Kathrin Summermatter, head of the Biosafety Centre at the Institute of Infectious Diseases at the University of Bern, is one of 26 experts chosen to be part of a World Health Organization (WHO) panel on the origins of new pathogens. The Geneva-based...

The Swiss government is stepping up efforts to convince residents to get vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus. It has decided to launch a week-long information campaign in several languages across the country next month in a bid to speed up vaccina...

René Langel, cofounder of the Montreux Jazz Festival, died on Tuesday in Lausanne. The former jazz journalist would have turned 97 next month, his family said. Born in Neuchâtel, Langel worked for various media in French-speaking Switzerland, in p...

Every year road accidents involving wild animals cause around CHF50 million ($54 million) in damage throughout Switzerland. What’s more, thousands of animals are injured, according to insurer Axa Winterthur. Axa itself is notified of more than 3,0...

Switzerland’s highest court has found guilty a climate activist who was caught painting a bank building in the city of Geneva three years ago. The judges said the defendant had no right to justify his action by citing a climate emergency as the th...

If progress is not made on an electricity agreement with the European Union, at least at a technical level, Switzerland is likely to face a significant problem guaranteeing electricity in the short and medium term, especially in winter. This is the ...

While most Swiss hotels and restaurants are critical of the need to show a Covid certificate, overall small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) do not perceive it as a disadvantage. A survey of 201 SMEs in German-speaking Switzerland found that 58% ...

Quintet Private Bank says it is closing its Swiss arm just 16 months after opening. The Qatari-owned private bank took over Bank am Bellevue last year. The Luxembourg-based private bank is closing its Swiss business, which employs 87 people, accordi...

Swiss health officials say new Covid-19 infections, hospital admissions and deaths are all expected to stabilise, but the situation in hospitals remains tense. Patrick Mathys of the Federal Office for Public Health said the data showed that the late...

Most Swiss residents would be in favour of a 30 kilometre (18 miles) per hour speed limit in urban areas, a survey has found. A poll by the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BPA), published on Tuesday, found that 52% of respondents support a 30...

Care home staff have criticised the labour conditions in Switzerland’s old people’s homes. In a survey published on Tuesday, half of the respondents said salaries were too low and up to 40% complained about stress at work. The Swiss Health Obse...

The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has assisted in the evacuation of 165 refugees from Afghanistan, including female cyclists. Some 38 are being resettled in Switzerland. In addition to cyclists, artists, journalists, a judge and human rights c...

Much of the soil in the centre of Lausanne is contaminated with dioxin, it was announced on Monday. Residents have been advised to avoid local free-range eggs and certain vegetables. Canton Vaud councillor Béatrice Métraux said 126 sites were stud...

The Federal Tax Administration (FTA) has exchanged information on financial accounts with 96 countries this year. The exchange took place within the framework of the global standard on the automatic exchange of information. The FTA sent information ...

Syngenta Group’s planned $10 billion (CHF9.3 billion) initial public offering (IPO) in China has been temporarily suspended due to missing financial information from the agrichemical giant, the Shanghai Stock Exchange said on Monday. State-owned C...

Hackers have carried out a cyber attack against databases belonging to the Montreux authorities in southwestern Switzerland. This follows a similar hack earlier this year against the Rolle municipal authorities, also in canton Vaud. It is unclear wh...

Swiss Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga wants to simplify the approval of dams and wind turbines by putting an end to the flood of appeals. In future, only one appeal should be possible per project. By 2050 the government wants to further inc...

The Swiss government has hesitated about a third “booster” vaccination against Covid-19, but the president of the Federal Vaccination Commission predicts it should be available in Switzerland “in the November, December, January range”. “So...

Cabinet ministers and parliamentarians are increasingly exposed to threats on social media. However, these cases are just the tip of the iceberg, according to a newspaper report. Pressure for social media regulation is growing. Statistics from the F...

Some 6,000 people have taken to the streets in Geneva and Basel, demonstrating against the government’s efforts to combat Covid-19. In Geneva a demonstration against the Covid certificate and “restrictions on freedoms” brought together nearly ...

The three-day Fantasy Basel festival for fans of films, games, comics, cosplay and manga has re-opened its doors after a two-year break. Fantasy Basel, also known as the Swiss Comic Con, is one of the biggest events of its kind in Switzerland. Fans ...

An international team with representatives from Switzerland and with participation of Armasuisse, the federal office for defence procurement, has won the three-year Subterranean Challenge robotics competition. The contest is funded by DARPA (the Def...

After the OECD said on Friday it had finalised the details of a historic global corporate tax deal, Switzerland said it needed more time and clarifications before a full implementation. The deal, which includes a global minimum tax rate of 15% for b...

The UN Human Rights Council on Friday backed a Swiss-sponsored resolution to recognise a new fundamental right: access to “a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment”. The text, proposed by Switzerland, Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco ...

Since the start of the vine harvest in September, around 1.5 tonnes of grapes have been stolen in the winegrowing canton of Valais, police say. Police spokesman Stève Léger told public broadcaster RTS on Friday that seven grape thefts have been re...

Hundreds of fake Covid certificates have been issued in Geneva and in the western Swiss canton of Vaud, authorities said on Friday. Vaud police have opened an investigation, estimating that about 100 fakes were given to people who were neither vacci...

For the fifth time in a row, the Swiss postal system has been deemed the world’s best by the Universal Postal Union (UPU). The German and Austrian postal services came in second and third in 2021, said the UPU, which will present the award at its ...

The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to further accelerate Swiss industry’s move towards specialisation in a small group of high added-value sectors, says a new report. Out of every ten francs of Swiss industrial revenue in 2019, four came from just tw...

Some 500 opponents of government anti-Covid measures held a new unauthorised protest in the federal capital Bern on Thursday evening, with police using water cannon and rubber bullets against demonstrators. The demonstrators repeatedly ignored polic...

For the third year running, the Geneva International Motor Show will not take place in 2022 due to ongoing health concerns as well as supply shortages in the automotive sector. The decision comes just a week after organisers had in fact given the al...