Switzerland has joined international protests following a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny by a court in Russia on Tuesday. “We call on Russia to uphold its international obligations and principles of the rul...

American pharmaceutical firm Bristol Myers Squibb is selling one of its Swiss medicine production facilities to the Chinese company WuXi STA. The Couvet factory in western Switzerland employs 100 staff manufacturing medicines in capsule and tablet f...

Swiss cheese continues to sell well abroad with exports increasing by 1.6% in 2020. The pandemic has not made a dent in the global appetite for cheese from the Alpine nation. A total of 77,124 tonnes was exported last year with a value of CHF693....

Switzerland is re-opening a mothballed facility to house disruptive asylum seekers. The high security Les Verrières centre in the western canton of Neuchâtel was first opened in December 2019 but was shut down six months later to save costs as the...

A new European Union regulation will no longer recognise medical device quality certificates obtained in Switzerland. It is feared that some Swiss manufacturers of medical devices will face additional barriers to export their products to the EU from ...

The United Nations special envoy to Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, says the country risks sliding back into prolonged military dictatorship, international isolation and suppression of human rights. On Monday, the Swiss diplomat told Swiss pub...

Swiss International Air Lines is scaling back its Geneva flight operations to an "absolute minimum" until the end of February, citing coronavirus travel restrictions. Cuts are also being made at Zurich Airport. “Swiss International Air Lines (SWIS...

The risk of catching coronavirus on a 12-minute gondola ride is 100 times less than during a normal working day in a small two-person office, according to a Swiss study. Scientists at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technolo...

The number of asylum requests in Switzerland fell by almost a quarter (23%) to 11,041 people last year, annual statistics reported on Monday have revealed. The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) said the decline was due to the coronavirus pandemi...

The Swiss foreign ministry has urged Myanmar’s military, which seized power on Monday in a coup, to “immediately suspend its actions”. It also called for the release of all government officials and civil society leaders. “The Swiss foreign m...

The Swiss government appears more concerned about the human rights situation in China according to Swiss media reports, but it has no plans to distance itself from the country. Instead, it wants to mediate more dialogue. According to a draft of Swit...

A correspondent for Swiss public television SRF was released after being briefly arrested in the Belarus capital of Minsk amid anti-government protests in Russia. SRF Russia correspondent, Luzia Tschirky, was in Belarus with a valid accreditation re...

An internal investigation has been launched into the Swiss army pharmacy’s purchases of masks, including some 700,000 of poor quality according to some Swiss media reports. Earlier this week, an army spokesperson confirmed to Swiss news agency Tam...

Delivery delays from vaccine manufacturers mean half as many people in Switzerland will be vaccinated as planned in February. However, Interior Minister Alain Berset remains confident that the goal of vaccinating everyone who wants to by the summer c...

In a study of some 25,000 people, researchers at the University of Zurich have found that genes and brain anatomy influence whether someone is a risk-taker. There is widespread evidence that people can be predisposed to take risks. However, there ha...

The fifth round of talks at the United Nations in Geneva to draft a new Syrian constitution and pave the way to peace in the war-torn country have ended without progress. UN special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen expressed frustration over the lack o...

Using topography data and computer simulations, researchers in Switzerland have put forward a plausible explanation for the mysterious deaths of nine hikers in Russia’s Ural Mountains in 1959: an unexpected avalanche. The scientists, from the coun...

The Swiss National Bank looks set to increase its payout to the Swiss government and cantons. It could reach up to CHF6 billion ($6.74 billion) a year. The new profit distribution agreement between the bank and the Federal Department of Finance (FDF...

Switzerland is among the countries exempt from the European Union’s vaccine export controls, the European Commission said on Friday. The plan has been drawn up to ensure that the EU has enough supplies of Covid-19 vaccine. EU trade commissioner Va...

Swiss pharma giant Novartis says it has signed an initial agreement to provide manufacturing capacity for Pfizer and BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine. The move aimed at helping boost production as demand currently outstrips supply. "The agreement will s...

American pharma group Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is to transfer four of its canton Neuchâtel-based subsidiaries to other locations – including abroad. The move is expected to result in the loss of up to 320 jobs by mid-2023. The company wants to mov...

Covid-19 has been blamed for a 17.8% decline in car registrations in Switzerland last year. The number of motor vehicle sales fell even further – by nearly a quarter. There was mixed news on the environmental front in the official statistics for r...

A team of Swiss and Canadian scientists have developed a targeted electrical stimulation treatment for patients with spinal-cord injuries that allows them to regain control of their blood pressure. Building on earlier research that uses targeted ele...

Between 2010 and 2019, the proportion of Swiss adults with two passports increased from 14% to 19%, the latest statistics show. Just under one million Swiss adults (over the age of 15) were dual-nationality in 2019, compared with 700,000 in 2010, th...

Exports and imports declined by CHF40 billion ($45 billion) in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, setting foreign trade levels back by three years. According to the annual foreign trade statistics released on Thursday, Switzerland experienced a hist...

The Swiss government has signed off on a strategy it says will enable the country to reduce net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Measures and legal changes to implement the strategy will follow. The “Long-term climate strategy for Switzerland” ...

Switzerland is perceived as having some of the lowest levels of corruption in the public sector according to Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index. However, the NGO says the country still has work to do, specifically on p...

Safety investigators have concluded that pilot error led to the accident involving the vintage aircraft that killed 20 people in eastern Switzerland in 2018. It was the country’s worst air tragedy since 2001. The Swiss Transportation Safety Invest...

Farm animals and apiaries in Switzerland should receive better protection from bears, the government said on Wednesday in a report on how to deal with bears. The previous practice in dealing with wild brown bears corresponded to pan-European guideli...

The Swiss government has decided to adapt its Covid testing and quarantine policy and has earmarked extra funds to soften the impact of restrictions imposed on companies. People coming from high-risk countries will have to present a negative coronav...