People throw water over each other in Basel.

Switzerland Today

Hello from Bern,

It’s going to be a scorcher. Local temperatures of up to 35°C are expected to hit Switzerland this weekend, MeteoSwiss warned today.

The heatwave is due to peak on Saturday and remain high through the middle of next week. Drought conditions will persist, especially in western Switzerland and in parts of the Valais and Ticino.

This and other news in today’s briefing from Switzerland.

This content was published on August 17, 2023 - 18:00

5 minutes

Born in London, Simon is a multimedia journalist who has worked for www.swissinfo.ch since 2006. He speaks French, German and Spanish and focuses on science, technology and innovation issues.

Woman cleaning hospital room — © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

In the news: new army strategy, an anti-binge-drinking app, call to ban e-voting and higher immigration figures.

International cooperation, especially with NATO, and new technologies that use artificial intelligence and robotics are at the heart of the Swiss army’s new strategy, presentedExternal link today. To strengthen its defence capabilities, the army needs CHF13 billion ($14.8 billion) between now and 2031. The money is to come from a gradual increase in the army budget to 1% of gross domestic product (GDP). This has already been approved by the government and parliament.
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.
The Swiss Freedom Movement has launched a popular initiative calling for a ban on electronic voting (e-voting). The group is keen to make postal voting more secure.
Winterthur district court has sentenced a 50-year-old Algerian man for attackingtwoworshippers in the An’Nur mosque. The man received a suspended prison sentence of 12 months and a seven-year ban from Switzerland.
Researchers from the Lausanne University Hospital and the University of Lausanne, working with colleagues in the UK, Canada and US, found that a year after downloading the anti-binge-drinking smartphone app Smaart, students were consuming 10% less alcohol a week and having 11% fewer days a month on which they binged. Binging was classified as at least five drinks at a time for men and women.

Swiss participants at Beijing Winter Olympics. — Keystone / Roman Pilipey

Report outlines details of possible Swiss 2030 Winter Olympics bid

Switzerland has hosted the Winter Olympics twice – back in 1928 and 1948, both times in the chic resort of St Moritz. Over the past 35 years Switzerland has attempted to win the prestigious event eight times but has never succeeded. The stumblingblock has been trying to convince local voters.

This year Swiss Olympic and winter sports federations are at it again: carrying out preliminarywork into the possibility of a Swiss Winter Olympic bid.

They’ve got the 2030 Winter Games in their sights and, according to a reportExternal link in Tamedia newspapers, they are pushing ahead with their plans for the 2030 Winter Olympics in Switzerland at “high speed”.

The papers have seen a copy of Swiss Olympic’s plans which show that the 2030 Winter Olympics could be held in sitesdottedacrossSwitzerland using existing sports infrastructure.

“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.

Possible sites have 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 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”.

But whether localvoters can be convinced is another matter. 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 Liberal Green Party: new and motivated

As part of our ongoing election coverage, today we look at the Liberal Green Party.

The international section of the Liberal Green PartyExternal link was only formed last autumn, making it the most recentarrival on the Swiss Abroad political stage.

The section follows the main objectives of the mother party with a particular emphasis on global issues such as the European Union.

“The collapse in [framework agreement] negotiations translated into a lot of popularity for our party from the Swiss Abroad,” according to section president Thomas Häni. There were a lot of reasons for the shift in interest, but in his opinion one of them was the alternative proposal to join the European Economic Area (EEA). “The Liberal Green Party was the only party to actively introduce the idea,” he says.

The party is perhaps best known for their stance on environmentalissues, specifically climate change. But its international agenda goes far beyond this to focus on Switzerland’s role in global issues, international cooperation.

Traditionaltopics that interest the Swiss Abroad such as social insurance, returning to Switzerland, e-voting, banking services, participation in elections and referendums all feature heavily in the party programme.