Switzerland

A human bio-monitoring study by the Federal Office of Public Health has revealed undesirable chemical residues are present in the bodies of Swiss men and women. Among them was perfluorooctane sulphonic acid, or PFOS, a substance banned in Switzerland since 2010.

The study authors took blood and urine samples from 789 healthy people aged between 20-69 in the cantons of Vaud and Bern for a type of analysis that is new to Switzerland.

Among the notable results, the report highlights that "exposure to PFOS is a cause for concern for health, with 3.6% of participants exposed to concentrations exceeding the threshold value set for PFOS. This substance from the PFAS family has been banned in the European Union and Switzerland for over ten years, with a few exceptions, but it is still present in the environment and in the human body because of its long life and high mobility".

PFOS a potential health hazard

Murielle Bochud, a professor of public health at the University of Lausanne's Faculty of Biology and Medicine, worked on the pilot study.

"We measured a number of synthetic chemical substances. One of the findings was that, on the one hand, some of these substances were not detectable, which is good. On the other hand, other substances known to be potentially dangerous to health were detected in a certain percentage of participants, in particular perfluorooctane sulphonic acid, or PFOS," she told Swiss public radio RTS.

This synthetic chemical molecule is part of a wider family of products known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkylated substances). They are found in water, food, clothes, shoes and the atmosphere.

"These substances are of interest in several industrial sectors, such as textiles and aerospace. They have been synthesised since the 1950s. As soon as a potential health hazard was identified, some of these substances were banned, notably PFOS. However, as these substances persist in the environment for a long time, they are still detectable today," said Bochud. A healthy lifestyle recommended

While PFOS has been banned in Switzerland since 2010, residues take several years to disappear -- hence their presence in the environment, in food and, by extension, the human body.

To keep away from PFOS, Bochud recommends a healthy, varied diet, regular exercise and avoiding smoking. People should also avoid keeping old kitchen utensils such as frying pans. Pre-packaged food should also be avoided.

As a follow-up to this initial pilot study, the public health office has drawn up a report for the federal government. "The public health community in Switzerland supports the setting up of a large population cohort to give us a better idea of the current situation, for example 100,000 people followed for 20 years, to determine whether the situation is worsening or improving," said the report.

Choreographer Cindy Van Acker has received this year's Swiss Grand Prix for Performing Arts, also known as the Hans Reinhart Ring. The prestigious award is endowed with CHF100,000 ($114,000).

The award honours Van Acker's interdisciplinary work and her multifaceted commitment to the Swiss cultural scene, the Federal Office of Culture announced on Thursday. Van Acker is among the most outstanding choreographers in Switzerland and has gained success internationally both in the established theatre scene and the independent dance scene.

Van Acker was born in 1971 in Belgium. She joined the Ballet du Grand Théâtre in Geneva as a dancer in 1991. According to the culture office, her international breakthrough came in 2005 at the Venice Biennale, when she was invited by Romeo Castellucci to present her solo performance, Corps 00:00.

Since then, she has worked regularly with Castellucci, especially in opera productions such as Don Giovanni at the 2021 Salzburg Festival. The signature of the subtle choreographer is evident in the meticulous, almost scientific elaboration of her creations, in which body, music and space interact.

The awards ceremony for the Grand Prix and other Swiss performing arts prizes will take place on October 6 as part of the Festival Internazionale del Teatro in Lugano. The culture minister Alain Berset, who currently holds the rotating Swiss presidency, will attend the event.

Switzerland and other western countries violated international law by refusing to remove intellectual property rights from vaccines against the coronavirus, said a United Nations committee. They failed to honour their commitments in terms of guaranteeing non-discrimination.

In a decision taken on Wednesday and made public in Geneva on Thursday, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which does not speak on behalf of the UN, also attacked the United States, Britain and Germany. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) lifted its maximum alert a few months ago, the CERD shares the WHO's view that Covid-19 remains a major public health problem.

In its view, minorities and groups exposed to violations of the Convention against Racial Discrimination have been most affected. In several developing countries, less than 1% of the population has received at least one booster dose of the Covid vaccine.

However, the proportion worldwide is as high as one third, the Committee said. "The current challenges of inequality can be significantly mitigated by sharing access to intellectual property rights" on all anti-coronavirus technologies, it said.

However, Switzerland and other countries had agreed at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to a provisional lifting of patents on vaccines for five years, but only after a two-year pandemic. By then, the populations of these countries had largely been immunised with at least one booster dose. Production was sufficient to meet demand.

Difficult discussions at the WTO

Under pressure like others for many months, Berne had always defended the protection of innovation by pharmaceutical companies. It had also taken the view that lifting patents would not make it possible to manufacture an additional dose of vaccine. In its view, the problem lay more in the infrastructure for distributing vaccines in developing countries.

The UN Committee and a number of governments would like to see this issue included in the next treaty on pandemics to be discussed at the WHO. Many western countries, including Switzerland, reject this scenario. In their view, intellectual property should be discussed at the WTO.

In the agreement reached at the WTO ministerial meeting in June 2022, the countries undertook to continue negotiations to extend the lifting of patents to other technologies to combat the coronavirus, particularly medicines and tests.

However, the six-month deadline could not be met, and the negotiations remain deadlocked. The United States has launched an investigation to find out more about the challenges associated with this extremely difficult issue.

Call for a strict mechanism

Pending the results, which are not expected before October, no progress can be made. This issue will be one of those on the agenda at the next WTO ministerial meeting next February in Abu Dhabi.

The CERD's decision was supported by the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial Discrimination. These independent experts are calling on governments to place human rights concerns at the heart of their policy on the coronavirus.

They want a stricter mechanism for lifting patents in the event of a health crisis. And the CERD is asking them to help developing countries achieve the minimum medical conditions expected to deal with international health emergencies.

Edit: Typo in title

The Federal Council, the Swiss executive body, released a statement on Thursday in reaction to the announcement by UBS that it would cut 3,000 jobs following its emergency takeover of rival bank Credit Suisse.

People and families were behind every dismissal, the statement said. The Federal Council said it regretted these dismissals and recalled its expectation formulated back in March that socially acceptable solutions should be sought for job cuts and that existing obligations should be respected. UBS's plans were in line with the government's original expectations.

The government is satisfied with the agreement reached between the social partners of the banking industry, UBS and Credit Suisse. It thanked the social partners "for their responsible fulfilment of their role" and for their continued support of the process.

The government also assumes that there will be no significant distortions in the labour market.

"Possible redundancies are to be staggered," it wrote. The labour market impact should therefore remain low, also because the current labour market situation is generally very good.

The government also indicated that the social partners of the banking industry "should play their role in accompanying the process", and it had assured its support. Thousands of vacancies in banking sector

Economics Minister Guy Parmelin told the media in Bern that he personally, together with the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco), had been in contact with the social partners and the human resources departments of the two banks throughout the process. An agreement between the social partners should be signed soon.

With regard to the job losses, Parmelin explained that there were currently 6,000 vacancies in the banking sector. Despite the new, very large UBS, the competition in the banking sector in Switzerland was still playing out.

The government will analyse the question of the new big bank and its risks for the national economy as soon as all parameters are available. But first it will await reports from Seco and the Competition Commission. There are also parliamentary initiatives pending on the subject.

Solar energy in Switzerland needs to be harnessed more effectively if Switzerland is to meet its energy targets, according to the Swiss Federal Audit Office (FAO). It recommends updating the strategy in this area. For example, financial incentives need to be better coordinated.

Together with hydroelectric power, photovoltaics (PV) should replace nuclear power as the mainstay of Swiss electricity production by 2050. To achieve its energy and climate policy objectives, the federal government has taken steps to encourage the production of solar energy. The targets have been raised several times and the measures regularly adapted.

While the strong growth in PV installations over the past three years is positive and in line with objectives, there are risks to the implementation of the next stages, according to the FAO in an audit published on Wednesday. The medium- and long-term targets set by the Federal Council for 2035 and 2050 can be achieved if the current rate of construction continues.

Insufficient coordination

Against this backdrop, the FAO points to a lack of overview when it comes to the profitability of solar installations. While the development of electricity prices on the market and the distribution network operators play a role, profitability also depends on federal subsidies.

In some cases, projects are not built because they are too expensive despite the subsidies, while in other cases similar projects can be operated profitably without subsidies, making the subsidies ineffective, explains the FAO. The FAO therefore recommends better coordination in this area.

In its statement, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (FOE) pointed out that this lack of coordination is due to political factors. Incentives for photovoltaics are currently under discussion in Parliament. Depending on the decisions taken, the FOE hopes to draw up the recommended concept by the end of 2024.

Making better use of mountain areas

According to the FAO, profitability could also be improved by making greater use of available land outside building zones. The FAO deplores the fact that there is too much focus on the use of solar energy in buildings. The potential of PV is not sufficiently exploited in mountain regions, which receive more sunshine in winter.

In view of Parliament's increasingly ambitious development objectives, the FAO recommends updating the strategy in this area and defining criteria for the planning and construction of large-scale PV installations on these surfaces. The decisive criteria could be environmental impact, grid connection, profitability and contribution to winter supply.

Favouring large structures

Finally, the FAO points to a problem of profitability in relation to the power of the installations. It is more profitable to promote large-scale facilities than smaller ones.

Since its introduction in 2014 and until the end of 2022, the single feed-in remuneration has benefited some 130,000 solar power plants with an annual output of 2.6 terawatt hours, for a total amount of CHF1.5 billion ($1.7 billion). Just over 127,000 of these are considered small-scale, as they have an output of less than 100 kilowatts.

The other 3,000 or so, counted as large-scale installations, produce around a third of annual output but have received just under CHF400 million in subsidies. According to the FAO, even if the photovoltaic potential of large roofs is already better exploited than that of small ones, there is still considerable potential for savings by making even greater use of large installations.

The FAO also proposes reviewing the profitability of the single feed-in tariff and making it simpler, for example by doing away with the distinction between integrated and add-on installations. The FOE rejects the recommendation on aesthetic grounds. It argues that this leads to greater acceptance of solar panels.

UBS Group AG plans to eliminate about 3,000 jobs in its home market as it seeks to cut billions of dollars in costs after buying rival Credit Suisse.

It’s the first time Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti has put a concrete figure on how many jobs the massive merger will cost, though the forced redundancies he disclosed on an analysts call on Thursday are likely only a small part of the total reduction in headcount. The acquisition of Credit Suisse increased UBS’s workforce by 45,000 to currently just under 120,000.

UBS has previously said it wants to slash staff costs by about $6 billion ($5.27 billion) over the next several years, effectively accounting for more than half of Ermotti’s promise to slash costs by more than $10 billion.

UBS announced on Thursday that it will keep Credit Suisse’s Swiss unit, adding a big operation where the two lenders have substantial overlap. The decision came after UBS earlier this month gave up extensive guarantees given by the Swiss government in March to sweeten the takeover.

UBS to keep Credit Suisse’s Swiss business, retire its brand

UBS and Credit Suisse will continue to operate separately in the country until their legal merger next year, UBS said in a statement Thursday. The lender will keep using the Credit Suisse brand and operations until it has moved the former rival’s clients onto its own systems, which is expected to happen in 2025, it said.

The decision “follows a thorough evaluation of all options,” Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti said in the statement. “Our analysis clearly shows that full integration is the best outcome for UBS, our stakeholders and the Swiss economy.”

The Swiss business has been Credit Suisse’s crown jewel, a profitable anchor while the rest of the firm lurched from crisis to crisis over the past years. UBS had long signaled its preference to keep it, but political concerns about its potentially dominant role at home had complicated the decision. The decision to integrate it was made easier after UBS voluntarily gave up a safety net provided by the government.

Bloomberg previously reported that UBS was poised to integrate the Swiss bank and planned to wind down the Credit Suisse brand in the country.

The number plate "ZH 50" has a new owner. It was sold at auction on Wednesday evening for CHF202,000 ($229,800). However, the first two-digit Zurich number plate ever to go under the auction hammer did not set a record.

Interest was high, with a total of 170 bids received. The number plate "ZH 50" was auctioned on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Zurich-Albisgütli department of motor-vehicle office.

The winning bid was submitted by the bidder "DAGA" shortly before the end of the auction and he was not outbid. The proceeds of the auction will go into the canton's coffers.

The lowest number auctioned so far, "ZH 100", brought the canton CHF226,000. This is the record for canton Zurich so far. The national record is CHF233,000 in canton Zug for the number plate "ZG 10".

UBS Group AG posted the biggest-ever quarterly profit for a bank in the second quarter as a result of its emergency takeover of Credit Suisse, and confirmed that it would fully integrate the local business of its former rival by next year.

The $29 billion (CHF25 billion) gain is a result of the accounting difference between the $3 billion price UBS paid for Credit Suisse and the value of the acquired lender’s balance sheet. UBS now commands roughly $5 trillion in client assets, giving it a shot at global primacy in the business of managing rich people’s money.

In reporting underlying net profit before tax of $1.1 billion in the first combined UBS-Credit Suisse quarterly earnings on Thursday, the Zurich-based bank said:

It will target cost savings of more than $10 billion by the end of 2026. UBS saw net new money inflows of $16 billion in the quarter. Credit Suisse outflows slowed to 39 billion Swiss francs ($44.4 billion). Bank sees pick-up in client activity, expects new asset inflows to continue.

Almost three months since closing the deal to acquire Credit Suisse, UBS Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti is focused on implementing one of the biggest mergers ever in global finance. The task is set to involve thousands of job cuts and comes fraught with legal risks, the potential for ballooning costs and political controversy as a Swiss election nears.

“This combination will reinforce our status as a premier global franchise, and one that our home market Switzerland can be proud of,” Ermotti said in the earnings release on Thursday. “We are humbled by this task, and the responsibility entrusted to us.”

UBS’s share price has gained 30% this year, making it the best-valued major European lender. The accounting gain for the quarter eclipses JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s $14.3 billion profit in the first quarter of 2021, the modern record for US and European lenders.

The bank has now ended months of speculation over the future of Credit Suisse’s domestic unit, previously the most consistently profitable of its units. The two banks will operate separately until the planned legal merger in 2024, UBS said. The Credit Suisse brand will remain in place until clients are moved over to UBS systems, expected in 2025. Bloomberg reported the decision on full integration of Credit Suisse’s Swiss unit earlier this month.

A UBS veteran who spent his first stint as CEO turning the lender into a model wealth manager after its near-failure in the financial crisis, Ermotti is keenly aware of the political sensitivities surrounding the Credit Suisse deal, which he was brought back to oversee. In a surprise move this month, UBS decided to voluntarily give up a safety net negotiated as part of the purchase, including a 9 billion-franc ($9.4 billion) government backstop. That step gives the bank more flexibility, including over the domestic franchises.

While signaling the underlying strength of its business, UBS is now girding investors for the process of integrating its rival, to be “substantially complete” by the end of 2026. The bank is aiming for a cost-to-income ratio of less than 70% by the end of 2026. The bank said it sees underlying pre-tax profit for the group in the third quarter at around breakeven.

UBS had previously guided that mark-downs on Credit Suisse assets could come in at about $13 billion and legal liabilities of as much as $4 billion over the first year of the integration.

UBS said that the wind-down unit, which houses businesses brought over from Credit Suisse which are not compatible with its strategy, had approximately $55 billion of risk-weighted assets at the end of the quarter. Some $8 billion in positions had been exited during the quarter.

UBS said its global wealth-management business continued to see strong inflows, with the $16 billion figure billed as the highest second-quarter figure in over a decade. Flows of client funds at Credit Suisse’s wealth unit turned positive in June. The release records Credit Suisse’s final quarter as an independent company.

A former member of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s rapid intervention unit will go on trial in St Gallen in September. This trial, “historic” according to NGOs, will be the first in Switzerland under universal jurisdiction for enforced disappearance.

Yuri Harauski will appear before a criminal court on September 19-20, TRIAL International announced on Wednesday. The Geneva-based NGO, along with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Belarusian organisation Viasna, is supporting the complaints lodged by the relatives of two victims. These three institutions had also filed a complaint.

A member of the SOBR intervention unit, the man is accused of participating in the enforced disappearances of three major political opponents in 1999: ministers Yury Zakharenka and Viktar Hanchar and businessman Anatol Krassowski.

Never before has a Belarusian national been tried for the crime of enforced disappearance under universal jurisdiction. And this offence has never been prosecuted in Switzerland using this approach.

A register of beneficial owners of legal entities should provide additional clarity, according to the Swiss government. In addition, there will be due diligence requirements for particularly risky activities in the legal professions, as can be seen from the consultation.

An efficient system to combat financial crime is essential for the good reputation and sustainable success of Switzerland as a financial and business location, Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter told the media in Bern on Wednesday.

Legal entities in particular are abused worldwide by criminals and organised crime to conceal assets and thereby enable money laundering, tax evasion and the avoidance of sanctions.

With a strengthened mechanism for combating money laundering, the law enforcement authorities in particular should now be able to determine more quickly and reliably who is actually behind a legal structure.

According to Keller-Sutter, one of the most important elements for more transparency is a new federal register where companies and other legal entities in Switzerland must register with information on their beneficial owners. This would make it possible, for example, to assign assets to a person in the event of criminal proceedings. It would also make it easier to implement international sanctions that Switzerland has adopted.

The register is not public and is managed by the justice ministry in order to use the infrastructure and know-how of the commercial registry authorities. An office affiliated to the finance ministry is to carry out checks and, if necessary, impose sanctions. Increased risk for lawyers and public notaries

Another measure is aimed in particular at advisory activities in the legal field, which harbour an increased risk of money laundering. The due diligence requirements under the money-laundering law will now also apply to such legal advice. The structuring of companies or real estate transactions are considered to be particularly risky.

The finance ministry emphasises that the status of the legal profession and the professional secrecy of lawyers and notaries will be respected.

Further measures will be taken to combat the circumvention or violation of sanctions under the embargo law. At the same time, the threshold for cash payments in precious metals trading will be lowered from CHF100,000 ($115,000) to CHF15,000. Higher cash payments will continue to be possible, but will be subject to certain due diligence requirements. In real estate trading, on the other hand, due diligence obligations under the money-laundering law now apply to all cash payments, regardless of the amount.

The draft law to strengthen the fight against money laundering will go out for consultation by the end of November and is to be submitted to parliament as a dispatch in 2024.

An unusually large number of trees in Swiss forests are already showing brown leaves at the end of August.

This was confirmed by ecologist Constantin Zohner on Wednesday when asked by the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA.

According to Zohner, the reason for this is the stress to which the trees have been exposed due to heat, drought and high UV radiation. Data on leaf discolouration for 2023 are not yet available, said Zohner, who researches the interactions between plants and their environment at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich. However, there are many trees that show clear damage to their leaves, he said.

According to Zohner, this is not the normal course of leaf colouration, that is, the yellow or orange colours that colour the foliage in autumn. “Now many leaves are brown, some of them already dead,” Zohner said. This is due to stress damage, he said.

The scientist explains this with the interaction of several factors. On the one hand, heat and drought mean stress for the trees. On the other hand, there have been strong temperature fluctuations this summer. In addition, high UV radiation and thus high ozone levels in late summer lead to more diseases in trees. Not a new phenomenon

The premature browning of forests in Europe is not a new phenomenon, however. A study published in March in the journal Biogeosciences showed that European forests have browned extensively in the last five years.

According to the study, the largest browning to date occurred in the summer of 2022: it covered 37% of the temperate and Mediterranean forest regions. How well trees survive heat and drought depends not only on the current weather conditions, but also on those in the months or years before. Drought stress also favours summer browning indirectly, for example by promoting bark beetle and fungal infestation.

If this happens several years in a row, trees can die, according to Zohner. In addition, the trees stop photosynthesis when the leaves die, so they absorb less CO2.

Switzerland will join the planned register of war damage in Ukraine. The government has decided to join the database launched by the Council of Europe in May for evidence and information on damage caused by the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.

Joining underscores Switzerland’s support for the people affected by the war and for Ukraine’s political reconstruction process, the government said on Wednesday. Thirty-seven members of the Council of Europe have joined the damage register so far, plus Canada, the US, Japan and the EU.

The damage register is intended to collect information as well as evidence on damage, losses and injuries suffered by persons, entities or the Ukrainian state as a result of Russian attacks since the invasion on February 24, 2022. The register is intended to serve as a basis for later court proceedings and possible reparation payments by Russia to Ukraine.

The register is initially intended to last for three years. It is to be based in The Hague in the Netherlands.

Interior Minister Alain Berset, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency this year, signed a declaration for the register of damages at the Council of Europe summit in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik in mid-May. The database was the first step towards a discussion on accountability in the war, Berset told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA at the time. Switzerland had always shown solidarity with Ukraine, he said, because it was frightening what was happening there.

Estimates of the damage caused by the war and the amount needed for reconstruction in Ukraine vary widely, from $350 billion (CHF308 billion) to over $1,000 billion. The Council of Europe, Europe’s leading human rights organisation, took up a concern of the United Nations in November with the damage register.

Last year, top managers in Switzerland received on average 139 times more pay than the employees with the lowest wages in the same company. This is the result of a study conducted by the Unia trade union and published on Wednesday.

There is no “acceptable explanation” for why companies would not use “a small part” of their profits to pay “at least halfway” decent wages, Vania Alleva, president of the union, was quoted as saying in a statement. Instead, employees’ real wages have fallen while company profits have risen, she said.

The union is calling for general wage increases, good collective agreements and decent minimum wages, it said on Wednesday.

For the study, the trade union Unia examined 37 companies, including 34 listed ones. According to the study, the wage gap in 2022 of 1:139 is slightly lower than in the previous year, when it was 1:144.

A draft law has been put to consultation in response to the popular initiative of the Swiss libertarian movement calling for constitutional guarantees on the use of cash.

The popular initiative "Yes to a free and independent Swiss currency in the form of coins and banknotes (cash is freedom)" calls for coins and banknotes to always be available in sufficient quantities. It also demands that any plans to replace the Swiss franc with another currency be put to a vote by the people and the cantons.

The Federal Council rejected this initiative. In its view, the wording proposed by the authors of this text is not precise enough. However, the government recognises the importance of the role played by currency in the economy and society.

Already in law

It is therefore prepared to reinforce the importance of maintaining cash by enshrining it in the constitution. At present, both the supply of cash and the use of the Swiss franc as the national currency are guaranteed by the Federal Act on the National Bank and the Federal Act on Currency and Means of Payment.

The Federal Council's direct counterproposal will thus transfer legal provisions that are already in force to the constitution. Their interpretation and the corresponding practice are already well established and the new constitutional provision could be based on them. The counterproposal therefore allows the demands of the authors of the initiative to be met on the basis of precise legal rules.

The deadline for comments on the draft law is November 30.

Second initiative

The Swiss Freedom Movement recently launched a second initiative on the subject, which aims to ensure that people can pay in coins or banknotes in public services, particularly public transport, or in retail outlets. The movement is concerned about the rampant digitisation of society, which will soon prevent people from taking a train ticket without a credit card or digital payment platforms like Twint. It had also launched an initiative against compulsory vaccination.

Monetary policy is entirely the responsibility of the government and the Swiss National Bank (SNB). To date, there are no official plans to do away with cash.

According to the latest Swiss Payment Monitor, cash is once again the most widely used means of payment in Switzerland. After almost two years, cash is now just ahead of debit cards. In total, 29% of daily payments are made in cash.

Swiss Defence Minister Viola Amherd fears that new inconsistencies are emerging within Ruag. In the press, she expressed her annoyance at the latest affair involving the armaments group.

A basis of trust is necessary for the government and Ruag to work together, she declared on Wednesday in the German-language papers of the Tamedia Group. The trust is still there, "but now I need to know exactly what happened", she said of the investigation she commissioned last week.

This external investigation relates to Ruag's purchase of 96 Leopard tanks in Italy and the signing of a purchase contract for these tanks with the German company Rheinmetall. This contract was signed before a formal request for sale had been submitted.

"As a lawyer, this upset me," commented the Federal Councillor. From a purely legal point of view, the move was legitimate, she added, "but, personally, I would have made the formal request first".

Switzerland’s competition commission is reviewing the effects of the government-brokered takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS Group AG, a spokesman said.

The competition commission plans to submit recommendations to financial regulator Finma by the end of September, according to the spokesman. Finma may then take a decision based on it and on other significant data, he said.

UBS bought its rival in March in a deal that Swiss regulators approved under emergency rules to prevent a collapse that could have triggered a financial crisis. Finma said at the time that the application of competition rules was subordinate to the financial stability priorities contained in the takeover.

Competition commission head Patrik Ducrey said in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft in April that Finma had nevertheless asked his agency to issue an opinion on the matter. He said at the time that the commission would provide a “comprehensive assessment of the antitrust issues” that the Credit Suisse takeover may create.

It remains unclear whether any remedies that the commission might suggest would be adopted by Finma.

Swiss industry is reeling from the slowdown it experienced in the first half of the year.

While the sector's revenues were remained at the level of the first half of 2022 (0.7%), exports fell by 1.1%. New orders fell by 9.6%, leaving little room for optimism in the months ahead, Swissmem reported on Tuesday in an interim report.

The high value of the Swiss franc is penalising Swiss companies internationally, even though the global economic situation has deteriorated. As a result, purchasing managers' indices (PMI) are at low levels in a number of countries, according to the umbrella organisation, which now includes other sectors such as sensor technology, photonics, robotics, additive manufacturing and industrial IT in addition to the machinery, electrical equipment and metals (MEM industries).

The downward trend intensified in the second half of the year, when orders fell by 14.3% and sales by 3.4%. Large companies were more exposed to the difficulties than small and medium-sized ones, Swissmem points out.

Capacity utilisation stood at 88.2%, which is above the long-term average. This is attributable both to companies' full order books and to the rise in the number of employees in the sector, which now stands at 329,900.

A landslide destroyed or buried half a dozen houses in Schwanden in canton Glarus late on Tuesday.

The landslide occurred at around 5.30pm near the Wagenrunse, above Schwanden in the municipality of South Glarus, according to the cantonal police. Masses of earth and rock rolled downhill for 400 metres. At around 7.30pm, other masses of earth continued to move.

According to the police, more than half a dozen houses were destroyed or buried. No one was injured. Buildings located in the landslide zone have been evacuated and access to the surrounding area is forbidden. Evacuations have also taken place in the wider catchment area. Not yet in the clear

The night remained relatively calm. However, the situation remains unstable and further landslides could occur, a police spokesman told Swiss public radio SRF on Wednesday morning. The risk was also difficult to assess because of the darkness, noted Glarus police staff officer Richard Schmidt.

Five households and two businesses in the area had already been evacuated a week ago. Since then, it has been forbidden to enter the area. When questioned by news agency Keystone-SDA, the police that the cordoned-off area would be extended. Around 100 people have been evacuated.

Political debates at educational institutions in the western canton of Vaud are now forbidden in the ten weeks before elections, in a decision that has outraged left-wing parties.

This decision was taken by the cantonal education minister, Frédéric Borloz of the centre-right Radical-Liberal Party. It is intended to prevent vote-catching during the election campaign. Left-wing parties are outraged.

Borloz defended his decision at a meeting of the cantonal government on Tuesday. Debates in schools are important to educate young people to become citizens, but they cannot take place at any time, he said.

Debates in the run-up to votes that do not fall within the realm of pure politics are not a problem, Borloz continued. However, this does not apply to debates related to elections, where fairness is more difficult to ensure, according to him.

His decision provoked outrage from the left. Social Democrat party cantonal president Romain Pilloud explained that adversarial debates, where all political opinions can be heard, have nothing to do with "propaganda". "On the contrary, they are invigorating moments that allow young people to engage with civic issues," he said.

Alice Genoud of the Green Party called the decision an "attack on the freedom" of schools.

Support from the right

Several centre-right MPs supported Borloz. Swiss People’s Party politician Céline Baux said that debates in election times were "manipulation" and only served to "put certain personalities in the foreground". For François Cardinaux, a Radical-Liberal, "school is a place to learn, not to do politics".

The Left wanted to overturn the decision with a resolution. However, it failed because of the centre-right majority in the cantonal government.

To deal with mobility crises, the risks must be borne by different players, as shown by the recent derailment of a goods train in the Gotthard tunnel, says Swiss transport minister Albert Rösti.

The consequences of this derailment for rail transit, the country's energy supply and tourism are immense, he told the National Mobility Conference in Bern on Tuesday.

The risks must be shared, according to Rösti. We now need to ensure that the transport system is "highly efficient and resilient", he said. The world has become more complex, and crises will recur.

Technological change and digitalisation are an opportunity. But this is not a risk-free area either, given Switzerland's vulnerability to cyberattacks, the minister continued.

Rösti gave no further information on the current state of traffic through the Gotthard tunnel. The tunnel can only be reopened to passengers when completely safe traffic can be guaranteed. For the time being, it is possible to use the mountain road through the Gotthard.

At the conference, Swiss Railways director Vincent Ducrot emphasised that until the cause of the derailment was known, it was necessary to "remain calm and prepared" until the facts can be established. Only then can decisions be taken.

A Swiss remote-controlled mine-clearing machine is ready to be sent to Ukraine, the defense ministry said on Tuesday.

The machine was designed by the non-profit foundation Digger, with the aim of safely, quickly and efficiently clearing mines from areas of Ukraine that have been contaminated since the start of the war.

The machine has been handed over to the defense ministry (DDPS), according to a ministry press release. It is a DIGGER D-250, a type of tracked vehicle designed for mine clearance in rural areas.

It will be transported to Ukraine by lorry and is scheduled to arrive for September. Transport will be organised by the Geneva-based association Van For Life.

The aim of this Swiss machine is to assist the Ukrainian disaster relief service in clearing mines “quickly, carefully and efficiently", says the press release.

These explosive charges are scattered tactically in war zones, to be detonated when people or vehicles pass by.

In June, Frédéric Guerne, director and founder of the Digger Foundation, told Keystone-SDA that the project was the result of an initiative by defense minister Viola Amherd.

He added that a second machine of the same type should be ready for delivery to Ukraine by the end of the year, while a third project is under way.

In addition, specialists from the Bern-based non-profit foundation Digger will train the Ukrainian authorities on site in the use of the DIGGER-250.

Switzerland’s program to reduce energy consumption of buildings has had a record year. Some CHF425 million ($480 million) in subsidies were paid out in 2022.

This is the highest amount since the creation of the federal government’s Buildings Program.

For the third time in a row, the federal and cantonal support program can look back on a record year, says the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) in a press release published on Tuesday. In terms of amounts allocated, this represents an increase of 18% compared with 2021.

Most of the CHF139 million subsidies allocated by the cantons went to technical building installations, an increase of 31% on the previous year. The SFOE said 17,000 existing oil, gas and electricity heating systems were replaced (compared with 12,500 in 2021), 86% of them with heat pumps.

Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General has indicted former Algerian Defence Minister Khaled Nezzar before the Federal Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The accused, who was at the head of the army and secret services in the early 1990s during the Algerian civil war, is suspected of having approved, coordinated and encouraged torture and other cruel, inhumane or humiliating acts, violations of physical and mental integrity, arbitrary detentions and sentences, and extrajudicial executions, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) wrote in a press release on Tuesday.

According to the indictment, the OAG alleges that Khaled Nezzar, in his capacity as Defence Minister and member of the High State Committee, placed persons of trust in key positions and knowingly and deliberately created structures aimed at exterminating the Islamist opposition, in accordance with his plan of action. This was followed by war crimes and the widespread and systematic persecution of civilians accused of sympathising with the opposition.

The OAG documented 11 incidents that took place between 1992 and 1994. The alleged victims were subjected to torture, including waterboarding and electric shocks, and other cruel, inhumane or humiliating treatment, as well as violations of their physical and mental integrity.

The prosecution states that Nezzar knowingly and deliberately approved, coordinated or ordered these abuses.

Arrested and released

Khaled Nezzar, now 85, was arrested during a visit to Geneva in 2011. He was questioned by the OAG following a complaint lodged by torture victims and the NGO Trial International. The OAG subsequently decided to open a criminal investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In 2017, the OAG closed the case on grounds that there was no armed conflict in Algeria in the early 1990s. In 2018, the Federal Court made public its decision to overturn the OAG’s closure of the case and ordered it to resume the investigation. According to Trial International, 200,000 people died or disappeared in Algeria between 1992 and 2000.

According to the private weather service Meteonews, the temperature in August was two degrees Celsius warmer than the long-term average from 1991 to 2020.

That would make August this year one of the top five warmest ever measured.

It will probably rank fourth behind 2003, 1992 and 2022, Meteonews announced on Tuesday.

With the exception of August 2, the first ten days were sometimes cooler than normal. From August 10th to 25th, however, it was consistently hot. The heatwave that occurred during this period was very long. New all-time records were recorded on some days.

This was followed by a significant drop in temperature on Sunday and Monday, to below 15 degrees Celsius in some regions.

Although it was mostly dry for a long time, especially in the lowlands, August was also “too wet” across most of the country. This is due to the heavy precipitation of the past few days and the wet phase at the beginning of August. Across Switzerland there was around 30% more rainfall than average

Zurich airport significantly increased its revenue and profit in the first half of 2023.

For the year as a whole, the airport operator anticipates a passenger volume of 28 million people, which corresponds to 90% of the pre-crisis level.

Revenues increased in the first half of the year to CHF577 million ($653 million) thanks to growth in passenger numbers by a quarter, the airport announced on Tuesday. Compared to the pre-crisis level of the first half of 2019, this was almost 2% short of earnings.

Operating costs rose at a lower rate than in the previous year, by 15% to CHF253 million. Accordingly, the operating profit at the EBITDA level increased by 36% to CHF324 million. The net profit of CHF138 million was more than twice as high as the CHF55 million in the same period last year.

The figures were better than analysts had expected, particularly with regard to profitability.

The airport operator is now more confident about the current year. An increase in passenger numbers to 28 million is now expected. The company had previously assumed 26 million. Some 13.1 million passengers travelled through Zurich airport in the first half of the year.

An increase in rental income and higher sales from international business are also expected for 2023. Despite higher operating and energy costs, the company's profit should be “significantly higher” than in the previous year.