ZURICH, June 17 (Reuters) – Credit Suisse has no
plans to issue new shares after the Swiss central bank called on
it to improve its capital base this year, but should be able to
do so by retaining earnings, Chief Executive Brady Dougan was
quoted as saying on Sunday.

“Of course I am disappointed. FINMA has given us directions
as to how we should strengthen capital. We are fulfilling
those,” Dougan told the SonntagsZeitung paper in an interview.

ZURICH, June 15 (Reuters) – A slapdown by the Swiss National
Bank (SNB) has forced Credit Suisse to reconsider
plans for a gradual strengthening of capital buffers, raising
the prospect of a prompt and ill-timed cash call.

The criticism from the SNB has also further undermined Chief
Executive Brady Dougan, who was lauded for navigating the bank
through the subprime crisis relatively unscathed but has come
under fire of late for squandering that advantage.

TOKYO/ZURICH (Reuters) – The threat of turmoil sweeping across global markets next week if Greece’s election prompts a panicky flight of money from the euro zone has policymakers from Beijing to Zurich preparing to protect their currencies and economies from an unwelcome influx.

Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan is among the most vociferous, dangling the threat on Thursday of imposing capital controls to stop the Swiss franc from soaring as a result of investors seeking the currency’s relative safety.

ZURICH (Reuters) – Right-to-die activists hope more countries will allow assisted suicide or euthanasia in coming years as the world population ages, but opponents are determined to stop them, a dispute that flared ahead of competing conferences in Switzerland.

“We have seen over the last 20 years a general migration of positivity towards this being a just cause,” Ted Goodwin, the American president of the World Federation of Right-to-Die Societies, told a news conference in Zurich on Tuesday.

VADUZ (Reuters) – It isn’t easy being a campaigner for more democracy in the tiny principality of Liechtenstein. Everybody knows everybody in this arch-conservative state and the subjects of the last monarchy in Europe with any real power don’t like rocking the boat.

Activists who want to end the monarchy’s right to veto popular referendums say they have received threatening letters and seen far-right vandals deface campaign posters with Nazi slogans like “Heil Fatherland” and “Democrats are the death of the people”.