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Swiss Info

Wed, 8 Dec 2021 08:38:00 GMT
Vigil held in Bern to remember Covid-19 victims
More than 11,000 candles were lit on Tuesday evening in front of the federal parliament building to honour those who have died from Covid-19 in Switzerland. "We want to create a space to remember and mourn the victims," Simon Gehren of the "Corona-M...

Tue, 7 Dec 2021 18:52:00 GMT
Switzerland probes SMS service after spying allegations
The Swiss data protection commissioner is investigating allegations that a Swiss text messaging service, used by the likes of Google and TikTok, was secretly used to spy on people through their smartphones. The allegations against the canton Zug com...

Tue, 7 Dec 2021 14:30:00 GMT
Swiss army on standby to help beleaguered hospitals
Up to 2,500 military personnel have been put on alert to support the struggling Swiss healthcare system should the new pandemic wave intensify further. The government on Tuesday put the army on standby for the first time this year. The military was ...

Tue, 7 Dec 2021 09:23:00 GMT
Sisters repatriated to Switzerland from Syrian prison camp
The Swiss authorities have negotiated the release of two half-sisters, aged 15 and nine, from a Kurdish-controlled camp in Syria back to Switzerland. They were taken from Geneva to Syria by their mother in 2016 when she joined the Islamic State terr...

Tue, 7 Dec 2021 08:53:00 GMT
Swiss Catholic Church commissions study into past sexual abuse
The leaders of the Catholic Church in Switzerland have commissioned a study into the Swiss church’s history of sexual exploitation since the mid-20th century. The Swiss Bishops’ Conference and two other organisations announced on Monday that two...

Mon, 6 Dec 2021 17:08:00 GMT
Switzerland condemns jailing of former Myanmar leaders
Switzerland has rebuked a military tribunal in Myanmar for sentencing the country’s overthrown democratic leaders to prison. On Monday, Myanmar’s former de facto Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were handed four-year jail ...

Mon, 6 Dec 2021 14:36:00 GMT
‘Ticino School’ architect Galfetti dies aged 85
Renowned Swiss architect and urban designer Aurelio Galfetti, founder of the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture, has passed away aged 85. Born in 1936, Galfetti was one of the most prominent “Ticino School” of architects in the Italian-speaking c...

Mon, 6 Dec 2021 11:13:00 GMT
Switzerland confirms Italian mafia boss entry ban
The Federal Court has confirmed that a Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia boss, who was extradited to Italy in 2017, cannot enter Switzerland for 20 years. The Italian justice system says Leo Caridi is head of a Reggio Calabria 'Ndrangheta mafia gang. He w...

Mon, 6 Dec 2021 10:43:00 GMT
Overseas tourist numbers picked up during the summer
Swiss hotels saw an increase of 80% more tourists from other countries during the summer months compared with the same period in 2020 when Switzerland was in lockdown. Between the start of May and the end of October, overnight stays at hotels increa...

Mon, 6 Dec 2021 08:54:00 GMT
Swiss central bank vice chair to step down in 2022
Swiss National Bank (SNB) Vice Chairman Fritz Zurbrügg will retire at the end of July 2022, the bank announced on Monday. Zurbrügg, 61, who has served as SNB vice-chairman since 2015 - and heads the department that looks at financial stability and...

Mon, 6 Dec 2021 08:42:00 GMT
More Swiss banks slammed for Venezuela business
Switzerland’s financial regulator has reprimanded two more banks for breaching money laundering rules. The decisions on Thursday wrap up a five-year investigation into banks’ dealings with people linked to Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA. ...

Sun, 5 Dec 2021 14:12:00 GMT
Swiss government will raise cost of Covid-19 jab
The Swiss government, which buys and distributes Covid-19 vaccines in the Alpine nation, will massively increase the price of these products next year, according to the NZZ am Sonntag. Each dose will cost CHF25 ($27) rather than CHF5, the weekly Ger...

Sun, 5 Dec 2021 13:09:19 GMT
Swiss hotels reeling from Omicron cancellations
The Swiss hotel industry is confronting a wave of cancelled bookings after the discovery of another variant of the coronavirus, Omicron, the Sunday weekly SonntagsZeitung reported. Many Belgian, British and Dutch guests have already cancelled their ...

Sun, 5 Dec 2021 12:00:00 GMT
Ransomware attacks on the rise in Switzerland
Cyber-attacks are on the rise in Switzerland with 94 ransomware incidents reported in the first half of the year, according to the Sunday weekly Le Matin Dimanche. The source of that figure is the network supporting investigations against digital cr...

Sun, 5 Dec 2021 10:00:00 GMT
Stricter Covid rules remain a possibility in Switzerland
A Swiss health official says stricter nationwide rules could be in the cards if epidemiological dynamics do not improve. But mandatory vaccination and restrictions on individuals who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 are considered, for now, ...

Sat, 4 Dec 2021 15:24:00 GMT
Swiss trade union demands shorter work week
Switzerland’s largest trade union issued a statement on Saturday demanding a “massive reduction” of working hours with full wage compensation for lower and income earners. “Nowhere in Europe do people work as hard as in Switzerland. At prese...

Sat, 4 Dec 2021 12:26:00 GMT
SWISS shuns Hong Kong over strict crew quarantine rules
Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) announced that it is suspending its flights from Zurich to Hong Kong temporarily. This is due to the tightening of quarantine regulations for crew members" on arrival to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Four fli...

Sat, 4 Dec 2021 09:45:00 GMT
US says Switzerland no longer manipulates its currency
The United States government confirmed on Friday that Switzerland is no longer considered a currency manipulator, Swiss public broadcaster RTS reported As in April, the US Treasury Department determined there was "insufficient evidence" to designat...

Fri, 3 Dec 2021 17:17:00 GMT
UN body concerned at rise of racist hate speech in Switzerland
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has flagged up a rise in racist hate speech over social media channels in Switzerland. A country review of Switzerland also highlighted concerns about “the persistence...

Fri, 3 Dec 2021 16:15:00 GMT
Switzerland eyes tax data exchange with dozen more countries
Switzerland plans to expand the network of countries with which it automatically exchanges financial information to include another 12 states. The government said on Friday that it proposes to conclude deals with Ecuador, Georgia, Jamaica, Jordan, K...

Fri, 3 Dec 2021 12:54:00 GMT
Air transport leaders slam Swiss Omicron travel restrictions
Zurich airport and Swiss International Air Lines have both criticised the government's decision to impose travel restrictions to combat the spread of the Omicron Covid variant. Last week, the government banned direct flights to southern Africa and i...

Fri, 3 Dec 2021 12:05:00 GMT
Electronic tagging for domestic abuse offenders deemed effective
The Swiss government has given its approval for domestic violence offenders to be fitted with electronic wrist or ankle devices that monitor their movements. The government said such a measure, along with other uses of electronic devices that have a...

Fri, 3 Dec 2021 08:54:00 GMT
Entire Swiss school quarantined over two cases of Omicron variant
Around 2,000 people, including 1,600 children at the International School of Geneva, will have to quarantine for ten days. Two confirmed cases of the Omicron variant were detected at the La Châtaigneraie campus of the International School of Geneva...

Thu, 2 Dec 2021 17:51:00 GMT
Three Swiss laureats in global ‘tourism village’ awards
Three Swiss towns have been named as part of a crop of “Best Tourism Villages” announced by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). “No other country had as much success” in the awards, the Swiss authorities announced, rather ...

Thu, 2 Dec 2021 15:09:00 GMT
Parliamentarians call on government to bear cost of Covid tests
A majority in parliament has voted in favour of re-introducing free Covid tests, less than two months after the government decided to make people pay. The government scrapped free testing for asymptomatic people in October, saying the cost to the st...

Thu, 2 Dec 2021 12:12:00 GMT
Swiss banks implicated in trading cartel investigation
The European Commission has ended an investigation of five banks, including UBS and Credit Suisse, who colluded in a foreign exchange spot trading cartel. The total fines announced on Thursday came to €344 million (CHF359 million), with British ba...

Thu, 2 Dec 2021 09:30:00 GMT
Facebook removes hundreds of accounts linked to fake Swiss biologist
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has dismantled a social media operation, orchestrated from China, which used an account of a fictitious Swiss biologist named Wilson Edwards to fuel tensions with the United States. On July 24, an account posing...

Wed, 1 Dec 2021 17:26:00 GMT
WHO assembly in Geneva plans global pandemic pact
The 194 member nations of the World Health Organisation (WHO), including Switzerland, have pledged to open talks on a new global convention to better deal with future pandemics. The WHO announced the plans at the end of a special three-day session i...

Wed, 1 Dec 2021 15:15:00 GMT
Study reports confusion about ‘journalistically-packaged advertising’
Over a third of readers of online articles are unable to distinguish between actual journalism and advertising which is made to look like journalism, a Swiss study has found. “Depending on the platform in question and how the article was labelled,...

Wed, 1 Dec 2021 12:54:00 GMT
Parliament shoots down idea to double EU cohesion payment
Politicians have rejected a committee idea to raise Switzerland’s “cohesion payment” to the European Union from CHF1 billion to CHF 2 billion ($1.1 billion to $2.2 billion). The plan was proposed by the foreign affairs committee in the House o...



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