Important headlines of the Sunday press in non-verified reports:
Federal Council like the Beatles on pedestrian strips
According to the “SonntagsZeitung” and “Le Matin Dimanche”, the Bundesrat photo 2020 should have been a tribute to the Beatles. Everything had been planned for a long time – but then the federal lawyers intervened. Federal President Simonetta Sommaruga wanted to depict the government members like the Beatles on the cover of the album “Abbey Road” on a pedestrian strip. This should relate to the music that Sommaruga cares about and to the subjects of her department, such as traffic. A spokesman for the administration confirmed to the newspapers that the project raised legal questions. Because it was not 100% certain whether copyright problems could arise and the federal government did not want to risk litigation, the decision was made to use a different motive for the 2020 Federal Council photo, it said.
BKB suspected of money laundering
According to the “SonntagsZeitung”, a new ruling by the federal court obliges the Aargau public prosecutor’s office to investigate the Basler Kantonalbank BKB on suspicion of money laundering. Actually, she wanted to stop the investigations. BKB is in focus because many clients of the asset manager ASE had their accounts with them and because they are said to have helped ASE set up the Quanto Strategic Currency Fund in the Cayman Islands. A BKB spokesman told the newspaper that the federal court had ruled that the prosecutor’s office was not allowed to stop the investigation. Whether the allegation of money laundering was true or not was not the subject of the decision. According to the BKB, the allegation is still unfounded, it said. Zurich lawyer Claudio Kerber filed criminal charges for money laundering in 2015. The public prosecutor is now obliged to start investigations against BKB as a company and against the bank’s responsible persons, he told the “SonntagsZeitung”.
Expensive branded products in Switzerland
According to the French newspaper Le Matin Dimanche and the “SonntagsBlick”, seven out of ten respondents think the Swiss prices for imported branded products are too high. The newspaper refers to a survey conducted by the GFS-Zurich institute among around 1,000 people in Switzerland on behalf of the Fair Price Initiative. This means that around 68 percent of those surveyed approved the initiative. They rejected around 20 percent. The survey also shows that 48 percent of the participants occasionally shop abroad. According to the information, magazines are still 51 percent more expensive in Switzerland than in France. And a German also pays around 25 less than a Swiss for Made-in-China toys.
Fines for snow groomers from Lenk
A year ago, according to the “SonntagsZeitung”, a conviction came to an end in a speed accident in the Lenk ski area in the Bernese Oberland. A 21-year-old was banged on the slopes by a four-year-old girl – the child was thrown away and later died in the hospital. The Oberland public prosecutor’s office in Thun BE sentenced the man for negligent homicide. The newspaper relies on the penalty order. Accordingly, the youngster was on a blue slope “at high speed (at least 50 km / h)”. According to the public prosecutor, the racer violated several slope rules of the FIS ski association. For his crime, he received a conditional fine of 100 daily rates of CHF 110 each. He was also fined CHF 2,700.
Almost 4 percent more new cars on the road
In Switzerland and Liechtenstein, 311,466 new cars came onto the streets last year, according to the “SonntagsBlick”. This is 3.9 percent more than in the previous year. The newspaper relies on an evaluation of Auto Switzerland. In 2019, for the first time, more than one in ten new cars had an alternative drive. The share of electric, hybrid, gas and hydrogen models was 13.1 percent. The proportion of models that can be charged on the power grid has also reached a new high of 5.6 percent; Purely electric passenger cars more than doubled their market share to 4.2 percent. In view of the stricter CO2 regulations from this year, Auto Switzerland is expecting a further increase in the alternative market share, it said.
Drug severely damages baby brains
According to the “SonntagsZeitung” and “Le Matin Dimanche”, babies were born in Switzerland with serious brain damage for years because their mothers had taken a medicine during pregnancy. Depakine is even a widespread remedy for epilepsy and migraines. For more than fifteen years, however, studies have shown that it can cause physical damage as well as severe mental damage to the unborn child. The risk is 30 to 40 percent. Nevertheless, doctors-to-be did not inform mothers-to-be, and the Swissmedic drug agency warned too late about the effects. In France up to 6500 children are affected. To date, 39 cases of mental or physical damage have been reported to Swissmedic in this context, the newspapers continued. However, a high number of unreported cases is suspected.
Shortage of doctors in asylum centers
According to the “NZZ am Sonntag”, the Federal Administrative Court has approved at least forty complaints from asylum seekers in the past few months and has rejected the relevant decisions for reassessment to the State Secretariat for Migration SEM. In all cases, the court complained that the State Secretariat had not sufficiently clarified the state of health of the applicants. The Asylum Act stipulates that rejected asylum seekers may not be deported from Switzerland if their deportation is unreasonable for medical reasons. SEM attributes this to the newspaper due to the new procedures that have been in effect since March 2019. It was not always clear to everyone involved from the start which medical documents had to be submitted to which bodies at what time, it said. However, the newspaper identified another problem – there was a shortage of doctors in the federal asylum centers, it said.
The federal government takes a close look at asylum dossiers
The Federal Intelligence Service (NDB) last year checked 1196 asylum files for a threat to Switzerland’s internal or external security. This is reported by the “SonntagsBlick”, referring to figures from the NDB. In 25 cases, the secret service issued a rejection recommendation. The jihadist threat is at the forefront of the rejection, so those affected are usually Islamist extremists, members of a terrorist organization or war criminals. The secret service does not go into more detail. One thing is certain: Asylum dossiers from countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen would be systematically examined very closely.
Attack on «SVP-Mercedes»
According to the “SonntagsBlick”, an attack on an SVP politician occurred in Bern. After Christoph Mörgeli and Roger Köppel had been showered with milkshakes in Zurich at the end of the year, strangers attacked the S-Class Mercedes of SVP Party President Thomas Fuchs. They showered the vehicle with paste and threw eggs at it. The attack occurred on the evening before New Year’s Eve in the Lorraine quarter in Bern. Fuchs was in a restaurant. The politician, who is also active in the real estate business, spoke to the newspaper about an “unpleasant mix of riding school students and opponents of capitalism”, which manifests itself in the neighborhood. On Friday, he filed a complaint about property damage. The Bernese cantonal police confirmed this at the request of the “SonntagsBlick”.
Proceedings against football officials
The federal prosecutor’s office ordered the Argentine Eduardo Deluca, a former general secretary of the South American football association Conmebol, to pay a conditional fine of CHF 36,000 and a fine of CHF 5,000 for the fine. This is reported by the «NZZ am Sonntag». The BA considered it to be proven that Deluca was guilty of unsafe business support. The corresponding penalty order is not yet final. The BA has closed a second criminal case against Paraguyan and former Conmebol President Nicolas Leoz. Leoz had a heart attack last August. In connection with the completion of the two proceedings, the BA also ordered the repayment of around CHF 16 million to the South American football association. The funds had been confiscated from Leoz and Deluca accounts at Bank Julius Baer and Credit Suisse.
Financial illiteracy
According to the “NZZ am Sonntag”, many people cannot even answer simple financial questions correctly. The phenomenon is called financial illiteracy and is also widespread in this country. A large part of the population in Switzerland has large gaps in knowledge in this area, said Annamaria Lusardi, economics professor at George Washington University in the USA, who has been researching the phenomenon for around twenty years. Switzerland is only in the upper midfield when it comes to financial knowledge. German Switzerland did better than French. Young, old, women and those with little income and little education are particularly affected. A special problem shows up in older people. These tended to overestimate their financial knowledge. “That is why they are ideal target groups for fraudsters,” Lusardi told the newspaper.
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