3 million. Some voters were seemingly worried at the prospect of losing much-needed workers in tourism, hospitals, and care homes.
Results showed nearly 55% of participants voted against and 45% voted for, with a turnout of 60% of the population.The divisive vote risked putting the country's free movement agreement with the European Union in jeopardy and was opposed by the government, Swiss businesses, and all the other major parties.Welcoming the no vote, Switzerland's justice minister Beat Jans said it was "a sign of stability, openness and reliability".Switzerland's population has grown rapidly since 2002, when it stood at 7.3 million. Now it is 9.1 million, 27% of whom are not Swiss citizens.However, the People Party's argument that capping the population would reduce pressure on transport, housing and the environment seem not to have persuaded enough voters.Although the Swiss People's Party insisted the population cap was designed to protect Switzerland's public services and its environment, it has a long history of campaigning on an anti-immigrant platform, frequently blaming asylum seekers and minorities for societal problems.Some voters were seemingly worried at the prospect of losing much-needed workers in tourism, hospitals, and care homes. Others, in particular Swiss business leaders, feared losing Switzerland's crucial access to Europe's single market. Over half of all Swiss products are sold into the EU, but their access to Europe's markets depends on Swiss commitment to Europe's free movement of people. Had the population cap been approved, Switzerland would have had to terminate that agreement.Both the Swiss government and Swiss business leaders say the vote shows non-EU member Switzerland wants to stay close to Europe.The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had stayed out of the campaign, but welcomed the result once the votes were counted, saying: "The Swiss people have spoken. The EU and Switzerland share deep ties and a strong partnership".But the concerns over high rents, over development, crowded public transport, and rising health costs will not go away because of this particular decision.Marcel Dettling, the Swiss People's Party's president, said the vote showed that "the population wants solutions. Not a single problem has been solved".What the Swiss voters have shown though, is that many of them may be weary of the People's Party's continued focus on immigration as the source of Switzerland's problems, while voters themselves are not at all convinced that blaming immigrants, or stricter controls on immigration, are the way to solve them.Switzerland's system of direct democracy means all major decisions are taken via the ballot box. Campaigners simply have to gather 100,000 signatures to ensure a nationwide vote.A yes-vote poster paints the planned cap (L) as a way of protecting Switzerland, but opponents call it a "chaos initiative"Two young politicians with opposing views on limiting the Swiss population spoke to the BBC prior to the vote. "We have lost control," complains Nils Fiechter, 29, who represents the Swiss People's Party in canton Bern's parliament. "Unchecked immigration is leading to Switzerland no longer being Switzerland," he said.In 2022, Fiechter and his co-president of the People's Party's youth wing were convicted of racial discrimination by the Swiss Federal Court, in relation to a poster they distributed in 2018 targeting Roma and traveller communities.He believes Switzerland's problems, which he says include a "housing shortage, gridlocked traffic, overburdened schools and strained social services", are a direct result of immigration.But Helin Genis, a 31-year-old Social Democrat elected to Bern city council, dismissed these arguments as scapegoating.She told BBC News: "It is not migrants who determine rent levels. It is not migr
Voters Will Decide. The New York Times Swiss wait to hear result of ballot on capping population at 10 million The Guardian Switzerland’s Radical Proposal on Immigration: Cap the Population WSJ
6 minutes agoDan SalesReinhard Dirscherl/ullstein bild via Getty ImagesA humpback whale pictured in a file photoAn enormous whale graveyard around 1,200km (745 miles) long has been discovered in the southeastern Indian Ocean.The site, which is 7km (four miles) deep, has been found in the Diamantina fracture zone, a range on the sea floor of ridges and trenches.But it is the age of the remains - some from 5.3 million years ago - that has prompted huge excitement in the scientific community.The underwater necropolis, which was discovered by a team of researchers from China, Italy and New Zealand, is teeming with organisms and species that "may be new to science", according to journal Nature.One of the study's authors Xiaotong Peng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: "Discovering a necropolis of this scale was completely unexpected."The size of distribution, the depth and the age range were far beyond anything we had imagined."During 32 dives to the site, explorers collected samples from 485 whale-fossil sites and active whale falls, and found a treasure trove of remains, including one extinct whale's skeleton.The beaked Pterocetus benguelae, which is 5.3 million years old, was discovered to be one of the fossilised skulls in the graves.A five-metre long Antarctic minke whale's carcass was the largest discovery made.A new species which the team has called Pterocetus diamantinae, after the site, was also uncovered.Jellyfish, worms and crustaceans are among the community of creatures living off the huge spread of carcasses."Peng and colleagues' encounter with a vast fossil graveyard is a truly unique discovery," Stephen J Godfrey of the Calvert Marine Museum wrote in Nature."Although the site has limited accessibility, it seems likely to hold many other exciting finds, and it will no doubt inspire more submersible dives in similar environments."Peng and colleagues' paper reminded me of a trailer for the first in a series of epic movies. I hope that there will be many more of these blockbusters to come."
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