Switzerland and France accused of lack of climate action in ECHR hearing

Group of Swiss women and French ex-mayor suing their governments in first such cases heard by rights court

The governments of Switzerland and France have been accused of breaching the human rights of their citizens by not acting decisively enough on climate change, at a landmark legal hearing in Strasbourg.

A panel of judges at the European court of human rights heard petitions from a group of Swiss women and a French former mayor seeking to bolster climate action in their countries. Although climate litigation has spread quickly around the world, these are the first such cases to be heard by the ECHR.

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Credit Suisse shares continue to fall despite efforts to calm nerves

Lifelines handed to Swiss bank and US regional bank First Republic fail to ease investor concerns

Credit Suisse shares came under renewed pressure on Friday, despite fresh attempts by central banks and politicians to calm fears about a crisis in the global banking industry sparked by the collapse of two US banks this week.

Shares in Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, fell 8% on Friday despite securing a £45bn emergency loan from the Swiss National Bank just days earlier to shore up its liquidity after a week of panic.

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Credit Suisse takes $54bn loan from Swiss central bank after share price plunge

After largest shareholder was unable to provide backing, Europe’s 17th largest lender says it will use government help to become ‘simpler and more focused’

Credit Suisse has announced that it will take a CHF50bn ($53.7bn) loan from the Swiss central bank, in an action it says will “pre-emptively strengthen its liquidity” as it moves to stem a crisis of confidence a day after its share price plummeted.

This additional liquidity would support the bank in taking the “necessary steps to create a simpler and more focused bank built around client needs”, its statement said. The bank said it was also making buyback offers on about $3bn worth of debt.

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‘Gruyere’ can be used to describe US cheeses, court rules

Decision means word cannot be restricted in US only for kind made originally in France or Switzerland

A US appeals court has ruled that the word “gruyere” is a common label for cheese and cannot be reserved just for the kind made originally in France or Switzerland.

The US does not have the same strict rules as Europe on the designation of origin for foods, said judges in the Richmond, Virginia-based US court of appeals for the fourth circuit.

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Glencore shareholders to receive almost £6bn after record profits

Mining and commodities firm’s pre-tax profit climbed 60% to £28.2bn last year, up £10.6bn on 2021

Glencore will give almost £6bn to shareholders after the mining and commodities company reported record pre-tax profits of more than £28bn in 2022, boosted by rocketing oil and coal prices.

The Switzerland-based group, whose market capitalisation makes it one of the largest FTSE 100 companies, announced a payout of £5.9bn ($7.1bn) to shareholders, including dividends and a new £1.2bn share buyback programme.

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Cacti replacing snow on Swiss mountainsides due to global heating

Invasive species proliferating in Valais is encroaching on natural reserves and posing a biodiversity threat

The residents of the Swiss canton of Valais are used to seeing their mountainsides covered with snow in winter and edelweiss flowers in summer. But as global heating intensifies, they are increasingly finding an invasive species colonising the slopes: cacti.

Authorities say cactus species belonging to the genus Opuntia, or prickly pears, are proliferating in parts of Valais, encroaching on natural reserves and posing a biodiversity threat.

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Record warm winter in parts of Europe forces closure of ski slopes

Resorts open hiking trails and lifts for mountain bikes amid unseasonably high temperatures and lack of snow

Europe’s record-breaking warm winter weather has closed ski slopes and forced resorts to open summer trails or shut altogether, as grass and mud replace seasonal snow from Chamonix in France to Innsbruck in Austria.

Eight countries across the continent have recorded their warmest January day ever, with temperatures in parts of Switzerland and southern Germany exceeding 20C and 90 monitoring stations in France setting new records over new year.

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Computer says there is a 80.58% probability painting is a real Renoir

Swiss company uses algorithm to judge whether contested Portrait de femme (Gabrielle) is genuinely by French artist


Staring enigmatically at an unseen object to her right, the black-haired woman bears a striking resemblance to the person depicted in Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s painting Gabrielle, which Sotheby’s recently valued at between £100,000-150,000.

However, art connoisseurs disagree over whether the work, which is owned by a private Swiss collector, is the real deal. Now, artificial intelligence has waded in to help settle the dispute, and the computer has deemed that it probably is a genuine Renoir.

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Driver ‘seriously injured’ after being run over three times by own car

Swiss woman, 45, was run over three times after she got out of her car and left the engine running

A woman in Switzerland was seriously injured after she got out of her car with the engine still on only for it to run her over three times, police said on Friday.

The 45-year-old had stepped out of her car in a residential area in St Gallen in northeastern Switzerland, probably in order to get something out of the boot, regional police said, according to the Swiss news agency ATS.

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Vegan activist takes Switzerland to human rights court over prison diet

Man says state prison failed to provide adequate diet, in appeal joined by former psychiatric patient

Switzerland has been challenged at the European court of human rights over a failure to provide adequate vegan diets to a prisoner and a patient at the psychiatric ward of a hospital, in a case that could lead to veganism being interpreted as a protected characteristic under the right of freedom of conscience across geographic Europe.

The court, which is part of the Council of Europe and not the EU, this week formally asked its member state Switzerland to respond to the two complaints that Swiss state institutions had failed to provide a totally vegan diet to two applicants while they were in prison and in a hospital psychiatric unit respectively.

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Credit Suisse to cut 9,000 jobs and seek billions in new investment

Shake-up aims to draw line under series of scandals and new £3.5bn loss at Swiss bank

Credit Suisse has disclosed sweeping plans to cut 9,000 jobs and raise billions of pounds from investors in a Saudi-led funding round, as part of a company-wide overhaul meant to draw a line under a series of scandals and help it recover from a £3.5bn loss.

The announcement follows months of speculation over the scale of change scheduled under its new boss, Ulrich Körner, who has been tasked with scaling back the investment bank and slashing costs.

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Credit Suisse puts Zurich hotel up for sale in urgent liquidity dash

Ailing Swiss bank’s share price has collapsed after being hit by series of crises

Credit Suisse, the investment bank whose shares plummeted to record lows this week over fears it could be on the brink of collapse, is selling the five-star Savoy hotel in the centre of Zurich for as much as 400m Swiss francs (£361m).

The bank, whose stock has fallen by more than 40% in the past six months, said on Thursday it had put the 184-year-old hotel on Paradeplatz in the heart of the city’s financial district on the market as part of a regular review of its global real estate assets.

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Switzerland picks site near German border for nuclear waste storage

In ‘project of the century’ country will bury spent nuclear fuel deep underground in clay

Swiss authorities have selected a site in northern Switzerland, not far from the German border, to host a deep geological storage repository for radioactive waste.

After nearly 50 years of searching for the best way to store its radioactive waste, Switzerland is gearing up for its “project of the century”, entailing burying spent nuclear fuel deep underground in clay.

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Hunger stones, wrecks and bones: Europe’s drought brings past to surface

Receding rivers and lakes have exposed ghost villages, a Nazi tank and a Roman fort

The warning could not be starker. Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine (“If you see me, then weep”), reads the grim inscription on a rock in the Elbe River near the northern Czech town of Děčín, close to the German border.

As Europe’s rivers run dry in a devastating drought that scientists say could prove the worst in 500 years, their receding waters are revealing long-hidden artefacts, from Roman camps to ghost villages and second world war shipwrecks.

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Heatwaves put classic Alpine hiking routes off-limits

Routes that are usually safe at this time of year now face hazards as a result of warmer temperatures

Little snow cover and glaciers melting at an alarming rate in Europe’s heatwaves have put some classic Alpine hiking routes off-limits.

Usually at the height of summer tourists flock to the Alps and seek out well-trodden paths up to some of its peaks. But with warmer temperatures – which scientists say are driven by climate change – speeding up glacier melt and thawing permafrost, routes that are usually safe at this time of year now face hazards such as falling rocks released from the ice.

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Indonesian islanders sue cement producer for climate damages

Claimants say they are experiencing serious negative impacts and demand Swiss-based Holcim pay compensation

Residents of an Indonesian island threatened by rising sea levels have begun legal action against the cement producer Holcim.

The claim for compensation, filed in Switzerland by three men and one woman, is understood to be the first major climate damages lawsuit against a cement company.

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14th-century samurai sword found in car at Swiss border

Officers say 700-year-old artefact worth €650,000 was transported from Stuttgart on behalf of driver’s employer

Swiss customs authorities have discovered an antique Japanese samurai sword made nearly 700 years ago, after it was smuggled into the country.

The Federal Office for Customs and Border Security said the katana sword, dated to 1353 and valued at €650,000 (£550,000), was found in a car with Swiss plates during a routine search near Zurich. Several other objects were also found in the car, including an antique book, a contract and the sales invoice.

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Swiss police seize 500kg of cocaine at Nespresso factory

Workers at plant in Romont alert authorities to mysterious white powder found in sacks of coffee beans

Swiss police have seized more than 500kg of cocaine from a shipment of coffee beans delivered to a Nespresso plant.

Workers at the plant in Romont, in the western Swiss canton of Fribourg, alerted authorities to a mysterious white powder found in sacks of coffee beans, police said.

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Russia seizes Audemars Piguet watches in apparent retaliation for Swiss sanctions

Timepieces worth millions of dollars were taken by FSB agents in Moscow, according to a Swiss paper

Russian agents seized millions of dollars worth of Audemars Piguet watches in Moscow in an apparent retaliation for Swiss sanctions banning luxury goods exports, Bloomberg reported, citing Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag.

The watches, which can cost more than £700,000 apiece, were seized from the firm’s local premises by agents from Russia’s FSB security service on Tuesday, the newspaper said. It cited independent sources and a confidential Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs memo written for members of parliament that apparently gave details of the raid.

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Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 25 of the invasion

Putin’s forces have bombed an art school sheltering 400 civilians in Mariupol, the city’s council has said

Mariupol’s city council said Russian forces bombed an art school where 400 civilians, including children, were sheltering.

Thousands of residents of Mariupol have been forcibly deported to Russia and then sent by rail to various economically depressed cities where they have to remain, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman claimed.

An estimated 10 million people – more than a quarter of Ukraine’s population – have now fled their homes as a result of Russia’s “devastating” war, the head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR said.

One of Europe’s largest metallurgical factories, the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, has been destroyed by the Russians, said Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister.

Russia has struck Ukraine with cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and launched hypersonic missiles from Crimean airspace, the Russian defence ministry said.

An attack on a barracks in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv on Friday killed more than 40 Marines, according to the New York Times. If confirmed, it would be one of the deadliest known attacks on Ukrainian forces during the war.

The Ukrainian parliament said 115 Ukrainian children have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion. It said at least 140 more had been injured.

Pope Francis described what is happening in Ukraine as “inhumane and sacrilegious”. Addressing tens of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square in Rome for his weekly blessing, he called on leaders to stop “this repugnant war”.

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