Swiss federal asylum centres have reported extremely high numbers of refugees from Ukraine registering for protected S status, a day after the move was officially approved in Switzerland. State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) spokesman Daniel Bach t...

Swiss Economics Minister Guy Parmelin has warned of the global consequences should sanctions be imposed on Russia for the commodities trade. “I am against taking measures that lead to fresh problems elsewhere and further aggravate the global crisi...

Switzerland is buying at least 14 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine for 2023, in order to provide for its population of 8.7 million “under all pandemic scenarios”. Seven million of the jabs will be purchased from the Moderna company and seven mi...

Ukrainians fleeing the war will be eligible for a temporary S permit to live and immediately work in Switzerland. The permit, initially valid for a year, has never before been activated. In announcing the introduction of the S permit as of tomorrow ...

Switzerland looks set to miss a deadline for implementing a minimum 15% rate of tax on large companies, but is planning stop-gap measures to meet agreed international standards. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development...

The foreign ministry has advised Swiss citizens in Russia to leave the country, unless they have an urgent reason to stay. The attack on Ukraine and subsequent war has led to an “increasingly unpredictable” situation in Russia, the foreign minis...

The Swiss government has boosted its humanitarian support to victims of the war in Ukraine. On Friday it approved CHF80 million ($86 million) as an “expression of its solidarity with Ukrainians in need”. “Around 12 million people are dependent...

Between 50,000-60,000 Ukrainians could seek protection in Switzerland following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the Swiss justice minister. Karin Keller-Sutter told Blick TV on Thursday that it was hard to give precise estimates on the ...

The world’s fastest animal, the peregrine falcon, has been put back on the red list of “vulnerable” species by the Swiss Ornithological Association. Having made a comeback since near extinction in the 1970s, the falcon has seen its numbers dro...

The Swiss Post Office more than doubled profits to CHF457 million ($493 million) last year as it was less affected by pandemic restrictions. The group’s financial arm, PostFinance, recorded a CHF272 million result, up from CHF162 million in 2020. ...

Swiss universities should re-examine their scientific collaborations with universities in Russia and suspend them if necessary, the sector’s umbrella body has said. “When political agreements and rules of diplomacy are unilaterally overridden, m...

Opponents of Switzerland's bid for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council have suffered a setback in parliament. The House of Representatives clearly rejected a call by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party for the government to...

Switzerland has condemned the bombing of a children's hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, calling it an "inconceivable act of inhumanity". Ukraine accused Russia of carrying out genocide, while the Kremlin said the bombing claim was fake “i...

The humanitarian charity Swiss Solidarity has raised over CHF82.6 million ($89.1 million) as part of a public fundraising effort for victims of the war in Ukraine. The Swiss public donated over CHF51.5 million on Wednesday and over CHF30 million on...

Switzerland’s state-owned Ruag International company has sold its small-caliber ammunition division to the Italian firearm manufacturer, Beretta. All the 2,700 employees of Ammotech in Switzerland and ten other countries, including Germany and Swe...

The Swiss authorities have recorded a steep increase in new confirmed Covid infections but the situation in hospitals is under control. More than 33,750 tested positive for Covid-19 over the past 24 hours, the Federal Office of Public Health said on...

Switzerland’s main churches have organised a protest against the war in Ukraine. The bells of the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Christian Catholic churches across the country rang out for a few minutes on Wednesday morning, inviting people for a ...

A district court in Switzerland has acquitted four defendants accused of inciting violence against the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The judge ruled that a controversial banner shown by protesters at a 2017 demonstration in the Swiss capit...

A group of 11 investors with more than CHF2.2 trillion ($2.4 trillion) in assets has filed a shareholder resolution calling on Credit Suisse to cut its lending to fossil fuel assets. Among the investors is Europe’s largest asset manager, Amundi, a...

A series of events and rallies are being held across Switzerland to demand an end to violence against women and for enhanced rights on International Women’s Day. More than 1,000 people demonstrated in the Swiss capital, Bern, on Tuesday. They dema...

The Swiss foreign ministry has berated Russia for targeting the media during its invasion of Ukraine. Several reporters have complained of being attacked by Russian forces, including a Swiss journalist who was injured and robbed this week. Russia ha...

In January 1937, the University of Lausanne (UNIL) awarded Benito Mussolini an honorary doctorate. A group of Vaud politicians on Tuesday called for the academic title to be revoked. Mussolini was awarded the university honorary doctorate “for hav...

The Swiss parliament has decided to ease restrictions on genetic engineering in agriculture, while extending in principle a moratorium for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) until 2025. The Senate on Tuesday asked the government to propose detail...

Russia has drawn up a list of around 50 countries, including Switzerland, that have committed “unfriendly actions” against Russia, its companies and citizens, in the wake of severe economic sanctions over the war in Ukraine, the Russian state med...

The government has allocated 5,000 places in Swiss federal asylum centres for people fleeing the war in Ukraine. The decision was announced by the State Secretary for Migration Christine Schraner Burgener at a press conference in Zurich on Monday. ...

A Swiss freelance journalist has been injured and robbed in the Mykolaiv region of southern Ukraine. According to the online media outlet Ukrayinska Pravda, the journalist was in a car travelling towards the city of Mykolaiv, near the Black Sea, whe...

Switzerland’s central bank has renewed its pledge to intervene in the currency markets to halt a rise in the franc after safe-haven inflows caused by the war in Ukraine briefly pushed the currency above parity with the euro. The euro/franc exchang...

The Fasnacht – Switzerland’s largest carnival – began in the northwest city on Monday after a two-year break due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The long-standing tradition began as always on the first Monday after Ash Wednesday. Festivities started...

Around 35 tonnes of emergency aid, including medical equipment and tents, sent from Switzerland to help victims of the war in Ukraine have arrived in the capital, Kyiv. “The aid is urgently needed for hospitals serving the Ukrainian population,”...

Millions of chickens on Swiss farms are treated with the types of antibiotics which, in human cases, are only used in exceptional cases. Some 5.2 million chickens were treated with ‘last-resort’ antibiotics in 2020 alone, write the SonntagsZeitu...