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Swiss Info

Tue, 18 Jan 2022 09:22:43 GMT
Swiss cantons want quicker phase-out of Covid restrictions
The majority of Switzerland’s 26 cantons want existing restrictions to be eased by the end of February instead of a month later as proposed by the government. The cantons were generally in agreement with the measures to combat the coronavirus tha...

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 15:44:00 GMT
Swiss Solidarity raises over CHF8 million for children in need
The humanitarian charity Swiss Solidarity has raised CHF8 million ($8.75 million) as part of a fundraising effort for children in need, both at home and abroad. The amount collected had doubled since a special solidarity day was launched on December...

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 12:57:00 GMT
WEF: China's Xi warns against 'Cold War mentality’, pushes cooperation
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for greater world cooperation against Covid-19 in his opening speech at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), held online this year rather than at the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos. He also call...

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 12:00:00 GMT
Credit Suisse chair Horta-Osório resigns over Covid-19 breaches
Shares in Swiss bank Credit Suisse slipped on Monday after its chair António Horta-Osório quit following an internal probe into his personal conduct, including breaches of Covid-19 rules. The bank's shares were down around 1.6% in early afternoon ...

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 11:20:19 GMT
Stadler Rail wins record €4bn contract for German-Austrian project
The Swiss company has secured its biggest-ever contract to supply up to 504 vehicles for the VDV Tram-Train project that will service six transport companies in Germany and Austria. Initially, Stadler will supply 246 Citylink "train-trams" [a city ...

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 10:19:03 GMT
FIFA President Gianni Infantino moves to Qatar
A year before the start of the football World Cup in Qatar, Gianni Infantino has decided to rent a house in the Gulf state that is due to host the tournament, it has been confirmed. An investigation published by the SonntagsBlick newspaper confirmed...

Sun, 16 Jan 2022 12:30:00 GMT
E-scooter accidents more common than assumed
The real number of e-scooter accidents in Switzerland is likely more than ten-fold the cases reported to police, according to estimates from an insurance company. The police are called around 200 times a year when there are prangs involving e-scoote...

Sun, 16 Jan 2022 11:04:00 GMT
Doctors demand better co-ordination to solve Long Covid problems
Calls are growing for Switzerland to keep better track of people suffering from Long Covid to gain an understanding of the symptoms and the overall impact on society. Criticism centres on the fact that there is no central database to record the numb...

Sun, 16 Jan 2022 10:08:00 GMT
Swiss cantons mull lower taxes for wealthy executives
Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer has hinted that cantons might lower income taxes for well-heeled executives as the country braces for the impact of a minimum corporate tax rate. Speaking to the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, Maurer said cantons are di...

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 16:41:00 GMT
Victims of CHF800 million fraud scheme feel short-changed
Administrators clearing up a CHF800 million ($877 million) collapsed pyramid scheme have managed to recover just CHF12.7 million from one of Switzerland’s largest fraud cases. Financier Dieter Behring ripped off 1,700 investors between 1998 and 20...

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 14:21:00 GMT
Earth’s core ‘cooling faster than thought’
The Earth may be losing its internal heat at a faster rate than previously estimated, according to scientists at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich. Researchers devised a laboratory experiment for measuring the amount of heat being radiated...

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 12:55:00 GMT
Security concerns haunt Swiss government cloud data plans
Fresh criticism has been leveled at the inclusion of Chinese company Alibaba in a future cloud storage system for Swiss government data. The Tages Anzeiger newspaper has uncovered documents that detail the concerns of Swiss Data Protection Commissio...

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 17:42:02 GMT
International cooperation to be boosted around Lake Constance
Swiss President Ignazio Cassis has announced plans for an intergovernmental committee to strengthen decades-old cooperation between regions around Lake Constance. This came as he attended a meeting on Friday on Mount Säntis, northeast Switzerland, ...

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 16:19:43 GMT
UN expert gives Swiss officials more time to improve prisoner's detention
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer on Friday postponed a planned visit to Brian “K”, Switzerland’s most famous prisoner, after the government promised to improve his conditions. “I welcome the decision of the Swiss authorities to e...

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 13:43:00 GMT
US diplomats in Geneva and Paris allegedly hit by ‘Havana Syndrome’
Several American diplomats in Geneva and Paris were reportedly struck with suspected “Havana Syndrome” last year – a mysterious ailment that has affected up to 200 US officials in diplomatic posts worldwide. The Wall Street Journal reported on...

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 13:21:25 GMT
Next weeks will be difficult with Omicron, says health minister
Even if Omicron is less virulent than previous Covid-19 variants, its infectiousness will likely bring more hospital admissions and intensive care patients in coming weeks, Swiss health minister Alain Berset said on Friday. Switzerland should prepar...

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 11:41:23 GMT
Swiss-Belarusian detainee feels ‘well’, embassy reports
Natallia Hersche, the Swiss-Belarusian dual national held in Belarus for taking part in anti-government protests, has been visited by a senior Swiss foreign ministry official, who reports she is in good health. “Natallia is feeling well and sends ...

Fri, 14 Jan 2022 11:26:58 GMT
Swiss man cleared of participating in Vienna terror attack
Swiss prosecutors have dropped a case against one of two men suspected of participating in the November 2020 terrorist attack in Vienna. The man, who was 24 years old at the time, visited the attacker in Vienna and stayed a night with him a few mont...

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 17:09:00 GMT
Finance minister says global corporate tax to come into force in 2024
The Swiss government has pledged to implement from 2024 the minimum tax rate for large multinational companies under a global tax deal. Under a timetable presented by Finance Minister Ueli Maurer on Thursday, a temporary regulation will ensure the m...

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 13:37:00 GMT
Swiss president stresses multilateralism in international crises
Swiss President Ignazio Cassis has held talks in neighbouring Austria about strained ties with the European Union and the situation in Ukraine. He met the Austrian president, Alexander Van der Bellen, as well as members of the government and parliam...

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 10:44:00 GMT
Geneva municipality wins 2022 Wakker heritage prize
Meyrin, home to the European nuclear research centre CERN, had the long-term vision to prioritise social cohesion and biodiversity in its plans to accommodate an exploding population, the Swiss Heritage Society said on Thursday. The Society praised ...

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 17:38:00 GMT
Swiss seek deal with Quebec on professional diplomas
The Swiss government wants to boost an exchange of specialists from the education and the medical sector with Canada’s largest province of Quebec. The deal foresees the mutual recognition of diplomas for social workers, as well as experts in denta...

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 15:35:00 GMT
Swiss to send official representative to Beijing Olympics
A member of the Swiss government will in all likelihood travel to Beijing next month for the opening of the Winter Olympics. The pandemic, not international calls for a boycott, would be the only stumbling block. At its meeting on Wednesday, the sev...

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 12:35:39 GMT
Horizon Europe: Swiss researchers under pressure to relocate or forgo EU grants
The European Research Council (ERC) has announced that Swiss-based researchers who were recently awarded Horizon Europe research grants will need to do their work outside Switzerland in the absence of an agreement with the EU. “We are now starting...

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 09:22:37 GMT
Swiss universities still popular among international students despite pandemic
Federal statistics show that the number of international students heading to Swiss universities continues to rise despite the health crisis and associated travel restrictions. However, fewer are coming from outside Europe. At the start of the 2020...

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 17:26:00 GMT
Gruyère cheese group loses trademark case in US
A court in the United States has ruled that cheese does not have to come from the Gruyère region of Switzerland to be sold under this name. A consortium of Swiss and French cheesemakers from the region around the town of Gruyères in western Switze...

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 16:03:00 GMT
Omicron wave expected to peak in Switzerland this month
Swiss health experts say they expect the number of Covid infections to peak within the next two weeks and recommend reviewing the quarantine policy. “We could get to the peak within one to three weeks if contacts among people stay on the same leve...

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 11:19:00 GMT
Ex-politician in Geneva cleared of criminal offence over Abu Dhabi trip
Former Swiss politician Pierre Maudet has been cleared of accepting undue financial advantages when he was a member of the government of canton Geneva. An appeals court overturned a conviction handed down last year to pay a fine and refund the costs...

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 10:44:24 GMT
Psychiatrists worried about mental health of Swiss youth
Mental health problems are prevalent among children and teenagers due to Covid-19, with boys tending to repress problems while girls are prone to depression, the president of the association of youth psychiatrists in Switzerland says. Oliver Bilke-H...

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 18:28:00 GMT
No breakthrough in US-Russia talks over Ukraine
Talks between Russia and the United States in Geneva have failed to resolve differences between the two countries over increasing tensions in Ukraine. US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov h...



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