The United Nations Human Rights Office in Geneva has found “credible evidence” of torture and sexual violence against the Uyghur minority in western China. The Chinese government has rejected the findings calling them a “farce”. The “exten...

Switzerland will use its historic seat on the United Nations Security Council to promote sustainable peace and the protection of civilians in conflict regions, address climate security and promote greater transparency at the UN body. Switzerland wil...

The Swiss government has appealed to the population to save on household energy ahead of anticipated electricity and gas shortages this winter. On Wednesday, the government launched a campaign entitled “Energy is scare, let’s not waste it” alo...

Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Malta and Poland will benefit from CHF1.1 billion ($1.13 billion) in Swiss funding, as part of an agreement with the European Union. The so-called ‘cohesion’ payment will fund a range of projects in t...

More than two years after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, many adolescents and young adults still have psychological problems. Many suffer from depression, social withdrawal, fatigue, mood swings, physical pain such as headaches and fear of t...

Mikhail Gorbachev, who set out to revitalise the Soviet Union but ended up unleashing forces that led to the collapse of communism, the break-up of the state and the end of the Cold War, died on Tuesday after a long illness. He was 91. Though in pow...

Every year, 430,000 people living in Switzerland are injured in sports accidents, and the number of seniors over 65 injured has doubled in the last ten years, says the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU). Seniors are injured especially while...

An alliance of political and civil society organisations has unveiled plans for a possible popular initiative that would force Bern to act on its deadlocked relations with the European Union. Presenting the text on Tuesday, Alliance Europe said that...

Swiss legislation is lagging behind in the fight against money laundering, and “seldom anticipates developments at international level”, the Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) has warned. SFAO audits have “revealed weaknesses and, hence, financ...

Members of Pussy Riot, an anti-Kremlin feminist punk band, say they were temporarily detained in Bern on Monday night for spraying anti-war graffiti on a wall. The incident involved three Russian women aged 25, 26 and 34, Ramona Mock from Bern canto...

Fears of an electricity shortage in Switzerland appear to have had a positive effect on the expansion of solar energy. The Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) expects the market to grow by around 50% in 2022. New photovoltaic construction in Switz...

A woman accused of committing two knife attacks in a Swiss shopping centre has told a court she would strike again for the cause of Islam. The 29-year-old is charged with attempted murder and violation of the Al-Qaeda/IS Act after stabbing two women...

Switzerland has signed an agreement with Israel to intensify scientific research and innovation between the two countries. The memorandum of understanding was signed between the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Israel Science Foundat...

The Swiss medicaments regulator Swissmedic has given temporary approval for a Covid-19 vaccine from Moderna that has been adapted to give protection against two different strains of the virus. The ‘Spikevax Bivalent Original/Omicron’ is designed...

Covid-19 was the main cause of 12.2% of deaths in Switzerland in 2020, behind cardiovascular diseases (26.9%) and cancer (22.2%). While there are usually around 70,000 deaths in Switzerland in a normal year, in 2020 there were 76,195 deaths, 12.4% m...

Only 50% of Swiss are satisfied with the country’s seven-person government, the Federal Council. This figure was 15 percentage points higher at the end of 2021. Since then not only the Federal Council as a whole but also the individual Federal Cou...

A Geneva court will on Monday begin hearing the appeal of Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz against his conviction for corruption and forgery over his pursuit of iron ore deposits in Africa. Steinmetz has consistently denied the charges for whic...

Joel Wicki is the new “Schwingen King” of Switzerland. The 25-year-old triumphed in this weekend’s national wrestling championships held near Basel. After finishing as runner-up in the 2019 Federal Wrestling and Alpine Games Festival (Schwingf...

Two days of events and discussions on the anniversary of the first Zionist Congress have begun in the northwestern Swiss city of Basel. Some 1,200 Jews have travelled from around the world to commemorate the August 1897 congress, which took place un...

Healthcare costs, the pension system and climate change are the top three burning issues for the Swiss, according to a survey published by the Tamedia group. Covid has slipped out of sight and mind. The cost of healthcare was most pressing for over ...

The Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) is concerned that Russia could use Swiss servers as part of campaigns to destabilise western democracies, according to a newspaper report. An internal FIS document, seen by the SonntagsBlick, says a direct atte...

The head of the Swiss Federal Electricity Commission (Elcom) reckons a winter energy crisis is virtually unavoidable. However, he said the cause of the problem – war in Ukraine – was also difficult to predict. Speaking to SRF public radio on Sat...

Switzerland’s top wrestlers are gathering for a national tournament that is expected to draw big crowds and big bucks for the best performing athletes. The Federal Wrestling and Alpine Games Festival (Schwingfest) takes place every three years and...

Research at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich is helping to identify potential landing sites on the south polar region of the Moon for NASA’s Artemis programme. The first Artemis spaceflight is primed to launch this month on a test missi...

Former world number one Roger Federer is the world's highest-paid tennis player for the 17th year despite not playing a match for nearly 14 months. The 41-year-old Swiss tennis legend has a sponsorship portfolio that is unmatched in the sports world...

Centre-right political parties are making slight gains in Switzerland, while the Greens are losing a bit of ground, according to a new media poll ahead of the 2023 federal elections. If the federal election were held today, there would be a slight s...

Researchers behind the James Webb Space Telescope have detected CO2 in the atmosphere of WASP-39b, a planet located outside the solar system. This is the first time that carbon dioxide has been clearly detected on a planet outside the solar system. ...

The GoldenPass Express (GPX) panoramic train, which will link Montreux to Interlaken without any station changes, will make its debut on December 11. The train will link three popular tourist destinations: Montreux, Gstaad and Interlaken, Montreux ...

Switzerland's permanent resident population reached 8,738,800 at the end of 2021, which is 0.8% more than in 2020. This is within the average rate of annual population growth over the last five years, according to figures released by the Federal Sta...

The elite Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) will receive CHF40 million from Switzerland’s biggest bank to promote entrepreneurship and build infrastructure. The money (around $41.5 million) will be invested over a period of 10...