Free Republic

The humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is accused of failing to adequately inform the Swiss authorities of the scale of reports of sexual misconduct by MSF staff in Chad. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has now suspended funding of CHF1.25 million ($1.52 million) to MSF. The frozen amount represents one tranche of the CHF6.25 million pledged to MSF for the current year. According to the newspaper NZZ Am Sonntag, an internal investigation by MSF revealed 59 reports of sexual violence and exploitation, particularly involving women and young girls who are refugees from neighbouring Sudan. Eighteen staff...

La Brújula Verde reports that an iron window grille has been unearthed near a Roman house at Augusta Raurica, the site of an ancient settlement on the banks of the Rhine River in northwestern Switzerland. Five bars, two crosspieces, and rings that were likely used to attach the grille to a wooden window frame were recovered. Archaeologists also found two nails. The grill had been set in a wall made of stone and mortar that has since collapsed. The building has not yet been dated. To read about previous finds from Augusta Raurica, go to "Oops! Down the Drain."

Substantial sums of hard currency provided to Saddam Hussein from the sale of Iraqi oil allowed under United Nations sanctions have been laundered through banks around the world by a Russian Mafiya boss described in an MI5 report as "one of the world's top criminals." Despite that, Israel continues to allow Semyon Yukovich Mogilevich to travel openly on one of its passports. Even more remarkable, the MI5 description was reinforced by an investigation by Mossad. Its report concluded that Mogilevich is a "major criminal - but has taken great care to commit no crime against Israel." His supply of arms...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States moved Wednesday to recover more than $1 billion that federal officials say was stolen from a Malaysian economic development fund and that was used for high-end real estate, fancy artwork and production of the Hollywood film, "The Wolf of Wall Street." The diverted funds paid for luxury properties in New York and California, a $35 million private jet and expensive paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, according to federal government complaints that demand the recovery and forfeiture of the ill-gotten assets. The complaints, filed in Los Angeles, allege a complex money laundering...

Switzerland’s upper house of parliament wants to hand the Federal Council, the country’s executive body, the power to decide how much capital UBS needs to hold. The motion... would allow the government to set banking capital regulations through ordinance rather than requiring full parliamentary approval. The stakes are substantial. Government estimates peg the additional Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital requirement at roughly $20 billion, with some analyses suggesting the figure could climb to $22 billion. At issue is how much of a financial cushion UBS must maintain at the parent level to fully back its foreign subsidiaries. CET1 capital...

A government watchdog group is urging lawmakers to crack down on foreign money flowing into U.S. nonprofits that influence American politics and public policy, according to letters exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.Americans for Public Trust (APT) is sending letters to all 50 governors and officials on six congressional committees directing them to its newly launched FollowForeignMoney.org database, which has cataloged a running total of more than $5 billion flowing from foreign governments, foreign nationals and foreign charities into U.S.-based nonprofits .... The group is calling on state and federal officials to examine whether existing laws adequately prevent...

GENEVA (AP) — A shooting at a rave in the northern Swiss canton of Aargau left one person dead and five wounded early Sunday, local police and media reported. Police said they are still looking for potentially more than one suspect. Aargau cantonal police wrote earlier on X that a 22-year-old woman died of injuries at the scene. Four men and one woman, between 24 and 27 years old, were taken to the hospital with injuries ranging from minor to severe. All of the victims are residents of Switzerland, police said. They did not release their names in line with...

A fascinating piece by Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal [July 2] with the title: “How a Secret, Failed Trip to Chechnya Turned Key Plotter’s Focus to America and bin Laden.” The key plotter in this case was 9/11 mastermind and bin Laden’s Egyptian lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The article’s title suggests that Zawahiri’s failure to settle in Chechnya (due to his “detention” by the KGB/FSB in 1996-97) led him to Afghanistan and an alliance with bin Laden. But according to ranking U.S. terrorism expert, Yossef Bodansky, Egyptian Jihad leader Zawahiri was preparing a massive...

A simple website flaw exposed members, political profiles, login tokens, and dating data from Peter Thiel ‘s secretive Dialog network. Dialog, a private invitation-only organization cofounded in 2006 by billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, has spent two decades refusing to disclose its membership. That position became harder to maintain last week when Swiss hacktivist maia arson crimew, known for exposing the US government’s No Fly List, found an open directory embedded in the source code of dialog.org that was visible to anyone who viewed the page. WIRED independently verified the contents and obtained the registration list for Dialog’s 2026 retreat,...

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of Iran’s negotiating team, called on the United States and President Donald Trump to tone down what he described as hostile rhetoric toward the regime in Tehran. “The United States should be cautious in its statements. Our forces are ready to respond," ...

Switzerland has rejected a proposal to cap its population at 10 million people, with voters choosing economic stability and strong relations with the European Union over concerns about rising immigration, housing shortages, and pressure on public services. According to preliminary results from the nationwide referendum, nearly 55% of Swiss voters opposed the initiative, while 45% supported it. The closely watched vote had drawn comparisons to the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum because of its potential impact on Switzerland’s relationship with the EU. The proposal, backed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), sought to prevent Switzerland’s population from exceeding 10 million...

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that the “new world order will be built from Europe” with his country playing a key role in comments that echo a speech earlier in the year interpreted as a criticism of President Donald Trump. During a visit to Ireland, Carney said that that Canada was “the most European of non-European countries, and we are transforming our cooperation with the EU.” In January, Carney addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, taking aim at the erosion of the rules-based international order in comments which were seen as a pointed reference to Trump’s...

Neo-Nazi Links with Arab Palestinian Extremist OrganizationsFrançois Genoud: Financier Linking Nazi and Palestinian Militant NetworksFrançois Genoud (1915–1996) was a Swiss Nazi sympathizer, financier, and political activist who served as an important intermediary between former Nazis, European far-right networks, and Palestinian militant organizations during the Cold War. Rather than acting as a militant himself, Genoud used financial, legal, and political connections to support causes he viewed as aligned with his anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli worldview (Aarons & Loftus, 1991; Lee, 1998). Early Connections to Arab Nationalist and Pro-Nazi Networks Genoud's involvement with Arab nationalist causes predated the emergence of modern Palestinian militant...

SWITZERLAND’S World Cup stars are on red alert after being warned of SNAKES next to their training camp. The Swiss have jetted out to San Diego to prepare for their World Cup opener against Qatar on June 13. The team are already dealing with humid temperatures in the US as they get used to their new surroundings. But the squad have another alarming problem to deal with after a ‘snake area’ was marked up on the map of their training camp. The official Switzerland team account posted a picture of their facility with labels of its different sections. They showed...

Hong Kong has overtaken Switzerland as the world’s biggest cross-border wealth hub for the first time, as an influx of investment from the Chinese mainland helped it eclipse the traditional haven. Wealth managers in the Chinese territory booked $2.9tn of international assets in 2025, according to estimates from the Boston Consulting Group. About 60 per cent of that came from mainland China, with BCG forecasting that the rapid increase in Asian fortunes would widen the gap between Hong Kong and Switzerland to almost $600bn by the end of the decade. China’s growth has been bolstered by a return of equity...

ZURICH, May 27 (Reuters) - Hong ​Kong has overtaken Switzerland as the top global booking centre for cross-border wealth, ‌a first that is unlikely to be reversed as hubs in Asia grow faster than the European safe-haven, Boston Consulting Group said on Wednesday. Wealth from China and an IPO boom in 2025 helped ​Hong Kong rise to a $2.95 trillion offshore behemoth for the world's rich, narrowly ​surpassing Switzerland's $2.94 trillion in cross-border wealth, according to BCG's 2026 Global Wealth ⁠Report. "Hong Kong is cementing its role as China's gateway to global markets, though that ​same concentration ties its trajectory...

A mysterious discovery beneath a Swiss lake uncovered over 1,000 perfectly preserved Roman artifacts. From swords to cargo crates, this ancient shipwreck is rewriting what we know about Rome’s frontier. Archaeologists Just Found 1,000 Roman Artefacts in a Swiss Lake | 21:13 Sideprojects | 1.3M subscribers | 109,704 views | May 28, 2026

[Translated from German] Since Thursday morning, a major police operation has been underway at Winterthur train station. Several areas and stairways around the new pedestrian and bicycle underpass are cordoned off. An eyewitness, who works across from the cordoned-off area, tells this editorial office that a man of middle age shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) around 8:30 a.m. and stabbed four men with a knife. At that very moment, a school class also passed the scene. The teacher then positioned herself protectively in front of the children. Another witness, a taxi driver, confirms that a man had been running...

The Pegasus team from the Aris student space initiative has generated a stable detonation wave with its engine. Robin Wyss / Aris Space ========================================================================= Students in Switzerland have recently tested an experimental rocket engine that is capable of generating 20,000 detonation waves per second, the same propulsion concept explored by NASA and Japanese researchers for future space missions. The so-called rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) is powered by propane and liquid oxygen. It was built by the Pegasus team, a student project within the ARIS (Academic Space Initiative Switzerland) at ETH Zurich. The third-year students spent nearly a year developing...

On June 14, Switzerland will vote on a referendum to cap its population at 10 million. Current projections don't put the Swiss population crossing that number until 2035 or 2040. The Swiss very, very, very jealously guard the right to have citizenship, and are notoriously strict about it. So if you are from elsewhere and you want to become Swiss, it's a very long, long, long process.