Four Swiss universities have been given a green light to participate in a European Union initiative aimed at boosting the competitiveness of European higher education. The universities concerned are Basel, Geneva, Lausanne and Zurich, the EU Commiss...

Swiss exports of medicines to Russia have risen sharply since the start of the Ukraine war, according to an analysis by business news agency AWP. This analysis, based on government foreign trade data, shows Swiss pharma generated record revenue of o...

Traditional fireworks and open-air fires on August 1, Swiss National Day, can be a death trap for animals and cause them to panic, say animal protection groups. The Four Paws and Swiss Animal Protection organisations are now calling for measures to ...

The recent hot weather has increased the number of swimmers and paddle-boarders in Swiss rivers and lakes, and this in turn has brought more work for lifeguards. A higher number of people in the water tends to bring more accidents, said Marc Audeoud...

Five Swiss high school students have come first in the International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT) in Timisoara, Romania, beating rivals from Poland and Singapore in the final. The five pupils presented their solution to the “Droplet Explo...

Swiss charity Caritas is seeking 700 volunteers to help struggling Alpine farmers during the current high season. About 90 mountain families need help, Caritas said on Wednesday. They are struggling because of factors including illness, accidents, p...

Credit Suisse has named Ulrich Körner as its new chief executive officer, replacing Thomas Gottstein in a bid to shore up confidence. At the same time Switzerland’s second-largest bank says it is conducting a “comprehensive strategic review”. ...

An alpine lodge originally in Italy is now two-thirds in Switzerland thanks to global warming, reports Swiss public broadcaster RTS. This is because the border marked by the Theodul glacier is shifting northwards as it melts. The Matterhorn Guides o...

The Swiss national carrier is cancelling around a dozen flights to Germany on Wednesday, owing to a one-day strike by ground staff at its German parent company Lufthansa. Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) has cancelled flights from Geneva to Fra...

The amount of antibiotics sold for treatment of animals continued to fall last year, amid rising awareness of antibiotic resistance, according to the Swiss government. Over a ten-year period it has more than halved from 60,000kg of antibiotics to 28...

Eleven river monitoring stations in Switzerland have recorded the highest temperatures since measurements began. Twenty-two further stations recorded record temperatures for July. The Aare at Thun (23.4°C) and at Bern (23.9°C) has never been hotte...

Four out of ten Swiss have taken public transport without buying a ticket. But many people can’t resist pinching stuff from restaurants, hotels and especially their office, according to a survey. From shoplifting to fare-dodging, the representativ...

More than 1,000 people in Switzerland who lost money to a prize scam operated by US company Next-Gen will be refunded some of their money. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has notified the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) of a refu...

Belief in conspiracy theories has decreased markedly in Switzerland during the pandemic, according to a study. But those who stick with them are likely to become more radical, reckons one expert. Conspiracy theories boomed during the pandemic – fa...

The current hot spell has pushed the zero-degree line – the height at which the temperature goes into the minus – far above the highest Alpine peak. On Sunday night it reached 5,184 metres above sea level, a new record. The old record, 5,117 met...

French aviation authorities reportedly mistook a letter in the registration number of the Cessna being flown by Swiss Interior Minister Alain Berset over a restricted military area. As a result Berset did not react to French warnings, triggering a mi...

A female elephant died from the herpes virus at Zoo Zurich on Saturday making it the third such fatality in a month. Ruwani, a five-year-old elephant, showed no signs of illness until Friday, the zoo said on Saturday. In the last few days, her vira...

For the first time in over 100 years, Swiss mountain guides will no longer be accompanying alpinists on the classic route to the summit of Jungfrau. A crevasse has opened up transforming into an ice wall that can only be climbed with special equipm...

A Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian port of Odesa has been condemned by Switzerland as a “blatant disregard for the looming food insecurity worldwide”. Explosions damaged the Black Sea port on July 23, just a day after Russia agreed a deal...

Around 30,000 children, youths and adult supervisors started congregating in Switzerland at the weekend for the start of a huge scout camp. Most of the participants, some 20,000 scouts aged between 12 and 17, arrived at the camp in the alpine Goms r...

The founder of successful online travel booking platform Lastminute.com has been detained by Swiss prosecutors investigating the suspected misuse of pandemic bailout funds. Italian national Fabio Cannavale, who is CEO of the Swiss stock market liste...

The Swiss Red Cross has launched an online platform to help Ukrainian refugees navigate through the initial steps of arriving in Switzerland. The helpful.redcross.ch website gives information about finding accommodation, security, financial support ...

An erratic, over-proportionate and poorly coordinated political response to the Covid-19 pandemic is responsible for the current spate of lost baggage and airport chaos, says the boss of ground handling company Swissport. “Governments are primaril...

Continuing high temperatures and resulting drought have prompted more Swiss cantons to ban fireworks in the runup to Swiss National Day on August 1. The western cantons of Neuchâtel and Fribourg on Friday announced a ban on the use of fireworks, wi...

Approved Chinese companies will have a secondary listing on the Swiss stock exchange from Monday after financial regulator FINMA gave a green light. The mechanism called "China-Swiss Stock Connect" allows Chinese companies that have received authori...

Low water levels in the Rhine, as well as logistical problems on European rail lines, are hitting supplies of oil products to Switzerland. To ensure supplies, the Federal Office for National Economic Supply (FONES) has decided to temporarily cut com...

Despite trees full of fruit, this year’s cherry harvest will be much lower than expected because of the cherry vinegar fly, reports Swiss public broadcaster SRF. "We assume that we will not reach the estimated 2,500 tonnes of eating cherries,” s...

The Swiss Federal Supreme Court has dismissed a defamation case linked to a disgraced Albanian football club. In 2018, European football’s governing body, UEFA, banned KS Skenderbeu from competing in top European tournaments for 10 years after fin...

Wealth manager Julius Bär has joined a growing list of Swiss banks that will no longer pass on the cost of negative interest rates to clients. The decision to scrap charges from August 1 on Swiss francs, euros and Danish kroner follows an interest ...

Swiss Interior Minister Alain Berset has avoided legal proceedings in France after flying a light aircraft into restricted airspace earlier this month. Berset’s plane was forced to land by the French military after he accidentally flew too close t...