Sunday, October 6, 2024
Published: Sunday, Oct 6th 2024, 05:00
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Wage trends, an idea to abolish official gender and the discontinued investigation against a Valais church abbot for alleged abuse: this and more can be found in the Sunday newspapers. The headlines in unverified reports:
"Sonntagszeitung":
Wages in Switzerland have developed better than the Confederation recently reported. This was revealed by new data from the Swiss National Bank (SNB), reported the Sonntagszeitung newspaper. According to the SNB indicator, wages have risen by an average of 1.9 percent since August 2023. The pent-up demand since 2020 is less than 1 percent, i.e. much less than according to the FSO, the newspaper wrote. The wage index of the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), on the other hand, states that real wages have fallen by more than 3 percent since 2020 because inflation has more than eaten away wage increases. The SNB data has been available since 2018 and includes around 42 million wage payments per year that flow from an employer's account to an employee's account. According to the report, the wage development calculated in this way corresponds well with other wage statistics and is clearly better than the SFSO wage index. The Federal Office defends itself against criticism of its index: "The FSO is of the opinion that the results of the Swiss wage index are reliable."
"Sonntagszeitung" / "Le Matin Dimanche":
In a radical proposal, the renowned Swiss professor of private law Thomas Geiser has called for the abolition of gender in passports. The state should no longer differentiate between men and women, said the 71-year-old former professor of labor law at the University of St. Gallen in an interview with the "Sonntagszeitung" and "Le Matin Dimanche". The entries should be deleted from the civil register. According to Geiser, there is no longer any reason for such a classification. It contradicts the equality requirement in the Federal Constitution. In his opinion, abolition would simplify many things and would have no disadvantages. Even in areas such as compulsory military service and public toilets, an official gender would be superfluous, said Geiser. His idea goes further than the demand for a third gender. After winning this year's Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), music talent Nemo called for the introduction of a third gender at a meeting with Justice Minister Beat Jans.
"NZZ am Sonntag":
Following EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's rejection of a unilateral safeguard clause for Switzerland to limit immigration, EU supporters want to save the plans. "We ourselves will write a safeguard clause into the constitution or into the Foreign Nationals and Integration Act, with which we can independently and temporarily slow down immigration in an emergency, said FDP National Councillor Simon Michel from Solothurn in an interview with the "NZZ am Sonntag". This would not be part of the treaties with the EU, but a counter-proposal to the SVP initiative against the 10 million Swiss. The people could then vote on it first. This would clarify the immigration issue. The clause would not be part of the new agreements with the EU and would not be contrary to the treaty per se, said Michel. "Brussels would only intervene if we actually invoke the clause." This would be followed by a procedure in the joint committee and before the court of arbitration, which would take around eight years. "During this time, we can control immigration."
"Sunday newspaper"
National Councillors from all parties have criticized Federal Councillor Beat Jans in a sharp letter for poor communication on asylum issues. According to a report in the Sonntagszeitung newspaper, they complained in the letter that Jans was withholding important information from them. The letter was written by Aargau SVP National Councillor Martina Bircher. 22 out of 23 members of the National Council's Political Affairs Committee agreed with the letter. The report cited specific cases of misguided information policy, such as the Roma problem in connection with the S protection status. Jans was also said to be conspicuous by his absence at asylum meetings. Jans' spokeswoman confirmed receipt of the letter. In response to the criticism, she said: "Federal Councillor Beat Jans attends meetings of the relevant committee when Federal Council business or business with major political implications is on the agenda."
"Sonntagsblick":
In Valais, the public prosecutor's office has dropped criminal proceedings against church abbot Jean Scarcella for alleged abuse. Attorney General Beatrice Pilloud did not want to tell "Sonntagsblick" why the proceedings were discontinued. According to the newspaper, Scarcella is opposed to journalists being able to view the discontinuation order. The Abbot of Saint-Maurice had been accused of harassing young people while they were playing the piano. According to the report, a young person contacted the Pope about this and described the incident in a letter. An internal church complaint mentions a second victim. Canon law proceedings against Scarcella are still ongoing. Canon law can sanction incidents that are time-barred under state law. In February, the abbey commissioned an independent working group to investigate the abuse complex since the 1960s. The results should be available in summer 2025.
"Sonntagsblick":
Following the announced job cuts at the Zurich-based media publisher Tamedia, amounting to almost 300 jobs or around 20 percent of the workforce, a new magazine is to be created in Winterthur. A group of individuals launched a corresponding appeal, as reported by "Sonntagsblick". "We need a media project from Winti for Winti that researches important topics independently and helps us as a city to make good decisions in a democratic and future-oriented way," wrote the initiators. According to the report, over 800 people have already signed the appeal. More than half of them are prepared to pay for a new media service. One in five could even imagine contributing themselves. Among the local supporters are prominent names such as the Winterthur comedian Viktor Giacobbo and SP Co-President Mattea Meyer. Tamedia is closing the online presence of the traditional Winterthur newspaper "Landbote" and integrating the editorial team into its headquarters in Zurich.
"Sonntagsblick":
The physician and prion researcher Adriano Aguzzi, who recently hit the headlines due to manipulated research work in his team, was already the subject of investigations at the University of Zurich in 2019 following allegations to this effect. Some papers that were recently corrected or withdrawn had already been reported to the university management as suspicious at the end of 2019, as reported by Sonntagsblick. According to the report, the university concluded the investigation into suspected scientific misconduct against Aguzzi in September 2020. According to the university, it was concluded that "the suspected irregularities" in the publications in question had "either been refuted or reported as corrigenda to the journals concerned". Four years after the investigation was completed, Aguzzi withdrew one of the papers that had been deemed clean by the university management. A correction was made in the summer of 2024 to another paper that had received the blessing of the university management in 2020.
"Le Matin Dimanche":
The religious movements in Switzerland about which the Intercantonal Information Center for Religious Affairs (CIC) in Geneva was contacted most frequently mainly concerned Christianity. Director Manéli Farahmand explained this to the French-speaking Swiss Sunday newspaper "Le Matin Dimanche". 30 years after the massacre of the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS), the evangelical milieu, new spiritual currents and new religious movements as well as alternative therapies were the main topics of discussion, added the social anthropologist. "In comparison, Islam and the Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish traditions only account for around 7 percent of annual inquiries." According to Farahmand, the CIC's activities have changed considerably over the last 20 years. "In 2001, the CIC was still heavily influenced by the drama of the OTS and the issue of dangerous sectarian developments." Today, however, political concerns about sectarian aberrations, exacerbated by the context of the pandemic, are on the rise again.
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