Switzerland Today
Hello from Bern,
Here’s the latest news and stories from Switzerland in our holiday-week edition of our daily briefing.
In the News: Upcoming US-Russia talks in Geneva more migrants in 2022 and Omnicron research breakthrough.
- The country should see around 15,000 applications for asylum next year, up from 14,500 lodged in 2021, the outgoing head of Switzerland’s migration secretariat said. Migration has slowed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, he told the tabloid Blick, but if the health crisis eases by spring, more people will be on the move. Most will attempt to cross the Mediterranean between North Africa and Italy, he said.
- Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and the United States Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will meet in Geneva on January 10 to discuss Ukraine and the security situation in Europe. The leaders met in Geneva last June for a summit they described as positive and constructive. Since then Sherman and Ryabkov have met in the Swiss city for a series of dialogue on arms control.
- Researchers at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute in Lausanne (EFPL) have used high-performance electron microscopes to examine the spike protein of the Omicron Covid-19 variant for a better understanding of why it is resistant to certain Covid vaccines. The Center’s electron microscopes are among the most powerful in the world. This knowledge could then be used to devise new therapies.
Swiss women in Paris
The Swiss – and international – press paid tribute to Swiss photographer Sabine Weiss today. The photographer who spent her career in Paris died Tuesday aged 97. She was most known for capturing fleeting moments of everyday life : workers in action, furtive kisses, comings and goings in the metro stations.
French daily LiberationExternal link hailed the “indulgence”, “sometimes malicious” and “sharpness” of her photography, and republished a short retrospective of her most iconic work from Paris, Berlin and New York.
Meanwhile Le TempsExternal link goes back to her Swiss roots, in Saint-Gingolph, a small village in Canton Valais. The daughter of a chemist, she took to handling a camera at the age of 12, which she bought with her pocket money. At 16, she dropped out of school to work at the studio of Paul Boissonas before heading to Paris and beginning a career with Vogue.
“I’ve done everything in photography,” she told AFPExternal link in an interview in 2020.
“I went into morgues and into factories, I took pictures of rich people and I took pictures of fashion.”
“But what remains are the pictures I took for myself, in stolen moments.”
Another Swiss woman was in international media today: Marthe Keller. The actress was the guest of France Inter External linkto promote Petite soeur (Little sisters) showing in cinema’s in France since October.
The host, Augustin Trapenar sets out in the 30-minute show, to unveil the women behind the numerous roles she has played through the past four decades. In her new film she plays a mother of twins one of which is a actor, the other a producer.
https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/boomerang
In fluent French, Keller talks about desire: the desire of directors to have her in their films, her unfulfilled desire to be a dancer which still accompanies her today. And her non-desire to become an actress.
“When we play a role, the character we play does not play. This is when we are most ourselves”, she tells Trapenar as the answer to the lingering question he poses throughout the interview; who are you really Marthe Keller?
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