Switzerland Today
Greetings from Lausanne!
Here are the latest news and stories from Switzerland on Monday.
In the news: Covid bankruptcies, tougher action against Russia, and more foreign skiers.
- The number of companies and individuals declaring bankruptcy rose 9.1% last year, which coincided with a gradual withdrawal of state-backed financial support during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Over 100 Swiss artists, writers and filmmakers have written an open letter to the Swiss government urging tougher action against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. They want the authorities to create a taskforce to investigate assets held in Switzerland belonging to Russian oligarchs, to phase out imports of Russian gas and oil, and to clamp down on Swiss-based traders handling Russian oil and gas.
- Police have broken up a protest camp at a quarry near Villigen that supplies materials to Holcim’s cement works at Siggenthal in northern Switzerland. They arrested several climate activists on Sunday for the small unofficial occupation. The campaigners were calling for an end to mining and production at the Lafarge-Holcim site, which they claim is the largest source of CO2 emissions in Switzerland.
- The number of overnight staysExternal link in Swiss hotels in February jumped 41% thanks to the return of skiers and holidaymakers from Germany, Britain and France.
- The leaders of the Catholic Church in Switzerland have commissioned a study into the Swiss church’s history of sexual exploitation since the mid-20th century. A press conference today gave detailsExternal link on the year-long research project that will begin next month.
Exceptional cold weather threatens fruit crops.
Swiss fruit growers have been scrambling to protect their crops against below-zero temperatures and a late frost, rolling out heaters and stoves at night and around dawn (photo above), or turning on overhead irrigation systems.
After snowfalls over the past few days, skies cleared today but temperatures this morning remained below zero in many places in the central Plateau region under 700 metres altitude.
Fruit growers are worried that the cold temperatures and frost will kill off large numbers of early buds, which appeared in March as temperatures rose above 20 C (68 F) and will disrupt the whole growing season.
Fruit-growing areas in north-western Switzerland and in canton ValaisExternal link have borne the brunt of the cold snap, which can be damaging to fruits like cherries, apricots and plums which are in bloom and at a delicate stage; some apple varieties are also affected.
Switzerland calls for urgent probe into alleged atrocities in Ukraine.
Global outrage spread on Monday at reports of civilian killings in north Ukraine in areas like Bucha, close to Kyiv, (photo above) retaken from Russian troops.
Switzerland issued a short but powerful tweet on Sunday night, calling for an urgent investigation into alleged abuses.
“Reports from Bucha raise fears of serious violations of international humanitarian law,” declared the Swiss foreign ministry on Twitter, adding that it backs investigations by the International Criminal Court.External link
Ukrainian authorities say that the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in areas outside the capital, including Bucha, after last week’s withdrawal of Russian troops – many with bound hands, close-range gunshot wounds and showing signs of torture.
Bucha’s deputy mayor, Taras Shapravskyi, said 50 of some 300 bodies found in the small town after Russian forces withdrew late last week were the victims of extra-judicial killings carried out by Russian troops.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who visited Bucha today, called the killings evidence of genocide. Moscow denies the accusations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the situation in Bucha was “staged” and spread on social media by the West and Ukraine.
Media examines pro-Putin Twitterers in Switzerland.
As the war rages in Ukraine, the Kremlin has been accused of a massive disinformation drive spreading propaganda about the war in Ukraine.
Tages-Anzeiger journalists have investigatedExternal link the social media offensive by new pro-Putin German-speaking Twitterers in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The journalists uncovered thousands of new pro-Russia Twitter accounts that were opened just before the war started.
“Richard”, who joined Twitter on February 1, has written over 18,000 pro-Putin and anti-West posts to date, they reported, while “Simone” created her profile a day later and has sent out around 12,000 similar tweets.
Their research showed that days before the Russian invasion the number of newly created accounts with German-language Putin-related tweets skyrocketed.
“This wave of new, very active accounts is a good indication that it could be a coordinated propaganda activity,” says Mykola Makhortykh, a researcher at the Institute for Communication and Media Studies at the University of Bern.
On the same theme, an articleExternal link in today’s Blick.ch newspaper puts the spotlight on “Daria F*” from Zurich, who the paper claims is the “main player in the Russian propaganda campaign in Switzerland” on Twitter and Telegram channels “with close ties to the Russian power apparatus”.
For more on the issue of disinformation and the war on truth during conflicts, check out this recent in-depth article by my colleague Geraldine Wong Sak Hoi.
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