Each week over the course of the past 12 months, cartoonist Marina Lutz took a look at an issue in the news in Switzerland. She has worked with different Swiss media as a caricaturist, including the Nebelspalter satirical magazine. Lutz has won several awards for her work, notably during the Fumetto international cartoon festival.
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How do you draw a country like Switzerland?
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It is not easy to sum up a country with four linguistic regions in a cartoon and ensure it makes sense to an international readership.
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If death and taxes are the only two things that a person can count on, should the latter apply to robots as well, as they take over human jobs?
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The franc has increased in value against the euro and dollar ever since the Swiss National Bank (SNB) ended its policy of printing huge amounts of local currency in January 2015. As a result, 57% of firms in the electrical engineering, fine tools and machine building industries have seen margins erode to unsatisfactorily low levels…
‘Don’t come to Switzerland’ – the anti-tourism campaign
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A Swiss-funded television series set in Nigeria paints a very different picture of Switzerland from the usual tourism campaigns.
Swiss Catholic Church commission to examine abuse victims’ cases
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The commission is ready to receive compensation requests from victims of paedophile priests, Joseph Bonnemain, from the Conference of Swiss Bishops, told the Swiss News Agency on Tuesday. The formal creation of the six-person commissionExternal link in January follows the establishment of a CHF500,000 ($498,000) compensation fund for victims of abuse by members of the…
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Switzerland's relatively lenient laws on downloading copyrighted material have resulted in it being placed on a US blacklist.
Cabinet wants to create new temporary admission status
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The current legal situation is increasingly criticised because those people given temporary admission often stay in Switzerland for a long time and depend on social welfare. Parliament called on the cabinet to look into changing the law and on Friday the cabinet presented its suggestions. In its report, the cabinet said it wanted in particular…
Winterthur mosque raided after sermon ‘incited violence’
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Prosecutors have opened criminal proceedings against four people, including an Ethiopian Imam, who are suspected of inciting violence at the An’Nur mosque in Winterthur, north of Zuich. Police raided the mosque and searched three other premises on Wednesday morning. The Imam is accused of having called on worshippers to murder other Muslims who refused to…
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They claim that older women in particular suffer from the effects of climate change, including long heat waves. “Heat can lead to death for older women,” said the group’s lawyer Ursula Brunner in Bern on Tuesday, as the complaint was handed in. “There is evidence that hot periods are occurring more often as a result…
Authorities investigate extreme right rock concert
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The police said around 5,000 people attended the “Rocktoberfest” concert at the Unterwasser tennis hall in canton St Gallen on Saturday, with people reportedly travelling on buses from Germany and as far as the Netherlands and Russia. The concert featured German rock bands Stahlgewitter, Frontalkraft, Exzess, Makss Damage and Swiss group Amok, which are well…
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“Multinational companies keep prices up in Switzerland arbitrarily to absorb the high purchasing power. Consumers, small- and medium-sized entreprises (SMEs) and state-run schools or hospitals pay the price,” said Prisca Birrer-Heimo at a news conference on Tuesday. The president of a leading consumer organisation criticised the fact that Swiss prices are often higher for identical…
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Some 23% of Swiss people say a new tax should be imposed on food with high sugar, salt or fat content, up from 19% last year, according to a new survey by the gfs.bern institute published on Tuesday. Of those questioned, 72% want a ban on the advertising of junk food targeting children, up from…
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Supporters of the initiative, including the Trade Union Federation (which introduced it) and leftwing political parties, see it as a solution in the fight against the ‘pension massacre’. Opponents from employers’ organisations and the rightwing and centrist parties call it “a foolish campaign with devastating consequences”. The initiative calls for a 10% increase in state…
Anti-racism official: ‘burka ban’ is excuse to attack Islam
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“Hidden faces disturb me but the issue should not necessarily be subject to a ban. In France it hasn’t resolved anything,” declared Brunschwig Graf in an interview in Tuesday’s edition of the French-speaking Tribune de Genève and 24Heures newspapers. A group of rightwing politicians that was behind the successful 2009 vote to ban the building…
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A couple who live in the town of Wädenswil, near Zurich, lodged a complaint about the bells at their local church ringing every 15 minutes through the night. The case went to court, which decided in the couple’s favour, but the town and the church parish appealed, leading to this second ruling, again, in favour…
Swiss Olympic success – and failure – over the years
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There are a total of 105 athletes – 59 men and 46 women, aged 18 to 53 – are chasing gold, silver and bronze in Rio. This year the Swiss have set themselves a target of five medals, one more than the haul from London four years ago, although that target was set before Roger Federer and…
Swiss tennis nightmare in Rio continues with Wawrinka
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“I’m very sad because after Beijing and London I would have liked to experience my third Olympic Games in Brazil; unfortunately that will now not be possible,” the 31-year-old from Lausanne said in a statementExternal link issued by his management company and published by the Swiss Tennis Federation on Tuesday. “I wish all Swiss athletes, whom I…
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His death was confirmed by an agent of his family on Wednesday. Born in Ascona in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, Dimitri was just seven when he decided that he wanted to become a clown. He trained in Paris with Etienne Decroux, performed with the Marcel Marceau troupe, and received accolades for his solo mime…
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“They never greeted or looked at anyone,” Victor Schmid, who lived across the street at the time, told swissinfo.ch. Schmid is a communications consultant in Bern who also advised former Swiss Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti. He says the house in question is located at Kirchstrasse 10 in the Bern suburb of Liebefeld, near where the…
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Piloted by Bertrand Piccard, the plane touched down in the Spanish city of Seville at 7:38am on Thursday completing the first ever solar and electric crossing without fuel or emissions over the Atlantic. The plane left New York on Monday morning, flying over 6,700 kilometres to reach Seville. While descending into Seville, the plane was…
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Over the next thirty years, almost all cantons – with the exception of Uri – will see population growth, mainly as a result of people reaching retirement age or arrivals from other cantons or abroad. Cantons Fribourg, Vaud, Thurgau, Valais, Zurich (+1.5-1.8 million) and Aargau will witness the greatest total population increases (+25%), the office…
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We have mapped here all intermediaries worldwide linked to the Panama Papers. While the use of offshore entities is not in itself illegal, the revelations from the Panama Papers have already resulted in a raid by Swiss prosecutors on European football’s governing body UEFA and an official investigation by the authorities in Geneva. On Monday,…
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If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.