The Swiss-run International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has elected Mirjana Spoljaric Egger as its next president. The ICRC’s governing body, known as the Assembly, announced on Thursday that it had elected Spoljaric Egger to take over from ...

Around 1,000 people protested in Geneva on Wednesday evening against a visit to the Swiss city by controversial French far-right commentator and likely presidential candidate Eric Zemmour. The protest march against Zemmour’s visit took place in th...

Interior Minister Alain Berset says there is no need for new nationwide measures in Switzerland despite a surge in Covid infections. Berset, whose portfolio includes health issues, said the current epidemiological situation was critical but that the...

Switzerland has become the latest country to ask its citizens to leave Ethiopia, as the security situation worsens in the east African country. "The foreign ministry advises against travelling to Ethiopia for any reason,” it told the Reuters news ...

Rights groups are sounding the alarm about sexual violence against women in Switzerland. Referring to a 2019 survey, they say one in two women has been a victim of sexual violence in some form, ranging from verbal insults to sexual coercion and rape...

Six years after the Dieselgate Volkswagen controversy came to light, a Geneva court has ordered a car importer to compensate the owner of a VW diesel car – a Swiss first. A Geneva court ordered Switzerland’s biggest car dealer AMAG to reimburse ...

Three rare artefacts that were looted from Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra and stored at the Geneva free port have been returned to Syrian authorities. The confiscated objects, from the second and third centuries BC, include a priest’s head and ...

The average private household in Switzerland spent about 31% of its income on taxes, social security and health insurance premiums in 2019. That’s 1% up on the previous year, slightly reducing the individual budget and the chances of setting money...

Health experts have urged the population to respect hygiene rules and to get vaccinated to avoid an overloading of Swiss hospitals due to a continuing rise in new Covid infections. Patrick Mathys of the Federal Office of Public Health said the curre...

Swissmedic has approved the extension of Covid-19 boosters for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to all people aged 16 and over. This now "clears the way" for wider use of the booster vaccination, it said. On Tuesday, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Prod...

Three Swiss-based subsidiaries of SBM Offshore, which provides solutions for the offshore energy industry, have been ordered to pay CHF7 million ($7.5 million) for failing to prevent corruption payments. The Swiss attorney general said the company h...

The process to become Swiss has become too complex, preventing too many people from exercising their political rights, says the Swiss Observatory for Asylum and Foreigners Law. The group is calling for procedures to be simplified and made more consis...

Switzerland’s political parties have seen the ranks of their youth sections grow during the coronavirus pandemic, Swiss public broadcaster RTS reported on Monday. Young people have been particularly affected by the government’s restrictions to c...

Switzerland’s Federal Statistical Office says 57% of students are experiencing difficulties in their studies and one in ten would like to quit. A third of students (33%) report difficulties with the content of their studies, according to data publ...

Additional measures against Covid-19 will soon be taken in Switzerland, reckons Lukas Engelberger, president of the Conference of Cantonal Health Directors. Discussions are already being held in the cantons about tightening measures, he said in an i...

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis held talks in Libya on Sunday on the peace process, highly anticipated elections and Swiss humanitarian work in the North African country. Cassis met Libya’s prime minister, Abdelhamid Dabeiba, the head of the...

Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer has voiced concern over the missing Chinese player Peng Shuai. “She’s one of our tennis champions, a former world No. 1, and clearly it’s concerning,” Federer told Sky Sports Italy on Saturday night. “I ho...

Around 750 appeals, many identical, have been filed with the cantons against next Sunday’s nationwide vote on the Covid-19 law, the NZZ am Sonntag reports. On November 28, Swiss voters return to the ballot box for a second time to decide on the Co...

Cantonal authorities in Switzerland are unprepared for a major campaign to administer booster shots of Covid-19 vaccines to the under-65s, reports the SonntagsZeitung newspaper. Currently, Covid booster jabs are recommended for the over 65s and vuln...

Switzerland’s foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, has called on Saudi Arabia to support a ceasefire in Yemen and the resumption of the peace process. Cassis has just completed a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia. The Swiss minister travelled to Riyadh o...

Several thousand people took part in rallies in Zurich and Lausanne on Saturday to protest against government measures to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. They took place one week ahead of a nationwide vote on November 28 on the use of the Swiss Covid cer...

UBS has nominated Colm Kelleher to take over from Axel Weber as chairman of the Swiss bank - the world's biggest wealth manager. The board of directors also nominated Lukas Gahwiler as vice chairman, UBS said in a statement on Saturday. Shareholders...

Cantonal justice and police ministers want only named tickets to be issued for Super League football matches from next season in an effort to help fight hooliganism. At a two-day meeting of the Conference of Cantonal Justice and Police Directors (CC...

The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) have signed a joint memorandum of understanding to boost future cooperation. The deal was signed between the two research funding agencies on Friday in Washing...

The University and Federal Technology Institute Lausanne (EPFL) in the western Swiss city are to introduce non-gendered, eco-friendly toilets, EPFL said in an announcement marking the UN’s World Toilet Day. “This initiative is intended to respon...

Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer and his Russian counterpart Anton Siluanov signed an agreement in Bern on Friday to ease access to Russia for Swiss watches. The deal will remove some administrative hurdles for watches being imported into Russia, ...

Some 60 associations, unions and parties are preparing to oppose the arrival in Geneva next week of controversial French right-wing commentator Eric Zemmour. Zemmour, who has two convictions for hate speech but has risen in opinion polls as a potent...

Hours worked in Switzerland dropped by 3.4% in 2020 due to the impact of Covid-19. This was a particularly sharp fall, but average working hours have been decreasing steadily over the past ten years, according to the Federal Statistical Office (FSO)....

The Swiss definition of a refugee is “very restrictive” and excludes certain groups to their detriment, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said. This is particularly the case for those fleeing civil war, who are granted asylum onl...

Switzerland will not be pressured by the European Union into premature negotiations before a political common understanding is reached, Ignazio Cassis has said. “There are no orders given and taken between the EU and Switzerland,” Cassis told ne...