With 73 % of voters in favor, Switzerland approved the permanent use of cash in a referendum this Sunday, March 8.

In an increasingly digital world, a high percentage of transactions in Switzerland are still paid for with cash. The referendum to decide whether this payment method would be maintained was announced last year.

Thanks to the voters’ support, state entities must now guarantee “the availability of cash in the country, and it is ruled out that it could ever be replaced by virtual money. This guarantee will be enshrined in the Constitution.”

Meanwhile, due to the rise of digital payment platforms and applications, Switzerland, like the rest of Europe, will continue to consider “the possibility of launching a virtual Swiss franc in the future, a cryptocurrency issued by the Swiss National Bank, which, following today’s vote, will have to coexist, if it comes to fruition, with physical coins and banknotes.”

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Source: 20minutos

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Next year, specifically on March 8, 2026, Switzerland will hold a referendum to decide whether the country will protect cash in the face of the rise of digital payments.

The measure was announced by the Federal Council (Swiss Executive) on October 29. According to the proposal, the Constitution is expected to be amended to “guarantee the existence of cash and that the Swiss franc remains the national currency, although the Federal Council’s counterproposal presents fewer obstacles to the future development of digital payments.”

This referendum will be the first time since 2010 that Swiss citizens, who must vote in referendums up to four times a year, will decide the future of both a popular initiative and a government counterproposal on the same issue. If they accept both, they will have to indicate which one they would prefer to see implemented.

With this initiative, Switzerland would become one of the first countries in the world to include the right to use cash in its Constitution, “although similar initiatives in this regard have also emerged in other European countries such as Austria, Hungary, and Slovenia.”

Groups in favor of protecting cash argue that its elimination would harm vulnerable groups, such as the elderly or those without bank accounts. Furthermore, they “emphasize the importance that coins and banknotes could have in times of crisis, such as cyberattacks or widespread failures in electronic systems.”

The referendum on March 8, the first of 2026, will also allow citizens to “vote on a proposal to reduce the tax for public broadcasting to 200 Swiss francs (214 euros), as well as on the creation of a climate fund to promote renewable energy and other measures against global warming.”

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Source: swissinfo

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With the aim of strengthening international cooperation and promoting sustainable development, Venezuela signed an agricultural agreement with representatives from Dubai and Switzerland.

The signing was carried out through the Ministry of the Social Process of Labor (MPPPST), the Ministry of Industries and National Production (MPPIPN), and the International Center for Productive Investment (CIIP) of Venezuela.

The CIIP stated that “this agreement seeks to guarantee food security, promote sustainability, and optimize the production and marketing of grains, with a focus on innovation, market expansion, and global distribution. It will also promote the development of healthier and more affordable products for consumers.”

At this meeting, a contract was also signed for the “reactivation of a plant dedicated to the manufacture of household cleaning products, located in the state of Aragua, to guarantee the supply of these products to the Venezuelan market for the next 10 years.”

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Source:  globovision

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Artificial intelligence has made projections regarding which is the most intelligent European country, placing Finland in first place. The country is followed by Estonia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and France.

Intelligence is a complex concept, which depends on multiple factors such as genetics, education, nutrition, and sociocultural environment. By adding factors such as innovation and technological development, it is possible to identify the level of intelligence of a population.

According to Google AI, Finland could be at the top of the most intelligent countries, taking into account the high IQ of its inhabitants and its excellent educational system.

Of course, each country has its own strengths, development capabilities and talents for innovation.

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With information from El Economista

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La entrada Europe concentrates the countries with the highest intelligence according to Google AI apareció primero en Bitfinance.

The world’s largest private bank, UBS, based in Switzerland, has launched its first tokenized fund UBS USD Money Market Investment Fund Token (uMINT) on the Ethereum blockchain.

According to the UBS statement published on Friday, November 1, uMINT “will provide investors with access to high-quality money market instruments based on a conservative, risk-managed framework.”

The bank seeks to take full advantage of the benefits of the blockchain for token holders, such as better issuance and distribution of funds.

The precedent for this launch is the test carried out in 2023 by UBS with the controlled pilot of a fund focused on a tokenization service, then called UBS Tokenize. Using smart contracts on Ethereum, UBS successfully carried out fund refunds and subscriptions.

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Source: diariobitcoin

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After a five-year absence, Switzerland will return to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The return will be effective from January 2025 until the end of 2027.

The election of the United Nations General Assembly was held on October 9, for the selection of 18 new members of the Human Rights Council, which already comprises 47 states.

As is known, in this council the seats are assigned to regional groups to guarantee geographical representation. “These countries will have a 3-year mandate, starting on January 1, 2025.”

Through a secret ballot, the UN selected “Benin, Bolivia, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Iceland, Kenya, Marshall Islands, Mexico, North Macedonia, Qatar, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand as members of the UN Human Rights Council for the period 2025-2027,” according to international media reports.

The new members apply to replace Argentina, Benin, Cameroon, Eritrea, Finland, Gambia, Honduras, India, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Montenegro, Paraguay, Qatar and Somalia, United Arab Emirates and the United States, whose mandate expires on December 31, 2024.

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With information from international media

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Switzerland has the new Alps supercomputer, the sixth most powerful in the world, which places it among the technological leaders along with Finland, Japan and the United States.

The European country will make the sixth supercomputer with artificial intelligence (AI) available to the most sophisticated scientific projects.

Alps will be the new support in the field of science through AI, allowing “to map the universe, separate health information from conspiracy theories and develop more precise climate models.”

It is estimated that once finished, the device will reach a computing power 20 times greater than its predecessor, the Piz Daint, “and enough muscle to exploit the capacity of artificial intelligence (AI).”

So far, 1,000 scientists have signed up to the new Alps network. The director of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), Professor Thomas Schulthess, explains the access limitations by arguing that the supercomputer costs 100 million francs (118 million dollars) “and has an annual budget for its operation of 37 million francs.” It is a state-subsidized work, and the subsidies do not scale.

The use of this supercomputer is not mass commercial. “The additional computing power will continue to focus on Swiss and international research projects, in the field of natural sciences, above all.”

However, companies have the option of requesting access to the supercomputer on the condition that they collaborate on their research with a local university and pay the costs of its use.

For its part, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre must authorize access for a period of three years to so-called spin-offs.

Data security

The CSCS has the obligation to prevent the quality of the data processed by the supercomputers may be compromised by the use of less rigorous filters. “In the natural sciences, we have methods for filtering out erroneous data that have been known since the time of Galileo. We want to help adopt these methods to the humanities, commercial enterprises and society,” said Schulthess.

The Swiss agency is very careful with the quality of data that is introduced into AI systems, because if it is deficient “it could lead to the reproduction of biases and falsehoods with harmful consequences.”

Currently, the Alps supercomputer is used to train the Meditron large language model system, “which processes high-quality medical data. The medical profession uses Meditron to make accurate diagnoses in countries that lack advanced medical infrastructures.”

The application of AI with this device will also make it possible to establish the difference between fiction and reality in terms of information.

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Source: swissinfo

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In order to comply with the provisions of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Law, the governments of Switzerland and the United States agreed on June 27 to exchange bank account data starting in 2027.

The agreement was announced by the Swiss Ministry of Finance, although it clarified that the country already offered this data to the United States. Now the exchange will be reciprocal.

It is important to remember that “this measure was approved by the Administration of then-US President Barack Obama in 2013.”

According to this law, the procedure will follow the following dynamic: “Swiss financial institutions will provide the required information to the Federal Tax Administration of the Central European country, which will transmit it to the US tax authorities.”

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Source: bancaynegocios

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Neuroscientists and neurosurgeons from different university centers in Lausanne (Switzerland), the University of Bordeaux (France) and the National Institute for Health and Medicine Research in France have designed a neuroprosthesis that has enabled Marc, a 62-year-old patient who suffers from Parkinson’s for almost three decades, has walked again.

Electrical stimulation of the spinal cord

“The idea of ​​developing a neuroprosthesis that electrically stimulates the spinal cord to harmonize the procedure and correct locomotor disorders in patients with Parkinson’s is the result of several years of research on the treatment of paralysis due to spinal cord injuries,” he explains. Grégoire Courtine, professor of neuroscience at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL), the University Hospital of Lausanne (CHUV) and the university of this town (UNIL).

Unlike conventional treatments for Parkinson’s, which target brain regions directly affected by the loss of dopamine-producing neurons, this neuroprosthesis targets the area of ​​the spinal cord responsible for activating the leg muscles when walking. , which apparently is not directly affected by Parkinson’s disease.

“It is impressive to see how by electrically stimulating the spinal cord specifically, in the same way we have done with paraplegic patients, we can correct the gait disorders caused by Parkinson’s disease,” says Jocelyne Bloch, neurosurgeon and professor at CHUV, the UNIL and EPFL, and co-director of the NeuroRestore research center with Courtine.

A successful operation

Two years ago, the team of scientists and doctors was ready and the first patient was operated on, at the CHUV. After a precision neurosurgical intervention, Marc, from Bordeaux, was equipped with this new neuroprosthesis composed of an electrode field placed against the spinal cord, which controls walking, and an electrical impulse generator implanted under the skin of his abdomen.

Thanks to a specific programming of spinal cord stimulations that adapts in real time to his movements, Marc has seen his gait disorder quickly subside. After several weeks of rehabilitation with the neuroprosthesis, he can now walk almost normally.

He currently uses his neuroprosthesis for about eight hours a day, and only turns it off when he is sitting for a long time or when he is sleeping. “I turn the stimulation on in the morning and turn it off at night. This allows me to walk better and stabilize myself. Right now, I’m not even afraid of stairs anymore. Every Sunday I go to the lake and walk about 6 kilometers. It’s incredible,” The patient celebrated, detailing that he was diagnosed with the disease when he was 36 years old.

Source: dpa

(Referential image source: Weber Gilles, Europa Press / dpa)

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UBS plans to cut around 3,000 jobs in Switzerland over the next few years as a result of the purchase of its rival Credit Suisse, agreed last March and completed in June, as announced by the entity’s CEO, Sergio Ermotti.

“In Switzerland, from a proactive point of view, we expect that around 3,000 jobs will be eliminated in the coming years,” the banker said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, specifying that around a thousand of this adjustment will correspond directly to the decision to integrate the Swiss bank of Credit Suisse.

In this sense, the CEO of UBS has defended that in the case of having chosen to sell this Credit Suisse business, a cut of some 600 jobs would have been required, while the other 2,000 positions that will be eliminated respond to the needs of the restructuring.

Beyond the situation in Switzerland, the banker has recognized that in the banking sector it is very difficult to undertake a restructuring and extract synergies without affecting the workforce, although he has stressed that a large element of the cost adjustment is due to real estate planning, to the rationalization of legal entities and the closure of IT platforms, while factors such as wear and tear, retirement and internal mobility must also be taken into account.

“Having said this, of course, we are going to have to take some proactive measures in terms of layoffs in the coming years,” he admitted, after the purchase of Credit Suisse fattened the entity’s workforce by around 45,000 employees, to around 120,000 workers.

In this way, the CEO of UBS has highlighted that, since the beginning of the year, Credit Suisse has already carried out a workforce reduction of 8,000 people as a result of the cost measures that Credit Suisse had initiated and that have been accelerating in the second quarter.

Source: dpa

(Reference image source: Bernadr Hermant, Unsplash)

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