Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
In today’s briefing, we look at the news that the Swiss have the highest life expectancy in the world: 81.9 for new-born boys, 85 for girls. What’s the life expectancy where you are? And, more importantly, if you were born in Switzerland, but then moved elsewhere, do you reckon you were able to take your in-built Swiss longevity with you?
In the news: longevity, neutrality, culpability.
- A boy born in Switzerland in 2021 has the highest life expectancy in the world at 81.9, the Le Matin Dimanche newspaper reported at the weekend. This puts Switzerland ahead of Iceland, Norway and Japan. For girls, who should live beyond 85, Switzerland is fourth behind Japan, South Korea, and Spain. Some estimates suggest that one out of every two children born in Switzerland after the year 2000 will reach 100.
- The German ambassador to Switzerland has said Bern’s decision not to authorise the re-export of Swiss-made weapons to Ukraine is “incomprehensible”. “Switzerland, which is so committed to protecting humanitarian and international law, should also take a step to allow countries who wish to support Ukraine to do so,” ambassador Michael Flügger said on RTS public television on Sunday evening.
- The trial of Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin, who was arrested in 2021 in Switzerland, opened in the US today. Klyushin is charged with participating in a vast scheme that generated tens of millions of dollars in illegal trading profits using corporate information stolen through hacking. Prosecutors say Klyushin’s company also worked for Putin’s administration. He is pleading not guilty.
Dirty money? The tough borrowing choices of Swiss cities.
The World Cup is over, but FIFA is still in the news. According to RTS radio today, and various other reports in the past weeks, the Swiss cities of Geneva, Lausanne, Fribourg, Bern, Frauenfeld and Winterthur all took loans from the Zurich-based footballing body in recent years. Canton Neuchâtel did too. And while the loans have usually been just a small part of these authorities’ overall borrowing, the amount in Bern’s case was a hefty (and interest-free) CHF1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) over six years. The deals were made via an online finance platform hooking up lenders and borrowers.
So what? Is it wrong to take loans from a “controversial” organisation with a non-perfect record on corruption and other issues? Legally not, but authorities also have moral obligations, it seems (along with PR obligations), and Bern for one is now reviewing whether it should include an “ethical” component in making such financial decisions in future. Neuchâtel’s finance minister, on the other hand, told RTS that the criticism was unfounded; the last time he checked, FIFA was “not a criminal organisation”. And yet Neuchâtel has stopped borrowing from FIFA, he said, among other reasons because of the reputational risk.
Drugs 1: Basel still a frontrunner for recreational fun.
Basel, where LSD was born 80 years ago, is still on a high. Today the city started a large-scale “Weed Care” project for the legal distribution of cannabis: 374 participants, aged 18 to 76, can now buy a certain amount of hash or marijuana from pharmacies in the city; researchers will then track the results on their health and on illegal sales. The hope is that street sales (which often involve bad weed) will decline and the whole scene will become safer. However, Basel authorities might then just have to move onto tackling the next in-drug: today police said they had raided three clubs in the city over the weekend in connection with the improper use of laughing gas.
Drugs 2: mushrooms not always as nice as they look.
It being a bumper year for mushrooms in Switzerland, 2022 was also a bumper year for people poisoning themselves with mushrooms, the Tox Info national poison hotline said today. Mushroom incidents rose by 25% last year, making it the second-worst year for shrooming mishaps in the past two decades. In terms of overall calls logged by Tox Info in 2022, these rose by 2.5% to over 40,000; the main causes of problems were household cleaning products. On the plus side, the organisation said there was a decrease in the number of calls about people trying to kill themselves via self-poisoning.
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