Swiss athlete Kariem Hussein will not be travelling to Tokyo to take part in the Olympic Games having failed in a last ditch bid to overturn a doping ban. The verdict was made public by Swiss Athletics on the day the Olympic Games opens. Hussein had...

Security tests on the Swiss Covid certificate have so far revealed 136 possible vulnerabilities, the government said on Thursday. This is normal, it added, given the extensive amount of programming code and infrastructures. In a 16-page report, the ...

After criticism by rights groups and two warnings from a federal court, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) has been cutting back the number of accelerated asylum procedures. On Thursday SEM confirmed a report by Swiss public radio...

The short spring and wet summer means Swiss bees have produced ten times less honey than usual. As a result the price of honey is set to increase. After last year’s exceptional harvest, 2021 is looking very meagre: while a hive normally produces 1...

Physical concerts and events remain much more popular in Switzerland than digital alternatives. But people are willing to fork out cash for online shows. In the “Events Switzerland 2021” survey, published on Thursday by the Zurich School of Appl...

Google has appealed a recent Swiss decision to award a cloud-computing contract to five other digital firms. The tender process has also come under criticism by defenders of data sovereignty. Google’s appeal targets the government’s decision las...

Over 60,000 petitioners want the government to rethink plans to begin phasing out FM radio next year. Private radio entrepreneur Roger Schawinski, who started the petition, said on Wednesday that the phasing out of very high frequency waves (VHF-FM)...

Numbers engaging in outdoor activities like walking, cycling or mountain biking continued to rise in Switzerland in 2019, the Federal Office for Roads (ASTRA) has reported. This is also good news for the economy. Some 57% of Swiss residents labelled...

Several thousand Swiss citizens live in parts of Germany hard hit by recent floods and storms. Those who suffered concrete damage can now access a relief fund run by the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA) in Germany. “Currently €12,000 (CHF1...

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis and the European Commissioner for Budget and Administration Johannes Hahn have met in Brussels for informal exchanges. Despite the differences between Switzerland and the 27-state bloc, the tone remained amicable...

Swiss health experts have called on people to get vaccinated against Covid-19 to prevent another wave of the pandemic later this year. Patrick Mathys of the Federal Office of Public Health confirmed a rapid increase in the number of infections, but ...

Switzerland is ready to enter negotiations on association to the EU’s research and innovation programme “Horizon Europe”, says Swiss State Secretary Martina Hirayama. In a meeting with EU politicians, Hirayama suggested that European and world...

Switzerland has made progress in flood damage prevention, but the risk of high water levels remains real, according to a leading hydrologist. “The flooding disasters from 1987, 1999 and 2005 have raised awareness [of the risks],” says Andreas Zi...

Ski mountaineering will make its Olympic debut at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, a decision that bodes well for Switzerland, which has many of the world’s best athletes in this discipline. The Lausanne-based International Olympic Committee (IO...

There are mounting calls to extend the use of an official certificate to help prevent a new wave of infections with Covid-19 in Switzerland. Christoph Berger, president of the government’s advisory commission for vaccinations, said the Covid certi...

Tens of thousands of Swiss citizens are living in countries where they cannot get vaccinated, according to a report by Swiss public broadcaster SRF. The head of the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad (OSA) wants the government to ensure that expatriat...

The Swiss government’s cabinet secretary has called for better cooperation between politicians and scientists to handle crises. Walter Thurnherr who holds the title of federal chancellor said the Covid-19 pandemic had shown the need for more mutua...

A comprehensive inventory of Swiss glacial lakes found 1,200 have appeared since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850). Climate change is causing the Alpine glaciers to melt, according to the findings published last week by the aquatic researc...

Switzerland should make military service compulsory for women in the view of the president of the Swiss Officers' Association (SOG), which has roughly 22,000 members. According to Stefan Holenstein, "it is time that both genders have the same rights...

The uptick in Covid-19 cases since Switzerland relaxed its public health rules is now a source of concern. The rapid spread of the more infectious Delta variant is casting a cloud over the resumption of normal life across Europe. Anne Lévy, directo...

Switzerland’s overbursting rivers, swollen by excessive rainfall, have resulted in some hydroelectric power plants having to reduce operations. Nearly 60% of Switzerland’s electricity production is derived from hydropower, with 677 plants dotted...

Switzerland has reserved 3,000 doses of the GlaxoSmithKline monoclonal sotrovimab drug to treat patients infected with Covid-19. This adds to the 3,000 doses of a similar medicine, RegN-Cov 2, developed by Switzerland’s Roche and US biotech compan...

Swiss voters are to get a fresh chance to decide on reforming their increasingly underfinanced state pension system under a proposal that would raise both men’s and women’s retirement ages from 65 to 66 and then be linked to life expectancy. Age...

Guy Lachappelle, chairman of the Swiss Raiffeisen banking group, has become the latest high-ranking executive to lose his job at the company as a result of a scandal. A tearful Lachappelle announced his resignation on Thursday evening, admitting tha...

Almost one in six people in Europe is affected by persistent anxiety. Researchers in Switzerland have now localised micro-circuits in the brain whose malfunctions promote anxiety – a discovery that could transform the therapy of anxiety disorders. ...

Switzerland has sent 15 respirators and 60 oxygen concentrators to Tunisia, the fifth humanitarian aid shipment sent to various countries in recent weeks to help tackle the Covid-19 crisis. The shipment from Swiss Humanitarian Aid, worth nearly CHF...

Swiss Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter has demanded a rapid reform of the Schengen/Dublin agreements, which govern free movement and asylum issues. Speaking in Slovenia on Thursday at an informal meeting of EU interior ministers, Keller-Sutter s...

Fans of Pablo Picasso will soon be able to own a share in one of his paintings for less than $6,000 (CHF5,500) – although that won’t actually buy them the right to see the work, which will be stored under lock and key in Switzerland. Fillette au...

Last week’s ransomware attack on Swiss price comparison website Comparis resulted in a data breach and client data was most probably stolen, say Zurich police. Last Wednesday Comparis.ch, which has 80 million visits a year, was shut down by rans...

Ann Demeester is the new director of the Kunsthaus Zurich. The current director of the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands, will take up her post on January 1, 2023, succeeding Christoph Becker. “Ann Demeester is a highly regarded ambass...