The youth wings of Switzerland’s major political parties saw a significant increase in membership in 2020. The trend can be seen on both the left and the right of the political spectrum, according to data published on Tuesday by the Tamedia media...

Swiss voters look set to have the last word on a historic same-sex marriage law after opponents on Monday handed in signatures demanding a national referendum. Around 59,000 verified signatures were handed in by a committee in Bern, two days after t...

Greenhouse gas emissions fell slightly in Switzerland in 2019 but not enough for the country to meet its 2020 targets. Switzerland was responsible for the emission of 46.2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2019, the Federal Office for the Environm...

Pressure is building on the Swiss government to ease restrictions imposed to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Federation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises on Monday called for a review of the current situation, saying the governm...

The pandemic and measures taken by authorities to fight it have exacerbated feelings of loneliness, sadness and anxiety among children, says the chief psychologist at Zurich Children’s Hospital, where more than twice as many suicide attempts by you...

The PCR tests, bought last spring by the Swiss government as part of an emergency reserve, have expired, costing the authorities millions of francs in losses. In 2020 over a million coronavirus tests were purchased by the Swiss army pharmacy on beha...

The Swiss foreign affairs minister Ignazio Cassis believes he should accompany the president Guy Parmelin to the European capital for final negotiations on a proposed institutional framework deal that has stalled over Swiss misgivings. “No other F...

Officers fired teargas at a group of protestors who defied a cantonal ban on demonstrations in Altdorf on Saturday afternoon, as other Swiss cities remained relatively calm despite social media calls for large protests this weekend. Around 500 oppon...

Elderly participants who trained regularly on a fitness device developed by a Swiss company showed improvements in cognitive skills, such as attention, concentration, memory and orientation. The study, carried out by an international team in two Bel...

The Swiss pharmaceutical company is recruiting workers to join its new plant in southern Switzerland, where three production lines have been set up to manufacture an active ingredient of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine. So far the firm has hired 650 ne...

The Swiss President Guy Parmelin has added his voice to the growing list of countries paying respects to the British royal family following the death of Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II. Parmelin, who this year holds the rotating Swiss p...

There have been several cases of “vaccine tourists” - foreigners who are not domiciled in Switzerland - getting their Covid-19 jabs in cantons Valais and Graubünden. Both cantons have tightened their checks as a result. Fewer than ten tourists ...

Swiss police are bracing themselves for renewed anti-lockdown demonstrations this weekend. This follows scenes of violence at a protest march in the eastern city of St Gallen a week ago. Social media posts suggest that demonstrators are planning to ...

Swiss-Argentine artist Vivian Suter is one of three recipients of this year’s Swiss Grand Award for Art/Prix Meret Oppenheim. Also honoured are architect Georges Descombes and the curator Esther Eppstein. The award, which is worth CHF40,000 ($43,0...

Coronavirus conspiracy theories have gained traction with around a third of people who responded to an academic survey in Switzerland and Germany. Researchers at the University of Basel asked the sample group of more than 1,600 people whether they b...

Switzerland has remained an attractive location for foreign firms, creating more jobs last year than in 2019 - despite the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, Swiss public television SRF and RTS have reported. Foreign firms accounted for 1...

Today’s human brain was born 1.7 million years ago when our ancestors started using more complex tools and were developing language, say Zurich scientists. Researchers at the University of Zurich used a digital imaging technique called tomography ...

Switzerland refuses to be drawn into a growing international row over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. The United States and 13 other countries have condemned the findings of a recent World Health Organization (WHO) visit to China. They have...

Inspirational Swiss composer Rudolf Kelterborn has died at the age of 89. In addition to his compositions, Kelterborn was a conductor, taught music in Switzerland and abroad and helped form an influential academy. Born in Basel in 1931, Kelterborn c...

The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia has chosen a quartet of artists and architects from Geneva to present their work on political and spatial borders at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. Material collected in the participative project, Orae –...

Swiss researchers have developed a unique method to reduce the use of antibiotics in calves while still maintaining the profitability of farms. Farmers in Switzerland rely heavily on antibiotics in the process of fattening calves, even though effort...

Car-sharing company Mobility says it will electrify its entire fleet of 3,000 vehicles and build a network of e-charging stations by 2030. On Thursday, the company said its first 300 e-charging stations should be operational within three years. Mobi...

The warming trend observed in permafrost over the last two decades continued in 2019-2020, the warmest hydrological year on record in Switzerland, the monitoring network PERMOS said on Thursday. Scientists have now observed an increase in permafrost...

Nicola Ruffo is the new director of SWISS FILMS, the national film promotion agency tasked with boosting the visibility of Swiss movies abroad. “The cinematic landscape is in transition. In times of change, I am very happy to give, together with m...

Health authorities have called for an extra effort from the Swiss population to keep Covid-19 infections as low as possible in the next few months. “We’re approaching the finishing line,” said Martin Ackermann, president of the government’s ...

The Swiss response to the Covid-19 pandemic has received good marks from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, it said there was still work to be done, in addition to addressing pensions, the environment and relations with the European Unio...

A former representative for Switzerland-based commodities giant Gunvor has pleaded guilty to helping channel more than $22 million (CHF20.4 million) in bribes to high-level officials in Ecuador in exchange for lucrative contracts with the state-run o...

Switzerland has been criticised by human rights organisation Amnesty International for showing too little solidarity with poorer countries, for adopting “draconian” anti-terrorism laws and for its rights-limiting response to Covid-19. “Between...

Swiss theologian Hans Küng, one of the most outspoken critics of the Roman Catholic church, has died aged 93. Küng passed away in the German town of Tübingen, where he had lived and lectured since the 1960s, his Global Ethic Foundation announced ...

A total of 8,667,100 people lived in Switzerland at the end of 2020 – an increase of 61,100 or 0.7% on the previous year. Although there were 8,200 (12.1%) more deaths than the year before and fewer births, net migration caused the population to i...