The jewels which once belonged to the guillotined queen were auctioned off within five minutes in Geneva, for a price well above expected. During the French Revolution, which would lead to her and her husband Louis XVI losing their heads in 1793, Ma...

The Swiss heath system is still one of the best among OECD countries. But the country is lagging behind with its Covid vaccinations, an international report says. Health status is high in Switzerland, with life expectancy among the highest among the...

Swiss federal prosecutors are set to drop a criminal investigation into Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal. There is not a strong enough case to file charges, they said on Tuesday. The Office of the Attorney General said that it had informed the ...

Switzerland has dropped one spot, to 15th, in an annual league table that ranks countries according to their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Climate experts have blamed the failure of the CO2 law at the ballot box. The Climate Change Per...

Some 42% of women in Switzerland have experienced domestic violence – and 24% of men, according to a survey released on Tuesday. The representative study, conducted by the Sotomo research centre in autumn 2021 for an umbrella organisation of women...

Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis has played down chances of his neutral country embracing Western sanctions against China over its human rights record. He also says Switzerland won’t rush into “rash decisions” with the European Union. “It’s...

Switzerland will continue its financial support for a United Nations scheme to promote the agency’s development work across the world, with an extra CHF9.4 million ($10.3 million). In 2016, the UN decided to reform its development program through ...

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis met with the State Secretary of the Vatican, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, on Monday to mark 100 years of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and the Holy See. Diplomatic relations date back t...

No more domestic flights in Switzerland by 2030, compulsory sustainability education in the school curriculum, a financial centre with sustainable investments – these are the demands of the Youth Session of the Swiss parliament. The Youth Session,...

New mobile vaccination units, information campaigns and special events are set to go live as Switzerland, which has one of the lowest Covid-19 vaccination rates in Europe, heads into a week-long offensive to increase uptake. With around 73% of peopl...

Between 3,500 and 5,000 people who oppose the Covid law coming before voters in three weeks’ time converged on the small city of Fribourg on Saturday, mainly to voice their rejection of the Covid certificate. Organisers claimed the rally attracted...

The Deputy Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has told Swiss delegates at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow that her country will no longer accept the export of its raw materials, notably cobalt, by commodities giant Glenc...

In response to claims by the Chinese artist that his foundation’s bank account had been shut because of his “criminal record” in China, the Swiss bank told the media on Saturday the decision had in fact been made on administrative grounds. “...

Bettina Müller, a biomechanical engineer at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich, plans to bring to market a new tool that for the first time can measure changes in patients’ skin structure. Dermatologists rely on palpation – grasping a ...

Self-employed male doctors earn on average 25% more than female self-employed doctors, according to the latest statistics from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Doctors who undertook surgery are also bigger earners, the pre-pandemic statistics s...

SARS-CoV-2 – the virus causing Covid-19 – can infect cells of the human placenta, Bern and Lausanne scientists have found. They say that the virus also proliferates and infects neighbouring placental cells. “This is a major advance in our unde...

Frankfurt has been chosen as the seat of a new sustainable finance reporting body announced at COP26 this week. Observers say Geneva was overlooked largely for political reasons. The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), unveiled at C...

Three restaurateurs in Zermatt, who were arrested after repeatedly ignoring police orders to close their establishment, have been released. Their licence to operate has been suspended for a undefined period. On Thursday, a court rejected a request b...

The Credit Suisse Group says it will shrink its investment bank and shift more resources to the wealth management unit. It is part of a restructuring plan intended to draw a line under a tumultuous year in which it was rocked by the Archegos Capital...

Plans to introduce a nationwide littering fine in Switzerland are making slow progress. A parliamentary committee presented proposals for a financial penalty of up to CHF300 ($329) to complement existing cantonal rules. Cleaning up litter costs the...

The government has announced that the use of a Covid certificate in Switzerland will be extended for a longer period of time for people who have recovered from the viral infection. The document necessary to access restaurants, nightclubs, fitness ce...

Finance Minister Ueli Maurer says Switzerland could be a pioneer for sustainable investment. Maurer said Switzerland was well placed because there is plenty of expertise and financial resources in the country. “There are people with plenty of mon...

The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland has indicted former FIFA President Sepp Blatter with fraud and other offences after a six-year investigation into a controversial CHF2 million ($2.2 million) payment. The prosecutor’s office accuse...

The offer of a non-mRNA Covid vaccine in Switzerland has failed to speed up the government’s vaccination campaign, experts say. Virginie Masserey of the Federal Office for Public Health said about 22,000 doses of a viral vector vaccine from the Am...

The Swiss government’s centre for cybersecurity says the number of cyberattacks nearly doubled in the first half of this year. The National Cybersecurity Centre said a total of 10,234 incidents were reported – almost twice as many as in the firs...

A national conference attended by Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter is considering better protection for victims of violence in Switzerland. The one-day meeting focuses on possibilities of electronic monitoring and on child victims of domestic vi...

The SwissCovid app and the Covid certificate app enjoy a relatively high level of trust among the public, according to a survey. More than half of respondents expressed no reservations about using the computer software for the Covid certificate. The...

Swiss President Guy Parmelin has called on all countries to renew efforts to meet climate goals outlined six years ago by the Paris Agreement. Speaking at the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, on Monday, Parmelin said that glo...

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis officially opened the new extension to the Palais des Nations – home to the United Nations offices in Geneva. The new “H Building” took five years to build and is part of an CHF830 million ($905 million) r...

Life expectancy for people living in Switzerland has recovered dramatically from the pandemic induced dip, with mortality rates in 2021 poised to be at their lowest ever levels. Last year, with Covid-19 filling intensive care beds and resulting in 7...