Electrosensitivity, an “allergy that affects the brain” affects more and more people

blue News and Keystone-ATS give you a first overview of the news, with the latest news unearthed in the press. Without forgetting birthdays and the saying of the day!

Today’s highlights

FEDERAL FINANCES: In a context of cost-saving measures, the Finance Committee of the Council of States reveals its position on the Confederation’s 2025 budget on Tuesday during a press briefing. That of the National announced last week increased support for the army and cuts in the international cooperation budget.

NUCLEAR: The National Cooperative Society for the Storage of Radioactive Waste (Nagra) submitted applications to the Confederation on Tuesday for general authorization concerning the deep geological repository for radioactive waste in Stadel (ZH). The Confederation will examine by spring 2025 whether all the required documents have been provided to it, before carrying out an in-depth examination of the requests. Last Friday, the commission “Nuclear deep discharge in front of the people!” has already demanded that the project be submitted to popular verdict. The Federal Council and Parliament must decide from 2029.

VIOLENCE: The Lausanne authorities on Tuesday drew up the 2024 assessment of the Special Unit for the care of victims of domestic violence and harassment in public spaces. They will also present the prevention actions carried out in this area as well as the new measures they intend to introduce.

ICE HOCKEY: Fribourg-Gottéron hosts the Swedes of Växjö on Tuesday (7:45 p.m.) in the round of 16 second leg of the Champions League. Beaten 1-0 in the first leg, the Dragons need to recover a goal to at least win an extension. Zurich is in a better position when it comes to welcoming the Germans from Straubing, whom the Lions dominated 4-2 in the first leg.

TODAY IS…: Like every November 19, today is World Toilet Day. “Safe toilets for all by 2030” are part of the Sustainable Development Goals, a goal that is still far from being achieved. Three and a half billion people still live without safely managed sanitation services, including 419 million practicing open defecation. Additionally, sanitation is threatened by conflict, climate change, disasters and neglect. All information on the UN website.

Seen in the press

ELECTROSENSITIVITY: “It is an unofficial pathology, very difficult to have recognized, particularly by disability insurance,” explains doctor Nathalie Calame, based in Colombier and Neuchâtel, in the columns of the Quotidien Jura. She follows around twenty patients who suffer from electrosensitivity, which forces some of them to interrupt their studies in particular.

She presents this pathology as “an allergy that affects the brain” and which concerns more and more people, with the omnipresence of connected objects. For the doctor, it would be a question of considering these people as sentinels, likely to alert society to the consequences of “unreasonable exposure” to the waves.

SOUS-LOCATION: In Zurich, the share of sublets has multiplied by more than four in the space of ten years, representing in the third quarter of 2024 more than 14% of all rental housing announcements, we read in Le Temps, which is based on a study by the real estate research firm Wüest Partner, “because official data is largely lacking”.

For the authors of the study, subletting is a consequence of the housing shortage. The share of commercial space offered as sublet has also increased in recent years. On the other hand, the figures in Geneva and Lausanne show, “surprisingly”, a much more stable development. In the City of Calvin, the share of sublet advertisements has even decreased, to less than 2% of all rental housing advertisements.

ENVIRONMENT: Fuel importers have avoided strict CO2 compensation guidelines. Overall, they have to compensate less than they feared, write the German-speaking Tamedia newspapers. In 2025, importers will therefore have to offset a quarter of CO2 emissions and in 2030, half.

According to Tamedia, they have also achieved their goal regarding the share that must be carried out in Switzerland or abroad: the national share amounts to 12%, as proposed by the sector. The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) has rejected the criticisms of climate activists, who see a “problematic proximity” to the fuel lobby.

ADVERTISING DISTRIBUTORS: The Neuchâtel Address Bureau (BAN), specializing in the distribution of mailings mainly advertising, has warned its 157 part-time carriers that it will have to separate from those who do not wish to work at least 50%, writes ArcInfo . Dozens of porters will lose their jobs. The BAN is today faced with a “persistent decline in volumes to be distributed”, indicates its director Nicolas Sauvant.

This institution, created in 1931 and which covers the canton of Neuchâtel, but also the Jura and the Bernese Jura, specializes in the distribution of all households, particularly advertising, but also free local newspapers. This company aims to “offer supplementary employment to disadvantaged people on the labor market”.

INTERNATIONAL LE CORBUSIER PRIZE: Le Corbusier, born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret in 1887 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, did not yet have an architecture prize to his name. It is now done. The Le Corbusier Prize association, based in the watchmaking metropolis, is launching an international competition. Competitors will have to propose “an object which has been created or in progress over the last ten years,” said architect Stefan Rudy, one of the promoters of this award in ArcInfo and in Le Journal du Jura.

The organizers wish to award the prize each year in a city where Le Corbusier carried out a construction. This is the case in 37 countries. For this first edition, the winner and the nominees will be rewarded next May at the Haute Ecole d’arts et de design (HEAD) in Geneva. Guardian of the temple, the Le Corbusier Foundation, based in Paris, is a partner of the prize.

ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEAULIEU THEATER: The Théâtre de Beaulieu, the largest theater in Switzerland with 1,600 seats, was inaugurated on November 19, 1954, 70 years ago, recalls 24 Heures. “It is to Lausanne what the Olympia is to Paris”, they say: an emblematic place where the most notable stars of the second half of the 20th century have followed one another: Barbara, Edith Piaf, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, Quincy Jones or even Serge Gainsbourg.

Discussions for the creation of a performance hall in Lausanne between the Municipality and the Société cooperative du Comptoir Suisse date back to 1949. The Theater was renovated in 2022.

Birthdays and jubilees

– One year ago (2023): Far-right libertarian candidate Javier Milei, 56, is elected president of Argentina. He announced the elimination of most social benefits, the replacement of the peso by the dollar and the dynamiting of the national bank.

– 5 years ago (2019): German doctor Fritz von Weizsäcker – youngest son of former German President Richard von Weizsäcker – was stabbed to death at the end of a conference he was giving in Berlin . The perpetrator suffered from mental disorders. According to the public prosecutor’s office, this was a “delusional dislike” against the von Weizsäcker family.

– 10 years ago (2014): The Italian Supreme Court overturns the conviction of Stephan Schmidheiny in the asbestos case. The Swiss businessman was sentenced in second instance to 18 years in prison and ordered to pay compensation of 90 million euros.

– 25 years ago (1999): An American tax official, John Carpenter, is the first to win the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” He didn’t need a single joker before answering the last question. He only used the telephone joker to inform his father that he already knew the answer and was going to bring home a million dollars.

– 70 years ago (1954): Birth of Swiss photographer Michel Comte, author of a famous nude by Carla Bruni.

– 75 years ago (1949): Death of Belgian painter James Ensor, known for his mask paintings and grotesque paintings. He was born in 1860.

– 90 years ago (1934): Birth of the French artist Sam Szafran, known for his art of pastel and watercolor. He died in 2019.

Saying of the day

“November frost, goodbye tender grass.”

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