after which the documents are no longer valid for Schengen travel, these vary: from August 2008 for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, to March 2014 for Crimea and Sevastopol, and May 2022 for Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The restrictions concern ordinary and diplomatic passports, residence permits for stateless persons, certificates for return, and seafarers’ identity cards.

Humanitarian visas, visas issued for reasons of national interest or due to international obligations remain possible for people from the affected regions.

US music producer Nile Rodgers has condemned the Swiss People’s Party for allegedly using the melody of “We Are Family” – a song he co-wrote in the 1970s – in a political campaign clip. YouTube has removed the video after Sony Music claimed it violated copyright.

“I wrote ‘We Are Family’ to be the ultimate song about inclusion and diversity at all levels, regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion or sexual orientation,” wrote Rodgers on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.

“I condemn its use by the SVP (Swiss People’s Party) or anyone else not keeping with the values of the song and all decent people. The purpose of the song is to bring joy to all with no exclusions!”

The campaign video, released on Monday, featured several People’s Party members singing and dancing, including Energy Minister Albert Rösti, party president Marco Chiesa and parliamentary group leader Thomas Aeschi. The clip, called “Das isch d’SVP!” (This is the People’s Party!) was only available briefly on YouTube before being blocked because of a copyright complaint from Sony. The video remains unavailable.

The reason for the complaint was that the melody of the chorus was considered an adaptation of the song “We Are Family”, which was co-written by Rodgers and became a worldwide hit when recorded by Sister Sledge in 1979.

Zurich parliamentarian Thomas Matter, who created the text and music for the campaign video, rejected the claims, arguing he wrote the song with a producer friend. “The song has many facets. It also contains rap and it has absolutely nothing to do with ‘We are Family’, said Matter in a report by Swiss public television, RTS.

“There is a chorus that may sound similar, with one or two chords. But thousands of pop songs share similarities. It is an honour for us to be compared to a worldwide hit. But it’s our song.”

Matter said that the party has asked YouTube to put the video back online and is discussing how to proceed legally.

This isn’t the first time the People’s Party has used a music video to capture the attention of voters. “Welcome to SVP”, released in 2015, received more than a million views on YouTube and was a top 10 hit in Switzerland.

The Italian government has pledged to help resolve problems in the Gotthard tunnel following last Thursday's derailment of a freight train. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said he was “following the matter with the utmost attention”.

Technicians from the Italian State Railways would work with their counterparts from Switzerland and Germany to quickly resolve the problem at the Gotthard following the derailment, according to a statement from the Italian infrastructure ministry as reported by Italian news agency Ansa.

The Gotthard tunnel, which at 57 kilometers, is a key route linking Northern and Southern Europe for goods transport and passenger travel. Last year it accounted for nearly 70% of all train freight moving through the Swiss Alps to ship provisions to German and Italian companies.

Due to the closure, the parking area for freight trains in Switzerland is full, and the traffic jam is spreading to neighbouring countries according to Swiss daily Blick. “It can take four weeks to catch up with the backlog on the rails,” Hans-Jörg Bertschi, who heads a logistics service company, told Blick.

The costs of the delay are quickly piling up. A representative of transport company Schöni told Blick that the closure of the tunnel costs the company a few thousand francs a day. Bloomberg reported earlier this week that some Swiss grocers have switched to roads to keep goods flowing.

The derailment occurred early on August 10 near the station at Faido in canton Ticino, which is one of two emergency stops of the tunnel. The accident derailed 23 cargo cars and damaged a gate in a tunnel connecting the two main tubes that run North to South. Since the closure of the tunnel, passenger trains and some freight have been diverted via the Gotthard panorama route, which takes about an hour longer.

On August 14, federal investigators said that they believed the derailment was probably caused by a broken wheel tread after the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (STSB) discovered fragments of a wheel and traces of derailment on the tracks.

The Swiss Federal Railways originally said that the tunnel would remain closed until August 16 at the earliest but on Monday said the closure will continue beyond this.

The director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is urging Switzerland to “set an example” and finally ratify an international convention prohibiting violence and harassment in the workplace.

Gilbert Houngbo of Togo, first African head of the Geneva-based ILO, told Le Temps newspaper in an interview published Tuesday that Switzerland should set an example, especially now that it is a member of the UN Security Council.

Switzerland’s two houses of parliament are divided over the issue. While the House of Representatives has approved ratification, the Senate has so far refused to do so. Its legal affairs committee was debating the issue for a second time on Tuesday and a new parliamentary vote is expected in the autumn.

The convention, which was adopted in 2019, has been ratified by 31 ILO member states. No state has yet expressed a refusal. It is already in force in Italy, El Salvador and the Central African Republic.

While admitting that Switzerland has national laws in this domain, Houngbo believes that it has an "international responsibility". "We are making a solemn appeal to the Swiss political authorities to do everything to ratify this convention," he told Le Temps on Tuesday.

"We have so far been careful not to interfere in national political debates,” he continues, “but the International Labour Office (ILO), the ILO's permanent secretariat, sees no reason why Switzerland should not ratify, especially when it concerns violence and harassment."

Not all trees have the same capacity to improve urban air quality in towns, a study by the Federal Technology Institute Lausanne (EPFL) has found.

“I was surprised to find out that trees can also have a detrimental effect on air quality under certain conditions,” says study author Donato Kofel, cited in a press release.

Trees are helpful for offsetting heat in urban environments. But even if they have the capacity to absorb fine particles from the atmosphere, some trees emit biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), says the report. These are natural substances, but they react with human emissions such as exhaust fumes. This generates ozone, a molecule that is harmful to the environment and the lungs of living beings.

For his study, Kofel used advanced mapping software to quantify the positive and negative effects of trees on outdoor air quality in canton Geneva. His research is based on a tree inventory containing some 240,000 “isolated” trees, or trees located outside of a forest. For example, these can be trees lining a street or planted in a city park.

Kofel found that some species of oak, the type of tree most often found along Geneva canton’s streets and in its parks, have some of the highest BVOC emission rates. The methodology developed could help town planners to better manage the planting of trees in urban areas, according to the press release.

Switzerland topped the list of countries with the largest per capita wealth last year, a study has found.

Thanks to numerous wealthy individuals, average worth in the Alpine country was $685,000 (CHF600,000), according to a study published on Tuesday by UBS and its subsidiary Credit Suisse.

Switzerland was followed in the rankings by the US and Hong Kong.

Its top ranking comes despite a decline, which was a trend worldwide. Global household wealth fell last year for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, says the report. The total private wealth of adults around the world shrank by 2.4 % to $454.4 trillion in 2022.

Financial assets lost value while real estate proved resilient despite rapidly rising interest rates. Above average losses were recorded in the US, Hong Kong and Australia.

The authors expect a turnaround in the coming years, however. Total wealth by 2027 is expected to rise by 38% to $629 trillion, mainly thanks to growth in countries with medium wealth. The study estimates that the number of millionaires worldwide will reach 86 million in five years.

Switzerland has lifted all import restrictions on Japanese food following the nuclear accident in Fukushima in 2011. Certain items of food had to be tested for radioactive contamination before being exported to Switzerland.

Most recently, there were still restrictions mainly on wild mushrooms, certain types of fish and wild plants, said a spokeswoman for the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) on Tuesday.

She explained that the conditions were no longer necessary owing to current radiation levels. Food from the Fukushima region can once again be considered safe, she said, adding that the Japanese authorities had made considerable efforts in recent years to reduce the radioactive contamination of food.

Special protective measures had no longer applied to food of animal origin since the beginning of August, the FSVO said. From now, the measures will also cease to apply to food of plant origin.

For Japan, the removal of trade barriers is an important step. The effects were particularly noticeable for the Japanese economy.

The items of food affected by the import restrictions had to be tested for radioactivity before being exported to Switzerland. The Japanese authorities had to certify compliance with the maximum levels for radioactivity. Certain foodstuffs were subjected to additional controls. This meant additional work for the authorities at the border.

Swiss bank UBS has agreed to pay $1.435 billion (CHF1.25 billion) to settle US charges that it misled investors into buying troubled mortgage securities, concluding an industrywide probe into a root cause of the 2008 global financial crisis.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) on Monday said it had collected more than $36 billion in civil fines from 19 banks, mortgage originators and rating agencies over the packaging, sale and rating of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) leading up to the crisis.

Many of these securities carried triple-A ratings despite being backed by subprime and other risky mortgages, and investors suffered enormous losses as borrowers went into default and underwriting flaws became apparent.

The largest settlement, $16.65 billion, was reached in 2014 with Bank of America, which had bought mortgage specialist Countrywide Financial six years earlier.

UBS’s settlement resolved DoJ claims in a 2018 lawsuit filed in Brooklyn that the bank had defrauded investors by knowingly making false and misleading statements about more than $41 billion in loans backing 40 RMBS issued in 2006 and 2007.

The bank had rejected a proposal that it pay nearly $2 billion to settle, a person familiar with the matter said at the time.

Credit Suisse, which UBS bought in June, reached a similar $5.28 billion settlement in 2017.

In a press release, UBS said it had previously set aside reserves to cover the $1.43 billion payout. Monday’s settlement should result in the lawsuit’s dismissal.

UBS’s payout is “a warning to other players in the financial markets who seek to unlawfully profit through fraud that we will hold them accountable no matter how long it takes,” US Attorney Breon Peace in Brooklyn said in a statement.

Authorities have revealed the details of a drainage tunnel designed to stop the village of Brienz from sliding into the valley.

On Monday, experts presented the tunnelling project proposed to give residents of the village in the southwestern Swiss canton of Graubünden some relief. Brienz/Brinzauls had recently made the headlines because of the threat of a landslide over the village in the Albula Valley that could have buried it.

The village itself also stands on unstable rock and is sliding downhill at an increasing rate. To put the brakes, a drainage tunnel will be drilled into the mountain to west of the village. The aim is to extract water from the rock below the village which will help stabilise the surrounding area.

"The tunnel is meant to stop the movement of the rock below the village and also that of the mountain above," explained engineering geologist Reto Thöny at a press conference on Monday.

According to the geologist, there is no comparable drainage project of its kind anywhere else. Nevertheless, the geologists and residents of Brienz/Brinzauls are optimistic that the landslide movements can be slowed down enough to keep the village habitable.

"We are confident that the landslide will come to a complete halt," said Daniel Albertin, mayor of Albula/Alvra municipality to which Brienz belongs.

An exploratory tunnel has already been drilled to give geologists and engineers a chance to test the plan. This will be extended to 1.6km and the entire project is estimated to cost CHF40 million ($45.5 million).

Turtles do not follow the general rule that today’s species are on average larger than their distant ancestors, according to a Swiss-led study.

The tendency of animal groups to increase in body size over evolutionary time is known as Cope’s rule (after the paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope). This rule, however, does not apply to turtles, according to a large-scale study recently published in the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution.

Researchers from the University of Fribourg, as well as Brazilian, American and German institutions, studied 795 turtle species, including 536 extinct ones. The researchers concluded that body size of turtles was not affected by evolution and that they have not become smaller or larger than their ancestors.

“These results demonstrate that Cope’s rule applies only rarely to vertebrates, except for certain lineages of mammals and pterosaurs, an extinct order of flying reptiles,” said lead researcher Bruna M. Farina of the University of Fribourg’s Department of Biology in a press release on Friday.

The comprehensive study also revealed differences in evolutionary trends depending on the habitat of the turtle species. The body size of freshwater turtles remains uniform over time, while sea turtles and tortoises (land turtles) show noticeable evolutionary variations.

The smallest living turtle, the speckled Cape tortoise (Homopus signatus) measures no more than 10 cm in length, while the largest, the leatherback sea turtle (Ermochelys coriacea), can exceed 2.2 m. Turtle fossils offer even greater variance with the extinct freshwater side-necked Turtle ( Stupendemys geographicus) measured at over 2.8 m.

British activist and financier Bill Browder has called on Switzerland to apply sanctions against Russia and align with European Union policy.

Browder also opposed the idea of returning the confiscated funds to sanctioned Russians involved in the Magnitsky affair. His goal is to isolate Russia financially from the rest of the world and “Switzerland is part of the problem”, he said in an interview with Swiss CH-media group on Monday.

In February Browder accused the Swiss justice system of being “incapable of dealing with money laundering”. His comment came after Switzerland’s decision to return CHF14 million ($15.9 million) to three Russian individuals sanctioned in the United States and other Western countries.

Vladlen Stepanov, Denis Katsyv and Dmitry Klyuev are the protagonists of the infamous Magnitsky affair, which drew much criticism towards Switzerland. If the Swiss decide to hand back that money, “the country would find itself at the centre of an international crisis”, Browder warned.

Switzerland “must become part of the civilised world when it comes to financial matters”, he said. Browder was already successful in July, when, after his initiative, the US Helsinki Commission demanded the sanctioning of three Swiss citizens, including former Swiss attorney, Michael Lauber.

However, the Swiss foreign ministry has rejected the US commission’s corruption accusations, saying that the "claims that Switzerland is doing less than other countries and that it is still harbouring funds from sanctioned individuals without freezing them are unfounded".

The derailment of a train in the Gotthard Base Tunnel on Thursday was probably caused by a broken wheel tread. Federal investigators found fragments of a wheel and traces of derailment a few kilometres before the accident site.

The derailment occurred early on Thursday afternoon near the station at Faido in canton Ticino. This multifunction station is one of two emergency stops of the tunnel. A few kilometres away, specialists from the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (STSB) discovered fragments of a wheel and traces of derailment on the tracks.

According to the information available, the freight train entered the Gothard tunnel in good condition. The STSB therefore assumes that the tread of a wheel on the freight wagon broke inside the tunnel.

Despite the broken wheel, the wagon managed to travel several kilometres. At the switch at the Faido station, where trains can pass from one tube to another in the tunnel, the wagon derailed, taking with it more than 20 wagons following it.

The cause of the wheel break has not yet been determined but external influence or a fatigue fracture are conceivable. The wheel parts will be subjected to metallurgical analysis for a final analysis. Such tread failures are not common, according to the STSB. One case occurred in 2014 on the Appenzell railways.

The derailed freight wagons destroyed the gauge changing device at the multifunction station, which separates the two tubes of the tunnel and only opens when a train needs to change track and therefore tube. Until the passage between the tubes is assured again, no train can use the base tunnel for safety reasons. The Swiss Federal Railways said the tunnel would remain closed until August 16 at the earliest.

With more and more students and teachers using artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the classroom, sensitive personal data is at risk.

Teachers and pupils are getting ready to go back to school, and while the issue of staff shortages is an ongoing problem, this year there’s another possible threat in the classrooms: AI. The Swiss Teachers’ Association is now calling for a set of rules about AI and sensitive data, Swiss public television, SRF, reported on Monday.

The advent of tools such as OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT in Switzerland has led professionals, including teachers, to take advantage of the new technology’s functionalities. But teachers often have to deal with extremely sensitive data, for example writing reports about their students, with private information on their lives, including if they have a learning disability.

“There are no clear instructions to teachers as to what they can and cannot do,” Beat Schwendimann, member of the teachers' association management board, told SRF. He suggested that teachers be trained to learn how to deal with sensitive data online and how to avoid information being leaked.

Schwendimann explained that, as employers of teachers, it is up to the Swiss government and the cantons to draw up ethical guidelines for dealing with artificial intelligence that apply throughout Switzerland.

The world of AI is still very much unknown, especially when it comes to how some tools and apps store data. Therefore, EducaExternal link, a specialist agency commissioned by the government and cantons, recommended caution. “I suggest that teachers do not enter any personal data in these applications,” said Educa director Tony Ritz.

On top of this, last week the teachers' association president Dagmar Rösler criticised the cantons for not doing enough about the ongoing issue of teachers’ shortage. She explained how the quality of education in Switzerland was at risk, so the umbrella association launched an "Action Plan for Educational Quality" in a campaign starting in the autumn.

The delivery of F-35 fighter jets from the United States has already been delayed in some countries, and if this were the case for Switzerland, the Alpine country would have to pay up to CHF1.75 billion ($1.99 billion).

The Swiss parliament approved the purchase of new F-35 fighter jets from the US in 2022. Normally, if there is a delay in the delivery of the armaments, the manufacturer is bound to pay a contractual penalty, but in this case there is no such penalty, Tamedia media group reported on Monday.

The Federal Office for Defence Procurement (Armasuisse) wrote that the contract for the jets between Switzerland the US government “does not include any contractual penalties”. Therefore, while the Swiss state-owned defence contracting firm Ruag had to pay CHF726,000 for the delayed delivery of the Cobra mortar, Lockheed Martin, the F-35A’s manufacturer, does not risk the same.

According to Tamedia, it is Switzerland that would bear the costs of the delay. If the F-35s do not arrive on time, Switzerland would have to extend the lifespan of F/A-18 jets. A few years ago, the Swiss defence ministry estimated that between CHF800 million and CHF1.75 billion would be required to operate the F/A-18 until 2035.

Armasuisse also wrote that general agreements between the US government and the manufacturer - including the one for Swiss F-35A - would contain "contractual mechanisms" that "come into effect in the event of non-performance by Lockheed Martin". However, neither Armasuisse nor Lockheed Martin says which mechanisms these are and whether they also provide for financial compensation.

The threat is impending, because Lockheed Martin seems to be struggling with delivery problems in the first few countries, including Poland. However, Lockheed Martin promised to meet the Swiss delivery dates.

“We expect the first Swiss jet to be ready for pilot training in the US in 2027,” it said in a statement. The first aircraft will be produced in Italy and they are expected to arrive in Switzerland in 2028.

However, the US Department of Defense hasn’t officially awarded the contract to Lockheed Martin: until it does so, production cannot start.

Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter has criticised the legal obstacles preventing company executives' bonuses being reclaimed.

“Today, there are probably too many obstacles to the legal liability of company directors," she told the SonntagsBlick newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Asked whether the former directors of the Swiss bank Credit Suisse should repay part of their bonuses, Keller-Sutter said the Swiss Code of Obligations provides for liability. “But the Swissair case shows just how difficult it is to hold certain people to account," she added. "I think this should be looked at closely.”

In March, Credit Suisse was forced into an emergency takeover by rival UBS to avert bankruptcy. The demise of the 167-year-old banking institution sent shockwaves through the global financial system and is viewed as a grave embarrassment in Switzerland.

Keller-Sutter said the public does not want high salaries to be paid without any responsibility being taken. “Bonuses must be designed in such a way that they do not encourage excessive risk-taking,” she said.

The Swiss finance minister has been extremely critical of the Credit Suisse management since the takeover saying they failed to “take responsibility for itself, for its employees, for its clients, but also for Switzerland”.

“We got into this situation because a bank had obviously made the wrong decisions over the years,” she declared last week.

Political candidates with foreign-sounding names get 5% fewer votes than those with typically Swiss names on the same electoral list, a study published by SonntagsZeitung reveals.

This phenomenon is stronger the more a party is positioned to the right of the political spectrum, researchers found.

The studyExternal link also showed that candidates with non-Swiss roots are often placed at the end of an electoral list, which further reduces their chances of being elected.

"Candidates with a migration background are not only discriminated against by the electorate, but also indirectly by party leaders," said political scientist Daniel Auer, co-author of the study.

The study focused on elections that took place in over 20 Swiss municipalities between 2006 and 2018.

The results of the study entitled “Electoral Discrimination, Party Rationale, and the Underrepresentation of Immigrant-Origin Politicians" were published in the American Journal of Political Science.

Political parties are keen to woo the large expatriate community ahead of October’s federal elections. The idea of creating a “27th canton” for the Swiss abroad is back on the table.

Around 220,000 Swiss citizens living abroad were registered to vote in Switzerland at the end of 2022, according to the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA). This represents the equivalent of the number of voters in canton Graubünden in southeast Switzerland.

In June Green parliamentarian Nicolas Walder submitted a parliamentary question asking what measures could be taken to ensure better representation of the Swiss abroad in parliament. The Federal Council has not yet given its position.

A mini survey by the Keystone-SDA news agency shows that the left-wing Social Democrats and Greens are open to the idea of creating a special constituency, a “27th canton”, for the Swiss abroad [there are currently 26 cantons across the country] with political representation.

This principle is already known is other countries, including Italy, France and Portugal. However, parliament threw out the plan in 2009.

The centre-right Radicals and the Centre are opposed to the creation of a 27th canton, however. "Applications from the Swiss abroad should be submitted in the cantons,” says Radical spokesperson Floriane Wyss. The party wants to keep the current system and rejects special representation for Swiss cities.

The Swiss People’s Party did not respond to requests from Keystone-SDA.

A working group of the Council of the Swiss Abroad is also considering how the Swiss abroad could be directly represented in parliament in future, OSA Director Ariane Rustichelli told Keystone-SDA. However, the group will not present its findings until after the federal elections.

Retail investors who lost money when Credit Suisse was taken over by UBS in March plan to file a lawsuit challenging the controversial buyout, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

The Swiss Investor Protection Association plans to file the claim in Zurich's commercial court on Monday on behalf of about 500 Credit Suisse equity investors, the newspaper said.

The FT said most of the claimants are Swiss, but there are other investors from the UK, US, Germany, Austria, Thailand and Dubai. Many are former Credit Suisse staff who acquired shares as part of their remuneration.

In March, Credit Suisse was forced into an emergency takeover by rival UBS to avert bankruptcy. The demise of the 167-year-old banking institution sent shockwaves through the global financial system and is viewed as a grave embarrassment in Switzerland.

UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse for CHF3 billion ($3.2 billion). The Swiss National Bank (SNB) smoothed the transaction by providing CHF100 billion in liquidity to UBS and Credit Suisse during the takeover. The government agreed to absorb up to CHF9 billion of potential UBS losses.

Orchestrated by Swiss authorities, the takeover denied shareholders in both banks a vote on the deal.

It is the second class action by shareholders in Credit Suisse targeting UBS, while there are several lawsuits being pursued by bondholders who were wiped out.

Last Friday, UBS announced it no longer needed government support for the takeover, in a move that may help ease public anger over the deal in the run-up to national elections in October.

State Secretary Livia Leu, Switzerland’s top negotiator with the European Union, has given a positive assessment of the state of relations with Brussels.

“We are now in a different, better position than we were three years ago,” says Leu, who is to be replaced by Swiss diplomat Alexandre Fasel on September 1.

In June the Swiss government announced a new strategy for stabilising relations with the EU, which have hit a rocky patch in the last two years. It finally defined the parameters of a mandate for negotiations with the EU. It also intends to prepare for the adoption of a mandate by the end of the year. This followed ten rounds of exploratory talks between Leu and her EU negotiating partner Juraj Nociar, as well as 30 meetings at the technical level.

"This is a very important step towards negotiations,” Leu told the Le Temps newspaper and German-language Tamedia media on Saturday in an interview.

Electricity to free movement

For its new strategy, Switzerland has targeted market access to electricity supply and food safety to complement existing deals in air transport, land transport, technical barriers to trade, agriculture and the free movement of people.

The Federal Council also wants enhanced cooperation in the health sector and a rapid return to the top tier of the EU’s Horizon Europe and Erasmus research and educational programmes. Switzerland also wants to establish a system of settling disputes that is acceptable to both parties.

The aim is to integrate these topics into a new negotiating mandate.

Switzerland and Brussels have been at odds over an agreement to consolidate relations following the Swiss government's decision in May 2021 to abandon years of talksExternal link with the EU on an umbrella accord to complement the more than 120 bilateral agreements.

At the time the government cited a lack of agreement on salary protection, state aid rules, and the access of EU citizens to Swiss social security benefits. Since then, talks have been ongoing to rebuild ties.

'Cantons no longer reticent'

In Switzerland the cantons are no longer as reticent as they once were, and the business lobby group economiesuisse is backing the move, she added. “The unions are perhaps a little more vocal with their demands - that's their job - but things have moved on,” she added.

“We have been able to lay the foundations for a future negotiating package that goes beyond institutional issues and also enables us to develop the bilateral track.”

The Swiss government has yet to reveal any of the key elements of its negotiating mandate. This is normal, says Leu. “The EU always publishes its negotiating mandates. As a small negotiating partner, we don't do that. We would undermine our own position if we showed from the outset where we could be flexible,” she says.

Planned talks between Switzerland and the European Union to rebuild ties have been postponed until the end of October after the federal elections at the request of the Swiss government.

Leu is set to become Swiss ambassador to Germany from November 1. She will be replaced by Fasel, who serves as the Special Representative for Science Diplomacy in international Geneva. He has previously held the role of Swiss ambassador to the United Kingdom.

The remains of an Italian skier who went missing in Zermatt in 2019 have been found on the Klein Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps, according to the Valais cantonal police.

The 63-year-old Italian man had gone missing while ski touring in the Klein Matterhorn area on March 28, 2019. A search was launched at the time when he did not return.

The man’s remains and equipment were discovered by walkers after being freed from the melting snow and ice and were picked up by helicopter, the police said on Friday, confirming an earlier report by Blick.ch.

The Valais cantonal pollce maintain a list of over 300 missing people in the region that dates back to 1925.

There was speculation that the body may have belonged to Karl-Erivan Haub, boss of the German family group Tengelmann, who disappeared in the Klein Matterhorn region on April 7, 2018.

As a result of global warming, more and more glaciers are retreating in Switzerland and objects, remains, but also people are being discovered.

On July 28 Valais police announced that the remains of a 38-year-old German alpinist who went missing while hiking near Zermatt in 1986 were found on a glacier.

Similarly, on July 12 on the Théodule glacier, in southern Switzerland, climbers discovered human remains and several pieces of equipment.

Some experts believe that more and more bodies and objects will emerge on Swiss glaciers as the huge ice sheets continue to retreat at an accelerating rate.