Switzerland Today

Greetings from Zurich!

The controversial landslide victory for Russian president Vladimir Putin has set tongues wagging in Switzerland, as in other parts of the world. I’ll bring you more on Switzerland’s reaction later.

But first, we bring you the other major headlines of the day.

Swiss F-5 Tiger jet KEYSTONE/© KEYSTONE / URS FLUEELER

In the news: Tiger jets handed to US, Zurich starts cannabis study and EU negotiations begin.

• The Swiss Federal Council has formally re-started negotiations with the European Union on a new bilateral relations agreement.
• Canton Zurich has started Switzerland’s largest study on cannabis – a five year programme that will make cannabis accessible for recreational use.
• Federal police have imposed a series of fines and other financial penalties on seven people involved in a large-scale Postbus fraud lasting several years.
• Switzerland has handed the first of its 22 F-5 Tiger jets to the United States military, which will use them for training.

Vladimir Putin KEYSTONE

The Russia question

Vladimir Putin has won a fifth term as Russian president after an election that has been condemned in many parts of the world as being a sham.

More than 1,000 Russian exiles protested the result on the streets of Bern and Geneva as part of the “Future Russia- Switzerland” movement.

They also gathered to pay tribute to Alexei Navalny, who led the largest opposition movement to Putin in Russia before dying in prison under suspicious circumstances.

Meanwhile, the Lausanne-based International Olympic Committee is meeting this week to decide whether Russian athletes will be allowed to take part in the opening ceremony of the Paris Summer Games this summer.

Global anger at Putin’s re-election will only serve to heap pressure on the IOC, which is treading a fine line between sport and geopolitics.

Another talking point in Switzerland is the proposed Ukraine peace summit that is intended to take place on Swiss soil later this year.

The summit would gain a large slice of credibility if Russian ally China would agree to take part. But China continues to keep the world waiting for a decision. “We are closely following the Ukraine conference that Switzerland is organising and are examining the possibility of taking part,” Chinese Ambassador Wang Shihting told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper.

Roger Pfund with Swiss passport KEYSTONE

Death of a banknote designer

Switzerland has sadly lost another big personality, graphic designer Roger Pfund, who passed away at the weekend aged 81.

The name may not be immediately familiar to everyone, but Pfund’s work can be found on Swiss passports and many banknotes.

Pfund was a legend of the graphic design world, reports Swiss public broadcaster RTSExternal link. He designed the latest Swiss passport, the reserve series of banknotes for the Swiss National Bank and the latest edition of French banknotes.

Born in Bern in 1943, Pfund was most closely associated with Geneva, where he created his most iconic images.

Distinguished by numerous international awards, he worked in the fields of culture, humanitarian work, finance and industry.

He even had time to design a mini Eiffel Tower replica at the Place des Nations in Geneva to mark the 50^th anniversary of the United Nations.