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Swiss Info

Thu, 2 Jun 2022 07:16:22 GMT
Oerlikon to sell Russia business to local owners
Swiss industrial firm Oerlikon has announced that it will hand over ownership of its business in Russia to local management. In a brief statement released on Thursday, the Oerlikon Group said it had entered into an agreement with the local managemen...

Wed, 1 Jun 2022 16:54:00 GMT
Media investigation targets activities of Swiss intelligence services
Switzerland’s secret service is facing renewed criticism due to its data collection practices concerning political parties and civil organisations. The Green Party and the non-governmental Public Eye organisation said the Federal Intelligence Serv...

Wed, 1 Jun 2022 11:58:00 GMT
Ukraine refugees work in restaurant and IT sectors
Swiss authorities say they have registered at least 54,000 refugees from Ukraine, but only about 1,000 of them have received a work permit. The State Secretariat for Migration said more than 51,000 of the refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine have bee...

Wed, 1 Jun 2022 07:33:00 GMT
Swiss block re-export of armoured vehicles to Ukraine
The Swiss authorities have vetoed Denmark's request to send Swiss-made armoured personnel carriers to Ukraine. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) recently rejected Denmark's bid to provide about 20 Piranha III infantry fighting vehic...

Tue, 31 May 2022 15:34:00 GMT
China dismisses Swiss reports of stalled free trade talks
China's commerce ministry has denied talks with Switzerland to update a free trade agreement between both countries are "frozen". China's human rights record, in particular the way it treats the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority in its northwest region ...

Tue, 31 May 2022 13:32:31 GMT
Courts given more discretion to punish traffic offenders
Parliament has decided to drop minimum prison sentences for excessive speeding on Swiss roads. Under current regulations in force since 2013, convicted offenders have faced at least a 12-month sentence. The Senate on Tuesday followed the House o...

Tue, 31 May 2022 11:58:00 GMT
Geneva-based Firmenich to merge with Dutch chemicals company
Swiss flavour maker Firmenich and Dutch company Royal DSM have agreed a deal to form a new fragrance giant. The new company is expected to be a leader in nutrition, beauty and wellness products, according to a joint statement published on Tuesday. ...

Tue, 31 May 2022 10:16:00 GMT
Swiss drug prices still soar above European levels
Compared with nine other European countries, Switzerland remains a high-price island for medicines, according to an annual survey by health insurer body santésuisse and pharma research group Interpharma. The price difference was again most marked f...

Mon, 30 May 2022 14:53:00 GMT
Swiss university graduates offered fast-track UK work visas
Graduates from Switzerland’s two federal institutes of technology are among those from 50 global universities being offered fast-track work visas in Britain. The British government has opened up a “high potential individual” route for the “b...

Mon, 30 May 2022 13:06:00 GMT
Search continues for Javanese governor’s son missing in Swiss river
Swiss police continue their search for the son of an Indonesian island governor, who went missing last week while swimming in the River Aare, near to Bern. Emmeril Mumtadz, 23, was reported missing to canton Bern police on Thursday morning. He is th...

Mon, 30 May 2022 09:21:00 GMT
Stones fly at start of Bern biker brawl trial
Around 200 Hells Angels and Bandidos motorbike gang members faced off outside a court in the Swiss capital, Bern, on Monday ahead of the start of a month-long trial into a violent clash between the two gangs in 2019. In total, 22 rival gang members ...

Sun, 29 May 2022 13:40:38 GMT
Ukraine war hits supplies of food packaging material
Switzerland is considering emergency stockpiling of plastic packaging as the Ukraine war brings a world shortage of packaging material, reports the NZZ am Sonntag. Up to now the government has only stockpiled plastic to be able to produce disinfecta...

Sun, 29 May 2022 12:41:18 GMT
Swiss supermarket products for children have too much sugar
The overwhelming majority of products with packaging designed to appeal to children contain too much sugar, salt or fat, report Le Matin Dimanche and SonntagsZeitung newspapers. This is according to a survey conducted around Easter by the consumer o...

Sun, 29 May 2022 10:53:46 GMT
China stalling on trade talks with Switzerland, say papers
Switzerland wants to update its 2014 free trade agreement with China, but Beijing refuses to talk, owing to criticism of its human rights record, report the NZZ am Sonntag and SonntagsBlick newspapers. Bern wants to reduce customs duties for more Sw...

Sat, 28 May 2022 16:50:14 GMT
This Swiss spring was one of the warmest on record
Spring 2022 in Switzerland was one of the warmest on record, with temperatures from March to May around 2.5 degrees above normal, public television weather service SRF Meteo said on Saturday. Only 2007 and 2011 were warmer, since records began in 18...

Sat, 28 May 2022 15:04:47 GMT
Human rights chief ends China visit, saying it was not a probe
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet ended a controversial six-day visit to China on Saturday, saying she had held frank talks with Beijing and that it was “not an investigation”. Bachelet, the top official of the UN’s Genev...

Sat, 28 May 2022 09:26:39 GMT
Switzerland to boost support for International Criminal Court
The Swiss government is to send two more experts to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, after it opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine, reports Swiss public broadcaster RTS. ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan opened an ...

Fri, 27 May 2022 16:20:00 GMT
Swiss mountain ice fall claims French and Spanish victims
Two people have been killed, and nine injured, after a mountaineering group was struck by chunks of ice cascading from a summit in western Switzerland. Police said that a French citizen, aged 40, and a Spaniard, 65, were killed on the Grand Combin m...

Fri, 27 May 2022 15:41:53 GMT
WHO resolution denounces Ukraine invasion by Russia
Member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday adopted a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its military attacks on healthcare facilities. Out of the 183 members with a right to vote, 88 supported the resolut...

Fri, 27 May 2022 12:50:00 GMT
Initiative against F-35A fighter jets gathers enough support
Opponents of Switzerland’s purchase of F-35A fighter jets from the United States say they have enough signatures to force a vote on whether the right type of aircraft is being bought. Left-wing political groups behind the “Stop F-35” initiativ...

Fri, 27 May 2022 07:26:14 GMT
Swiss to destroy more than 620,000 doses of expired Covid vaccine
Around 620,000 doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine stored in Switzerland have expired. Of these, 200,000 are in cantonal refrigerators and 420,500 are being held by the army. The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) confirmed a report by Swiss p...

Thu, 26 May 2022 14:59:00 GMT
WEF gathering wraps with no major security incident
The first meeting of the World Economic Forum to take place in springtime ended on Thursday in the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos the way it began – with talk about the war in Ukraine. In a speech, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Russia had alrea...

Thu, 26 May 2022 10:51:00 GMT
End 'beauty cult' to cut food waste, says WWF
About 40% of all the food produced in the world is never consumed, says the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). In Switzerland, 330kg of food per person goes in the bin every year, according to the Swiss arm of the environmental charity. The 40% of uneaten f...

Wed, 25 May 2022 16:05:00 GMT
Swiss move to confiscate assets of ally of ex-Ukrainian leader
The Swiss government is looking to seize over CHF100 million ($104 million) in assets from an associate of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich. The “administrative confiscation proceedings” concern assets of Yuriy Ivanyushchenko and his...

Wed, 25 May 2022 13:43:00 GMT
Swiss draw up targets for UN Security Council term
If Switzerland is successfully voted onto the United Nations Security Council for a two-year term, the government wants to focus its diplomatic efforts on peace and climate change. On Wednesday the executive published a list of four priorities if Sw...

Wed, 25 May 2022 10:33:00 GMT
Worst winter in a decade for Swiss bee colonies
Over a fifth of bee colonies in Switzerland did not survive the winter of 2021-2022, the national umbrella organisation for beekeepers reported on Wednesday. The 1,384 beekeepers surveyed by apisuisse reported total colony losses of 21.4% over the w...

Wed, 25 May 2022 09:07:00 GMT
Second case of monkeypox reported in Switzerland
The number of confirmed cases of the monkeypox virus in Switzerland has risen to two. The second case was detected in a person in Geneva, who was contaminated during a trip abroad. The infected person is currently in isolation and “his general con...

Wed, 25 May 2022 07:51:00 GMT
Finance minister rules out state support to cope with inflation
Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer has spoken out against government support for consumers affected by higher energy prices. “Petrol prices are affordable in wealthy Switzerland,” he told the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper on Wednesday. The governmen...

Tue, 24 May 2022 13:57:00 GMT
Parliamentary body critical of Swiss pandemic preparedness
The Swiss government’s reaction to the arrival of Covid-19 in spring 2020 was too passive, a parliamentary audit committee has said. But it concluded that the handling of the first pandemic wave was generally “satisfactory”. “The government ...

Tue, 24 May 2022 07:33:48 GMT
Russian diplomat in Switzerland resigns over invasion of Ukraine
A Russian diplomat at the country’s permanent mission at the United Nations in Geneva has said he is leaving his post because of his disagreement with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. He hopes the Swiss government will help him. “I went to the mi...



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