Switzerland Today
Dear Swiss Abroad,
The war in Ukraine is two years old. The latest Inside Geneva podcast discusses the latest military developments in Ukraine, the chances of peace and where the war will go from here.
Here’s more on that and other news and stories from Switzerland on Tuesday.
In the news: Tougher action against asylum-seekers, former president Alain Berset visits Kyiv, banker-turned-jailbird Pierin Vincenz gets good news, and Switzerland is found guilty of racial profiling.
Swiss Justice Minister Beat Jans has proposed a series of measures to ease the burden on centres accommodating asylum-seekers. Jans is calling for tougher action against criminal asylum-seekers, expanding a 24-hour application process for asylum-seekers who have little prospect of being accepted and a freeze on applications at weekends.
Alain Berset, who left the Swiss government at the beginning of the year, arrived in Kyiv this morning shortly before the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Berset, 51, is applying for the post of Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
Zurich High Court overturned the first-instance judgement against former Raiffeisen CEO Pierin Vincenz due to “serious procedural errors” and has referred the case back to the public prosecutor, who must now bring new charges.
Switzerland has been condemned for racial profiling by the European Court of Human Rights. A Swiss national, originally from Kenya, brought the case after being stopped and searched in 2015 by police at Zurich station on his way to work.
The war in Ukraine is two years old. The Inside Geneva podcast discusses the latest military developments in Ukraine, the chances of peace and where the war will go from here.
How will this war end? Ukraine, with the West’s support, is fighting a regime that poisons, imprisons, and kills its political opponents.
Inside Geneva host Imogen Foulkes says: “Putin’s dream of getting the whole country, if that’s what he wanted, doesn’t seem that achievable, and yet Ukraine getting its entire country back doesn’t seem achievable either.”
What chance is there of a peace agreement? Does the United Nations have any role to play? Is the West’s support for Ukraine waning? What could that mean for international stability? Join Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast for the answers.
In the second in a three-part investigation into the trafficking of young Albanian women into Switzerland, we visit a middle-class neighbourhood with housing blocks scattered randomly across what was once a field and prams in the entrances to the buildings.
It is here that the Swiss lower middle class and the modern precariat live, as well as the country’s cleaners, carers, plumbers, shop assistants and construction workers. It is these people and their families who typically look for foreign nannies because they need support in their everyday lives – which they cannot really afford.
It is here, in this faceless agglomeration, that Lirije, a young woman from Albania, begins not a hopeful new life but a journey through hell.
A bit of tennis history was made this week – and Swiss players Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka (pictured) played their part.
The weekly ATP world rankings released yesterday revealed that for the first time since their introduction, there is no player with a one-handed backhand in the top ten.
On August 23, 1973, the Association of Tennis Professional (ATP), founded a year earlier, published a world ranking for the first time. Only one of the players in the top ten at the time had a two-handed backhand: Jimmy Connors.
More than 50 years later, with Stefanos Tsitsipas dropping out of the top ten, for the first time none of the top ten tennis players in the world plays with a one-handed backhand. With Tsitsipas (ranked 11) and Grigor Dimitrov (13), there are only two representatives of this rare species left in the top 25.
Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka, currently ranked 67, is widely thought to have one of the finest backhands everExternal link. Tennis legend Roger Federer, who retired in 2022, also had a very elegant single-handed backhand. As, for what it’s worth, do I…
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