Debt levels in the United States and Europe are a risk for international financial stability and for Switzerland, Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday.

According to a Reuters repot, in an interview with Swiss daily Blick, Keller-Sutter extolled Switzerland’s “disciplined” finances, which she said had enabled the country to deal with the economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

By contrast, other countries are “so indebted they’re hardly able to act any more”, she said, giving France as an example.

“Or take a look at America. That’s a time bomb. The mini-crash on the stock markets at the start of August was a warning shot,” the minister was quoted as saying.

“It was an expression of investors’ fear of a recession. Debt levels in the US and Europe are a risk to international financial stability and a risk for Switzerland,” she added.

Keller-Sutter also discussed a government proposal to make Swiss bank UBS hold more capital in the wake of its acquisition of former rival Credit Suisse following its collapse last year. She defended the additional capital requirements as necessary to protect Switzerland from another banking meltdown.

UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti has criticised the proposal, and she was asked whether she was in touch with him about it, saying: “No, I haven’t been in contact with him any more. This is now a normal political process.”

The paper also asked what she thought about speculation that UBS could shift its headquarters abroad if it felt conditions in Switzerland were no longer right for it.

“The Federal Council (cabinet) believes it’s good for the economy to have a large Swiss bank. But the bank must decide for itself how it wants to position itself.”

UBS has said repeatedly it is committed to Switzerland.

Israeli airstrikes kill dozens in Gaza ahead of high-level ceasefire talks in Egypt

Multiple Israeli airstrikes killed at least three dozen Palestinians in southern Gaza, health workers said Saturday, as officials gathered for high-level ceasefire talks in neighbouring Egypt.

Among the dead were 11 members of a family, including two children, after an airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital, which received a total of 33 bodies. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said it received three bodies from another strike.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.

First responders also recovered 16 bodies from the Hamad City area of Khan Younis after a partial pull-out of Israeli forces, 10 bodies from a residential block west of Khan Younis and two farther south in Rafah. The circumstances of their deaths were not immediately clear, but the areas were repeatedly bombed by the Israeli military over the past week.

Some residents returned to Hamad City, crunching on rubble as they walked between destroyed apartment buildings. One multi-story building’s entire wall was gone, its rooms framing residents picking through debris.

“There is nothing, no apartment, no furniture, no homes, only destruction,” said one woman, Neveen Kheder. “We are dying slowly. You know what, if they gave a mercy bullet it would be better than what is happening to us.”

Experts were meeting Saturday on technical issues ahead of Sunday’s high-level talks in Cairo on a possible ceasefire mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar. CIA Director William Burns, Qatar’s foreign minister and Egypt’s spy chief were meeting Saturday evening in Cairo, according to an Egyptian official with direct knowledge of the talks.

A Hamas delegation arrived Saturday in Cairo to meet with Egyptian and Qatari officials, senior Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawy told the AP. He stressed that Hamas will not take part directly in Sunday’s talks but will be briefed by Egypt and Qatar.

The CIA director and Brett McGurk, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden on the Middle East, are leading the US side of negotiations amid major differences between Israel and Hamas over Israel’s insistence that it maintain forces in two strategic corridors in Gaza.

The US has been pushing a proposal that aims at closing the gaps between Israel and Hamas as fears grow over a wider regional war after the recent targeted killings of leaders of the militant Hamas and Hezbollah groups, both blamed on Israel.

Italy opens murder and manslaughter case after superyacht sinking

“We have opened an investigation against unknown persons on charges of manslaughter and culpable homicide,” prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio told a news conference in the Sicilian town of Termini Imerese on Saturday morning.

The previous Monday the Bayesian superyacht sank off the coast of Porticello, a small town on the coast near Sicily’s capital Palermo.

Seven of the 22 people on board lost their lives in the shipwreck, among them British technology magnate Mike Lynch and his daughter Hannah.

Cartosio confirmed the start of the investigation, but said no suspects had been identified at the moment.

“We are only in the initial phase of the investigation. At the moment we cannot rule out any kind of development,” Cartosio said. He went on to say that his team will carefully assess every possible element of liability, including those of the ship’s captain, crew, supervisors, the ship’s builder and others.

“For me, it is likely that crimes were committed, that it could be a case of manslaughter, but we will only be able to establish that if you give us time to investigate,” he said, explaining that the crew members will be allowed to leave Sicily but may be re-investigated.

The main issue investigators are focusing on is how a sailing ship deemed ‘unsinkable’ by its builder, the Italian shipyard Perini Navi, sank while a neighbouring sailboat was essentially unharmed.

Prosecutors said the event was ‘extremely rapid’ and the information acquired seemed to indicate a ‘downburst’, a localised and powerful wind that descends from a thunderstorm and spreads rapidly once it hits the ground.

Initially, Civil Defence officials said they believed the yacht, which had a distinctive 75-metre aluminium mast, had been hit by a tornado on the water, known as a waterspout.

Investigators also questioned why the crew almost completely survived, with the exception of the chef, while six passengers were trapped in the hull.

Girolamo Bentivoglio, the new commander of the Palermo fire brigade, confirmed that most of the recovered bodies were found in the same part of the ship – on the port side and closer to the surface – suggesting that the passengers had sought safety in the cabins where the last air bubbles had formed.

Deputy prosecutor Raffaele Cammarano said it is likely that the passengers were asleep, adding that one of the main objectives of the investigation is to ascertain whether they were alerted by someone. Cammarano also confirmed that one person was on watch in the cockpit.

“The timeframe for bringing the yacht back to the surface is uncertain: it all depends on the will of the owners, and the management company. The maritime authority will manage the operation with its own technicians, but at the moment we are still in the preliminary stage: we will impose the securing of the vessel by emptying the tanks,” said Palermo Coast Guard Commander Raffaele Macauda. However, Cartosio said that the first suspects could be announced even before the wreck is recovered.

On Friday, rescuers washed ashore the last of the seven bodies of the Bayesian shipwreck. Among them was Hannah Lynch, 18, daughter of Mike Lynch, whose body was recovered on Thursday. The man had celebrated his recent acquittal from fraud charges with his family and those who had defended him at the US trial. His wife, Angela Bacares, is among the 15 survivors.

Rescuers struggled for four days to find all the bodies, slowly making their way inside the wreckage that lay on the seabed at a depth of 50 metres.

The other five victims are Christopher Morvillo, one of Lynch’s US lawyers, and his wife, Neda; Jonathan Bloomer, president of Morgan Stanley’s London branch, and his wife, Judy; and Recaldo Thomas, the yacht’s cook.

Russia, Ukraine exchange over 100 prisoners of war

Russia and Ukraine exchanged over 100 prisoners of war on Saturday as Kyiv marked its third Independence Day since Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

Ukraine said the 115 servicemen who were freed were conscripts, many of whom were taken prisoner in the first months of Russia’s invasion. Among them are nearly 50 soldiers captured by Russian forces from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol.

The Russian Defence Ministry said the 115 Russian soldiers had been captured in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched their surprise offensive into Russia two weeks ago. The ministry said the soldiers were currently in Belarus but would be taken to Russia for medical treatment and rehabilitation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that the United Arab Emirates had again brokered the exchange, the 55th since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.

“We remember each and every one. We are searching and doing our best to get everyone back,” Zelenskyy said in the post.

Officials from the two sides meet only when they swap their dead and POWs, after lengthy preparation and diplomacy. Neither Ukraine nor Russia discloses how many POWs there are in total.

According to the UN, most Ukrainian POWs suffer routine medical neglect, severe and systematic mistreatment, and even torture while in detention. There have also been isolated reports of abuse of Russian soldiers, mostly during capture or transit to internment sites.

Last January, Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release.

Putin hears reports from generals about ways to push Ukrainian troops out of Kursk

Russian President Vladimir Putin has heard reports from top army generals at an undisclosed command centre about strategies to counter Ukrainian forces that invaded the Kursk region earlier this month.

No details were released about what was discussed but the Kremlin said that Putin also listened to updates by telephone from commanders of the troop groups involved in the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine on the operational situation in the areas entrusted to them.

Also on Saturday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence released footage of what it says is a Ka-52 helicopter attacking Ukrainian positions in Kursk.

In a speech to mark Independence Day in the capital Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed his country’s resolve to regain its “territorial integrity”.

“We will do everything to force Putin to end this war diplomatically, so that there will be less loss of people in front of everything and time. But, if we do not succeed, if our partners crumble and do not stand firmly against Putin’s aggression and against him as a thief, then we will do everything so that our army is ready to justly push Putin out of the territory of our state,” he said.

His comments came during a news conference held with Polish President Andrzej Duda and Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, in which the Kursk operation was discussed.

Meanwhile, two people were killed and four were wounded, including a baby, when Russian forces shelled the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the capital of the partially occupied Kherson region, according to local officials.

Ukraine’s air force said it had intercepted and destroyed seven drones over the country’s south. Russian long-range bombers also attacked the area of Snake Island with four cruise missiles, while the wider Kherson region was also struck by aerial bombs.

In Russia, the Defence Ministry said on Saturday that air defences had shot down seven drones overnight.

Five drones were downed over the southwestern Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, wounding two people, regional Gov. Aleksandr Gusev said. News outlet Astra published videos appearing to show explosions at an ammunition depot after being hit by a drone.

French police arrest man after synagogue ‘terror attack’

Police in France say they have arrested a man suspected of starting fires and causing an explosion outside a synagogue in the country’s southwest.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said “the alleged perpetrator” has been detained.

French media said the suspect was shot and injured by police after he opened fire on the officers who went to arrest him in the city of Nîmes.

Two cars parked at the Beth Yaacov synagogue complex in the seaside resort town of La Grande Motte near Montpellier were set on fire just after 8am local time, the National Antiterrorism Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

Firefighters discovered additional fires at two entrances to the synagogue.

A police officer who walked up to the site was injured after a propane gas tank in one of the vehicles exploded, the statement said. His injuries are not said to be life-threatening.

Five people, including the rabbi, who were present in the synagogue complex at the time of the attack were unharmed.

Prosecutors said they were investigating the attack as an attempted assassination linked to a terrorist group and destruction of property with dangerous means, the statement said.

In a statement on X, President Emmanuel Macron called the attack a “terrorist act” and said, “The fight against antisemitism is a constant battle.”

Acting Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said the synagogue was targeted in a “shocking and appalling” act of violence.

Earlier, acting Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ordered police reinforcement to protect Jewish places of worship and following what was “clearly a criminal act.”

German suspect turns himself in

The man suspected of the stabbing in Solingen has turned himself in, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia told the news agency DPA.

According to the German daily Bild, the man, still covered in blood, approached the officers shortly after 11 p.m. and said: “I’m the one you’re looking for…”

He had reportedly been hiding in a backyard since the crime.

German news magazine Spiegel reported that the suspect is a 26-year-old Syrian, who came to Germany in 2022 and applied for asylum in Bielefeld. Because he came from a country in civil war, he was allowed to stay in Germany.

His stabbing rampage left three people dead and five injured.

The militant Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for the deadly knife attack in the western German city of Solingen on Friday evening.

In a statement on social media, IS’ Amaq media wing said the knifeman was a “soldier of the Islamic State” who targeted a “Christian gathering” in what it said was “revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere”.

New Dutch PM bans phones and devices in cabinet meetings over fears of espionage

Dick Schoof, the new Dutch prime minister, has banned mobile phones and other devices from the weekly meetings of his cabinet in a move aimed at addressing the possible risk of digital eavesdropping by spies.

“The threat of espionage is timeless. Electronic devices, a telephone, iPad, are all little microphones and countries are interested in decision-making also in the Netherlands and you want to prevent that. It’s a very simple measure – all the phones in a safe,” Schoof, a former head of the national intelligence agency, told journalists on Friday.

Paralympians light the flame at the birthplace of the games in England

Two weeks after French star swimmer Léon Marchand extinguished the Olympic flame to close the Paris Olympics, the spotlight is now on its Paralympic counterpart.

British Paralympians Helene Raynsford and Gregor Ewan on Saturday lit the flame in Stoke Mandeville, a village northwest of London widely considered the birthplace of the Paralympic Games.

The flame will now travel to France under the English Channel for a four-day relay from Atlantic Ocean shores to Mediterranean beaches, from mountains in the Pyrenees to the Alps.

Its journey will end in Paris on Wednesday during the Paralympics opening ceremony – with the lighting of a unique Olympic cauldron attached to a hot-air balloon that will fly over the French capital every evening during the 11 days of competition.

The lighting ceremony of the Paralympic Heritage Flame was held in Buckinghamshire, where the Stoke Mandeville Games were first held in 1948 for a small group of wheelchair athletes who had sustained spinal injuries during World War II.

The man behind the idea was Ludwig Guttmann, a Jewish neuro-surgeon who fled Nazi Germany and worked at Britain’s Stoke Mandeville hospital. At the time, suffering a spinal injury was considered a death sentence, and patients were discouraged from moving. Guttmann made the patients sit up and work muscles, and hit upon competition as way to keep them motivated.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I can feel his presence here today, no doubt about it,” said Andrew Parsons, the president of the International Paralympic Committee at Saturday’s lighting ceremony, referring to Guttmann.

The President of the Paris 2024 organising committee Tony Estanguet said that two weeks after closing the Olympics, the French capital was “proud and excited” to host the 17th edition – the first ever for France.

A group of 24 British athletes will embark on the underwater journey through the 50-kilometre long tunnel. Midway through, they will hand over the flame to 24 French athletes who will bring it ashore in Calais. It will be used to light 12 torches, symbolising 11 days of competition and the opening ceremony. Once on French soil, the flame’s 12 offshoots will head in different directions to kick off the Paris Olympics’ encore and aim to rekindle enthusiasm for the Games. They will take the flame to 50 cities across the country to highlight communities that are committed to promoting inclusion in sport and building awareness of living with disabilities.

Photo: X