Switzerland Today

Greetings from Bern!

The West Nile virus, Mikhail Gorbachev and a linguistic controversy about the recent national wrestling championships all feature in Wednesday’s briefing from Switzerland.

Keystone / Jim Gathany / Centers For Diseas

In the news:  Already present in northern Italy, the West Nile virus has been detected for the first time in mosquitoes in Ticino, southern Switzerland, according to Swiss public radio, RTS. However, no cases have yet been reported of the disease being transmitted to humans.

• In humans, most infections (80%) remain asymptomaticExternal link and 20% cause flu-like symptoms. Complications (encephalitis and meningitis) occur in less than 1% of cases. Elderly and immune-compromised people are the most at risk and are advised to cover up and use mosquito repellents.
• More than two years after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, many adolescents and young adults still have psychological problems. Many suffer from depression, social withdrawal, fatigue, mood swings, physical pain such as headaches and fear of the future, according to a study conducted by the University of Bern and the cantonal youth association voja.
• Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Malta and Poland will benefit from CHF1.1 billion ($1.13 billion) in Swiss funding, as part of an agreement with the European Union. The so-called cohesion payment will fund a range of projects in those countries until 2029, the government said today.

Keystone / Str

Mikhail Gorbachev, who set out to revitalise the Soviet Union but ended up unleashing forces that led to the collapse of communism, the break-up of the state and the end of the Cold War, died yesterday after a long illness. He was 91.

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency this year, today paid tribute, tweeting that “Switzerland joined the world in mourning a man of peace. Mikhail Gorbachev changed the course of the 20th century. He will be remembered as a global leader who represented freedom and hope – values the world crucially needs today”.

Gorbachev visited Switzerland several times during his career. In 1985, for example, a key meeting with US President Ronald Reagan took place in Geneva. The meeting, at which the two superpowers discussed nuclear disarmament, is considered a turning point in the Cold War. Further negotiations took place in the following years.

In December 2000 Gorbachev called for the fight against weapons of mass destruction in front of the Swiss parliament. He also travelled to Switzerland in his capacity as president of Green Cross International, which he founded. He inaugurated the operational centre of the international environmental organisation in the Geneva suburb of Goms in 1993. Gorbachev also experienced the Swiss health system personally. He was set to attend a Green Cross charity dinner in Lucerne in 1997 but had to be hospitalised because of allergies.

© Keystone / Urs Flueeler

The national wrestling (Schwingen) championship has finished for another three years, but it’s still making headlines – because of the language used to comment on it.

Stefan Hofmänner, the commentator for Swiss public television, SRF, covered the sawdust-based action in Swiss-German dialectExternal link, what almost all German-speaking Swiss speak as their first language. Every other sporting event on SRF, however – whether it’s tennis, football or skiing – is in High German, the German spoken in Germany and what foreigners learn in school. Most Swiss can speak High German, albeit with a Swiss accent.

Thomas Aeschi, president of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, told newspaper BlickExternal link he was happy that the Schwingfest had been covered in Swiss German but added that he would like to see other sports covered in dialect as well.

What indeed is so special about wrestling? SRF pointed to the sport’s long history. “We want to do justice to Schwingen as an ancient Swiss sport in the language used in commentary,” it told Blick. The fact that Stefan Hofmänner comments on the wrestling festivals in Swiss German is an exception, it said, explaining that High German is used in other sports “because it’s easier to understand”.