The Swiss interior minister, Alain Berset, on a private flight in neighbouring France has been forced to land by the French air force. A ministry spokesman said Berset misinterpreted information from the French air traffic control tower prompting an...

The BAK Economics market research institute has confirmed its forecast for the Swiss economy this year, but it is more pessimistic about 2023. The Basel-based institute said it expected growth of Switzerland’s gross domestic product of 2.5% in 202...

Swiss arms exports rose more than 40% to CHF 516m ($526 million) in the first half of this year. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said the increase was mainly due to the sale of air defence systems to Qatar worth nearly CHF 160 mill...

The Swiss armed forces have again rejected requests to house Ukrainian refugees in army accommodation. Buildings, including barracks, could not be put at the disposal of refugees because the army needed them for the troops, an army spokesman said on...

Almost every second flight from Zurich Airport has been delayed since the beginning of June, with travellers facing more delays this summer. Between June 1 and July 10 an average of 46% of aircraft took off from Zurich with a delay of more than 15 m...

A study involving ten European countries, including Switzerland, has been launched to better understand monkeypox. It will follow people affected by the disease, record their symptoms and study their response to treatment. The Geneva University Hosp...

Swiss Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter has backed new measures to tighten security at the borders of Europe’s Schengen zone to prevent criminals exploiting the chaos of the Ukraine war. Keller-Sutter, who also heads Switzerland’s migration o...

South Africa has confirmed a third case of monkeypox, in a 42-year-old male tourist from Switzerland, the health department of the Limpopo province said. The tourist, who is holidaying in South Africa, presented with symptoms including a rash, muscl...

Roger Federer has not appeared in the ATP weekly rankings for the first time since September 1997. The Swiss tennis star has not played for 12 months. On September 22, 1997, a young player from Basel who had just turned 16 featured in the ATP rankin...

Numerous mountain huts in the Swiss Alps are threatened with early closure due to a lack of water after little snow and a warm spring, a Sunday newspaper reports. The lack of snow at high altitudes this year has become a cause for concern for the m...

Despite record public donations for Ukraine, four months since the start of the invasion by Russia, Swiss aid agencies have only been able to spend a small amount of the funds on humanitarian work. An investigation by the SonntagsZeitung newspaper p...

A report by the McKinsey consulting firm estimates that the small Alpine country, with its highly globalised economy and powerful financial centre, has an estimated indirect influence on 2-3% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Domestic CO2 em...

Last week’s Ukraine Recovery Conference, hosted by Switzerland in the southern city of Lugano, did not have a negative impact on Swiss-Russian ties, according to the Swiss president. “Our position has been clear since we took up European Union s...

An international research team led by scientists from Zurich believe they have found a new theory behind how the Earth was formed. “The prevailing theory in astrophysics and cosmochemistry is that the Earth formed from chondritic asteroids. These ...

The Swiss authorities have so far frozen CHF6.7 billion ($6.8 billion) of assets belonging to sanctioned Russians. This represents a CHF400 million increase since mid-May. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the government department ...

A group of NGOs has issued a criminal complaint against Swiss bank UBS for allegedly helping the former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) president launder money out of the country. Swiss-based Public Eye, the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers...

France offered Switzerland a financial sweetener, worth an estimated CHF3.5 billion, to buy its Rafale fighter jets rather than US F-35A aircraft, according to a secret document seen by Swiss public broadcaster SRF. The document sheds light on backg...

Gazprombank has announced it may sell its Swiss banking branch as it explores “potential strategic options” for its business in Switzerland. “These options include, but are not limited to, potential divestment of selected assets or the sale of...

Judges at the Federal Criminal Court have acquitted former FIFA boss Sepp Blatter and ex-UEFA head Michel Platini of allegations of corruption and fraud. The judges said on Friday they found no proof of wrongdoing in relation to a CHF2 million ($2.0...

The implementation and value of protection status S, a permit that has been granted to people fleeing the war in Ukraine, must be evaluated quickly, says Swiss Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter. Speaking to the media on Thursday, Keller-Sutter sa...

Several professional football clubs in Switzerland were reportedly compensated twice for Covid-related losses and received around CHF10 million ($10.3 million) too much. Nine clubs from the Super League and the Challenge League – the two highest S...

The Swiss economy has recovered well from the Covid-19 crisis, but despite the free movement of people agreement with the EU, some sectors are struggling to recruit qualified staff, says a government report. The unemployment rate in spring 2022 retu...

The president of the Swissgas industry platform says Switzerland is not aware of how fragile the situation is and that “it would not take much” to lead to a winter shortage. André Dosé told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) newspaper on Thursday...

An action thriller with Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock is to kick off this year’s Locarno Film Festival. Bullet Train by David Leitch is one of 17 films to be screened on Locarno’s 8,000-seat open air Piazza Grande arena in the southern Swiss town...

New statistics from Switzerland show the abortion rate remained stable – and comparatively low – in 2021. Longer term, the average age of those terminating pregnancies is rising. A total of 10,869 abortions were recorded in the country in 2021, ...

The Swiss health authorities have called on people over the age of 80 to update their vaccination against the Covid-19 virus. A government advisory commission and the Federal Office of Public Health issued a recommendation also urging people with a ...

The Federal Office of Police (Fedpol) says a lack of information and awareness from civilian authorities slows down the fight against the Italian crime syndicates in Switzerland. Fedpol director Nicoletta della Valle said it is key that labour inspe...

For the first time the Fields Award, the “Nobel prize of mathematics”, has been given to two researchers in Switzerland for insights into sphere-packing and phase-transition theory. Maryna Viazovska from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology...

Switzerland will double its aid to Ukraine to CHF100 million ($104 million) by the end of 2023, Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis announced at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in the Swiss city of Lugano. He also freed up CHF15 million to support the c...

Ten years after it discovered the Higgs boson, the world’s biggest particle accelerator is poised to smash together protons at record energy levels at the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, as scientists resume their search for clues to ...