Switzerland Today

Hello from Bern,

The Swiss army is proving highly versatile. They’ve been called upon to do everything from transporting Covid patients to cleaning up towns damaged by floods. This week they are busy airlifting water to thousands of thirsty farm animals in the Alps. Good cheese comes from happy and hydrated cows.

© Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller

In the News: Tighter regulations on social assistance for Ukrainian refugees, Russia rejects Swiss protecting power mandate, and a big solar power plant in the Alps.

• The Swiss cantonal authorities have decided to tighten regulations on social support for Ukrainian refugees with Status S. According to Swiss public television, SRF, cantons will have to start taking into account the assets and income in Ukraine when considering whether they will receive social assistance. This comes after criticism that Ukrainian refugeesExternal link weren’t being treated differently from other people temporarily admitted into the country. Meanwhile, the number of Ukrainian refugees with status S surpassed 60,000.
• Russia rejected a proposal for Switzerland to represent Ukraine’s interest in Moscow. As we reported yesterday, Ukraine and Switzerland agreed on a protecting power mandate that would above all ensure that Ukrainians living in Russia could benefit from consular services provided by the Swiss embassy in Moscow. The Russian foreign ministry offered a blunt response to the idea: no chance. Switzerland “lost its status of a neutral state and could not act either as an intermediary or a representative” when it joined Western sanctions, said a spokesperson.
• The Zurich Electricity Company is planning to install a large alpine solar power plant on the dam wall of Lake Lei near Ferrera in southeastern Switzerland. Located at an altitude of 1,930 metres, the plant will comprise more than 1,000 solar units with a total output of 350 kilowatts, equivalent to the consumption of 160 households. 

Keystone / Caroline Brehman

What’s the hold up on monkeypox?

It’s been three months since the first monkeypox case was reported in Switzerland. Since then, the World Health Organization has declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” and several countries have authorised the use of vaccines for smallpox against monkeypox.

And what about Switzerland? Let’s just hope you don’t get monkeypox. The gay community says they are being left in the lurch by authorities. Early on Swiss authorities said they were looking into options to procure a vaccine and treatments but there’s been little movement since.

“While practically the whole of Europe is already vaccinating or is waiting for further vaccine deliveries, Switzerland is practically idly watchingExternal link the number of infections increase,” writes Michael Rüegg in Republik.

He writes about the fears and worries in the gay community in Zurich. There is a new and highly effective vaccine called Imvanex and a drug, Tecovirimat, which is used in severe cases. “But you are unlucky if you live in the country that has neither the vaccine nor the drug – and so far has no idea how to deal with the problem,” writes Rüegg.

Pink Cross, the association for gay and bisexual men, also criticised the government for its sluggish response to the crisis. It launched a petition calling on the government to declare the outbreak a “special situation” which would give it certain powers to address a health emergency without all the bureaucratic back and forth.

So what’s the hold up? There are a lot of theories in the Swiss media today. Rüegg says that at first there was an attempt by the media not to stigmatise gay people by focusing on them as a vulnerable group. But that time is over. “This strategy has prevented recognising the seriousness of the problem for our community,” says Rüegg. “Switzerland overslept the immediate threat to us and thus also to itself.”

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Parents sound alarm bells over crypto-sect

It’s one of the biggest fears for parents. Their teenager lies about their whereabouts and travels to another country to join a secret sect. In the case of 15-year-old Marco (name changed) from Zurich, the cult isn’t a religious sect of some kind, according to reports by the Tages-Anzeiger. It’s a financial education firm called IM academy that some have called a “crypto-sect”.

For weeks, Marco’s parents watched their son get sucked into the academy, growing more distant from friends and family. They were concerned and forbid their son from traveling to Barcelona for the academy’s big conference. Marco went anyway but made it only as far as Germany.

The parents had good reason to be concerned. What looked like an innocent education programme appears to be part of a clever scam. In April the English version of the Spanish-daily El País wrote an in-depth feature about parents who fear their children have been “brainwashed” by the academyExternal link, which supposedly teaches how to invest in cryptocurrenciesExternal link.

The Spanish authorities have already arrested eight people involved with the academy for an alleged scam that may affect more than 2,000 young people, some of them underage.

Back in Zurich, the Tages-Anzeiger took a deeper look behind how the companyExternal link recruits youth like Marco from all over the world with promises of becoming rich, buying a Bentley and travelling the world. One key trick the company uses is a pyramid scheme: academy members are promised rewards for recruiting other people to join. According to Spain’s National Police, the academy wants young people to break with their family and give everything to the academy.

It is not known how many people are enrolled in the IM Academy in Switzerland. But this doesn’t seem to be the only group out there targeting teenagers. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs confirmed it had received various reports of alleged crypto trading apps that function as a pyramid scheme and appeal to a younger audience.