A snow groomer on the Titlis.
Serious accident with a snow groomer in Valais
hay. Late on Friday afternoon (December 24th) there was a serious accident on the Fiescheralpe / Kühboden in Valais. As the canton police announced on Saturday, a 22-year-old man at the wheel of a snow groomer drove backwards in front of the vehicle depot. He overlooked a pedestrian who was with her granddaughter immediately behind the rear of the vehicle. The woman and the toddler were hit by the snow groomer.
The 73-year-old woman was seriously injured and died at the scene of the accident. The two-year-old girl suffered life-threatening injuries and was flown by helicopter to the Inselspital in Bern. The deceased woman is a Swiss woman from the canton of Lucerne. The prosecutor has opened an investigation.
Dead lynx was probably shot before colliding with a vehicle – criminal complaint has been filed
The lynx is a strictly protected species.
cog. The canton of Valais has filed criminal charges against unknown persons in connection with a lynx that has been hit. After a collision with a vehicle on the road of the Great St. Bernhard near Sembrancher in the canton of Valais, the animal was found dead. However, an autopsy report by the Institute for Animal Pathology at the University of Bern shows: In addition to the multiple fractures that led to the animal’s death, the analysis found metal fragments, which most likely came from a fragmented bullet.
The lynx is a strictly protected species and poaching is an ex officio offense.
Federal criminal court imposes prison sentence for blowing up ATMs
ATMs are repeatedly blown up in Switzerland.
ine. For the first time, the Federal Criminal Court imposed a penalty on an ATM sprinkler on Wednesday (December 22nd), as reported by the SDA news agency, according to SRF. The defendant was sentenced to 74 months’ imprisonment. The man, a Romanian, was expelled from the country for ten years after serving his sentence. In 2019 he and an accomplice broke into a Raiffeisen bank ATM with explosives and stole around 126,000 francs. There was also material damage of 100,000 francs. The court found him not only guilty of qualified theft and qualified property damage, but also of exposure to explosives and toxic gases with criminal intent.
In 2020, the federal prosecutor issued an international arrest warrant after the man’s DNA trace was found on a crowbar. He was arrested in Austria.
Frenchman dies on the Valais ski slope
cov. A skiing accident with fatal consequences occurred on Monday (December 20th) in the Val-d’Iliez municipality in the Valais. As reported by the canton police in Valais, a 47-year-old Frenchman was killed in the “Portes du Soleil” ski area.
The accident happened around 2 p.m. For reasons that have not yet been clarified, the skier fell while descending the Pertuis piste and subsequently hit a mast of a ski lift. The man was seriously injured and taken to the Sion hospital in a helicopter. There he succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday. The public prosecutor’s office has started an investigation in cooperation with the canton police.
SVP national councilors launch initiatives against abortion
SVP National Councilor Andrea Geissbühler (center) is one of the authors of the initiatives against abortion.
cov. On Tuesday (December 21st) the Federal Chancellery approved two popular initiatives from the SVP’s environment for the collection of signatures: Both the “Sleep on it once” initiative and the “Rescue viable babies” initiative are directed against abortions. The first wants to introduce a cooling-off period before every abortion, the second to prevent late abortions. Behind them are the SVP national councilors Yvette Estermann and Andrea Geissbühler, the SVP national councilor Erich von Siebenthal, the Zurich SVP cantonal councilor Maria Rita Marty as well as several EDU representatives and some of the “middle”. Both requests arose as a reaction to neglected motions and interpellations in parliament.
According to their media release, the initiators of the initiative “Sleep on top of it” want to protect women from rash decisions under pressure and stress. Anyone considering an abortion should therefore only actually be allowed to have it carried out one day after the medical consultation. In between, the women should take a time to think about it, look at the guidelines they received from the doctors and find out about possible help from institutions for mothers in difficult situations.
According to the initiators, there are similar waiting periods in 18 European countries, such as in Germany with three days to think about it or even a whole week in Italy. The initiative aims to prevent ten percent of annual abortions, that is, around a thousand.
At the same time, the SVP will also collect signatures for the initiative “For the protection of babies viable outside the womb”. In Switzerland, abortions are possible under certain circumstances well after the 12th week of pregnancy, for example if the mother’s life is in danger or she is in emotional distress. A mental or physical disability of the unborn child is partly a reason for late terminations, because chromosomal abnormalities can often only be diagnosed from the 13th week, an open back only from the 20th week.
In Switzerland, up to 100 babies are aborted annually at a time when they can breathe outside the womb and thus live independently, write the initiators. From this point on, they want to give unborn babies an absolute right to life, provided the mother’s mother is not in danger. Neonatology has made progress that enables premature births with intensive medical help from the 22nd of 40 weeks of pregnancy to survive without damage. The initiators want to “repeal any legal regulation that allows viable babies to be killed prenatally regardless of the womb”, they write, “these children can be given up for adoption”. The collection period for both requests ends on June 21, 2023.