A Swiss court has sentenced former Raiffeisen bank chief Pierin Vincenz to almost four years in prison for fraud, forgery of documents and criminal mismanagement. Judges on Wednesday handed down a jail sentence of 43 months as well as a suspended fi...

Switzerland spent CHF3.59 billion ($3.85 billion) on official development aid in 2021, or 0.51% of gross national income (GNI), the foreign ministry said on Tuesday. The figure marks an increase of CHF243 million on the previous year, which had in t...

Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter and ex-UEFA President Michel Platini will stand before the Federal Criminal Court to face corruption charges over a CHF2 million payment made by FIFA to Platini in 2011. Both Blatter and Platini have repeatedly den...

The Russian foreign ministry has criticised what it labels the “arbitrary” understanding of history of Swiss President Ignazio Cassis, as well as Switzerland’s neutral position on the Ukraine war. In a statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday by...

The national financial watchdog has renewed calls for closer inspections of public funds paid to companies hit by government restrictions during the Covid pandemic. In its latest report, the Federal Audit Office said it noted “a high number” of ...

A survey by Amnesty International Switzerland has found wider backing for the benefits of the affirmative consent principle for sexual relations, rather than placing the onus on people to say “no”. Some 45% of all respondents said the “yes mea...

Ex-Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty has been under armed guard for nearly a year-and-a-half following death threats he believes originate from Serbia. In an interview with Swiss public broadcaster RTS on Sunday, Marty said he had armed protection officer...

Exports to the United States have tripled over the past 20 years, reaching CHF47 billion ($50.4 billion) in 2021. This makes it the most important export market for Switzerland. Foreign trade between the US and Switzerland is booming. Between 2001 a...

The Swiss migration office has issued guidelines to help Ukrainian refugees avoid falling prey to human traffickers. More than 28,000 people fleeing the war in Ukraine have so far arrived in Switzerland, with many more expected to follow. The State...

Switzerland’s two federal institutes of technology have helped launch an $100 million (CHF93 million) information technology research centre in Bulgaria. The Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology (INSAIT) was opene...

Switzerland has narrowly missed its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 despite coronavirus lockdowns and an unusually warm winter. The Alpine state had set itself the target of reducing harmful emissions by 20% compared to 1990 leve...

French President Emmanuel Macron will face far-right challenger Marine Le Pen in a winner-takes-all runoff for the French presidency on April 24. Victory for Macron, like in the previous presidential duel against Le Pen in 2017, is far from guarantee...

Switzerland is not setting a maximum limit on how many Ukrainian refugees it accepts, says the Swiss justice minister. Karin Keller-Sutter told Swiss public television, RTS, on Sunday that no cap had been set on the number of people who would be all...

A prominent Swiss health official, who was kidnapped and threatened last month, has downplayed media reports that the perpetrator may have been motivated by anti-vaccine sentiments. Christoph Berger, head of Switzerland’s Federal Vaccine Commissio...

The Ukrainian and United States ambassadors to Bern have called on Switzerland to redouble its efforts to enforce sanctions against Russian individuals and entities. The Swiss authorities have adopted European Union sanctions, so far seizing CHF7.5 ...

Switzerland has formally protested the bombing of the Kramatorsk railway station in Ukraine to the Russian ambassador to Bern. At least 50 people are reported killed and many more left injured by Friday’s missile strike on the train station in the...

Switzerland has delivered a first consignment of food supplies to the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, as part of a series of aid shipments to the country’s “suffering civilian population”, it said on Friday. “In cooperation with its Ukrainia...

Switzerland needs “quick and unbureaucratic solutions” to cope with the influx of refugees from Ukraine, Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said on Friday. Speaking to journalists in the north-eastern Swiss city of St. Gallen, she stressed the...

A male animal was culled in the canton of Graubünden last week on suspicion of being a wolf-dog hybrid. Information indicates that the canid had a lighter coloured coat than a wolf, the Graubünden cantonal Hunting and Fishing Office said on Friday...

Swiss President Ignazio Cassis has said that the Alpine nation will not expel Russian diplomats to sanction Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. "The Federal Council has decided that the expulsion of diplomats is a measure that must be taken in the ...

The United Nations General Assembly has suspended Russia from the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council (HRC) over reports of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” by invading Russian troops in Ukraine. The US-led push on T...

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic sees a role for Switzerland’s good offices in the Ukraine war. Speaking in Geneva on Thursday, he also praised the Swiss government’s “intelligent” stance in adopting European Union sanctions. Milanovic str...

Switzerland has so far frozen some CHF7.5 billion ($8 billion) in funds and assets under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. These are funds in frozen accounts and properties in four cantons, said Erwin Bollinger, he...

Artists Caroline Bachmann and Klodin Erb and civil engineers Jürg Conzett and Gianfranco Bronzini have won the Swiss Grand Award for Art/Prix Meret Oppenheim 2022. The award, which is worth CHF40,000 ($43,000), has been given since 2001 to artists,...

Every year around 14,000 cases of tick bites are recorded in Switzerland, an increase of 40% compared with a decade ago. "The area of habitat suitable for ticks has increased by almost two-thirds between 2009 and 2018," Felix Ineichen, a tick expert...

A court in Italy has sentenced Swiss businessman Stephan Schmidheiny to 42 months in prison over the death of a former worker at an asbestos company. The jury found Schmidheiny, a former majority shareholder in the company, guilty of involuntary man...

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommends Switzerland to continue its current fiscal policy to tackle new challenges for the country’s economy. In its annual review published on Wednesday, the IMF said Switzerland recovered strongly from th...

The Swiss government has given the green light for the civil protection organisation to support refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. It allows the immigration authorities to ask for up to 24,000 days of service from members of the civil defence orga...

The government has launched a plan to halve food waste in Switzerland by 2030 compared with 2017. The restaurant sector, the food processing industry and farmers organisations have been asked to agree on a series of voluntary measures to reduce the ...

The organic food market in Switzerland experienced slower growth in 2021 than the previous year. However, consumers are spending more than ever on organic products. According to annual figures released by the organic food association Bio Suisse on W...