Switzerland could face electricity and gas shortages in winter despite sufficient supplies at the moment and considerable reserves, experts say. “We’re witnessing the first global energy crisis, with Europe at the centre,” the head of the Fede...

Swiss retail banks make the most profit per customer among wealthy nations, according to an international ranking. The Swiss banks are followed at a respectable distance by their Australian and Belgian competitors, according to a study by consultin...

Anna Gabriel, the former Catalan parliamentarian and pro-independence leader, has returned to Spain voluntarily to appear before the Supreme Court. Gabriel, who has been living in Switzerland since 2018, is accused of disobedience by the Spanish ju...

This year’s Montreux Jazz Festival, which ends on Saturday, has seen a return to the large crowds of the pre-Covid years, with more than 250,000 people attending. Organisers put this down to the quality of the line-up, a reinvented festival site a...

An increasing number of municipalities have restricted the use of water as large parts of Switzerland cope with a heatwave. Regions in eastern as well as western parts of country announced a ban on pumping water from rivers, brooks and ponds. Some ...

Former Swiss government ministers have spoken out against a decision to deny war-wounded Ukrainians hospital care over neutrality concerns. Ruth Dreifuss and Didier Burkhalter, two former cabinet members, have voiced their objections to an official ...

The planned summer camp for around 30,000 Swiss scouts and guides can rely on financial and logistical support as well as help from the army. The defence ministry said the organisers of the camp could benefit from CHF7 million ($7.2 million), 20 ton...

Swiss federal prosecutors have started an appeal process against a court decision to acquit former football bosses Joseph ‘Sepp’ Blatter and Michel Platini of corruption. The former head of world football’s governing body FIFA, Blatter, and th...

The Swiss army has pledged to train Ukrainian civilians to remove landmines, cluster munitions and explosives in the war-torn country. Swiss military experts regularly hold such training exercises together with the Geneva International Center for Hu...

The ongoing war in Ukraine has been partly blamed for losses at a prominent Swiss asset management company. The entire Swiss industry suffered a dip in fortunes in the first six months of year as extreme market volatility reduced the value of investm...

One of Switzerland’s nuclear power stations has temporarily scaled back operations to avoid raising the temperature of its feeder river to levels that are dangerous for fish. Beznau is Switzerland’s oldest nuclear plant and comprises two station...

The Swiss federal government has objected to a NATO request to treat Ukrainians wounded in the war on the grounds of neutrality. According to the Tages Anzeiger newspaper, certain Swiss cantons had expressed a willingness in May to treat the wounded...

A draft foreign ministry report says Switzerland should relax the rules for deliveries of Swiss-made arms to war zones. According to this report on Swiss neutrality, of which the publication SonntagsZeitung says it obtained a copy, Switzerland shoul...

The inhabitants of Mendrisio in southern Switzerland have been banned from using drinking water from the tap for anything other than household purposes, after weeks of hot weather with no rain. Italian language radio and TV in the region (RSI) relay...

The Swiss justice ministry has received several requests from Ukraine for help in investigating war crimes, reports the SonntagsBlick newspaper. A ministry spokesman told the paper that these requests were being examined. The government has not reve...

Russia has threatened Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung with legal action after it published critical reports and a caricature of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a letter to NZZ editor Eric Gujer published on Saturday on the Russian Embassy...

Talks scheduled in Geneva this month on a new constitution for Syria have been cancelled, UN mediator Geir Pedersen announced on Saturday. He did not give a reason for the cancellation. Russia, which supports the Syrian government, had called in Jun...

Around a third fewer Swiss expatriates have cast votes in their homeland since the suspension of an e-voting service. The Organisation for the Swiss Abroad (OSA) complains that the absence of digital voting represents a danger to democracy. A pilot ...

Switzerland’s second largest trade union has sacked its President/CEO and two other senior managers following a long-running dispute between executives and the board of directors. Arno Kerst, who held both the positions of president and CEO, was a...

The Swiss company Barry Callebaut, which supplies chocolate products to global confectioners, has declared a factory in Belgium safe to resume operations after salmonella was detected in a batch of ingredients. The chocolate giant closed down its pr...

Wolves have killed livestock in the south and east of the country in a series of separate attacks prompting calls for their extermination. Wolves have attacked a second cow in the eastern Swiss canton of Graubünden, five days after the previous at...

Plant-based dairy products continue to gain in popularity in Switzerland, with sales of plant-based milk more than doubling since 2017. However, dairy substitutes still occupy a niche in the overall market. Last year dairy substitutes generated sale...

A stronger army, closer ties with defence alliance NATO and a more critical view of neutrality: the war in Ukraine is changing the way the Swiss public thinks about security, according to a government survey. “The war in Ukraine has a more special...

Swiss Attorney General Stefan Blättler has warned Swiss commodity trading firms dealing in grain, coal and other commodities stolen from Ukraine that they could face prosecution. “Commercialising looted raw materials could constitute a war crime,...

Scientists have found the remains of a new marine reptile species that lived in an ocean that covered eastern Switzerland 240 million years ago. Skeletons of the 50 cm-long pachypleurosaurus, which vaguely resemble aquatic lizards, were discovered i...

Trade union groups in Geneva have criticised the American ride-hailing firm Uber of dodging a top Swiss court ruling. The SIT and Unia groups said the Californian multinational hadn’t adapted its labour conditions for drivers, despite a decision b...

The dismantling of one of Switzerland’s oldest nuclear power plants is making good progress, officials said on Wednesday. The operators of the Mühleberg plant, BKW/FMB, said 102 of the 418 nuclear fuel rods had been transported to a temporary sto...

Switzerland is no longer among the top ten most gender-equal countries, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report. Switzerland this year slipped from tenth to 13th place in the latest edition of WEF’s Global Gender Gap report, which measure...

A financial asset manager from Switzerland and another from Argentina have been charged in an alleged $1.2 billion (CHF1.2 billion) Venezuelan money-laundering scheme. A US court indictment alleges that from 2014 to 2018 the 48-year-old Swiss and 51...

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...