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Swiss Info

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 07:19:00 GMT
Federer tennis gear nets CHF4.3 million at auction
Rackets, T-shirts, sports shoes and other historic tennis equipment belonging to Roger Federer have raised £3.4 million (CHF4.3 million) at auction. The money will go towards his charity. The combined proceeds of the Christie’s auction raised thr...

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 14:52:00 GMT
Swiss researchers make bone cancer breakthrough
New research has enabled scientists to identify the most dangerous cancer cells found in Ewing’s sarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer. Researchers from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) have developed a technique to identify which...

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 13:09:00 GMT
Swiss solar power breaks records but still misses targets
Switzerland remains far from its target of shifting away from non-renewable fuel sources, despite a record-breaking increase in the number of solar panels installed last year. Almost 50% more solar panels were put up in Switzerland in 2020 than in 2...

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 12:57:00 GMT
EU confirms Swiss ‘third country’ status for research projects
Switzerland has been locked out of the European Union's flagship Horizon Europe research and innovation funding programme until further notice. The State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation said it had been informed by the European Co...

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 10:20:58 GMT
WWF urges national bank to act on nature-related risk
As Switzerland faces deforestation, monocultures and overfishing, the environmental organisation WWF Switzerland is calling on the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and the financial watchdog FINMA to take action. “A growing number of central banks have b...

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 09:03:00 GMT
Swisscom boss says sorry for network failure
The CEO of Switzerland’s state-controlled telecoms company has apologised for the massive outage of the country’s emergency service lines last week. “I apologise to the firefighters and everyone involved. The failure shook me a lot. That is ab...

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 15:58:00 GMT
Switzerland issues more flood warnings after heavy thunderstorms
Switzerland has announced more flood warnings after high winds and heavy rain battered the country between Monday night and Tuesday morning. The storms caused sections of the A2 motorway to temporarily close on Tuesday. Rain, hail and winds of up to...

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 15:39:00 GMT
Scientists warn of new rise of Covid infections in Switzerland
The Swiss government’s Covid-19 advisory panel has warned about the recent increase in new infections due to the more contagious Delta variant. The science task force said the dominance of the Delta variant would likely result in an increasing num...

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 13:26:00 GMT
Swiss finance watchdog names new CEO
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has appointed Zurich Insurance Chief Investment Officer Urban Angehrn as its new boss. Angehrn, 56, worked for 14 years at Zurich Insurance. He previously held positions at Winterthur Insuranc...

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 10:04:00 GMT
Glider and plane collided mid-air over Swiss Alps, report finds
The glider and small light aircraft that crashed in high mountains in south-eastern Switzerland last month, resulting in five deaths, collided mid-air, an investigation has revealed. On Tuesday, the Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (S...

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 09:20:00 GMT
Switzerland and Saudi Arabia plan stock exchange cooperation
The Swiss and Saudi stock exchanges have signed a memorandum of understanding on future cooperation at a high-level meeting in Switzerland. The SIX and Tadawul stock exchanges signed the agreement at the third “financial dialogue” between the tw...

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 15:13:37 GMT
Switzerland sends Covid medical assistance to Mongolia
Swiss Humanitarian Aid has sent 40 respirators and 45 oxygen concentrators to the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, with a total value of around CHF850,000 ($930,000). “In view of the public health situation in Mongolia and in response to a request ...

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 13:51:00 GMT
Swiss start-ups show resilience despite Covid-19 pandemic
The number of Swiss start-ups launched has risen significantly in the first six months of 2021 while the number of companies filing for bankruptcy has decreased, studies have shown. In the first half of 2021 over 26,000 new companies were added to S...

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 12:39:00 GMT
Swiss cities given mixed ratings for recycling plastic packaging
Efforts to improve plastic recycling in Switzerland have shown a mixed bag of results among cities and towns, ranging from “exemplary” to “no significant effort”. Greenpeace Switzerland conducted a study on single-use packaging and other dis...

Mon, 12 Jul 2021 09:54:06 GMT
‘Italia! Italia!’ Switzerland shaken by jubilant football fans
Thousands of Italian football fans celebrated their team’s victory at Euro 2020 on Sunday night by singing, chanting and honking their way through Swiss cities. Italians are the largest group of foreign residents in Switzerland, making up about 15...

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 16:48:00 GMT
Parts of Switzerland on flood alert, more rain ahead
Areas of the Swiss capital Bern and some Alpine region lakes are still on alert for possible flooding after Switzerland after more heavy rainfall. More rain is expected during the coming week. Central Switzerland was also hit by strong storms late S...

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 14:34:00 GMT
Health authorities to target migrants over Covid-19 vaccinations
Swiss health authorities want to encourage more migrants and young people to get vaccinated against Covid-19, the SonntagsBlick newspaper says. The move comes as vaccination rates stall across the country, despite there being plenty of vaccines avai...

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 11:20:00 GMT
Climate scientist: more urgency needed over climate crisis
Climate change is causing extreme weather, also in Switzerland. A climate taskforce – like the Covid 19 science task force – makes sense, a leading Swiss climate scientist says. Humankind should get used to heatwaves, fires, torrential rain, lan...

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 17:53:00 GMT
Swiss former world ski president Kasper dies at 77
The Swiss Gian Franco Kasper, recently retired after 23 years as president of the International Ski Federation (FIS), has died, the governing body said on Saturday. He was 77. The cause of Kasper’s death was not given. He had not taken part in the...

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 17:21:00 GMT
Tax deal: small countries ‘should not be forgotten’ says Swiss minister
The interests of small innovative countries must be taken into account in international corporate tax measures, says Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer, who has been attending the G20 meeting in Italy. Discussed at the meeting of finance ministers a...

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 15:43:00 GMT
Minister hails progress on environmental issues after West Africa trip
Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga has welcomed progress on environmental protection following a visit to Ghana and Senegal. She is now looking ahead to the COP26 global environmental meeting in Glasgow later this year. “Ghana and Senegal h...

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 09:09:00 GMT
Pandemic affects Swiss housing market
People in Switzerland have been looking for bigger or second homes during the coronavirus pandemic, fuelling housing shortages and pushing prices up. This is despite a more modest growth in the population, which is one of the main drivers of demand...

Fri, 9 Jul 2021 15:00:00 GMT
Covid-19 poll: Swiss morale picks up
The morale of the Swiss population seems to have improved due to better management of the pandemic, a new Covid-related survey finds. The mood of the Swiss population has ebbed and flowed over the past 15 months. Like last summer, optimism now seems...

Fri, 9 Jul 2021 14:02:26 GMT
Lausanne to host new global body to promote women in sport 
The western Swiss city of Lausanne has been chosen to set up an international observatory for the promotion of gender equality in sport, host canton Vaud said on Friday. This is in line with the Kazan Action Plan adopted by an intergovernmental con...

Fri, 9 Jul 2021 10:15:21 GMT
Swiss vaccination rate sees sharp drop in recent weeks
The pace of vaccination in Switzerland has dropped sharply since mid-June, and the pool of people willing to be vaccinated may soon be exhausted, according to Swiss public broadcaster RTS. Unless the trend is reversed, this means the percentage of t...

Fri, 9 Jul 2021 09:04:00 GMT
Swisscom resolves nationwide emergency number breakdown
Emergency telephone numbers are working again in Switzerland after a technical failure caused a nationwide outage late Thursday, the national operator Swisscom said on Friday morning. This is the second such national breakdown in 18 months. Emergenc...

Fri, 9 Jul 2021 07:38:00 GMT
Safe Olympics is ‘number one goal’, says games director
Spectators have been banned from most Olympic events at the Tokyo Games after a fourth Covid state of emergency was declared in the Japanese capital on Thursday. Participating athletes will meanwhile face drastic safety measures, says Olympic Games E...

Thu, 8 Jul 2021 16:47:00 GMT
Ukraine Reform Conference 2022 to be held in Switzerland
At the 2021 edition of the conference in Vilnius, Swiss foreign minister Ignazio Cassis officially accepted the handover of the 2022 chair from Latvia. The end of this year's Ukraine Reform Conference (URC) also marked the end of Cassis’ five-day ...

Thu, 8 Jul 2021 15:36:00 GMT
Swiss court sentences French comedian for anti-semitic sketch
French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala has been fined by a Geneva court for racist content during performances in Switzerland, including denying the existence of Nazi gas chambers. Having found the comedian guilty of the charges on Thursday, t...

Thu, 8 Jul 2021 15:15:00 GMT
Ransomware attackers demand $400,000 from Swiss website
A popular Swiss price comparison website has been shut down by ransomware attackers demanding $400,000 (CHF370,000) in cryptocurrencies to put it back online. Comparis.ch, which racks up around 80 million visits a year, is used by consumers to compa...



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