Switzerland

Swiss research suggests current global warming is unprecedented in the last millennium.

A study by the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) states it is "probably beyond the natural temperature variations of the last 1,200 years".

The new WSL study, unveiled this week and published in the journal Nature, puts into perspective the importance of the hottest period of the Middle Ages, which was not as scorching as previously thought. On the contrary, it shows that "current warming is unprecedented", at least in the Scandinavian region and Finland.

The researchers point out that this discovery underlines the role played by greenhouse gas emissions in temperature variations. Warmer than ever

Using dendroscience, the scientists measured the walls of 50 million wood cells from 188 living and dead Scots pine trees in Scandinavia and Finland. All the rings observed cover a period of 1,170 years..

The Middle Ages and the centuries that followed were tumultuous. They saw not only a cold phase, the Little Ice Age, but also its opposite, the "medieval climatic optimum", a period during which it is assumed that the weather was abnormally warm, according to the researchers. To date, physics has provided no explanation for medieval periods of exceptional warmth. Analysing tree rings

The technique employed involved measuring the thickness of wood cell walls in tree rings. "Each cell in each ring records the climate in which it was formed. By analysing hundreds or even thousands of cells per ring, we obtain exceptionally precise climatic information"," says Jesper Björklund, lead author of the study and researcher at WSL.

The scientists reconstructed summer temperatures in the regions under consideration and compared them with both regional climate model simulations and previous reconstructions based on tree-ring density.

As of August 1, Swiss law enforcement can create a detailed suspect profile based on DNA traces found at the scene of a crime.

The revised DNA Profiling Act allows DNA phenotyping, a method capable of providing clues about certain physical traits of crime suspects. Until now, DNA analysis was only used to establish a DNA profile and thus obtain information on the sex of the suspect.

Now, the DNA traces left behind at the scene of a crime can be used to deduce, with a certain degree of probability, physical traits such as the colour of eyes, hair and skin, as well as geographical origin and age of suspects.

“Thanks to phenotyping, for example, the police can assume, with a certain degree of probability, that the trace left at the scene of an offence comes from a man of around 45 with brown hair and green eyes from Western Europe,” stated a press release on Wednesday from the Federal Office of Police (Fedpol).

According to Fedpol, the new tool will enable the police to narrow down the circle of suspects, crosscheck witness statements and reopen cold cases.

However, a 2020 report on the revised law by the Foundation for Technology Assessment (TA-Swiss) pointed out that such results indicate only probabilities and are therefore liable to error. The study recommends using this method only in particularly serious cases, “because while it can exonerate a wrongly accused person, it can also incriminate an innocent person”.

The director of the Federal Office of Police (Fedpol) has warned of a lack of personnel to fight organised crime effectively.

In an interview with the Tamedia group on Thursday, Nicoletta della Valle said Fedpol lacked around 200 investigators. Switzerland had turned from a place of retreat into a theatre of operations for organised crime, she added.

Della Valle said Switzerland could not afford to have overstretched investigators risking burn-out – and for the mafia to make itself comfortable in Switzerland. The presence of the mafia in Switzerland is not noticeable as on the surface they appear to be industrious citizens, she explained.

"The mafia takes jobs away from the economy," she said. “It does this, for example, with cheap bids for construction projects. Workers are exploited, environmental regulations are ignored and shoddy materials are used.”

In Switzerland there are not enough police forces to fight organised crime, she claimed. "We also have to ask ourselves exactly which residence permits we issue and whom we naturalise."

Already in June, della Valle called for better cooperation between the cantons.

Close to a thousand people, including ten Swiss nationals, have been flown out of Niger following last week’s coup.

On Wednesday, several aircraft evacuated expatriates from the capital, Niamey, to Paris and Rome. Around ten Swiss nationals were able to leave Niger at their own request. They took advantage of an evacuation flight led by France, according to the foreign ministry.

Bern is continuing to monitor developments in Niger closely and remains in contact both with its partner states and with the 20 or so Swiss nationals still in the country, the ministry said.

A total of 992 people were evacuated on four flights out of the West African country, including 560 French nationals. A fifth French government plane landed at Niamey's civilian airport on Wednesday evening to evacuate French and European nationals, the French armed forces told news agency AFP. This should be the very last flight to evacuate people wishing to leave the country, it added.

Italy announced "the return of 99 Italians and foreigners", including 68 civilians.

France prime target

This is the first mass evacuation organised by France in the Sahel, where coups d'état have multiplied since 2020.

Paris justified the evacuation by the "violence that took place" against its embassy on Sunday during an anti-French demonstration, and by "the closure of airspace".

France, a former colonial power in the region and a staunch supporter of President Bazoum, appears to be the prime target of the soldiers who overthrew him, led by General Abdourahamane Tiani.

The evacuation of the 1,500 or so French troops stationed in Niger is "not on the agenda", according to the French armed forces headquarters.

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche is taking its rival Novartis to court in the US. Roche subsidiary Genentech has filed suit in New Jersey District Court against Novartis subsidiary Sandoz for patent infringement on the lung drug Esbriet.

This is according to the indictment filed on Monday, cited by the Keystone-SDA news agency. The case was first reported by Reuters.

Genentech complains that Sandoz started selling a generic version of Esbriet in mid-May 2022, even though Sandoz had not applied for a license. As a result, Genentech's patent had been infringed, it said. The generic displacement of Esbriet has caused significant financial harm to the Roche subsidiary, it said. Esbriet had sales of more than $740 million (CHF650 million) in the U.S. alone in 2021.

Genentech is now seeking unspecified damages including lost profits and/or an appropriate royalty. Sandoz is also expected to pay the legal costs.

Genentech's Esbriet is used to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a fatal chronic lung disease with no cure. Roche earned over $1 billion worldwide from Esbriet in 2021, but sales fell to under $820 million in 2022, according to Reuters.

A Bronze Age arrowhead found on the shores of Switzerland’s Lake Biel was made using iron from a meteorite, according to Swiss research.

The arrowhead in question, which is 39 millimetres long and weighs 2.9 grammess, is preserved at the Museum of History in Bern. It was found in the 19th century during excavations at a Paleolithic site dating from 900-800 BC, according to a statement issued by the Museum of Natural History in Bern, which conducted the research.

Such metal objects from meteorites dating from before the beginning of the Iron Age (800 B.C.) are very rare. There are only 55 of them in Eurasia and the African continent. The scientists set out to find out whether the arrowhead came from the dispersal area of the Douanne Mountain meteorite, just a few kilometers away

To the researchers' surprise, the arrowhead was not made from one of the 2,000 fragments of the iron meteorite that fell on the Douanne Moutain 170,000 years ago. It contained almost twice as much nickel compared to those fragments.

due to the growing influx of asylum-seekers from Ukraine and other countries. Individuals will be transferred to underground shelters so that space can be made above ground for families.

The government predicts that Bern will need to accommodate an additional 1,200 asylum-seekers in the coming months, Keystone-SDA reported citing authorities.

If the influx remains the same and the housing shortage tends to increase, the accommodation options will be exhausted by September or October. The emergency shelters are intended to help ensure that asylum and protection seekers can continue to be accommodated.

Currently, 42 shelters are in operation in Bern. Six of them are for people with status S, a one-year temporary residence permit granted only to Ukrainians, 22 for regular asylum-seekers and 14 for unaccompanied minors.

Swiss researchers have developed a promising new approach to curing genetic anemia based on gene editing.

The study, published in the journal eLife, could prove groundbreaking for the treatment of two hereditary forms of anemia, according to a statement by the federal technology institute ETH Zurich published on Wednesday. These include beta-thalassemia and sickle cell anemia, two of the most common inherited diseases worldwide.

These diseases are caused by a mutation of a gene called HBB. This gene is responsible for the production of beta-globin, an important component of the red blood pigment hemoglobin. The mutation causes beta-globins to be produced incorrectly. This results in a lack of functioning hemoglobin. Typically, this can cause red blood cells to die prematurely. Anemia results. The organs and the entire body are then chronically undersupplied with oxygen.

Hemoglobin in adult humans usually consists of two alpha-globins and two beta-globins. To a lesser extent, there is also hemoglobin consisting of two alpha- and two delta-globins. The latter functions the same as beta-globin but is naturally produced in red blood cells in very small quantities.

Using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, the researchers have now boosted the production of these delta globins. To do so, they inserted additional DNA segments upstream of the HBB gene.

Mandy Boontanrart is the study leader and herself a carrier of a mutated gene, according to the institute's statement. She hopes that such a therapy will be available by 2030. So far, however, the approach has only been tested in cell cultures. Next up are tests on animals to determine whether it is safe and effective in living organisms. Only then can a potential therapy be tested in human clinical trials.

Anemia, the third greatest cause of years of life lived with a disability, is estimated to affect one in four people worldwide, especially women and children.

The planet’s population has used up a year’s supply of sustainable natural resources, with Switzerland reaching this dubious milestone several weeks ago.

Earth Overshoot Day was announced on August 2 by the ecological movement Global Footprint Network. This means that from now on until the end of the year the planet is being drained of resources at a faster rate than it can regenerate.

When measuring the consumption of resources in each country, Switzerland is more voracious than average.

Swiss Overshoot Day was reached on May 13, sparking protests by environmental activists.

Earth Overshoot Day is a “consequence of humanity demanding 70% more than Earth’s ecosystems are able to regenerate,” said Global Footprint Network on Wednesday.

“Food makes up a large part of our Ecological Footprint – feeding humanity currently takes just about 50% of Earth’s biocapacity.”

Switzerland wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Under the terms of the Paris climate agreement, Switzerland has pledged to halve emissions by 2030.

But the country narrowly missed its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 despite coronavirus lockdowns and an unusually warm winter.

Switzerland has dropped from 15th spot to 22nd on the Climate Change Performance Index 2023.

The trade of raw materials, such as oil, through Switzerland fell by almost a third in May compared to the same month last year.

The latest 32% monthly fall in commodities trading followed a 27.5% decline in April, 22% in March and double-digit negative figures going back to the start of the year.

The latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) show the volume of Swiss commodities trading in freefall as the Ukraine war rages on, destabilising the shipment of grains around the world and redirecting the flow of Russian oil.

Switzerland has established itself a one of the most important global hubs for trading oil, metals and foodstuffs.

Swiss-based companies handle 40% of all oil trades and have taken a 60% slice of the metals trading business, 65% in cotton, 55% in coffee and 35% in cocoa, according to the industry association Suissenégoce.

The sector employs 35,000 people and contributes some 4% to the Swiss economy, Suissenégoce said in its annual report published in March.

Geopolitical ructions and mounting sanctions against Russia have had a dramatic effect on Swiss-based trading, FSO figures from Monday reveal.

Sales in the service sector as a whole fell 6.7% year-on-year in May, dragged down by a huge decline in commodities trading.

The concrete figures back up reports that commodities traders are retreating to new markets less affected by sanctions, such as the United Arab Emirates.

Companies registered in Dubai bought at least 39 million tonnes of Russian oil worth more than $17 billion (CHF14.6 billion) between January and April, according to the Financial Times.

The newspaper also reports that Swiss-based traders are steadily building up their UAE operations, which has become an increasingly important hub for Russian oil trading.

Last month, Unites States Treasury officials met with Swiss commodities traders to talk about their role in sanctions against Russia.

UBS Group AG is planning to exit billions of dollars in loans to Credit Suisse’s clients in the Asia Pacific region, as the Swiss bank works to neutralise risks to its profitability and reputation from the defunct lender.

The bank intends to either wind-down or sell off the majority of Credit Suisse’s more complex and higher-risk structured loans in APAC, people familiar with the matter said.

Those riskier assets will be placed in the so-called “Non-Core Unit” for businesses that UBS doesn’t want, the people said, who asked not to be named discussing private details. The bank is likely to keep less complicated loans made against liquid collateral – so-called Lombard loans.

Since closing the takeover in June, UBS has been scrutinizing the approximately CHF75 billion ($86 billion) book of loans made to rich clients globally. At its peak in 2019, more than CHF45 billion in loans to wealthy customers in its Asia Pacific unit were outstanding. UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse in March in an emergency deal brokered by the government, after a confidence crisis and a torrent of client outflows sent it hurtling toward bankruptcy.

Ignazio Cassis has landed in Indonesia to begin a diplomatic tour of the Asia-Pacific region. Talks will largely focus on economic ties.

On Tuesday, August 1, despite being in Jakarta, Cassis didn’t miss out on the chance to give a National Day speech in which he hailed the Swiss coexistence of cultures, languages, religions and beliefs – a “wealth” also found in Indonesia, he added.

Indeed, Indonesia’s national motto – “unity in diversity” – would equally well apply to the Alpine nation, Cassis quipped.

The foreign minister will be in Jakarta until Wednesday. A planned meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi will mainly focus on the economic partnership between the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – of which Switzerland is a member – and Indonesia, the richest country in Southeast Asia.

In 2021 a trade agreement entered into force between the countries which was only narrowly accepted by Swiss voters after being forced to referendum.

Government ministers have spoken at various events across the country to mark the Swiss National Day, held each year on August 1.

The seven members of the Federal Council are speaking a total of eleven times on a day marked largely by speeches, communal brunches, bonfires and fireworks displays.

Interior Minister Alain Berset, who currently holds the rotating Swiss presidency, said in Fribourg that Switzerland needed to continue moving and innovating, even at a time of political, climate, and economic difficulty.

Berset also referred to the country’s constitution, which is celebrating its 175th anniversary this year, as a document of “courage, confidence, and self-questioning”.

The president had earlier sent a message to the Swiss Abroad community via a pre-recorded video.

His colleague Albert Rösti meanwhile said in a speech in southern canton Ticino that Switzerland should stick to its own path, even if it can lead it to being at odds with trends in other nations. He also warned against getting too used to the comparatively comfortable situation in which the country finds itself.

Justice Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, in her first year in government, meanwhile had the honour of speaking at the symbolic Rütli meadow in central Switzerland, where in 1291 the legendary founding fathers of the confederation gathered to swear an oath of allegiance.

Baume-Schneider particularly addressed younger people who had gathered on site, urging them to get more involved in politics and decision-making.

Other ministers spoke in St Gallen (Karin Keller-Sutter), Lucerne (Viola Amherd), and Fribourg (Guy Parmelin); foreign minster Ignazio Cassis made an address on his travels in Jakarta, Indonesia.

While the number of smokers worldwide has been falling, only four countries are taking adequate prevention measures, in the eyes of the World Health Organization (WHO). Switzerland remains a laggard, at least according to the most recently available statistics.

A report by Geneva-based WHO said on Monday that Brazil, Mauritius, Turkey and the Netherlands were the only countries to have implemented all recommended anti-tobacco measures.

Eight countries are meanwhile just one policy step away from joining this select group: Ireland, Spain, Ethiopia, Iran, Jordan, Madagascar, Mexico and New Zealand.

That said, the proportion of smokers worldwide has been falling: from 22.8% in 2007 to 17% in 2021. “Slowly but surely, more and more people are being protected from the harms of tobacco,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Hey,

Our first National day on Lemmy!

What are you cooking today? How will you celebrate?

I'm going for a zopf and Apéro with the neighbours!

Enjoy your day!

A group of Yenish travellers has been occupying a municipal site in Thônex, canton Geneva, without permission since Sunday. The local authorities say they will file criminal charges.

The situation, revealed by Le Temps newspaper on Monday, reflects the disarray felt by Swiss travellers at the lack of suitable sites for nomadic living.

“We have nothing in Geneva, even though it’s one of the richest cantons in Switzerland and a city that bills itself as the capital of human rights,” Stève Gerzner, the community’s representative, told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-ATS.

Around 20 families have taken up residence in a park in Thônex, near the French border. The 20-30 caravans are parked practically under the windows of the town hall. The Yenish say they are prepared to stay as long as it takes to jolt the authorities into action. They hope to obtain more transit sites equipped with access to water and electricity.

“It’s in the law,” Gerzner said. The Yenish are recognised as a minority and Switzerland must make it easier for them to practise their nomadic cultural life, he said, adding that the Yenish had made numerous requests to the local authorities for plots but had been repeatedly turned down.

“We’re bounced from one department to another, told that the land is being used for events,” Gerzner said. “In reality, they don’t want us”. He pointed out that the Yenish don’t ask to stay in one place for months on end – they move every two to three weeks.

Once they have settled, they make a living doing all sorts of jobs, from building to recycling. According to Gerzner, their arrival costs nothing. “We pay for the electricity and water and cover our costs,” he said. They also leave the sites clean, he added, explaining that at Thônex they have installed a skip for their rubbish and lavatories.

Six giant wind turbines have been hoisted into position by a huge crane in the Swiss town of Sainte-Croix on the French border to increase the country’s supply of renewable energy, which has struggled to overcome local opposition.

Germany’s Enercon assembled the turbines that measure 139 metres from the base to the tip of their blades before the crane raised them from the ground.

They will be operated by Swiss utility Romande Energie and can meet the energy needs of 6,100 households – or the entire energy consumption of Sainte-Croix, including its industries.

Suisse Eole, an association promoting wind energy, said the energy form was essential to the nation’s energy security, which has been weakened by the impact of the Ukraine war on gas supplies to Europe, as well as lower hydropower production because of reduced water levels linked to climate change.

The association said Switzerland last year had only 41 wind turbines in operation, with many projects obstructed by groups that say they degrade the countryside and drive down property prices.

High sugar consumption in Switzerland is a serious public health problem, contributing to obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases. But lawmakers are hesitant to act.

Sweets, chocolate, soft drinks: the Swiss population has a real passion for anything containing sugar. In Swiss households, sugar consumption is among the highest in Europe and more than double the 50 grams per person per day recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Already in 2015, the WHO had sounded the alarm about excessive sugar intake and the rise of obesity and chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. In Switzerland, where at least 40% of the adult population is overweight, four out of five people die from these diseases. The associated healthcare costs are estimated at more than External linkCHF50 billion ($58 billion) per year, or 80% of total healthcare costs.

Several countries such as France, Belgium and the United Kingdom have taken action to reduce the amount of sugar in food and beverages, through measures such as sugar taxes, clearer labels and bans on advertising aimed at young people.

Switzerland has not introduced any of these measures, despite appeals from health organisations. “If we don’t want to become like the United States, where 50% of the population is obese and/or has diabetes, we have to act as soon as possible,” says Virginie Mansuy-Aubert, a researcher and expert on the interaction between diet and healthy gut flora at the University of Lausanne.

But politicians are reluctant to put the brakes on the food industry, which is worth billions of francs and includes Nestlé, headquartered not far from Lausanne.

The Swiss price watchdog has stepped up pressure on retailers he accuses of cashing in on inflation at the expense of consumers.

Stefan Meierhans has drawn on research into the rising price of household goods in Switzerland, particularly from consultancy group Deloitte.

“Deloitte has come to the conclusion that, regardless of the industry, many sectors have seized the opportunity to raise prices,” he said on Sunday.

Swiss inflation rose to 2.8% last year, which is below price increases in many other countries but still way above average for high-price Switzerland.

Inflation dropped to 1.7% in June, after peaking at 3.4% at the start of the year, with the central bank forecasting an annual rate of 2.2% even after raising interest rates several times.

Earlier this year, Meierhans took aim at Switzerland’s two largest retailers, Migros and Coop, sparking a fierce war of words.

He now wants to widen his campaign to encompass the entire Swiss retailing sector.

Christa Markwalder, president of the Swiss Retail Federation, rejected claims of profiteering. “Fortunately, Switzerland has lower inflation rates than other countries - but certain prices have to be increased as a result,” she told Swiss public broadcaster, SRF.

Coop said it bore additional costs of CHF250 million ($287 million) last year that were not passed on to customers. Migros said the price watchdog botched calculations when making claims of profiteering.

There is little doubt that prices have risen in the last 12 months, and not just in high street stores. Air transport prices have risen 35%, electricity by 25%, butter and fats by 20%, and heating costs by an average of 16%, states SRF. However, some prices, such as fuels and telecommunications, have recently fallen.

Meierhans has invited retailers to discuss profit margins at a ‘Purchasing Power Summit’ he has organised in September.

A Swiss National Bank (SNB) payout to the Swiss government and cantons for 2024 is looking less likely after losses in the second quarter halved the central bank’s early-year profits.

The SNB reported a half-year profit of CHF13.7 billion ($15.7 billion), according to a statement Monday, down from a gain of CHF26.9 billion in the three months through March.

Switzerland’s central bank earned CHF16.2 billion from its large foreign-currency holdings as the appreciation of the franc weighed on the global rally in equity markets. It also saw a CHF1.2 billion profit on its gold holdings.

While SNB’s portfolio did well with profits of CHF2.8 billion on bonds and CHF26.2 billion on equities, the profit on foreign-currency positions was reduced by exchange-rate losses of CHF19.6 billion.

Results still beat a forecast by UBS economists Alessandro Bee and Florian Germanier, who had predicted a first-half profit between CHF2 and 12 billion.

They estimate that the institution needs to earn between CHF45 billion and CHF50 billion this year so it can resume paying a dividend for 2024. A payout for this year is already out of the question, according to the economists.

Last year, the SNB saw the worst loss in its history with a shortfall of CHF132.5 billion, forcing it to omit the regular payment to shareholders, the Swiss government and cantons for only the second time since the institution was founded in 1906.

The central bank’s results are heavily influenced by developments in markets, so quarterly results are primarily a snapshot.

Earnings from SNB’s operations don’t influence monetary policy. Third-quarter results are due on October 31.

Switerland’s former Attorney General says he has been made a scapegoat for his county’s soft approach to sanctions against Russia.

Michael Lauber is threatened with sanctions in the United States for allegedly allowing Russian crimes go unpunished during his time as top Swiss prosecutor.

But in an interview with the Tamedia news group, Lauber insists the real problem is Switzerland’s lack of energy in applying Russian sanctions.

“I share the view that Switzerland is too passive and too hesitant when it comes to implementation,” he said. “Resentment against Switzerland is now unloading on me. As federal prosecutor, I was made the scapegoat for everything.”

Lauber has called on Switzerland to reverse its decision to snub an international taskforce set up specifically to coordinate sanctions against Russia.

In the US, the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe, otherwise known as the Helsinki Commission, accuses Lauber and two other Swiss people of having helped Russians who were sanctioned at the time to get hold of funds frozen in Switzerland.

The political body, which is independent of the US government but has some influence over foreign policy, also accuses Lauber and others of having received gifts and trips from Russian officials and oligarchs.

Lauber was forced to stand down as Swiss Attorney General in 2020 under a weight of criticism of his record, ranging from Russia and Qatar to FIFA.

He denies the Helsinki Commission allegations and has requested a meeting with the US ambassador to Bern, Scott Miller, who has also been scornful of Switzerland’s sanctions record.

Lauber says he has been forced to cancel work in the US and Canada as a result of the stain on his character. “The mere appearance that I could be corrupt makes me unwanted,” he said.

Switzerland has frozen CHF7.5 billion ($8.6 billion) of bankable assets belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarchs and companies plus around 15 properties. The Alpine state has also frozen CHF7.4 billion belonging to the Russian central bank.

The world’s richest people have been tipped to favour Hong Kong bank vaults over Swiss in the next couple of years. Predicting the future in the opaque world of global wealth management is anything but straightforward.

Data on where millionaires park their cash is hard to come by, while turbulent global politics makes it difficult to decipher which countries will offer the best wealth management conditions in future.

For generations, Switzerland has been the go-to destination for offshore wealth. Private banks are as synonymous with the Alpine state as chocolate and cheese. The wealth management industry even survived a United States-led assault on tax evasion that six years ago seriously eroded Switzerland’s fabled banking secrecy laws.

New geopolitical pressures, including a shift of wealth and power to the east and war in Europe, have revived whispers that the ultra-rich will empty Swiss vaults and take their money elsewhere.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is convinced that Hong Kong will snatch the title of cross-border wealth champions from Swiss banks by the end of 2025. Singapore is also fighting hard for second spot while a new-found passion for Dubai from Russia’s wealthy elite has pushed the United Arab Emirates into the role of new challenger.

Switzerland's current China strategy will expire next year, and it is uncertain whether it will be followed by a new doctrine.

The Swiss government is reviewing its policy towards Beijing, the NZZ am Sonntag has revealed. Whether the Swiss will renew the expiring strategy remains open.

When Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis presented his own China strategy in 2021, “for once even his critics were pleasantly surprised”, the paper wrote on Sunday. This, it said, was a novelty in Swiss foreign policy and an expression of Cassis’s desire to take China’s growing weight into account.

In it, Cassis explored a path that would keep the giant market open for Swiss companies without having to throw its own values overboard, the paper said. “Criticism of the Chinese regime was clearly formulated in the strategy, and human rights were to be addressed at every opportunity from then on,” it said.

Two-and-a-half years later, the government is now setting about revising this policy, according to research by the NZZ am Sonntag. However, it is a process with an open outcome. The current China strategy will expire next year, and it is uncertain whether it will be followed by a new doctrine.

Up to three-quarters of Credit Suisse’s Russian clients will have to look for a new bank, according to a report in the NZZ am Sonntag.

This is because the risks are too high for Swiss bank UBS, which recently took over its rival in a government-brokered merger.

It is not clear exactly which Russians are affected, the paper wrote. However, they are said to be primarily Russian offshore clients: clients with a Russian passport who live abroad and who are currently serviced by Credit Suisse from Switzerland on a cross-border basis.

UBS did not want to take a position on the issue, the NZZ am Sonntag said, but it did mention its lower appetite for risk than its former competitor. Moreover, it wanted to “anchor its risk management principles and corporate structure throughout the combined organisation” of UBS and Credit Suisse, it told the paper.

The bank’s decision would also affect other Credit Suisse clients in other regions, but to a lesser extent, according to the NZZ am Sonntag.