Switzerland

Switzerland's glaciers lost 10% of their ice volume over the past two years after high summer temperatures and low snow volumes in winter, new figures reveal.

The volume of glaciers in Switzerland is decreasing every year - and faster than expected. Last year the glaciers in Switzerland lost 6% of their volume; this year it is 4%. This is the second biggest decline since measurements began.

In all, 10% of Swiss glaciers’ ice volume disappeared over the past two years, the Swiss Commission for Cryosphere Observation of the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences reported on Thursday.

The same amount of ice melted in 2022-2023 as during the 1960-1990 period. Two years in a row of extreme melting have led to the disintegration of glacier tongues and the disappearance of many small glaciers. For example, the measurements at St Annafirn glacier in canton Uri have had to be stopped.

The reason for the massive ice loss is low snowfall in winter and high temperatures in summer. This has affected glaciers across Switzerland. In the south and east of the country, the glaciers melted this year at almost the same rate as in the record year of 2022.

In canton Valais and the Engadin region in southeast Switzerland, glaciers lost several metres of ice thickness at over 3,200 metres, previously an altitude where they were still in equilibrium until recently. The average loss of ice was three metres, for example at the Gries glacier in canton Valais. This is well above the values ​​for the hot summer of 2003.

The situation between the Bernese Oberland and Valais is slightly less dramatic. For example, at the Aletsch glacier there was slightly more snow last winter, but on average the glacier lost over two metres of ice thickness.

Significantly less snow in winter

In winter 2022-2023 there was hardly any precipitation on both sides of the Alps, and it was very warm. As a result, there was significantly less snow than usual at all measuring stations. Above 1,000 metres, the conditions in February and the beginning of March were exceptional. During the first half of February, the snow depths measured were just above the low-snow winters of 1964, 1990 or 2007.

In the second half of February, snow depths fell to new minimum records and were only around 30% the long-term average. Even above 2,000 metres, over half of the automatic measuring stations recorded less snow than the past 25 years.

In spring the situation temporarily returned to normal. But the dry and very warm June meant that the snow melted two to four weeks earlier than usual. The third warmest summer since measurements began and a record-high zero temperature limit until September caused isolated summer snowfalls to melt quickly and scarcely protect the glaciers.

The Office of the Attorney General of Zurich has charged a 32-year-old Spanish man with human trafficking. He is accused of running a prostitution network across Switzerland that exploited 20 women.

The suspect allegedly recruited women from South America in a targeted manner using false pretences, Zurich prosecutors said on Wednesday.

In Switzerland, he placed women in accommodation in cantons Zurich and Aargau and made them work illegally for his escort business. Several women were forced to hand over most of their income to him. The defendant enforced the conditions of the prostitution work.

The man is also accused of illegally hiring several drivers, also from South America, to take the women to their clients.

The suspect, who remains in custody, has been charged with human trafficking, encouraging prostitution, and violating the law on foreigners and integration.

The defendant acknowledges the facts in principle, which is why a trial can take place under a simplified procedure before the district court of Pfäffikon in canton Zurich. The prosecutor will indicate the required sentence during the hearing, a spokesperson told Keystone-ATS. A date has not yet been set.

Switzerland is strengthening the number of border officers at the southern border with Italy ahead of an anticipated influx of migrants, says Justice Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider.

The situation at the Ticino border “remains under control”, she told the ESH media group and La Liberté newspaper in an interview published on Thursday. “This is far from being a disastrous situation.”.

“We must not be caricatured,” she said. “It is not a question of hordes of customs officers going from the north to the south of the country to patrol the border.” But “a few additional people” have been transferred to relieve staff based in Ticino, she said.

The Federal Office for Customs and Border Security (FOCBS) announced on Sunday the deployment of additional staff to the Ticino border to deal with the influx of migrants expected in the coming weeks, without specifying the numbers.

Only 3% of migrants who are identified at the southern border file an asylum request in Switzerland, said the Swiss minister. Most want to “just cross the country”.

The asylum system has 'limits'

She notes, however, that the asylum system in Europe’s passport-free Schengen area needs to be reformed to be able to respond to crises. “The current situation [on the island of] Lampedusa highlights the limits of the Dublin system,” she said.

A new European migration pact with which Switzerland is associated should allow for a more equitable distribution of the migratory burden, she believes. With a new solidarity mechanism, “we either welcome asylum seekers, or we contribute financially or humanly to the asylum system in place”.

Baume-Schneider is due to participate in a meeting of European Union interior ministers on the asylum crisis in Europe on Thursday in Brussels. She remains optimistic that Switzerland will agree to participate financially or by contributing staff to such a mechanism. “I believe that no one is insensitive when it comes to preventing undignified situations,” she said.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has stepped up its probe into Credit Suisse and UBS over suspected compliance failures that allowed Russian clients to evade sanctions, according to people familiar with the situation.

What began as a series of subpoenas sent to a range of banks early this year has developed into a full-scale investigation focusing on Credit Suisse, said the people, who requested anonymity to speak about an ongoing inquiry. The DOJ has briefed US-based lawyers for UBS about Credit Suisse’s alleged exposure to sanctions violations since UBS acquired its smaller rival in June, the people said. The DOJ is also looking into possible compliance failures at UBS, one of them said.

The probe is still at an early stage and may not result in charges or a settlement, the people said. Still, it comes at a delicate time for the Zurich-based bank, which is absorbing thousands of employees from Credit Suisse. Along with Credit Suisse’s business, which boosted its wealth management business by almost a third to over $4 trillion, UBS also inherited Credit Suisse’s legal woes, the main cause of its collapse in March.

The DOJ has asked for information about how the banks handled the accounts of sanctioned clients over the past several years but has not requested interviews with executives or staff yet, one of the people said. The probe covers both restrictions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and previous rounds put in place following its 2014 annexation of Crimea, another person said. More than a thousand wealthy Russians have been blacklisted by the US over the last decade.

UBS shares were down 3.4% as of 1.26 p.m. in Zurich, having initially declined 7.9%, the most since March.

“The initial share price reaction seemed excessive; however, this probe illustrates the contingent liabilities risks that UBS is exposed to after its acquisition of Credit Suisse,” Nicolas Payen, a Kepler Chevreux analyst, wrote in a note. He rates UBS a hold.

A spokesperson for UBS declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment.

US frustration

Internally, DOJ officials saw the takeover as an opportunity to advance the Credit Suisse investigation, two of the people said.

Investigators have taken requests for information to UBS directly, rather than routing through official diplomatic channels, which can be slower, according to two other people familiar with the case. Formally, any requests for help from foreign prosecutors must be funnelled through the Swiss Federal Office of Justice, except in rare cases of cooperation such as the joint US-Swiss raids on FIFA in 2015. The FOJ says that to date it’s received no requests related to Credit Suisse, UBS and Russian sanctions.

Privately, US officials have expressed frustration at what they see as Switzerland not doing enough to enforce sanctions on Russia and combat money laundering that’s helping the Kremlin keep its economy humming despite the restrictions imposed by the US and its allies over its invasion of Ukraine.

The US points to Switzerland’s refusal to join a multilateral task force chasing illicit Russian holdings and the earlier decision to unfreeze some assets in a high-profile corruption case with links to the Kremlin.

Before the invasion of Ukraine, Credit Suisse was well known for catering to wealthy Russians, managing more than $60 billion of their assets at its peak. By the time of the invasion in February 2022, that number had fallen to $33 billion, still 50% more than UBS, despite the latter’s larger wealth management business. UBS retained Credit Suisse’s top banker for the Russian business, Babak Dastmaltschi, even as it let other senior executives go in the takeover.

Kepler Chevreux’s Payen estimates that if one assumes “UBS kept all the Russian assets during the merger, total combined Russian assets could amount to circa $39 billion” and represent about 1.1% of UBS wealth division’s assets under management.
Legal woes

US investigations into sanctions violations have in the past resulted in large fines. In 2014, BNP Paribas SA in 2014 pleaded guilty to US sanctions violations related to Sudan and agreed to pay $8.97 billion.

The current probe is only the latest in the US involving Credit Suisse. The Justice Department is still investigating whether the bank continued to help US clients hide assets from authorities, eight years after the bank paid a $2.6 billion tax-evasion settlement.

In March, the Senate Finance Committee said it had uncovered “major violations” of that deal by Credit Suisse. UBS said it’s actively cooperating with investigators.

The sanctions inquiry comes amid growing scrutiny in Washington of Switzerland’s alleged role in facilitating the flow of dirty money out of Russia.

“We consistently see a pattern here in which Switzerland’s banking arrangements have facilitated the corrupt practices of people that have robbed their country of their wealth,” Senator Ben Cardin said at a hearing on the issue in July.

The US, he said, needs to “make sure that the sanctions that are imposed are not being evaded by a country like Switzerland.”

Swiss banks held more than $200 billion of Russian wealth, an industry group estimated in March 2022. But by the end of last year, Switzerland said it had frozen only about CHF7.5 billion ($8.4 billion) worth of Russian assets.

Of the 184 candidates around one third are women: these are the currently available candidatures for the elections to the Senate. The proportion of women and the total number of candidates are roughly the same as in 2019.

Around 34 % of the candidates are women, according to an evaluation by the Keystone-SDA news agency based on data from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Canton Aargau with 70% and canton Fribourg with 57% have the highest proportions of women among the cantons.

In terms of parties, the Greens have the highest percentage of women candidates, namely 13 out of a total of 21. The Social Democratic Party also has more than half women. The Liberal Green Party has the same number of women as men.

The Radical-Liberal Party has around 30% women among its candidates and around 29% in The Centre. The Swiss People’s Party has 9.5%. The Social Democratic Party and Radical-Liberal Party have a clearly higher proportion of women than in 2019. The Swiss People’s Party, the Greens, the Liberal Green Party and the Centre have fewer women candidates in percentage terms.

A majority of the candidates in the federal elections in October reject automatic facial recognition in public spaces. Only the Swiss People’s Party candidates narrowly approve. This is the result of a survey.

Around 80% of the candidates for the House of Representatives and the Senate were in favour of a ban on facial recognition in public spaces in the Smartvote survey, as the "Protect fundamental rights - stop facial recognition" alliance of non-governmental organisations announced on Wednesday.

Among the candidates for the House of Representatives, 77.9% said yes or rather yes to a ban, and 83.9% for the Council of States. 52.7% of the House of Representatives and 55.2% of the Senate were clearly in favour of a ban.

77.4% of the parliamentarians running for re-election were in favour of the ban, and 75.8% in the Senate. The support ranged from 90% for The Greens to over 60% each for the Radical-Liberal Party and The Centre. Only the Swiss People’s Party candidates were narrowly against a ban, with 51.5%.

The Alliance includes the Swiss section of Amnesty International, Algorithmwatch CH and the Digitale Gesellschaft (digital society). 180 civil society organisations are calling for a worldwide ban on biometric mass surveillance in public spaces.

The Senate wants a new attempt to improve the protection of whistleblowers in Switzerland. On Wednesday, it adopted a motion to this effect by Ruedi Noser, member of the Senate of the Radical-Liberal Party in Zurich.

It made the decision on whistleblowing by 35 votes to 2 with 2 abstentions. Specifically, Noser demands the creation of a legal framework to protect whistleblowers in the private sector.

A second of Noser's demands was only narrowly approved - with a casting vote by Senate Vice-President Eva Herzog. The Senate also wants an increase in the maximum possible fines for companies in the Criminal Code.

In 2019, Switzerland’s House of Representatives knocked down a government proposal to strengthen protections for whistleblowers, drawing strong criticism from civil society groups. At the time, parliamentarians on the left and right criticised the proposal for being too complicated. Some argued that it didn’t go far enough to protect employees from dismissal.

Now, the proposal will again be sent to the House of Representatives to decide.

According to a study by the United Nations (UN), Switzerland is once again the most innovative country in the world. It has defended its top position in the 2022 innovation country comparison ahead of Sweden and the USA.

Switzerland achieved the top spot for the thirteenth time in a row, as the UN Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced in Geneva on Wednesday. The general business environment, the use of new technologies, patents and technical know-how contributed to the position.

Small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland in particular have to be innovative due to a lack of natural resources and a small domestic market, as the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property pointed out a year ago. Science has been launching successful start-ups for a long time.

According to the UN organisation, countries with particularly good innovation performance include India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Brazil. It should be noted that European countries are still the most strongly represented among the top 20. "They are not losing momentum," said WIPO expert Sacha Wunsch-Vincent.

Concerns about venture capital

However, according to WIPO, the significant decline in venture capital employed could have negative consequences for the innovative strength of many countries. in 2022, venture capital had plummeted by 40% compared to the previous year.

The trend even intensified in the first half of 2023 with a minus of 47% compared to the same period of the previous year. The main reason, according to WIPO Director General Daren Tang, is rising interest rates. "It's the end of cheap money," said Wunsch-Vincent.

The ranking is based on 80 criteria such as investment, education, government research spending and development of online products. A total of 132 economies were analysed. Burundi, Iraq and Guinea ranked 130th, 131st and 132nd respectively. The United Kingdom made it to fourth place ahead of Singapore. China slipped one place to twelfth.

The federal government should be responsible for Swiss hospitals, not the cantons, according to Martin Landolt, president of the health insurers association Santésuisse. The news that health premiums for 2024 will rise by an average of 8.7% next year has caused widespread consternation.

Landolt told the Tamedia newspaper group on Wednesday that he wants to launch a popular initiative on the hospital issue.

The cantons are caught in a “gigantic conflict of interest”, said Landolt. As a result, Switzerland has “overpriced and unnecessary” hospitals, which are driving up healthcare costs.

“If decisions are made top-down, the emotional closeness is gone and the decisions become more objective,” said Landolt. He also believes that licences given to doctors should also be regulated at the national level.

Next year, Landolt plans to prepare a corresponding initiative and hold talks with party leaders, associations, and interest groups.

The initiative would aim to ensure national planning and at the same time take “minimal regional needs” into account. Landolt also sees a solution to the shortage of skilled workers in national hospital planning. Overall, fewer staff would be needed, he said. 'Little drive'

The representative of health insurance companies insists that insurers would not contribute to increasing Swiss healthcare costs. Rather, they would advocate for lower premiums.

According to Landolt, several actors are responsible for the 2024 increase in health insurance premiums by an average of 8.7%. “It is a cumulation of various political authorities that show little drive,” he said. He would have like to have heard Health Minister Alain Berset talk more strongly on this issue in the past, he added.

Next year's health insurance premiums will see the biggest rise for over ten years. The decisive factor for the increase is rising costs, the Federal Office of Public Health announced on Tuesday. These have increased more than expected since the second half of 2021 and especially during 2023. More doctor visits and outpatient hospital services as well as more expensive medicines have caused the surge. In 2023, the premium income will not cover the costs of around CHF35 billion to the health insurance companies. That was already the case in 2022.

World football’s governing body FIFA is preparing to move 100 jobs, including its legal department, from its historic headquarters in Zurich to Miami in the United States.

FIFA has already transferred certain positions from its Paris office and recently opened offices in Miami to help organise the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico, according to the AFP news agency.

“FIFA is a global governing body and certain departments have been informed of a plan to move to a new permanent headquarters in Miami,” a FIFA spokesperson told Keystone-ATS and AFP.

“This is in line with the global vision of an organisation with 211 member associations. Our new offices in Miami and Singapore join our Paris offices and regional development offices around the world. FIFA headquarters remains in Zurich," said the spokesperson.

The legal department would also move to Miami, according to the report. The Florida city would appear strategic due to its proximity to the 41 member associations of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), and its easy connections to South America.

In addition to the 2026 World Cup, the United States will host the FIFA Club World Cup in 2025. FIFA was established in Paris in 1904, before moving to Zurich in 1932, which became its main headquarters in 2007.

The lakeside village discovered in 2020 under the surface of Lake Lucerne is 5,400 years old – that is 2,400 years older than previously thought, city officials said on Wednesday.

In 2020, archaeologists discovered traces of a pile dwelling (or stilt house) village while laying a pipeline in Lucerne’s natural harbour area.

Experts initially estimated that it was a Bronze Age lakeside village dated around 1000 BC. But Lucerne’s Chancellery on Wednesday said new investigations showed that the settlement already existed in 3400 BC.

Around 1.5 metres below the lakebed the researchers found a dark layer with a high organic content and charcoal, which pointed to 3400 BC. The finds also included ceramic fragments, burnt grain and flint implements.

These finds indicate the remains of one or more Neolithic villages, a press release said. They also demonstrated once again that the lake water level was significantly lower than it is today.

“With the current, new findings, we can clearly prove that the history of Lucerne begins with a Neolithic pile-dwelling settlement. This is really a sensation and means that people were already settling in the area of ​​today's city 5,400 years ago,” said cantonal archaeologist Jürg Manser.

More excavations are now needed to document this important cultural and historical evidence, the experts say. These were planned before the start of construction of an underground train link, which will not be delayed.

The Swiss parliament has approved the resale of 25 Leopard 2 tanks to the German firm Rheinmetall.

On Tuesday the House of Representatives followed the Senate and gave its greenlight to the operation. Germany has undertaken not to send the tanks to Ukraine.

The army will hand over the 25 tanks to their German manufacturer Rheinmetall to decommission them. They could be resold to other European countries, said Andrea Gmür-Schönenberger of the Centre Party.

German Ambassador Michael Flügger welcomed the decision, saying Germany was "happy and grateful".

He nonetheless reiterated Germany's criticism of the re-export ban on Swiss weapons. Germany had bought numerous weapons and components from Switzerland and it would like to pass some of these on to Ukraine.

"We understand that Swiss law does not currently allow these weapons to be passed on," he told Swiss public TV, SRF. However, the hope is that the relevant laws will be changed. Without a change, it would be "difficult to impossible" to continue to obtain weapons or ammunition from Switzerland in the future, he said.

The resale of the 25 Leopard tanks will not hinder the coverage of the needs of the Swiss army. Tanks cannot be sent to Ukraine, not even indirectly. Swiss neutrality is thus not engaged. “And we are thus strengthening cooperation with our partners as well as European defence,” said Gmür-Schönenberger.

The resale debate gave rise to a clash with right-wing senators. The Swiss People’s Party tried to oppose it. According to the opinion of senior army officers, Switzerland already lacks tanks, said Werner Salzmann. The House of Representatives made its decision without being aware of the problem and foreign policy considerations should not take precedence in this matter, Salzmann said.

The army currently has 134 Leopard 2 tanks in service. The remaining 71 tanks placed in storage are sufficient for the Swiss army if necessary, insisted Defence Minister Viola Amherd. Reactivate tanks?

The Radical-Liberal Party ​​tried another approach. Parliamentarian Thierry Burkart proposed reactivating the remaining 71 tanks which are in storage, or replacing them with new systems by 2035. “We are thus giving a serious signal in favour of the defence of the country by taking into account the demands of the army,” he said.

“In our democracy, it is politics that must set its strategic objectives for the army, not the opposite,” said Charles Juillard, of the Centre Party. It is completely premature to make decisions based solely on army reports. The Senate voted in favour by 23 to 18, and 2 abstentions.

The Senate approved all military credits worth CHF1.9 billion planned for the arms programme, the real estate programme and the acquisition of equipment. The increase in the spending ceiling for 2021 to 2024 also passed easily. The envelope must increase from CHF21.1-21.7 billion.

Switzerland's army is extending its accommodation offer for asylum seekers until the end of 2024.

It has agreed to cede around 3,700 places in army infrastructures to the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) until the end of 2024 if necessary.

In addition, the SEM, in close cooperation with the cantons, the local communities and the army, has secured more than 1,000 additional, quickly available places. Further places are still being clarified, the SEM announced in Bern on Tuesday. Most of these are places in civil defense facilities, which the cantons had reported to the SEM in August.

After a thorough examination of the proposals, civil defense facilities in the cantons of Bern, Geneva, Glarus and Zurich with a total of 710 places could definitely be put into operation from October and November. A further 300 places would be located on Glaubenberg (OW), where the army would cede another building to the SEM from November until the end of April 2024 at the latest.

Thanks to the accommodating attitude of the army and the civil defense facilities in the cantons, the SEM would continue to have a total of around 10,000 accommodation places at its disposal, and as of November even around 10,700. These capacities in what are now more than 30 federal asylum centers are currently more than 70 percent exhausted.

In order to cope with the expected increase in asylum and protection applications in the coming months and to prevent premature referrals to the cantons, the SEM foreseeably needs more accommodation places.

Swiss bank UBS will on Wednesday seek to convince France’s top court to overturn a reputation-damaging conviction and €1.8 billion ($1.9 billion) penalty for helping wealthy French clients stash away undeclared funds in Swiss accounts.

The hearing comes nearly two years after the Paris court of appeals more than halved UBS’s initial fine but upheld a finding that the firm had illegally laundered funds.

The UBS legal saga in France has rumbled on for more than a decade. It’s featured failed settlement talks, a banking boss calling his staffers “egomaniacs”, a whistle blower spying on former colleagues during tennis matches at the French Open and investigators accusing the bank of deploying tactics “worthy of James Bond” to avoid detection by authorities.

The Cour de Cassation will examine UBS’s guilt, the penalty it received and the damages award. UBS’s total penalty included €800 million in reparation for the French state, a €1 billion confiscation order and a €3.75 million fine.

UBS declined to comment ahead of the hearing.

UBS was also convicted of covertly and unlawfully dispatching Swiss bankers in France to encourage prospective clients to move money across the border.

The nation’s top court could take several months to deliver a verdict. If its interpretation diverges from the 2021 ruling, it could opt for a re-examination by a different panel of judges at the Paris appeals court.

UBS acquired local rival Credit Suisse in a rescue that closed in June. The deal has set the bank on one of the most complex integrations since the financial crisis, which includes efforts to keep key talent in certain areas while shedding other aspects of the business.

Health premiums for 2024 will rise by an average of 8.7% (CHF28.7, or $31.5) next year.

The average monthly premium will reach CHF 359.5. This is the third highest increase since the introduction of the Health Insurance Act in 1996.

Swiss President and Health Minister Alain Berset described the increase as "bad news for households already plagued by inflation."

The sharp rise in costs is due to a number of factors: an aging population, new drugs and treatments, and an increase in healthcare services such as outpatient hospital care and physiotherapy, the.Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) said in a statement on Tuesday.

The average premium for adults has risen by CH33.8 (8.6%) to CHF426.7, while that for young adults has risen by CHF23.8 (8.6%) to 300.60 francs. The average premium for children is up CHF8 francs (7.7%) on 2023, to CHF111.8.

Swiss Solidarity has raised over CHF2.2 million ($2.4 million) following the earthquake that struck Morocco on September 9.

The organisation will be able to finance "vital aid" deployed by its Swiss NGO partners in the kingdom.

The most urgent needs currently include the distribution of water, food, blankets and clothing, as well as medical care and psychosocial support, Swiss Solidarity said in a press release on Tuesday.

Swiss Solidarity is continuing its solidarity campaign for the victims of the earthquake. Given the extent of the damage, and with winter just around the corner, needs remain high, it explains. It is essential to build emergency shelters in mountain villages to protect people from the cold that will soon be arriving in the Atlas region.

The foundation is more pessimistic about the Derna region in eastern Libya, hit by storm Daniel on September 10. It regrets that it does not have enough partners in Libya to launch a national solidarity campaign.

Swiss Solidarity will nevertheless be able to activate its emergency fund to finance one-off humanitarian projects if partner NGOs so request.

The federal prosecutor's office has sentenced the raw materials trader Gunvor, based in Geneva, to pay around CHF94 million - CHF4 million of which as a fine. Due to organizational deficiencies, the company enabled the bribery of officials in Africa.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office (BA) announced in a media release published on Tuesday that serious deficiencies in the internal organisation of Gunvor International's Geneva branch made it possible to bribe officials in the Republic of Congo and Ivory Coast.

The crimes investigated by the BA occurred between 2008 and 2011. Through bribery, the company gained access to the oil markets in the two countries.

The penalty order was issued in October 2019. The Federal Criminal Court also had to deal with the case. Further proceedings are currently pending, as the BA writes.

September 2023 will go down in history because of the temperature records. According to Meteonews, it is the warmest since measurements began. The excess temperature should be around 3.9 degrees.

In the north, the weather service wrote in a statement on Tuesday that the duration of sunshine is also on track for record times. The warmest September to date dates back to 1961 with a deviation of almost three degrees compared to the climate average from 1991 to 2020.

The month was also not stingy with the number of summer days. This year's September is characterized by a far above-average number of summer days with a temperature of over 25 degrees and hot days with over 30 degrees.

In Basel-Binningen there are normally 4.5 summer days and 0.2 hot days in September once every five years. According to Meteonews, 15 summer days and five hot days have been recorded there in September so far this year. Based on the weather forecast until the end of the month, the number of summer days is likely to increase, the weather service wrote.

September was very sunny in the north; locally there was over 50% more sun than normal. According to Meteonews, it is likely to be the sunniest September since measurements began, as there will be more hours of sunshine in the coming days. So far there have been 197 hours of sunshine, the record was 218 hours in 2018. Across Switzerland, the surplus is currently around 30%.

There are very large regional differences in rainfall. There was sometimes too much rainfall in Ticino and parts of Graubünden, but elsewhere it was mostly too dry. Overall, there is a slight rainfall deficit of around 8% across Switzerland as a whole.

The world population lost more wealth last year than at any time since the financial crisis. Account balances also fell in Switzerland in 2022. The falling stock market prices were primarily to blame. Nevertheless, the Swiss remain the richest people in the world.

Overall, the gross financial assets of people in Switzerland fell by 2.1%, as Allianz writes in its "Global Wealth Report" published on Tuesday. This was due to the largest asset class, securities, which lost a good 12% in value. It didn't help that the other two major asset classes - bank deposits and insurance or pensions - increased by around 2 and 3% respectively.

With a gross wealth of more than €356,000 per capita - which corresponds to almost CHF345,000 - Switzerland is still by far the top of the richest countries. The next places are the USA (€308,000) and Denmark (€221,000).

Meanwhile, according to the announcement, Swiss debt increased by 2.9%. This means that the development of liabilities slowed down somewhat (2021: +3.2%).

The bottom line is that net assets per capita in Switzerland - i.e. gross assets minus liabilities - fell by 4.4% to just under €239,000 (CHF231,000). This decline is the largest since the year of the financial crisis in 2008, according to the report. In terms of net assets per capita, Switzerland was, as in the previous year, in second place behind the USA (€253,000).

Northern lights were spotted in Switzerland on Monday night. This phenomenon is only rarely visible in Switzerland, Meteoswiss said in response to a request from the Keystone-SDA news agency.

The reason for this is the currently strong solar activity, according to the Federal Office of Meteorology (Meteoswiss). For the Northern Lights to be visible in Switzerland, the solar activity must be exceptionally strong. But even on Monday night, the northern lights were only visible for a very short time in this country.

Auroras are caused by an interaction between charged particles from space and the Earth's atmosphere. They are triggered by the so-called solar wind. This consists of charged particles, mainly electrons and protons, which are ejected from the sun.

When this solar wind reaches the Earth's atmosphere, the charged particles are deflected by the Earth's magnetic field and directed towards the polar regions. This process causes the particles to get close to the poles. Once the charged particles reach the atmosphere, they collide with the gases in the atmosphere, mainly oxygen and nitrogen.

These collisions release energy and light. The stronger the solar winds, the further south the Northern Lights are visible.

The color of the northern lights depends on the type of gas particles with which the charged particles in the atmosphere interact and on the altitude at which these interactions occur. Green northern lights often arise from interaction with oxygen in higher atmospheric levels, while red or violet colors can arise from interaction with nitrogen.

Although there are access and security restrictions in Libya, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is adapting its activities to include a medical component. It will provide additional aid of over CHF1 million Swiss to support the affected population.

It has also made an offer to the UN to send material and experts from the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Corps. This emerges from a request from National Councillor Denis de la Reussille.

The SDC does not have a presence in Libya but carries out its humanitarian work from neighboring Tunisia. Last week it said it was considering financial support for local or multilateral partners to meet the urgent needs of flood victims.

Storm Daniel hit eastern Libya on the night of September 10th to 11th, particularly Derna, a city with 100,000 inhabitants on the Mediterranean. It caused two upstream dams to break and triggered a flood. According to the latest preliminary official tally, the floods have claimed at least 3,868 lives, while thousands more people are still missing.

Switzerland must have a new climate policy for the years 2025 to 2030. The Senate did not finish examining the new CO2 law on Monday, but it has so far largely followed the government project. No new taxes are planned.

As a signatory to the Paris Agreement, Switzerland must reduce its emissions by half compared to 1990. A clear law is needed to do this, and a means to finance the instruments, said parliamentarian Damian Müller.

The project is based on the current CO2 law which Parliament extended until 2024. The government has planned funding of CHF4.1 billion for the five years. This money comes from the CO2 tax already levied on fuels at CHF120 per tonne of CO2.

The government will not introduce new taxes, having learned the lessons of the failed previous version in a vote more than two years ago, underlined Environment Minister Albert Rösti.

In its project, the Federal Council plans to achieve around two thirds of the emissions reductions in Switzerland and the remaining third abroad. Narrowly, by 22 votes to 20 and one abstention, Othmar Reichmuth failed to set the percentage of measures taken in Switzerland at 75%. According to him, this would have served the Swiss economy, through the promotion of “innovative” ideas and new technologies and methods.

For her part, Lisa Mazzone did not want the Confederation to be able to acquire international certificates to achieve the objectives. If Switzerland does not reduce its internal emissions enough by 2030, it will have to do so more drastically thereafter, she said.

In terms of mobility, concerning new passenger cars from 2030, the government plans that their CO2 emissions do not exceed 45% at most of the determining basic value of 2021. To the great dismay of the left and some centrists, the Senate supported this rate, wanting regulations similar to those of the EU. Proposals to lower this percentage to 25% and set a target of 0% emissions from 2035 were swept aside.

Five Swiss political parties have signed a code of conduct agreeing to limit the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in their campaigns for the October 22 federal elections.

The signatories include the Social Democratic Party, the Centre Party, the Green Party, the Liberal Green Party and the Protestant Party.

In a press release released on Monday, they asked their cantonal sections to stick to the code of conduct, which states that any use of AI during political campaigns (recorded adverts, posters, advertisements) must be explicitly declared. In addition, the parties forbid the use of AI in so-called “negative” campaigns, in which they attack their political opponents.

AI represents an opportunity by enabling new forms of communication, they state. But it also presents dangers, potentially making it possible to distort facts or attribute things to certain (political) actors that they would not have said.

The Radical-Liberal Party did not sign the charter but undertakes to ban any abusive use of AI, for example via “deepfakes” (fake), it said in a statement.

A deepfake can be used to superimpose existing video or audio files on other files to change a person's face or reproduce someone's voice to make them say something invented.

The Radical-Liberals say it is “absurd” to want to ban AI in “negative campaigns”, even though identical visual effects can be obtained via Photoshop. Furthermore, the definition of a "negative campaign" (in which one attacks or damages the opponent) remains subject to discussion.

The Swiss People’s Party, for its part, refuses to make any commitments on the issue. Party general secretary and national councillor Peter Keller told Swiss public radio, SRF, that the boundaries of what constitutes a "negative campaign" are blurred, and anyone who uses AI crudely gets caught and pays the price, he said.

Silvio Germann, chef at the Mammertsberg restaurant in Freidorf, canton Thurgau, has been named “Chef of the Year 2023” by GaultMillau Switzerland.

Germann, 34, is chef and co-owner of the Mammertsberg, located opposite Freidorf station. The Lucerne resident took over the premises in October 2022 with Andreas Caminada. The restaurant is located in an ancient building with a dozen tables.

In the 2024 edition of the Gault&Millau guide, six chefs scored 19 points: Tanja Grandits ("Stucki", Basel), Peter Knogl ("Cheval Blanc", Basel), Franck Giovannini ("Restaurant de l'Hôtel de ville", Crissier), Andreas Caminada ("Schloss Schauenstein", Fürstenau), Philippe Chevrier ("Domaine de Châteauvieux", Satigny) and Heiko Nieder ("The Dolder Grand", Zurich).

For the first time, Gault&Millau named Paolo Casanova from the Chesa Stüva Colani restaurant in Madulain, canton Graubünden, “Green Chef of the Year” for his commitment to cooking sustainably, sourcing from regional producers and for the quality of his vegetarian dishes.

The guide also paid tribute to the next generation: Pascal Steffen ("Roots", Basel, 18 points), Markus Stöckle ("Rosi" Zurich, 17 points), Ilario Colombo Zefinetti ("Du Théâtre", Monthey, 17 points ), Federico Palladino (“Osteria Enoteca Cuntitt”, Castel San Pietro, 16 points).

The discoveries of the year were Paul Cabayé & Stéphanie Zosso ("Glacier", Grindelwald, 16 points), Grégory Halgand ("Hôtel de Ville", Ollon, 15 points) and Piero Roncoroni ("Osteria del Centro", Comano, 15 points).

The internet giant Google looks set to cut around 50 jobs in Zurich, its main site in Switzerland, according to a news report. In January, Google's parent company Alphabet announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs around the world.

The news portal Inside Paradeplatz reported on Monday that all 43 positions responsible for recruitment are to be eliminated, as well as ten in the Android TV team.

A spokesperson for Google Switzerland refused to comment on the specific story at its Zurich site, in answer to a request by the AWP agency, referring to global recruitment decisions by Google.

Google “continues to invest in high-level engineers and technical talent, while slowing down the pace of hiring. This is why the workload of hiring managers has declined”, the spokesperson said. The company has “made the difficult decision to reduce the size of the team responsible for hiring”, according to a press release forwarded by the spokesperson.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced in January plans to cut 12,000 jobs worldwide, without specifying the number of positions affected by these measures in Zurich.

The Syndicom union had mentioned 5% of the workforce, which would correspond to 250 jobs out of a total of around 5,000. Google’s Zurich operation is one of the most important research and development sites outside the United States.