Swiss law enforcement agencies were granted 9,085 warrants to conduct covert electronic surveillance on suspected criminals last year – up from 8,666 operations in 2019. There was a rise in the number of retrospective surveillance approvals (findi...

In 1995, there were 87 mammal species in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Today there are 99. However, many species are far from being out of the woods. Published on Tuesday, the largest regional survey of mammals to date describes the return of large...

Tibetan organisations in Switzerland are disillusioned with the recently announced Swiss government strategy towards China. According to four Tibetan organisations, the Swiss policy does not provide for concrete action despite references to human ...

The Zurich Böögg snowman will be set aflame in a gorge in another part of Switzerland to prevent people from breaking Covid restrictions. The traditional spring festival, which has been running since 1892, sees the immolation of the effigy whose ...

The global trade in counterfeit “Made in Switzerland” goods cheated the Swiss economy out of 10,000 jobs and CHF4.5 billion ($4.9 billion) in one year alone, says an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study. “In 2018...

A voluntary electronic vaccination record platform is being investigated for data protection violations following a complaint. On Tuesday, the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) announced that it has opened proceedings aga...

Ticket sales at Swiss cinemas plummeted by two-thirds last year as venues were forced to close their doors. Of the films that could be shown, Swiss movies made up a greater share of the total offering. Official statistics out on Tuesday revealed the...

Mark Branson, the head of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma), is due to become president of the German finance regulator BaFin. On Monday Finma issued a statement confirming earlier news reports that Branson, 52, who has led Fi...

Health regulator Swissmedic has given the green light for the use of the vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson (J&J). This is the third vaccine to be approved in Switzerland. However, Switzerland has not yet ordered any doses of J&J's one-shot vaccin...

China’s ambassador to Switzerland has strongly rejected Swiss criticism of the human rights situation in the Asian country. Wang Shihting said the Swiss government’s first ever China foreign policy strategy, which was unveiled last week, was sen...

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) spent CHF110 billion ($118 billion) on the foreign currency markets last year as it battled to apply the brakes on the franc’s rising value during the pandemic. The level of interventions was up from CHF13.2 billion i...

The total number of reported criminal offences in Switzerland in 2020 was down slightly compared with the previous year, national statistics show. But the police were kept busy ensuring the population respected government Covid-19 restrictions. Burg...

The Federal Commission against Racism (FCR) has issued an appeal against hate speech, which it says is on the rise during the Covid-19 pandemic, including in Switzerland. In a statement on Sunday marking International Day for the Elimination of Raci...

Swiss foreign minister Ignazio Cassis has criticised China over Hong Kong and minority rights but says the country must be treated with respect. Commenting on Switzerland’s new China strategy unveiled on Friday, Cassis told the NZZ am Sonntag news...

Swiss health minister Alain Berset has said he wants weekly Covid-19 testing for 40% of the population as soon as possible, but cantons and businesses are dragging their feet, according to the Sonntagszeitung newspaper. Cantons such as Vaud, Valais,...

People in Geneva can now enjoy free night-time projections of 54 works by French cartoonist Sempé around the city’s Parc des Bastions. This is the first time that the French cartoonist’s drawings have been shown in such a monumental way, accord...

Thousands of people have protested in the north-western Swiss town of Liestal against restrictions introduced to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. Nearly 8,000 took part in the silent protest, according to journalists’ estimates. They had received polic...

A UN-sponsored report has named Switzerland the third happiest country in the world for the second year running. This year’s report also looked at the effects of Covid-19 on people’s wellbeing. Switzerland comes in behind Finland and Denmark, ac...

Government caution on easing Covid-19 restrictions is coherent with the current situation, Swiss newspapers said on Saturday. But they also point to errors in government communication. This comes after the federal government said on Friday it was po...

The Swiss government says its first ever China foreign policy strategy is intended to create “greater coherence" in its relations with Beijing, even if there are “clear differences in values between the two countries”. The move comes at a time...

Police cleared climate activists demonstrating in Bern and Zurich on Friday. Demonstrators gathered in 15 cities across the Alpine country calling for a more ambitious national climate strategy. Groups of protestors carried out a sit-in on Waisenhau...

Three of Switzerland’s “too big to fail” banks no longer threaten to cause a seismic shift in the economy should they collapse, says the financial regulator. Zurich Cantonal Bank, PostFinance and the Raiffeisen banking group are now deemed to ...

Switzerland’s coronavirus vaccination campaign is starting to show its first effects, data shows. Although overall new infections have started to rise, among seniors - who are being vaccinated first - cases and hospitalisations are falling. The Sw...

The United States Justice Department has charged a Swiss hacker with computer intrusion and identity theft, a week after a house raid by the Swiss police. Till Kottmann, 21, has taken credit for helping to break into a US security-camera company’s...

Up to a month’s worth of snow has been lost at low and medium altitudes for the last 50 years, according to the first global analysis of snow trends across the mountain range. Between 1971 and 2019, the winter snow season shrunk by an average of 2...

Companies and individuals affected by the Covid-19 pandemic will be able to benefit from additional financial support of about CHF12 billion ($13 billion). On Thursday, both the House of Representatives and the Senate signed off on funds for emergen...

The medicines regulator Swissmedic says it has not yet received enough robust data from clinical trials to give the green light to the Covid-19 vaccine developed by the Swedish-British company. While the supervisory authority saw conclusive results ...

Parliament has criticised the Swiss government’s Covid-19 policy, notably the restrictions for businesses and citizens. The main political groups in the House of Representatives aired their grievances during a special debate on Wednesday. The rig...

Metalor, one of the world’s biggest gold refiners, has developed a way to quickly confirm where gold had been mined, potentially stopping illegal gold from entering supply chains. The Swiss-based company announced that it has devised the method w...

Cryptocurrency firm Bitcoin Suisse has withdrawn its application for a banking license, in part because it failed to meet the anti-money laundering requirements of the Swiss financial regulator. “The application process has shown the need for furt...