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Italian UN Palestine Rapporteur back on US sanctions list, Italian Googler indicted in NY and KNDS preps for an IPO

Italian UN Palestine Rapporteur back on US sanctions list, Italian Googler indicted in NY and KNDS preps for an IPO

A "popular initiative," also known as bread and circuses for the masses, that would cap Switzerland's population at ten million is on the voting block here next month. It is the current means by which the Swiss have found to look inward, make problems for themselves and avoid the world outside and the continent it sits in the middle of. Companies are concerned, Swissinfo reports, but this Auslander in Switzerland is fully on board. 

As a foreigner here, I do not resent that this piece of rock calling itself Switzerland wants to shut the gates after ten million. It should have happened long ago, centuries even, well before the Gutenberg Bible arrived, before the Swiss could be fruitful and eventually multiply. Things are out of control now with this many Swiss. If you are a foreigner in Switzerland, then you know there are just too many Swiss walking around. They are everywhere and they are really a pain. 

As this is Switzerland, It is essential that we arrive on a performative morality through consensus, then we can say whatever we wish of course privately behind others' backs. The ideal of a Switzerland that is so pure you can drink it in a straw and believe it is air is attainable in our time. The first person who drives this country over the ten million mark and everyone else subsequently who tries should get shot with a very neutral peace canon made entirely from Swiss blood and materials.

No additional secondos, because every drop of blood the state and citizenry spills for this land should be 100% Swiss. No Auslanderblut in this soil! Every bit of steel belonging to the neutral peace tank that will kill everyone and everything that tries to top the population over the ten million mark better come from these Alps. No war matériel or materials from the outside. Restrictions on weapons deliveries cannot just be reserved for the neighboring countries trying to traverse this territory to deliver tanks to Ukraine. Swissness must be preserved with maximum authenticity, in its most fully realized, maximally absurd form.

No more incoming foreign capital—get rid of it! Foreign money is as dirty as the foreigners to whom it belongs. Swiss banks must only accept Swiss francs from Swiss people. Swiss should not touch it, non-Swissness could rub off. No more spending the day not working because there are immigrants to do that. No SBB crews from elsewhere. All trains come to a full halt at the border. Only 100% genetic, fully blooded Swiss pick up trash and clean the toilets, care for the sick and elderly. Administration on the municipal, cantonal and federal level will only be staffed by people who look like Heidi. Work will become this thing that happens only if a Swiss person is feeling it.

Do you love trash TV at its trashiest, like the season eight dog funeral "Selling Sunset," episode or the kind of trash TV that is so bad for your brain that it would inspire moral panic in an earlier time? Then ten million Swiss has an allure. Limited labor resources in a wealthy country with few elites fit for real work is a great premise (see "The Apprentice"). Social codes often akin to middle school girls and petty conflicts caused by poor decisionmaking based on a mistaken understanding of self-interest are grist for the mill. Hubris is trash TV's guardian angel. I think you know where this might be going. Everyone is going to get a tagline, which in the provincial Alpine space could yield some funny sing-song results.

If MAGA and Trump excite you, know the spectacle of American decline rests on the people to keep the show entertaining. A yes vote for this referendum needs only the accessories of a production team and maybe move the apéros to a jacuzzi? You can do this, Switzerland.

Or, perhaps not? There is an alternative course where Switzerland is less parasitic when it comes to its own and European and even, unpopular as it is these days, transatlantic security. In other words, if purity of essence policies are not for you, if being a citizen of Europe and the world and taking responsibility for security on this continent matters to you, one significant way to have an impact is by sponsoring the Bern Security Dialogue or by subscribing to the Alpine Security Monitor as a paid subscriber because we are actually bringing the world in and putting this piece of rock called Switzerland in a wider context.

In the short amount of time we have been operating, we have had generals, professors, journalists, citizen activists, civil servants and defense industry reps operating at the highest levels from countries including Denmark, Germany, Russia, Switzerland and the US on our stages and ambassadors, attachés, state secretaries and generals in our audiences. Become a paid subscriber and encourage others to subscribe to the Alpine Security Monitor. If you wish to, be in touch at amanda.rivkin@securitydialogue.org.

WASHINGTON, DC – UN Palestine Rapporteur Albanese back on US sanctions list

  • Reuters reports Wednesday that the US Department of the Treasury posted a notice on its website noting that Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, was readded to a list of sanctioned individuals after a court ordered her removed.
  • Sanctions were imposed on Albanese in July of 2025 "over what it said were her efforts to prompt the International Criminal Court to take action against the US and Israeli officials, companies and executives."
  • Earlier this month she was ordered removed from the sanctions list by a judge on the basis that her criticism and advocacy are protected under the First Amendment which guarantees free speech under the US Constitution. Last Friday, however, a DC court issued an administrative stay of that ruling.

 

NEW YORK CITY, USA – Italian Google employee indicted over Polymarket trades

  • The Financial Times reports Thursday that Michele Spagnuolo, an Italian national and Google engineer currently on leave, "allegedly used confidential information to make more than $1mn", or €860,000, "on predictions market Polymarket, according to criminal charges unsealed in New York federal court on Wednesday."
  • The criminal complaint alleges that Spagnuolo used an internal Google system "to access confidential data" about top Google searches last year before wagering "substantial sums" under the name "AlphaRaccoon".
  • After appearing in federal court, Spagnuolo was released on a $2.5 million (€2.15 million) bond, as is typically the case with alleged nonviolent white collar criminals.

 

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS – Franco-German defense firm KNDS prepares for IPO

  • The Financial Times reports Thursday that Franco-German Leopard2 tank maker KNDS has planned an IPO for this summer and is implementing "a corporate governance structure that will protect it from political interference as it pushes ahead with a market listing."
  • KNDS is currently "owned equally by the French government and several German families" who are now "in the process of negotiating a sale to the German government alongside a planned IPO this summer". If the IPO is finalized this summer, the French and German governments will have equal 40% stakes in the firm. The plan requires Paris to reduce its share from half to 40%.
  • CEO Jean-Paul Alary "declined to comment" on the target valuation of KNDS but The Financial Times previously reported that KNDS hoped to achieve a market capitalization of €15 to €20 billion ($17.5 to $23 billion).

 

PARIS, FRANCE – Norway says it will come under France's nuclear umbrella

  • Reuters reports Wednesday that "Norway will come under France's nuclear umbrella".
  • Norwegian Prime mInister Jonas Gahr Stoere told Norwegian news agency NTB during a visit to Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron "and sign a new defence agreement with France, which includes Norway joining a French-led nuclear weapons initiative."
  • As part of the agreement, nuclear weapons will not be deployed in Norway during peacetime. However, current (and longstanding in Western terms) Russian military doctrine does not recognize a difference between war and peace, despite Tolstoy. Norway shares a border with Russia near Murmansk and Russian forces are stationed in the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago where Russia has commercial rights due to the 1920 Treaty.

 

PARIS, FRANCE – Colonial era 'Black Code' repealed by the National Assembly

  • The Associated Press reports Thursday that France's lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, voted unanimously to repeal a colonial era law known as the Code Noir or Black Code "that classified humans as property" that had "quietly" remained "on the books".
  • The 1685 decree signed by King Louis XIV governed "slaves across France's colonies."  The fact is "the realization that France never formally did away with it left many aghast."
  • Fun fact: France's Foundation for the Memory of Slavery is chaired by two white men. However, President of the Association of the Memory of Slaveries Max Rezoulat, who would not pass the American Jim Crow era "one drop test" by virtue of having an "African ancestor", argued "the repeal matters, because so little else has."

 

PARIS, FRANCE – France bans Israeli minister over video of him bullying flotilla activists

  • France24 reports Saturday that Paris banned Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from entering France over a video where he was "mocking bound activists seized by Israeli soldiers on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla."
  • French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot singled out "his reprehensible actions towards French and European citizens".Barrot also said he was "calling for European Union-level sanctions" against Ben-Gvir.
  • The activists Ben-Gvir was filmed abusing were arrested by Israel in the international waters of the Mediterranean as they made their way aboard a flotilla to attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza despite the repeat failure beyond media attention of such methods.

 

VIENNA, AUSTRIA – Police arrest returning Gaza flotilla activist at the Vienna airport

  • The Times of Israel reports Monday that Austrian police were filmed restraining and arresting a Gaza flotilla activist Sunday at the Vienna Airport who was returning from his arrest in Israel.
  • The activist was shouting the pro-Palestine slogan "from the river to the sea" which is "interpreted by many as calling for Israel to be wiped out" when he was "accosted by police who ended up restraining him on the floor and dragging him out of the terminal."
  • The arrest "comes a day after Spanish police were filmed beating returning activists."

 

WINTHERTHUR, SWITZERLAND – ISIS sympathizer stabs three outside train station

  • The New York Post reports Thursday that a "Swiss 'terrorist' who shouted 'Allahu Akbar' before stabbing 3 men in crowded train station had ties to ISIS".
  • Three men between the ages of 28 and 52 were injured.
  • The man was known to police and had been released from a psych ward three days prior to the attack.

 

TROGEN, SWITZERLAND – Ex-Raiffeisen CEO ordered to pay fine for tax evasion

  • Swissinfo reports Monday that the former head of Raiffeisen Bank Pierin Vincenz was ordered to pay a fine of 980,000 Swiss francs (€1.07 million or $1.25 million) for tax evasion between 2012 and 2015 and an additional 12,500 Swiss francs (€13,700 or $15,900) in legal fees by the Appenzell Ausserrhoden authorities.
  • The tax case against Vincenz had been suspended while "criminal proceedings against the former banker in Zürich" proceeded.
  • Vincenz is accused, alongside long-time partner Beat Stocker, "of disloyal management, fraud by profession, breach of trust, forgery of documents and unfair competition."

 

VERDEN, GERMANY – Red Army Faction's Daniela Klette sentenced to 13 years

  • CNN reports Wednesday that Daniela Klette, 67, a member of the left-wing militant Red Army Faction (RAF) who spent years on the run and at one point was "one of Europe's most wanted women", was sentenced to 13 years in prison "for crimes she committed while a fugitive."
  • A regional court in Verden in the federal state of Lower Saxony found Klette guilty of various crimes including "multiple counts of aggravated robbery, extortion and weapons violations," all "offenses that took place between 1999 and 2016, when she was on the run" following the disbanding of the RAF. Some spectators in the court shouted "Freedom for Daniela". She was captured in 2024 in a Berlin neighborhood where she was living a normal life under the alias Claudia Ivone.
  • Her accomplices, Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, remain at large. Klette has not been tried or sentenced for her crimes while in the RAF as that is a separate case.

 

BERLIN, GERMANY – Foreign Office supported aid organization tied to Hamas until 2019

  • The Jerusalem Post reports Monday that Germany's Federal Foreign Office "supported an aid organization with close ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood without knowing how the funds were actually being used."
  • A confidential audit that was "newly released" after the Institute for Secular Law (Institut für Weltanschauungsrecht or IFW) Board Member Seyran Ates "had been trying to obtain for five years". Ates had requested access under the country's Freedom of Information Act, but was denied access as well as on appeal. With IFW support and support of the Giordano Bruno Foundation whch supports the IFW, Ates then successfully filed suit, where he prevailed at the Berlin Administrative Court.
  • The version that is released was authorized by the Federal Admininistrative Court but required redactions from the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Court of Auditors, in order "to determine which passages contained protected intelligence material that could not legally be redacted". Ates concluded the report showed "shocking naivety by the state in dealing with political Islam."

 

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA – New PM is pro-Israel Trump ally, marking a policy shift

  • The Telegraph reports Saturday that "Slovenia's parliament has voted to bring back Janez Jansa for a fourth term as prime minister", giving "Europe's right-wing populists a foothold in the EU".
  • The Jerusalem Post reports that Jansa's return comes "after years of hostility" towards Israel. Jansa "condemned his predecessor's recognition of Palestine as a state, calling it "illegal." That predecessor, Robert Golob, also sanctioned far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
  • Jansa previously served in the role from 2004-2008, 2012-2013 and 2020-2022. He is also the leader of the Slovenian Democratic Party.

 

KARLOVY VARY, CZECHIA – Russian bishop released after white powder found in car

  • The Guardian reports Tuesday that "Czech police have released a Russian Orthodox bishop who was detained on suspicion of drug possession, after Moscow condemned the arrest", calling it "politically motivated".
  • Bishop Hilarion, whose secular name is Grigory Alfeyev, was stopped by police in the spa town of Karlovy Vary on Sunday evening "after officers discovered containers of a white substance in the boot of his car."
  • In a statement Tuesday, the bishop confirmed a narcotics test had showed the substance found was illegal "but insisted he had been framed." Czechia's narcotics police said they were acting on an anonymous tip. The Russian Orthodox Church called it "a classic setup" and summoned the Czech chargé d'affaires in Moscow.

 

PALERMO, ITALY – €200 million in assets of 'legendary' late Cosa Nostra boss seized

  • CBS News reports Thursday that Italian police seized €200 million ($232 million) in assets belonging to the late Cosa Nostra mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro.
  • His assets were "derived from drug trafficking" and had been "reinvested in Europe and beyond", including in "Andorra, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Monaco, Spain and Switzerland, as well as Italy".
  • Messina Denaro was "finally captured in 2023 in Palermo after three decades on the run". He received six life sentences though died a few months after his arrest in prison.

 

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