Switzerland Today
Greetings from Lausanne!
Here are the latest news and stories from Switzerland on Thursday.
In the news: failing deportation centres, a top literary prize and the ongoing legal battle of former Geneva politician Pierre Maudet.
- Three Swiss deportation centres have been criticised for failing to adequately care for children and families. Inspections found that children are confined to small living spaces and that contact with the outside world is unduly restricted.
- Swiss author Reto Hänny has been awarded this year’s Swiss Grand Prix for Literature for his life’s work.
- The Office of the Attorney General of Geneva plans to appeal against the acquittal of former Geneva politician Pierre Maudet, who was cleared last month of accepting undue financial advantages when he was a member of the cantonal government.
- A bear sanctuary in southeast Switzerland is to become home to two bears from a zoo in North Macedonia.
Swiss officials to meet Taliban delegation in Geneva
Swiss officials from the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) were due to hold talksExternal link today with a delegation of Afghanistan’s Taliban government on a visit to Geneva.
Representatives of the Swiss government’s development aid agency and human rights experts were due to participate, Swiss public radio RTS reported. The Swiss delegation was reportedly led by ambassador Raphael Nägeli, head of the FDFA’s Asia Pacific Division.
The foreign ministry insists that the talks are aimed at improving respect for humanitarian principles. It also aims to promote humanitarian access to populations and raise awareness among the Afghan delegation of fundamental rights, including the rights of women and minorities.
The Taliban delegation, comprising about ten people, is being led by a senior Taliban leader and a senior Afghan defence ministry official, Afghan journalists said. They travelled to Geneva at the invitation of Geneva Call, a humanitarian NGO that seeks to strengthen the application of international humanitarian law by non-state armed groups.
The Swiss foreign ministry says the presence of the Taliban delegation in Switzerland should not be seen as recognition of the Taliban regime by the Swiss federal authorities. It is not an official visit, but discussions organised by civil society, it stresses.
On Wednesday, a small demonstration was held outside the Taliban delegation’s Geneva hotel to protest against their presence. An opinion-pieceExternal link in the Le Temps newspaper takes a detailed look at the Taliban visit to the Swiss city.
Credit Suisse ends “very challenging year” with big loss
Credit Suisse has capped a tumultuous period by posting a fourth-quarter net loss of CHF2 billion ($2.17 billion) and a full-year net loss of CHF1.57 billion, down from a CHF2.7 billion profit in 2020.
The big financial loss, which includes a provision to cover legal settlements, underlines the challenge facing Switzerland’s second-largest bank as it tries to recover from several scandals.
It was a bad year for the Swiss bank, marked by the collapse of $10 billion in supply chain finance funds linked to British finance firm Greensill and a $5.5 billion trading loss from the implosion of investment fund Archegos. At the start of this year, chair António Horta-Osório also resigned over Covid-19 quarantine breaches in England and Switzerland.
Thomas Gottstein, Credit Suisse chief executive, said 2021 had been a “very challenging year” for the bank.
Credit Suisse cited declining appetite for risk across the company last year, and a new strategy launched in November after the string of setbacks that have dented its reputation.
In a separate news, this week, the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona has been hearing charges that Credit Suisse failed to do enough to stop money laundering linked to drug trafficking by a Bulgarian criminal group, which included a former wrestler who once hauled millions in currency by car to Switzerland.
The case centres on a former bank manager and two members of the criminal ring accused of being involved in wrongdoing between 2004 and 2008.
Switzerland was the world’s ninth most democratic country in 2021, equal with Australia, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) says in its annual Democracy Index.
It was one of only three countries to register an increase in their underlying scores in this year’s rankingExternal link.
The percentage of the world’s population living under some sort of democracy slipped last year to 45.7% from 49.4% a year earlier, according to the index.
Among the 167 states analysed, only 21 were considered to be “full democracies”, representing 6.4% of the world’s population, while 53 were “flawed democracies”; more than a third of the world’s population live under authoritarian rule.
Norway, New Zealand and Finland topped the list, while Britain was ranked 18th. The US, which was given a flawed democracy classification, fell one spot to number 26. Afghanistan and Myanmar took the bottom two spots, just below North Korea.
The Democracy Index ranks countries on their electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties.
The EIU said the results continued to reflect the negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Citing measures such as lockdowns and travel restrictions, the report said the pandemic had “resulted in an unprecedented withdrawal of civil liberties among developed democracies and authoritarian regimes alike”.
The report identifies a number of threats to democracy in 2022 and beyond. The fall in Canada’s index score to 12th reflected popular disaffection with the status quo and a turn to non-democratic alternatives. It said the biggest challenge to the Western model of democracy over the coming years will come from China.
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