Switzerland Today

Dear Swiss Abroad,

the autumn session of the Swiss parliament came to an end today with the final votes. In his review, my colleague Balz Rigendinger takes you through the debates and decisions.

Young students in Switzerland now have access to high-tech like never before. Various teams are building rockets and planning to be able to land them safely again. I was able to report on their efforts.

Best wishes from Bern

Keystone / Peter Klaunzer

What did the autumn session of the Swiss parliament bring? A lot of controversy, but little progress, especially from the perspective of the Swiss Abroad.

Health insurance was not only a hot topic yesterday, but also in the autumn session. The House of Representatives narrowly rejected a postulate that wanted to make a Swiss health insurance solution for expatriates possible.

“The problem that many Swiss Abroad have no or inadequate health insurance remains,” said Josef Schnyder, the delegate for the Swiss abroad in Thailand, to my colleague Balz Rigendinger.

The main topic of the session was money, writes Balz in his review of the three-week session. On the one hand, Parliament wants to make savings everywhere – keyword debt brake – and on the other hand, it wants to free up four billion francs for the army.

• Here is our summary of the autumn session with a Swiss Abroad focus.

swissinfo.ch

For the first time in Europe, a team has landed a rocket after a take-off. A bunch of students are behind it!

We first heard about this maneuver from the US company ‘SpaceX’, which reuses its rockets and lands them with pinpoint accuracy. Now a team of young students from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) has achieved this on a smaller scale for the first time in Europe. Their Colibri rocket measures 2.5 metres and weighs 100kg. We visited them in a gravel pit in the Gruyère region.

The core team of the ‘Gruyère Space Programme’ already know each other from secondary school. They moved up the education ladder together together through high school to the EPFL. After completing the project, they want to found a start-up together. It will no longer be about rockets, but will involve the same technology, they say. They don’t want to reveal any more yet.

The ‘NICOLLIER’ team of the ARIS space project consists of students from ETH Zurich. They are planning to bring their rocket back to the ground independently using an AI-controlled parachute. The drop tests from a helicopter were successful, as they showed me and my colleague Michele Andina in Dübendorf.

• Find out more about these young rocket geniuses and their soaring project.

EPA/JAGADEESH NV

This study makes you sit up and take notice: Thousands of babies were brought illegally from India to Switzerland for adoption.

A total of 2,278 infants were brought from India to Switzerland for adoption between 1979 and 2002. This is according to the Beobachter today. The figures come from a 320-page study conducted by the University of St. Gallen and the Bern University of Applied Sciences on behalf of the cantons of Zurich and Thurgau.

This often happened without the consent of the biological mother. This is child trafficking, at least in those cases where the mother’s signature is missing. “To this day, it remains unclear where the children came from and who their mothers were,” the report states. The Swiss authorities have also failed in this regard.

The research team also found evidence of violence and drug trials on babies. It calls for ‘Switzerland to clarify with India how those affected can gain access to their Indian court files in order to assert their right to know their origins’, as the Beobachter writes.

• More details of the scandal in BeobachterExternal link.

KEYSTONE/Christof Schuerpf)

‘Ok, boomers’: the last of them will soon be retiring. Those born up to 1964 have amassed more wealth than any generation before them. And yet they still worry about their standard of living.

A couple who are now or will soon be retired own around CHF 1.57 million. This is the median value. It divides households into two equal halves: one has fewer assets, the other more. This is shown by a study, the results of which were presented today.

Around 2,200 baby boomer couples between the ages of 60 and 68 were surveyed, who, according to the definition of the Federal Statistical Office, are counted as part of the middle class. Despite their large assets, however, many baby boomers wonder whether this will be sufficient for their desired standard of living in retirement.

This is mainly due to the fact that expenses do not fall as much as expected after retirement. For example, the cost of health insurance would increase. And many forget that more leisure time also leads to more spending – keyword: extensive travelling!

• The Tages-Anzeiger External linktakes a closer look at Boomer lifestyle.

Keystone / Peter Schneider

Photo of the Day

It wasn’t an easy press conference for Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider yesterday when she had to announce another rise in health insurance premiums. Apparently, the journey to the media centre was not all sunshine either.

Adapted from German by DeepL/ac