Several thousand people have taken to streets in south-eastern Switzerland to protest against the government’s policy to contain the Covid pandemic. Police said about 4,000 demonstrators walked peacefully through the town of Chur on Saturday carry...

A flag the size of a ten-storey building has been raised in the Swiss city of Geneva to warn of the negative impact of global climate change. The work of art consists of 13,250 of portraits from 190 countries around the world and carries the message...

Alexander Klee, one of the promoters of the renowned Paul Klee museum in the Swiss capital, Bern, has died aged 80. Alexander, a grandson of the painter Paul Klee, was himself a painter, graphic designer and press photographer. He had lived in Switz...

Having four women in Switzerland’s seven-person government played a key role in the decision to phase out nuclear energy ten years ago, according to Doris Leuthard, who was energy minister at the time of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima on March 1...

The Swiss government has rejected calls to allow voters and cantons to set conditions for weapons exports. A people’s initiative collected enough signatures in 2019 to force a nationwide vote on the issue. It proposes enshrining rules for war mate...

Switzerland has unveiled a CHF1 billion ($1.08 billion) plan to offer free coronavirus tests for its entire population as part of measures to ease the country’s exit from Covid-19 restrictions. Under the proposals each person would be given five s...

The proportion of women in Swiss company boardrooms and management ranks continues to rise, according to an annual survey of the largest employers in both private and public sectors. The share of management positions held by women increased from 10%...

Political cartoonist Patrick Chappatte has won the Swiss Cartoon of the Year 2020 for Planet Coronavirus. It’s the third time the cartoonist from Geneva has received the honour. Planet Coronavirus was published in the German news magazine Der Spie...

Didier Chambovey, Swiss ambassador to the World Trade Organization (WTO), has been appointed by the member states as head of the body responsible for arbitrating complaints. Chambovey will have to chair the meetings of this committee, which is at th...

Eight of the ten best hotel schools in the world are located in Switzerland, according to the annual Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) university ranking by subject. A total of 29 Swiss programmes landed in the top ten in 2021, compared to 26 in 2020, makin...

The feature film La Mif (The fam) by Geneva-based director Frédéric Baillif has been awarded the top prize in the youth category at the 2021 Berlinale, the Swiss Films Foundation announced on Thursday. La Mif tells the story of seven adolescent gi...

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has signed an initial deal to produce the mRNA molecules for the Covid-19 vaccine developed by German biotech firm CureVac. On Thursday, Novartis said its plant in Kundl, Austria, would start production of the Cur...

The unemployment rate for women aged 15 to 24 jumped from 7.2% to 8% between 2019 and 2020, the biggest increase among all population and age groups in the labour force, the Federal Statistical Office said on Thursday. In general, youth suffered the...

The boom in online trade and tighter border controls during the health crisis have led to a major increase in the number of counterfeit goods seized by federal customs. On Thursday, the Federal Customs Administration reported that it had confiscated...

The pandemic and associated travel restrictions have dealt a blow to SWISS International Air Lines. It has posted its first negative operating result in 15 years. In its annual results released on Thursday, SWISS, which is part of the Lufthansa grou...

Everyone in Switzerland has been invited to observe a minute’s silence on Friday for the more than 9,000 people who have died in connection with Covid-19. Afterwards, church bells will ring across the country. The national minute’s silence will ...

A court in Switzerland has rejected giving a residency permit to a former vice-president of Venezuela, Nervis Villalobos Cárdenas, and his family. The presence of the former energy minister under Hugo Chávez was deemed a threat to public security ...

Finance Minister Ueli Maurer held a virtual meeting with Liu He, one of China’s four Vice-Premiers, on Wednesday to discuss reinforcing and expanding cooperation in the financial market sector. The two ministers discussed prospects for deepening b...

Swiss producers will find it easier to have geographical indications for their products protected internationally – for example Zuger Kirschtorte (kirsch cake from Zug), Bündnerfleisch (dried meat from Graubünden) or Tête de Moine cheese from th...

The House of Representatives has approved a declaration calling on the Swiss government to lift Covid restrictions later this month. A majority of the chamber came out in favour of the non-binding statement on Wednesday. Observers say it is not cle...

Despite a stagnation in the number of new infections, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) has called for restraint and more testing. "The situation is good, but developments remain uncertain," said Virginie Masserey, head of the FOPH'...

Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis filed the most international trademark applications with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2020. The Basel-based firm filed a total of 233 Madrid applications (104 more than in 2019) moving it...

Despite quota targets, women remain underrepresented in executive positions of top Swiss companies by international comparison, according to a study. The proportion of women on the executive floors of the 20 blue-chip companies on the SMI (Swiss Mar...

The World Trade Organization's (WTO) first female and first African director-general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has welcomed an apology from several Swiss newspapers that had dismissed the experienced Nigerian politician and economist as a grandmother. �...

Switzerland has pledged CHF14 million ($15.3 million) towards the United Nations humanitarian activities in Yemen, where over six years of war has created the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The announcement was made by Swiss Foreign Ministe...

Too few Swiss companies are made to answer for corruption or money laundering offences, exposing gaps in current legislation, says the Swiss chapter of campaigning NGO Transparency International. The law was changed in Switzerland in 2003 to make fi...

Switzerland’s reputation as a “perfect, well-organised” country took a hit during the pandemic, especially after the second wave in late autumn, according to the head of the country’s branding agency. Speaking to the Le Nouvelliste newspaper...

For the first time since 1982, average annual chocolate consumption in Switzerland has fallen below the 10 kg per person mark. On average, a Swiss resident munched 9.9 kg of chocolate in 2020, 6.9% less than the year before, according to the Associ...

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) recorded a profit of CHF20.9 billion (almost $23 billion) in 2020, less than half of the CHF48.9 billion it made in 2019. Some CHF6 billion of the profits will be distributed to the Swiss government and cantons, compa...

The Swiss winter brought wild fluctuations in temperature, unseasonal rainfalls, abundant snow brought on cold fronts from Siberia and even a helping of Saharan sand. In general, temperatures were two degrees Celsius higher than the average measured...