Echo

Daniela Ryf

The women’s Ironman world champion, Daniela Ryf, will go down in the history of the sport, after the 28-year-old from Solothurn ended the 2015 triathlon season undefeated and claimed the million-dollar Triple Crown. After impressive wins at the half Ironman triathlons in Dubai and Zell am See, she then repeated the feat over the same distance in Bahrain at the beginning of December. The founder of the Triple Crown is Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa. The Bahraini prince is also president of the Bahrain Olympic Committee and a successful triathlete himself. www.danielaryf.ch

Facilitating naturalisation

The Federal Council aims to end the disadvantage foreign persons living in a registered partnership with Swiss citizens have when it comes to naturalisation compared with foreign spouses, as declared in an opinion adopted on 18 December. The Federal Council’s comments came after five identical parliamentary initiatives on “The equality of registered partnerships and marriage in the naturalisation process” had been submitted.

Reinforcements for counter-terrorism

In mid-December, the Federal Council resolved to create 86 new jobs in counter-terrorism. The additional headcount will be spread across the Federal Intelligence Service, the Federal Office of Police, the State Secretariat for Migration, the Swiss Border Guard and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). Developments in recent months have led to an increase in existing and new responsibilities on the part of those federal authorities dealing with counter-terrorism, writes the Federal Council.

Special treatment for farmers

Subsidies for farmers will be excluded from the federal government’s cost-saving programmes for 2016, after the Farmers’ Lobby once again raised its concerns in Parliament. At the 2016 budget debate, the National Council and Council of States agreed to award CHF 92.8 million more to farmers than had been budgeted by the Federal Council. Expenditure on direct payments will total CHF 2.8 billion, while spending on export subsidies for processed agricultural products will be CHF 94.6 million.

Correction

In the November 2015 issue of “Swiss Review”, we quoted Paul Bertololy (“A people is entirely responsible for who holds power”) and referred to him as a German doctor and author. Paul Bertololy was in fact French, not German. Although he was born in Germany, he spent most of his life in Alsace. This was communicated to us by his nephew, who himself has a Swiss wife and has been a Swiss citizen and reader of “Swiss Review” for many years.