Russian president Vladimir Putin has again denounced the upcoming Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland, describing it as a means of putting pressure on Russia. The conference planned for June 15-16 in the Bürgenstock resort above Lake Lucerne is an a...

Some 45% of native wild bee species are endangered, due to an insufficient number of flowers for collecting pollen and nectar and a lack of nesting sites. On the other hand, several species considered extinct 30 years ago have reappeared in the count...

Ignazio Cassis told the Council of Europe on Friday that his former government colleague Alain Berset was the “ideal candidate” for the job as Secretary General of the Strasbourg body. Cassis told the 133rd session of the Committee of Ministers a...

On Thursday, the cantonal parliament approved a new Health Act which includes a ban on therapies aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. After examining around forty amendments, the council’s members finally approved the bill by 10...

Swiss plans for the large-scale underground transport of goods are “fundamentally innovative”, but problems remain, said participants at a public event. Locations for loading points for the privately-funded “Cargo sous terrain” (CST) project ...

The Association of Swiss Student Organisations has said that sit-in protests in connection with the Middle East conflict have, through some discriminatory demands and calls for violence, “lost all legitimacy”. The line between anti-Semitism, Isla...

On Friday, three organisations who jointly operate a Swiss helpline drew attention to the big increase in reports and called for appropriate action. In 2023, 305 cases of verbal abuse or attacks against lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex or quee...

On Friday, football’s international governing body laid the formal foundations for a theoretical departure from its headquarters in Zurich. However, FIFA is “happy” in Switzerland, the association said before the congress vote. According to an ...

Switzerland’s economy has expanded only slightly in 2024, with growth in the service sector offset by weaker growth in industry. According to projections on Thursday by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), Swiss gross domestic product...

The number of people with jobs in the country rose by 1.4% year-on-year to reach 5.3 million in the first quarter of 2024. The number of employed women (+2%) increased more strongly than the number of employed men (+0.9%) compared to the same quarter...

Austrian director Jessica Hausner has been appointed as jury president for the 77th Locarno Film Festival in August 2024. As such, she will head the group which decides who will receive the Golden Leopard prize, festival organisers said on Thursday. ...

The rights of people in vulnerable situations are still sometimes disregarded within the Swiss welfare system, a national research programme has found. While there have been developments in child and adult protection measures in recent decades, these...

A centre-left proposal for a CHF15 billion ($16.6 billion) package for the Swiss army and Ukraine is likely to have a difficult time getting through Switzerland’s Senate. The Senate’s finance committee has opposed the idea of setting up a special...

Swiss President Viola Amherd has praised Germany's commitment to preparations for the Ukraine peace conference during a visit to Berlin this week. Amherd, who holds the rotating Swiss presidency this year, met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin ...

Swiss President Viola Amherd has expressed her “deep shock” at the shooting of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico on Wednesday. Switzerland condemns all acts of violence, she said in a post on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twit...

A man injured half a dozen people on Wednesday, two of them seriously, before being arrested in Zofingen, northern Switzerland. The suspect was identified by canton Aargau police on Thursday as a 43-year-old Spaniard. They said he had displayed signs...

Switzerland plans to introduce a flight passenger database from 2026 to collect and process personal data in a bid to combat terrorism and serious crime. The government has sent a related bill to parliament. Justice Minister Beat Jans told reporters ...

The federal government intends to invest CHF16.4 billion ($18.1 billion) in railway infrastructure between 2025 and 2028, CHF2 billion more than for the current period. The larger financial envelope will go towards compensating for rising prices but ...

Swiss citizens will vote on a reform of occupational pension schemes and a biodiversity initiative on September 22, the Federal Council announced on Wednesday. A referendum against a reform of the so-called second pillar of the Swiss pension system, ...

To date, 50 countries out 160 invited delegations have confirmed they will attend the Ukraine peace conference, due to be held in central Switzerland in mid-June, according to Swiss public radio, RTS. The meeting will take place on June 15 and 16 at ...

Switzerland’s top criminal court has convicted a former interior minister of the Gambia for crimes against humanity during repression by the west African country’s security forces against opponents of its longtime dictator, a legal advocacy group...

The body of a Canadian man who had been missing since the deadly avalanche that hit the Riffelberg ski slope in Zermatt on April 1 has been found, Swiss police announced on Tuesday. His body was discovered by a member of the Valais police who was hik...

Swiss footwear company On Holding AG posted strong first-quarter revenue and nudged its sales forecast higher for the year, boosted by demand for its running shoes and new line of training apparel. Roger Federer-backed On reported quarterly sales of ...

Watches belonging to Formula 1 great Michael Schumacher sold for around CHF4 million ($4.41 million) at auction house Christie's in Geneva on Tuesday. The eight watches, including timepieces by Rolex, F.P. Journe and Audemars Piguet, were put up for ...

Police moved in early on Wednesday to remove some 30 pro-Palestinian student protestors from a Bern university building. The students left peacefully, according to news reports. Following a request by the police, the 30 protestors left the site at ar...

French President Emmanuel Macron will attend the peace conference on Ukraine at the Swiss Bürgenstock resort next month, Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Tuesday on X (formerly Twitter). The two men spoke by telephone, explained Zelensky, who said he...

A social media post by the president of Bern’s cantonal government critical of the Eurovision Song Contest has created waves and will be discussed in the cantonal parliament. On Saturday Switzerland won the 2024 competition, held in Malmö, Sweden,...

Last year 317 people took part in a protection programme run by the Specialist Unit for Trafficking in Women and Women’s Migration (FIZ) in German-speaking Switzerland. Three-quarters of the cases involved victims of human trafficking. Almost three...

The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and partners are opening a field hospital in southern Gaza on Tuesday to try to meet what it described as “overwhelming” demand for health services since Israel’s military operati...

Last year there were 47,719 farms in Switzerland, 625 fewer than a year earlier. More and more farms are producing organically: their share now stands at 16.5%, and they cover a fifth of the utilised agricultural area. In 2023, 7,896 farms were culti...