Switzerland Today

Hello from Bern,

Here are the latest news and stories from Switzerland on Thursday.

© Keystone/Gaetan Bally

In the News: More omicron optimism, and an inquiry into federal spies.

• Experts from Switzerland and Germany reckon the current Omicron wave is unlikely to push their healthcare systems to breaking point. Although record numbers of infections are being reported (today it was 44,842), pressure on ICUs should remain manageable, even in a worst-case scenario, they estimate. The findings give a boost to business and political groups calling for an easing of current restrictions.
• The defence ministry has ordered a probe into suspected illegal information gathering by the country’s intelligence service. Its cyber unit allegedly snooped on various hackers between 2015 and 2020 without requesting necessary official permission. The investigation is to establish whether the secret service was aware of the breaches or whether it acted out of negligence.
• An audit office has criticised the government for its incoherent practice of returning the assets of politically exposed persons which are temporarily frozen in the country. The report claims Swiss authorities have no consistent overview of what happens to such frozen funds after their restitution, and that better transparency and integration of anti-corruption and anti-money laundering strategies is needed.

© Keystone / Anthony Anex

Olympic fates: an indecisive government, a quarantined snowboarder, and a street skier.

As we wrote yesterday, the Swiss government will in the end not be at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing next week – because of the “uncertain” pandemic situation, it said. An apolitical choice? Today, while most newspapers simply note the decision, Le Temps hazards the obvious analysis: rather than annoy human rights defenders by attending the Games, or annoy China by boycotting them, Bern is “hiding behind the pandemic to avoid tensions”, the paper writesExternal link. It’s a “far from brave” way of side-stepping the larger issue of relations with China, which need to be articulated more clearly. “Supporting the Swiss athletes from home avoids disputes, but leaves a bitter taste,” it says.

One such Swiss athlete who is going to be at the Games is snowboarder Patrizia Kummer. In fact she’s already there: the 2014 Olympic champion, who is not vaccinated against Covid, arrived two weeks ago for the mandatory 21-day isolation period in a Beijing hotel. In today’s WeltwocheExternal link, Kummer offers, in diary format, an insight into how it’s going. She has “gradually become used to life in quarantine”, she writes, and is “movingly” looked after by “the Chinese”, who leave food in front of her door three times per day. She can also work out and do some online classes in her 25 square-meter room, and she even has a TV! “Though only with Chinese channels”. All in all, it seems, there are no downsides to what she calls, in a marvel of positive thinking, a “big adventure and challenge”.

Another person embarking on an Olympic adventure, and who would surely have plenty to say to Kummer, is a man called Loten Namling. The Indian-born musician, who lives in Switzerland and who has campaigned for the Tibetan cause in the past, set off yesterday on a solitary march from Bern to Lausanne, where he plans to picket the HQ of the International Olympic Committee. “I tell the Swiss sportsmen and women NOT to go to China and participate in these Olympics, because China is committing cultural genocide. Instead, come with me to Lausanne!” he told the Keystone-SDA news agency before clopping off (he’s walking on skis to complicate things). A brave effort: Bern to Lausanne is 90 km, and judging by his speed in this videoExternal link, he’ll have his work cut out to make it before the Games are already over…

© Keystone / Gaetan Bally

US takes over (temporarily?) as biggest Swiss export market

After a slump in 2020 due to the pandemic, Swiss exports boomed to record levels in 2021, the federal customs office said today. And interestingly, for the first time since 1954, Germany is not the biggest destination – last year, it was overtaken by the US. The sign of a new era in Alpine trade? According to the customs office, it might not be a permanent shift: much of the rise in exports to the US was down to the Swiss pharma industry, which produces lots of basic components for covid vaccines. Once the pandemic is over, an official said, Germany could return to top spot. As for when that will be…

swissinfo.ch

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