The 125th anniversary of the First Zionist Congress will be held in the Swiss city of Basel at the end of August. Israeli President Isaac Herzog is expected to attend. The festivities will take place on August 28-29 in the Stadtcasino and at the Con...

Parliament has approved restrictions on online reservation platforms to protect the Swiss hotel sector. Senators on Wednesday came out in favour of a legal reform to fight unfair competition. In line with the House of Representatives, the Senate ap...

Parliament has thrown out two proposals to grant foreign residents in Switzerland full voting rights. The House of Representatives voted against a Green Party plan paving the way for foreigners living in Switzerland for at least five years the right...

The trial is underway in a Swiss court of the former FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, and ex-UEFA chief, Michel Platini, accused of corruption. The two former prominent figures of football face charges of unlawfully arranging a payment of CHF2 million ...

The Swiss flag carrier is planning to reduce the number of flights notably in Europe over the next few months as a result of staff shortages. Swiss International Air Lines said about 2% of the scheduled flights to destinations in neighbouring German...

Floods, landslides and rockfalls across Switzerland last summer resulted in damage costs of about CHF450 million ($466 million). The Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) said that for the first time since 2007 these costs ...

Switzerland and ten other countries have successfully prevented the rapid spread of the so-called FluBot malware, which infects Android mobile phones via text messages and steals sensitive data from devices, federal prosecutors say. Since 2020, the ...

The return of foreign tourists last winter after Covid-19 restrictions were eased has given a boost to Swiss tourism figures. In all, 14.6 million overnight stays were recorded in Swiss hotels and other accommodation for the November 2021-April 2022...

A Swiss-Chinese research team has found new signs that giraffes developed their long necks not to reach high-lying food, but rather to boost their mating chances. Analysis of a 17-million-year-old giraffe-like fossil in the Xinjiang region of north-...

An academic survey has found that homophobia remains rife in Swiss classrooms, the NZZ am Sonntag reported on Sunday. One in four high school students admit to uttering anti-gay slurs or engaging in violence against a presumed homosexual classmate i...

The president of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) says rich industrialised countries and the pharmaceutical industry must prepare for the next pandemic. Critical of vaccine nationalism, Thomas Cuen...

Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has been targeted by hackers, according to media reports. The Basel-based company says no sensitive data has been stolen. Novartis confirmed to Swiss media on Sunday that it had been the victim of a hacking attack...

Swiss Economics Minister Guy Parmelin says it is the responsibility of unions to negotiate a salary raise to cope with rising food prices due to the war in Ukraine. He also expects energy prices to rise further due to new sanctions on Russia. “The...

About 24,000 Swiss people offered to provide housing for Ukrainian refugees after Russia invaded Ukraine. The private hosts could accommodate 57,000 people but most of the rooms, apartments and houses are still empty, according to the Swiss NGO Campa...

Electronic payment systems across a variety of platforms experienced a brief disruption on Saturday. The outages affected banking services and digital payment apps. The services of Swiss bank UBS and Raiffeisen, along with credit card company Visa, ...

A three-day weekend has caused long tailbacks at the Gotthard tunnel in central Switzerland, with a south-bound traffic jam up to 14 kilometres long forming on Saturday morning. In most Swiss cantons, Whit Monday is a public holiday. The Gotthard ro...

The Federal Council on Friday re-confirmed neutral Switzerland’s policy of not supplying arms to conflict zones. It had been facing increasing pressure to review its position in light of the war in Ukraine. “The criteria applicable to exports de...

Switzerland’s Federal Court has upheld a ruling that the US ride-hailing firm should be treated as an employer, rejecting Uber’s attempt to overturn a Geneva court’s verdict. “According to the Federal Court, the cantonal court did not rule a...

Four out of five Swiss bathing sites met the most stringent “excellent” European Union water quality standard last year. The country has improved its overall position in a comparison survey, but it still remains below the European average. In a...

The Federal Council has approved a bilateral climate protection accord with Thailand to carry out carbon-offsetting projects in the southeast Asian country. “The agreement creates the framework conditions allowing Switzerland to carry out projects...

An albino Galapagos giant tortoise – the first to be born and kept in captivity – was shown to the press on Friday at a zoo in western Switzerland. It was one of two tortoises born last month at the Tropiquarium in the town of Servion as part of...

The Federal Electricity Commission (ElCom) has warned that households and businesses face much higher prices next year. It added that "uncertainties" regarding electricity supplies this winter persist. The independent regulator said on Thursday that...

The impact of global warming in the Alps can be seen from space, according to Swiss scientists. Vegetation above the tree line has increased in almost 80% of the Alpine area. The most marked change is a pronounced and widespread increase in vegetati...

From theory to practice: after announcing in 2020 that they had developed a machine to repair injured livers and keep them alive outside the body for a week, scientists have now used the technology to save a cancer patient. The Liver4Life multidisci...

The Ukrainian funds available to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for 2022 will not affect projects elsewhere, an official said on Thursday. Before the Russian invasion in February, the SDC had earmarked CHF25 million ($26 mill...

Both chambers of parliament have come out in favour of increasing military spending from CHF5.6 billion to CHF7 billion ($5.8 billion to $7.3 billion) by 2030. A Senate decision on Thursday, after the House of Representatives last month, means the a...

Switzerland’s chief EU negotiator Livia Leu has reiterated the country’s desire to move beyond institutional issues and focus on establishing common political ground before negotiations with Brussels can resume. The letter, dated May 30 and leak...

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...

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...

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...