Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
Switzerland woke up today to headlines about new escalations in the Middle East. The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric, fears an unsolvable crisis and is addressing the public.
The people of landslide-hit Blatten will not be able to return to their village for a while. Will they remain residents of the municipality? You can find the answer in today’s briefing.
Enjoy the read!
The Swiss head of the ICRC has direct access to the world’s powerful. She uses this to call on them to de-escalate in the Middle East.
In an interview with the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper today, ICRC head Mirjana Spoljaric has strong words to say about the situation in the Middle East and the Gaza war. She fears a crisis that the world can no longer control.
Spoljaric calls the situation in Gaza a “failure of humanity” and warns governments that nobody can talk their way out of it. She is very direct in her talks with heads of government – including Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis. For a long time, the ICRC was considered neutral and kept a low public profile. “The majority of the ICRC’s work still takes place in a confidential setting,” Spoljaric says. But certain things have to be addressed publicly in order to persuade others to take action.
At 20 Minuten, a Swiss Abroad reports on the situation on the ground. The 17-year-old is studying in Israel. He currently lives in a town east of Tel Aviv and has to run to the bunker several times a night. He would like to return to Switzerland, but flights have been cancelled and all the boats are fully booked. An Iranian woman living in Switzerland talks about her parents in Tehran: they are also very scared and can hardly sleep because of explosions in the city.
Since Friday, the Swiss foreign ministry has responded to around 130 requests for Swiss nationals from Israel and Iran to leave the country – 70 from Israel and 60 from Iran, as reported by SRF. However, Switzerland does not carry out organised departures.
The current trial in London reveals Credit Suisse’s failure in the Greensill scandal. A previously secret FINMA report shows how the bank ignored warnings and continued to expand the risk business with Greensill despite the clear dangers.
The Titanic filled with water after its collision with the iceberg until it could no longer stay afloat. At Credit Suisse, it was several bad investments worth billions that led to the downfall of the Swiss bank.
For example, the Greensill scandal, which is currently the subject of court proceedings in London. Lex Greensill was an Australian financial entrepreneur whose company Greensill Capital sold Credit Suisse supposedly low-risk financial products worth billions, which later collapsed and weighed heavily on the bank.
A report by Swiss financial watchdog FINMA reveals the bank’s failure. It was secret until now but was made public during the trial. Credit Suisse ignored anonymous warnings about Greensill and the bank naively allowed itself to be exploited by Greensill, writes the Tages-Anzeiger. Instead of ending its co-operation with Greensill, the FINMA investigations were obstructed.
The Blatten landslide raises new questions: what remains of a community that no longer physically exists? While the village community lives on in exile, a study shows which other places in Valais are at risk.
The Blatten landslide, which buried almost the entire village, poses unprecedented questions for Switzerland. The NZZ am Sonntag has taken a closer look at the people who are now living in exile. Will they remain residents of Blatten? Where will they vote or pay taxes in future?
The Swiss Civil Code states that one can temporarily register in another municipality without losing one’s place of residence. Fortunately, all the important documents of the municipal administration are digitally accessible; it has taken up its work in the neighbouring municipality of Wiler. The people of Blatten are doing their best to keep the village community alive: the village band has ordered new uniforms and the church choir is looking for a new rehearsal venue.
Other communities in Valais could also be hit by a similar disaster, the Tages-Anzeiger writes today. The Nesthorn mountain above Blatten was ranked 15th out of 89 rock faces in a risk assessment by researchers. The municipalities of Randa and St. Niklaus in the Mattertal and Saas-Balen in the Saas Valley, among others, were rated as even more at risk.
The changing rooms for PE lessons at school are no longer up to date. A new study shows that there is a lack of privacy – and the fear of secret mobile phone recordings is growing.
Swiss children and young people no longer feel comfortable in school changing rooms and showers. This was the result of a study in which 458 sports teachers in Switzerland were surveyed, as reported by the Tribune de Genève.
An overwhelming majority of teachers stated that there was not enough privacy in the communal changing rooms. This is not just about personal feelings of shame and insecurity – although these have also increased.
Students are afraid that they will be recorded on their mobile phones by their peers while changing or showering. For students who do not feel they belong to the binary gender model or their assigned gender, the division into male and female changing rooms is also a problem. Only 13.5% of the teachers surveyed stated that they never noticed any discomfort or insecurity among the students.
The Swiss Association for Sport in Schools calls for a combination of communal and individual cloakrooms. At the entrance to the communal cloakrooms, the teacher should be able to communicate with the pupils without being able to see anything.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
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