标签： Europe

This Sunday, Swiss voters will head to the ballot box to decide on one of the most divisive policy proposals in the Alpine nation’s recent history: a nationwide initiative to cap the country’s total population at 10 million by 2050, a vote that has laid bare deep national rifts over immigration, economic stability and Switzerland’s relationship with the European Union.

The proposal, branded the “sustainability initiative” by its backer, the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), frames population caps as a solution to growing public strains. The country’s population has surged from 7.3 million in 2002 to 9.1 million today, with 27% of current residents born abroad. SVP supporters argue that unregulated immigration has directly driven a national housing shortage, overcrowded transit networks, overburdened public schools, and strained social and health services. Limiting population growth, they claim, will preserve Switzerland’s unique quality of life for current and future generations.

Opponents from across the political spectrum, including the Swiss federal government, business associations, trade unions, and left-leaning parties, have dismissed the plan as a dangerous “chaos initiative” that threatens Switzerland’s economic prosperity and global standing. Under the proposal, once the population hits 9.5 million, the government would be required to implement strict restrictions, including cutting asylum acceptances and ending family reunification rights for foreign workers. If the 10 million cap is reached, Switzerland would be forced to withdraw from existing international agreements, most notably the EU’s free movement of people accord.

For business leaders, that prospect carries severe risks. Switzerland’s economy, particularly its critical hospitality and healthcare sectors, relies heavily on immigrant labor: half of all hotel workers in the country are foreign-born, and hospitals and care facilities depend on overseas staff to address persistent labor gaps. Economiesuisse, Switzerland’s leading business association, warns that ending free movement of people would jeopardize Switzerland’s access to the EU single market — its largest trading partner by far. EU officials have repeatedly made clear that non-member states cannot cherry-pick single market benefits while rejecting core commitments like free movement, raising the specter of trade barriers and economic disruption.

Demographic experts and opponents also argue the plan ignores Switzerland’s pressing aging population crisis: roughly 20% of Swiss residents are currently over 65, and the country requires a steady inflow of young working immigrants to fund pension systems and staff care services for the elderly.

The referendum is made possible by Switzerland’s iconic direct democracy system, which allows any initiative to go to a national ballot if organizers collect 100,000 valid signatures. For many undecided voters, the core question remains how exactly a hard population cap — a policy never attempted by any other modern nation, outside of China’s now-discarded one-child policy aimed at slowing birth rates — would function in practice.

Recent polling points to an extraordinarily tight race, with opponents holding a wafer-thin 52% to 45% lead, though pollsters note a large share of voters remain undecided. The national divide is illustrated by two young politicians from Bern, both from immigrant backgrounds, who hold diametrically opposed views on the initiative. Twenty-nine-year-old Nils Fiechter, an SVP member of the Bern cantonal parliament who holds dual Swiss-Canadian citizenship, argues unchecked immigration is eroding Switzerland’s national identity. “Unchecked immigration is leading to Switzerland no longer being Switzerland,” he says, framing the initiative as a push to protect the country’s prosperous, safe way of life for all residents, regardless of background.

Thirty-one-year-old Helin Genis, a Social Democrat on the Bern city council whose parents immigrated from Turkey, calls the SVP’s arguments blatant scapegoating. “It is not migrants who determine rent levels. It is not migrants who raise health insurance premiums. Nor is it migrants who make political decisions on housing, infrastructure or social investment,” she explains. “Viewing problems through the lens of migration does not lead to solutions, but to division.” Genis argues the real policy challenge is expanding affordable housing and strengthening public services, not excluding new residents.

As voting day approaches, fears of international isolation have become a central argument for the no campaign. Amid heightened global geopolitical uncertainty — from the war in Ukraine to ongoing trade tensions with the United States that have already left 15% punitive tariffs on Swiss goods unresolved — anti-initiative posters have adopted a striking visual to drive home their message: the posters feature U.S. President Donald Trump with the silhouettes of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping behind him, with the headline: “Break with Europe, at a time like this?”

While SVP supporters dismiss warnings of EU retaliation as fearmongering, arguing existing trade agreements benefit the bloc as much as Switzerland, the threat of broken ties and international isolation could prove the deciding factor for swing voters. As the country heads to the polls, all sides agree the outcome of this unprecedented referendum will shape Switzerland’s demographic, economic and political trajectory for decades to come.

As the long-stagnant front line of the Russia-Ukraine war continues to lock both sides into costly positional conflict, Kyiv has intensified its cross-border long-range strike campaign targeting Russian military and energy infrastructure deep behind enemy lines. The latest incident unfolded Saturday in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, where local officials confirmed a Ukrainian drone strike left one civilian dead and three others injured.

Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev reported that falling drone debris ignited a blaze at a coastal terminal facility. While the governor did not release specific details about the site’s function, Russian independent news outlets confirmed the damaged terminal is located in the village of Volna, a key Black Sea hub that handles exports of crude oil, petroleum products and liquefied natural gas.

Ukraine’s General Staff has not issued an official confirmation or comment on the Krasnodar strike, but the military body did acknowledge overnight long-range operations targeting multiple sites. It confirmed successful strikes on an oil processing and pumping station in Russia’s Volgograd region, in addition to military targets in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and southern Zaporizhzhia regions.

The weekend strike marks the latest progression of Kyiv’s expanding deep-strike strategy, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly acknowledged earlier this week. Zelenskyy announced Wednesday that Ukrainian forces had used domestically produced FP-5 Flamingo long-range missiles to hit a key military manufacturing facility in Cheboksary, located in Russia’s Chuvashiya region more than 900 kilometers from the active front line. The facility, Zelenskyy noted, produces critical components for Russian attack drones and cruise missiles used in regular strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure.

More than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the roughly 1,000-kilometer front line has remained largely static. Dense drone usage from both sides has effectively repelled large-scale ground advances, leading both militaries to shift increasingly to long-range strike operations to disrupt the opponent’s logistics, supply chains and critical infrastructure.

The latest wave of Ukrainian strikes comes just one week after high-profile attacks that damaged an oil terminal in St. Petersburg and struck a nearby Russian naval base. Those attacks occurred during a major Kremlin-hosted economic forum in Putin’s hometown, creating an embarrassing public setback for the Russian leader. In response, Putin publicly pledged to bolster Russia’s nationwide air defense network to intercept more incoming long-range weapons and drones.

The escalation of cross-border attacks was not limited to Ukraine on Saturday: Ukrainian regional authorities reported that Russian strikes targeting the southern Dnipropetrovsk region left nine people injured. Regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha wrote in a Telegram post that Russian forces launched more than 20 separate attacks across three districts of the region, using both attack drones and aerial bombs. The strikes ignited a large fire at a local public marketplace, and six of the injured people were hospitalized for treatment, including one man in critical condition, Hanzha added.

The Associated Press continues to provide ongoing full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war, with additional reporting available at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

Fifty years after the first gathering of top Western industrial leaders that laid the foundation for one of the world’s most influential global policy blocs, the upcoming G7 summit in France has drawn fresh attention to the historic 1975 meeting that started it all. On November 15, 1975, U.S. President Gerald Ford joined the heads of government from France, West Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan for three days of closed-door economic brainstorming at the Château de Rambouillet, a sprawling 14th-century royal retreat 30 miles outside Paris. That initial gathering of six nations would expand one year later with the addition of Canada, giving rise to the Group of Seven, a bloc that would shape global economic, diplomatic and security policy through the Cold War and beyond. To mark the upcoming 2024 summit, the Associated Press is republishing key excerpts of its original on-the-ground reporting from the 1975 inaugural summit, filed by veteran correspondent Arthur L. Gavshon.

Opening the first session of the summit against the backdrop of Rambouillet’s gilded royal history—where Louis XV once relaxed and Napoleon Bonaparte spent his final night in France before exile to Saint Helena—President Ford laid out an ambitious goal for the assembled leaders: pull the global economy out of a crippling mid-1970s slump and return to full prosperity by 1977. A senior presidential aide told reporters that Ford categorically rejected the growing narrative that major industrial economies could never return to the pre-recession growth rates that had defined the post-war decades. He added that the U.S. economic recovery was already outpacing early forecasts, projecting that American growth would hit between 6% and 7% through 1976.

After nearly three hours of open, informal talks, the leaders adjourned for dinner, and host French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing offered an early optimistic assessment to waiting reporters. “I am optimistic. I think we can arrive at something concrete,” he said. A French presidential spokesperson echoed that positivity, noting that the leaders had already achieved a “remarkable convergence of views” on core challenges. Senior British officials signaled a growing consensus among attendees that the worst of the global downturn had already passed, while U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger echoed the upbeat tone, telling reporters the first day of talks “went very well.”

True to the French government’s deliberate low-key framing of the event as a working seminar rather than a lavish state occasion, the opening night dinner was intentionally simple, a stark departure from the opulent banquets that usually mark high-level French state events. Stuffed chicken served with solid but unexceptional French wine was the featured main course, a deliberate choice aligned with the gathering’s focus on practical problem-solving over pomp. Even the attire of the participating leaders reflected this casual working tone: Giscard d’Estaing wore a soft greenish tweed weekend suit, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt opted for a casual light gray suit, and only Ford dressed in more formal attire—a dark blue three-piece suit paired with a white shirt.

The event’s organizers pulled out all stops to prepare the historic chateau for the high-profile gathering, hauling priceless art, furniture and statuary from the Louvre Museum in Paris to restore the chateau’s stately rooms, with moving crews working into the early hours of Saturday morning to finish setup. More than 3,000 armed French police officers were deployed across the chateau’s hundreds of acres of wooded grounds and manicured gardens to secure the meeting. Each leader was assigned a custom-furnished private apartment in the chateau: Ford took the top suite in the Francois I tower, the chateau’s most comfortable quarters, outfitted with a Spanish-made bed, a working fireplace and a direct hotline to the White House. Harold Wilson of the UK received a mahogany-and-satin suite overlooking the garden ponds, Takeo Miki of Japan took a wood-beamed apartment with period Louis XVI furniture, Helmut Schmidt stayed in a Directoire-style suite, and Aldo Moro of Italy was assigned rooms decorated in Empire-era furnishings.

A number of key priorities emerged from the first day of discussions. Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Miki, who opened his remarks by noting that Japan’s export-reliant economy had been hit particularly hard by collapsing global trade, immediately pushed the group to prioritize commitments to expand and liberalize cross-border international commerce. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, working through senior aides, called on fellow leaders to back a new, strengthened global non-proliferation framework to slow the spread of sensitive nuclear technology, equipment and weapons. On the second day of the summit, Ford was set to join Giscard d’Estaing and Moro for a religious service at the local Roman Catholic church in the nearby village of Poigny la Forêt, a short 10-minute drive from the chateau.

Unlike large multilateral summits that target binding final agreements, the 1975 Rambouillet gathering was framed from the start as a collaborative working retreat, where leaders would not reach firm final decisions but instead align on shared policy directions to tackle the era’s most pressing economic challenges: double-digit inflation, rising unemployment, and shrinking global trade. White House Press Secretary Ron Nessen told reporters aboard Ford’s transatlantic flight to the summit that the meeting could ultimately deliver tangible benefits to American consumers, noting that the president had always framed the gathering through the lens of practical impacts for everyday households.

Four core policy domains anchored the talks, each highlighting deep shared interests and occasional disagreements between the six nations. The first was long-running Franco-American tensions over reform of the global monetary system: French officials opposed the existing regime of floating exchange rates and pushed for a return to a more rigid fixed-rate system, while the U.S. and UK favored retaining the flexibility of floating rates. Second, leaders aligned around the need for a coordinated common energy policy, with Ford earning broad backing for his argument that industrial democracies could not allow their economic and political futures to be held hostage by oil-producing nations, calling for rapid joint development of new energy supply sources and collective conservation programs. Third, the group discussed the broader global economic outlook and coordinated strategies to curb inflation, which was already eroding political stability in dozens of countries. Finally, leaders debated how to structure more cooperative relationships between three tiers of the global economy: advanced Western industrial nations, newly wealthy oil and raw material exporting states, and the world’s lowest-income developing countries.

Over the decades since that 1975 retreat, the G7 has grown into one of the world’s most consequential global forums, with rotating annual hostings that consistently draw global headlines thanks to the bloc’s combined economic, industrial, military and diplomatic weight.

A confidential internal investigation from global humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has uncovered a widespread pattern of sexual abuse and exploitation targeting vulnerable displaced populations on the Chad-Sudan border, exposing deep systemic failures in the group’s safeguards against misconduct in crisis settings. The 59 verified and alleged abuses, first brought to public attention by Associated Press investigative reporting, include exploitation of underage girls, transactional sex for food and work, and even indicators of potential organized trafficking among both local and international MSF staff.

For thousands of young Burmese displaced by the 2021 military coup, a vocational education spot in Finland represented far more than just a degree — it was a lifeline out of conflict, poverty, and uncertainty. But for hundreds of these aspiring students, that dream has collapsed into financial ruin and exploitation, at the center of what Finnish law enforcement calls one of the largest education fraud schemes they have ever investigated.

The story begins with the upheaval that shattered education across Myanmar after the military seized power in February 2021. Thousands of educators abandoned their posts, and pro-democracy students refused to enroll in institutions controlled by the junta. Many young people, including 19-year-old Ma Naw Phaw, fled to refugee settlements along the Thai-Myanmar border, where they scrambled to access alternative schooling in towns like Mae Sot. It was there that Ma Naw Phaw first encountered Brighter Future Way (BFW), an education recruitment agency that promised Burmese students access to vocational programs across Finland, complete with guaranteed residence permits and a clear path to stable employment that would let them support their families.

For Ma Naw Phaw, the opportunity felt too good to miss. “It didn’t matter what I studied,” she recalled. “I just knew I needed a degree to find a good job and earn a decent wage to lift my family out of hardship.” Like dozens of other students, she began preparing for the move, taking Finnish language courses organized by BFW and working to raise the exorbitant fees the agency charged. The 10,000 euros ($11,500) BFW demanded for language training, visa processing, and vocational school placement was a catastrophic sum for her family: it took nearly a year of sacrifice to raise, and her mother ultimately sold two plots of family farmland to cover the cost. But the investment felt worth it for a future in what agencies marketed as the “world’s happiest country,” where once students secured a study residence permit, their entire families could eventually join them.

This marketing pitch grew increasingly powerful after Western nations including the United States and United Kingdom tightened visa rules for Burmese nationals following the 2021 coup, over concerns that student visas were being used to claim refugee status. Finland, by contrast, was positioned as a welcoming, accessible alternative, with agencies touting easy visa approval, free high-quality education, and the ability to work while studying to cover living costs. BFW, which advertised itself as a specialist service supporting Burmese students seeking to study, work, and live abroad, even had registered offices in Myanmar, Thailand, and Finland, giving it an air of legitimacy that convinced hundreds of vulnerable young people to sign up.

But the promise quickly unraveled for most students. By April of this year, Ma Naw Phaw’s application for a Finnish residence permit was rejected — a outcome BFW had repeatedly insisted would never happen. When she reached out to BFW to demand a refund, the agency went silent. Within weeks, she learned that BFW founder Min Min Soe Shwe had been arrested by Finnish authorities, and her entire life savings were gone.

Interviews with six affected students, a Finnish vocational institution, and BFW’s Thailand-based co-founder Phitak Pakay confirm that BFW is the agency at the center of the large-scale investigation launched by Finland’s Border Guard. The probe covers activity between 2022 and 2025, during which BFW offered placement services to roughly 350 Burmese students. Investigators suspect the scheme operated under false pretenses: the agency charged exorbitant, hidden fees for services it never delivered, leaving hundreds of students and their families deep in debt.

Juho Sillanpää, the lead investigator on the case, told the BBC that the scam has left hundreds of students in extremely vulnerable positions, putting them at high risk of further financial or personal exploitation. While Sillanpää noted that Finnish law enforcement has investigated multiple education agent fraud cases over the years, most have been far smaller in scale. He added that the alleged conduct could amount to aggravated extortion, though he declined to name the organization or individuals under investigation publicly.

Students who fell victim to the scheme describe a pattern of deception from the start. Ma Naw Phaw told reporters that after paying thousands of euros for Finnish language training, she arrived at BFW’s Mae Sat facility to find no qualified teachers at all — students were forced to teach one another. When she asked to withdraw after a few months, BFW representatives told her no refunds would be issued under any circumstances.

For 21-year-old Ko Myint, the outcome has been even bleaker. His parents emptied their entire life savings and borrowed thousands of dollars from relatives to pay BFW’s 8,000 euro fee, while working as low-wage migrants at a Thai food factory earning just $305 a month. After Ko Myint already paid the lump sum, BFW suddenly demanded an extra 3,500 baht per month in accommodation fees that were never disclosed upfront. When he could not pay, he was dropped from the program despite already receiving an offer to study nursing in Helsinki. “They told me not a single baht of my money was left, but I never even got a visa,” he said. “I don’t understand how all the money could be gone.” Today, Ko Myint works back-to-back day and night shifts at the factory to pay off his family’s debt, and he faced harassment and intimidation after speaking out about his experience on social media.

Only a tiny number of students recruited by BFW actually made it to Finland to complete their programs. One of the few, 26-year-old Ko Myo, told reporters he was allowed to defer his fees until after he graduated and found work as a nursing home employee — a flexible arrangement none of the other interviewed students received.

Finnish vocational college EduSavo Oy had planned to accept its first cohort of BFW-recruited students in autumn 2025, but the partnership collapsed in May when BFW failed to deliver required tuition payments, just as news of the investigation broke. “We received information regarding the ongoing police investigation and information indicating that BFW was currently unable to complete the payment,” EduSavo CEO Mira Repo told the BBC. “My understanding is that Min Min Soe Shwe was detained by Finnish authorities.”

BFW co-founder Phitak Pakay, based in Thailand, told reporters that the organization has lost all contact with Min Min Soe Shwe and will wind down operations imminently, as no students remain in BFW-provided accommodation. The BBC has reached out to Min Min Soe Shwe’s legal representation and family, both of whom declined to comment for this report.

For surviving victims like Ma Naw Phaw, the aftermath of the scam has left deep personal and financial scars. She has relocated to another city in Thailand, too ashamed to return to her family’s home in Myanmar, and the loss of the farmland strained her relationship with her mother — who only came to understand they had been scammed after news of Min Min Soe Shwe’s arrest broke.

Finland’s Ministry of Education says it is not directly involved in the criminal investigation, but has expressed deep concern over the alleged violations. While third-party education agents like BFW have become common for international student recruitment worldwide, including in Finland, the ministry noted that new regulations set to take effect in August will eliminate the need for intermediaries: starting this year, all international students will be able to apply directly to Finnish vocational schools, cutting out predatory middlemen that exploit vulnerable applicants. Despite the forthcoming regulatory change, the hundreds of Burmese students caught in BFW’s scheme face a long, uncertain road to recover their lost savings and rebuild their shattered futures.