The Swiss government has commandeered eight mobile gas turbines to strengthen the country's energy security. The procurement is the first contract signed under the governing Federal Council's recent agreement to provide for back-up power plants. Th...

While ski resort visits and turnover reached record levels last season, inflation and lifting of Covid restrictions may hurt the Swiss ski industry. For the first time in ten years, Swiss ski resorts recorded more than 25 million skier-days last se...

Pharmaceutical giant Roche inaugurated Switzerland’s tallest building on Friday. The 205-metre-tall structure in Basel, known as Building 2, will house 3,500 workers. The new high rise surpasses the firm’s nearby tower – Building 1 – which s...

Regular doses of a widely used fertility drug may help to boost cognitive skills in people with Down’s syndrome, a pilot study led by researchers from France and Switzerland has suggested. In a small-scale trial, researchers fitted seven men who h...

Swiss medical regulator Swissmedic has approved Novavax’s Nuvaxovid Covid-19 vaccine for children aged 12-18 years. The greenlight has also been given for its use as a booster for adults, ahead of an anticipated rise in infections this winter. “...

Swiss trade unions are calling on employers to increase real wages in response to rising inflation and higher energy prices. On Friday, Pierre-Yves Maillard, President of the Swiss Trade Union Federation (USS), told reporters that increasing wages i...

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...

The original doctoral certificate belonging to Albert Einstein has returned to the University of Zurich thanks to a donation. The theoretical physicist’s certificate, dating from 1906, is now on display in the entrance hall of university’s main ...

Embattled Swiss bank Credit Suisse is planning to cut around 10% of its workforce as part of a major cost cutting drive, according to several media reports. Reuters reported on Thursday that someone with direct knowledge of the matter indicated that...

Movie streaming services Netflix, Disney+ and Spotify have accumulated 6.5 million Swiss subscribers between them in Switzerland, having added 400,000 new customers last year. Netflix broke three million users last year, according to a survey of Swi...

Swiss digital assets bank Sygnum will open a branch in the metaverse to reach more clients seeking blockchain-based financial services. Sygnum was one of two banks that were awarded licenses in 2019 to connect traditional finance with cryptocurrenci...

The Swiss financial regulator has extended a moratorium on transactions at the Swiss branch of Russia’s Sberbank group as it decides on its future course. The Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) imposed the measures in March to prevent ...

Two suspected members of Islamic State have been arrested in Switzerland as part of a series of coordinated police raids in western Switzerland. Four houses were searched in cantons Vaud and Geneva on Thursday after warrants were issued by the Offic...

More Swiss people are feeling unwell this year than during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, a national survey suggests. Some 35% of respondents reported being under the weather in June compared to 27% last year and 25% in 2020. The sentiment has ...

A Greenpeace Switzerland report claims that 5% of Swiss pensions are invested in companies that contribute to deforestation. The report, published on Thursday, estimates that Swiss pension funds contribute around CHF60 billion ($61 billion) to compa...

The cost of goods and services in Switzerland rose 3.5% in August compared to the same month last year, but the inflation rate still remains below that of many other countries. Prices for imported goods leapt 8.6%, according to the Federal Statistic...

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 scarce, let’s not waste it” al...

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...