On 25 January State Secretary Mauro Dell’Ambrogio and Dr. Subra Suresh, Director of the American National Science Foundation NSF, signed a Letter of Intent in which Switzerland expressed its desire to become involved in the NSF Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide programme. Federal Council Johann N. Schneider-Ammann was present at the signing in Davos.

Federal President Ueli Maurer, Head of the Federal Departments of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport DDPS and the Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Ehud Barak have signed a declaration of intent whilst attending the World Economic Forum in Davos. It lays down that both the dialogue between the DDPS and the Israeli Ministry of Defence and bilateral cooperation in selected fields are to be continued. Further collaboration between the Swiss Armed Forces and the Israeli Defence Forces is not planned.

International team of scientists confirms surprisingly small proton radius with laser spectroscopy of exotic hydrogen. The initial results puzzled the world three years ago: the size of the proton (to be precise, its charge radius), measured in exotic hydrogen, in which the electron orbiting the nucleus is replaced by a negatively charged muon, yielded a value significantly smaller than the one from previous investigations of regular hydrogen or electron-proton-scattering. A new measurement by the same team confirms the value of the electric charge radius and makes it possible for the first time to determine the magnetic radius of the proton via laser spectroscopy of muonic hydrogen (Science, January 25, 2013). The experiments were carried out at the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) (Villigen, Switzerland) which is the only research institute in the world providing the necessary amount of muons. The international collaboration included the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching near Munich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich (Switzerland), the University of Fribourg, the Institut für Strahlwerkzeuge (IFSW) of the Universität Stuttgart, and Dausinger & Giesen GmbH, Stuttgart. The new results fuel the debate as to whether the discrepancies observed can be explained by standard physics, for example an incomplete understanding of the systematic errors that are inherent to all measurements, or whether they are due to new physics.

Flow cytometry (FCM) can now be officially used for the quantification of microbial cells in drinking water. The new analytical method – developed at Eawag and extensively tested both in Switzerland and abroad – has been incorporated into the Swiss Food Compendium (SLMB) by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). FCM provides much more realistic results than the conventional method, in which bacterial colonies are grown on agar plates. The results demonstrate that even good-quality drinking water harbours 100 to 10,000 times more living cells than the conventional plate count method would suggest.

The Federal Council intends to ban private military companies in Switzerland and to introduce mandatory registration for the provision of security services abroad. On Wednesday it issued its Message on the draft Federal Act on Private Security Services Provided Abroad.

The Federal Council has appointed Lutz Nolte as the new vice president of the Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI) and president of the Start-Up and Entrepreneurship funding area.

The Federal Council believes that the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting is of great importance to Davos and to Switzerland. Each year, this event brings together leaders from the worlds of business, industry and government. It serves as a venue for an informal exchange of opinions on major topical issues. In view of the current economic challenges and difficulties in the financial markets, the opportunity for such direct contact among decision-makers from government, industry and civil society is extremely valuable.

The Federal Council has lifted the broadcasting restriction on regional television pro-gramme services. As a result, these programme services can in future be broadcast by wire in digital format outside their allocated coverage areas.

Local and regional newspapers with an entitlement to discounted transport will benefit from a CHF 0.22 delivery reduction per copy from the Swiss Post for the year 2013. The corresponding reduction for subscription publications and foundations' publications is CHF 0.15. The Federal Council has approved both amounts as part of its indirect support for the press, for which the Confederation has allocated an annual budget of CHF 50 million.

Cities in the developing world are set to grow by some 2.7 billion people between now and 2050. Integrated planning and financing is essential to ensure that the necessary infrastructures can be made available in a sustainable manner. A study on sustainable urbanisation compiled by the World Bank in association with SECO will be presented at the Global Energy Basel Summit.