Switzerland Today
Greetings from Bern, which is licking its wounds having been battered through the night by Storm Antonia.
Here are the latest news and stories from Switzerland on Monday.
In the news: Last year 9,421 packages containing illegally imported medicinal products were confiscated in Switzerland, up from 6,733 in 2020.
- Three-quarters contained erectile stimulants, and half did not contain what it said on the label. Other seized packages included prescription-only medicines such as hormones and anti-inflammatories (17%) or sleeping pills and tranquillisers (5%). A third of the illegal products were imported from Eastern Europe, mainly Poland.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced today that he would meet his US counterpart Antony Blinken in Geneva on Thursday. “Such a meeting is planned for February 24 in Geneva,” he said during a meeting of the Russian Security Council devoted to the Ukrainian crisis and chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- The number of female recruits to the Swiss army has increased sharply in the past year. A total of 727 women expressed interest in recruit school – 546 of them were assigned a function in the army after enlistment, 63.2% more than a year ago. Another 122 women were assigned to civil defence and Red Cross service; 98 women were also recommended for peace-building missions.
Switzerland’s financial watchdog today said it was in contact with Credit Suisse after media around the world published the results of coordinated investigations into a leak of data on more than 18,000 accounts held at the bank.
Yesterday more than 40 media outlets published the results of an investigation, dubbed “Suisse Secrets”, which is said to have found dozens of problematic accounts amounting to over $8 billion (CHF7.36 billion) in assets. Among the allegations were accusations that the bank’s clients included human rights abusers, fraudsters and businessmen who had been placed under sanctions.
Credit Suisse, which is reeling from a series of scandals, strongly rejected any allegations of wrongdoing and said the media reports were based on “partial, inaccurate or selective information taken out of context”.
An aspect of the investigation that has surprised and shocked commentators around the world is the Swiss law on banking secrecy. Since 2015 it has been illegal for any third party, for example journalists, to receive and disclose details about Swiss bank accounts (or their owners). We look at what this means for freedom of speech.
For starters, of the more than 160 journalists involved in the latest investigation, not one was Swiss. As The Guardian, which did take part, put itExternal link: “Perversely, Swiss citizens wanting to read how the country’s second-largest lender provided services to corrupt leaders and money launderers can do so only via the foreign press.”
As the debate on the banking secrecy law reignites, the Tages-Anzeiger in Zurich, which had taken part in previous exposés of offshore investment documents, was unsurprisingly fuming.
“Clearly, if in doubt, it’s still business that counts, not the law,” it wrote in an editorialExternal link. “That’s precisely why Switzerland too needs journalists who are allowed to investigate. It is a disgrace that foreign colleagues have to do this for us. That is why the ‘muzzle article’ in the Banking Law urgently needs to be abolished.”
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Faster, higher, stronger, over. The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing came to an end on Sunday. The Swiss were happy with their performance despite missing their medal target.
Although they returned home with 14 medals – one below their stated aim – seven of those were gold (plus two silver and five bronze). What’s more, Switzerland became the first country to win five Alpine golds at one Olympics.
The big winners, and in fact all Olympic medals, were in ski and snowboard events. This included golds by Beat Feuz and Corinne Suter in downhill, Lara Gut-Behrami in the Super-G, Marco Odermatt in giant slalom, Michelle Gisin (pictured, right, with silver medallist Wendy Holdener) in alpine combined, Mathilde Gremaud in free ski slopestyle and Ryan Regez in ski cross.
There were, however, a few disappointments. Fanny Smith received bronze in the ski cross event but was controversially disqualified for allegedly impeding another competitor. The Swiss finished fourth in eight competitions. Also ski jumper and four-time Olympic champion Simon Ammann came back empty-handed from his seventh Olympic Games, not that he had been expected to make it to the podium.
Swiss Ski Federation president Urs Lehmann told the NZZ am SonntagExternal link it was a great moment for Swiss sport. Nevertheless, he said there was still work to do, especially in disciplines such as Nordic skiing and in building up the next generation of Alpine skiers.
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