Free Republic

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.

INTRODUCTION On April 29, 2026, Sen. Bernie Sanders convened a 75-minute panel in the US Capitol on “the existential threat of AI.” Two of the four panelists were Chinese government affiliates: Zeng Yi, Dean of the Beijing Institute of AI Safety and Governance, and Xue Lan, a Tsinghua University professor who chairs China’s national AI governance expert committee and serves as a Counsellor of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. From a US Senate platform, Xue called the US-China AI race “an inaccurate narrative” and argued for “safe zones” of cooperation on AI safety. The event was...

Zimbabwe will return dozens of foreign-owned farms seized more than two decades ago during a land reform drive, but is not reversing the contested policy, the agriculture minister said Friday. The land grab was launched by longtime ruler Robert Mugabe in 2000, with thousands of white farmers evicted, often violently, and their land redistributed to black Zimbabweans The government will return 67 farms covered by bilateral investment pacts "but which remained un-occupied" to the investors, Agriculture Minister Anxious Masuka said in a statement. The investors are from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. More than 400 white farmers would be...

According to a statement released by Antiquity, analysis of skeletal remains recovered from a seventeenth-century hospital cemetery in Basel, Switzerland, suggests that young laborers were the people most likely to die during an outbreak of plague. As a trade center that drew people in from abroad, the city of Basel was vulnerable to the spread of Yersinia pestis bacteria and outbreaks of plague. The last recorded outbreak of the disease in Basel occurred between 1665 and 1670. Researchers led by osteoarchaeologist Laura Rindlisbacher of the University of Basel examined skeletal remains recovered from the hospital cemetery dated to this period,...

As media hype falters and globalists posture, Trump’s campaign to secure the world’s chokepoints reshapes power—and leaves Iran and its allies with little leverage left. Possibly the most amusing fake news item Saturday morning came from The New York Times. Under the rubric “Iran War Live Updates,” a headline screamed, “Iran’s Military Says It Has Reimposed ‘Strict Control’ of Strait of Hormuz.” To which an inquiring mind wants to know, “What Iran military?” It’s gone, Kemo Sabe. The floating bits are at the bottom of the sea. The terrestrial bits have been crushed, blasted, pulverized, or incinerated. Ditto most of...

In UN Watch's press release, the NGO cited the UN's Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) recent nomination of Iran to the UN’s Committee for Program and Coordination. UN Watch demanded an explanation on Saturday from democratic countries for why they'd allowed "serial abusers of human rights" to be elected to key positions in the United Nations. In UN Watch's press release, the NGO cited the UN's Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) recent nomination of Iran to the UN’s Committee for Program and Coordination, which would include an active role in shaping policy on women's rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention, as...

A halal butcher in Zurich, Switzerland has sold 3.1 tons of pork labeled as veal to Muslim customers, who haven’t noticed any difference for three years. https://x.com/AzatAlsalim/status/1925558828701024355

A halal butcher sells – in theory – halal meat, that is to say, meat permitted by Islamic law and therefore, a fortiori, not pork. This Zurich butcher doesn't seem to share that opinion. In three years, he allegedly sold 3.1 tons of pork, passing it off as veal , according to the Swiss version of 20 Minutes , which broke the story. The deception is twofold. Scam On the one hand, the religious men who bought their meat from his shop unwittingly broke their tradition . On the other hand, the butcher made significant profits since pork is much...

For three years, a butcher in Zurich (Switzerland) sold pork to customers who believed they were purchasing veal. Following an inspection by a food safety officer, the butcher has now been held accountable. A halal butcher sells—in theory—halal meat: that is, meat permitted under Islamic law, and therefore, *a fortiori*, not pork. This Zurich-based butcher, however, does not appear to share that view. Over a three-year period, he allegedly sold 3.1 tons of pork while passing it off as veal, according to the Swiss edition of *20Minutes*, which broke the story. The deception was twofold. **Fraud** On one hand, religious...

A bus fire in Switzerland killed at least six people and left three others hospitalized with severe injuries, police said Tuesday. They said they were investigating whether the blaze was intentionally set by someone on the bus. Police spokesperson Frederic Papaux of Fribourg canton, or region, said the inferno broke out Tuesday evening on a bus in the town of Kerzers, about 15 miles west of Bern, the Swiss capital. "At this stage, we have elements suggesting a deliberate act by a person who was inside the bus," Papaux said at a news conference, according to Reuters news agency. Police...

Swiss citizens will head to the polls this summer to vote on whether to limit the country’s population to a maximum of 10 million, with the stated goal of restricting immigration. The proposal was put forward by the far-right Swiss People’s Party, which calls for capping the population at 10 million. Under the proposed law, the Swiss government and parliament would be required to take action if the country’s population, currently 9.1 million, exceeds 9.5 million. Measures would include limiting the entry of immigrants, including asylum seekers and family members of foreign residents. If these steps fail and the population...

I’m at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where I saw Chrystia Freeland, the disgraced former MP and cabinet minister. Actually, I think she saw me first and tried to hide from my sight.So I decided to ask her some questions.Now, if I had been in Canada, she would have had me arrested. That’s what she did to our reporter, David Menzies. And of course, she had no compunction about seizing bank accounts from hundreds of her political enemies during the trucker protest. (snip)I also asked her about her accepting a job working for the Ukrainian government, while also...

Top business leaders this week delivered an expletive-laden plea in defense of climate action, describing the backlash to Europe’s green transition as an “aberration.” In an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte said he disagreed with the suggestion that it may just be a matter of time before net zero is dismissed in Europe, saying short-term thinking on this issue is “bulls---.” Asked about political leaders backtracking on their much-vaunted European Green New Deal and Norway’s oil fund reportedly defending a push from companies to water down their climate goals, Bäte...

During a speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) summit in Davos, Switzerland, President Donald J. Trump asserted that the conflict in Ukraine would not have occurred if he had remained in office in 2022. He attributed the war to the alleged rigging of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.(snip)The America First leader went on to say that legal action over election rigging is imminent, warning, “People will soon be prosecuted for what they did, that’s probably breaking news.”

Violent protests erupted in several Swiss cities as American flags were burned and riot police clashed with demonstrators ahead of President Trump’s arrival in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. Trump is scheduled to arrive Wednesday and is expected to deliver a speech at the annual gathering of global political leaders and corporate executives. His visit comes amid heightened tensions with European leaders after Trump doubled down on his push to acquire Greenland for U.S. national security reasons and declined to rule out military options. The Davos forum, held in eastern Switzerland, is one of the world’s most high-profile...