The pandemic and associated travel restrictions have dealt a blow to SWISS International Air Lines. It has posted its first negative operating result in 15 years. In its annual results released on Thursday, SWISS, which is part of the Lufthansa grou...

Everyone in Switzerland has been invited to observe a minute’s silence on Friday for the more than 9,000 people who have died in connection with Covid-19. Afterwards, church bells will ring across the country. The national minute’s silence will ...

A court in Switzerland has rejected giving a residency permit to a former vice-president of Venezuela, Nervis Villalobos Cárdenas, and his family. The presence of the former energy minister under Hugo Chávez was deemed a threat to public security ...

Finance Minister Ueli Maurer held a virtual meeting with Liu He, one of China’s four Vice-Premiers, on Wednesday to discuss reinforcing and expanding cooperation in the financial market sector. The two ministers discussed prospects for deepening b...

Swiss producers will find it easier to have geographical indications for their products protected internationally – for example Zuger Kirschtorte (kirsch cake from Zug), Bündnerfleisch (dried meat from Graubünden) or Tête de Moine cheese from th...

The House of Representatives has approved a declaration calling on the Swiss government to lift Covid restrictions later this month. A majority of the chamber came out in favour of the non-binding statement on Wednesday. Observers say it is not cle...

Despite a stagnation in the number of new infections, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) has called for restraint and more testing. "The situation is good, but developments remain uncertain," said Virginie Masserey, head of the FOPH'...

Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis filed the most international trademark applications with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2020. The Basel-based firm filed a total of 233 Madrid applications (104 more than in 2019) moving it...

Despite quota targets, women remain underrepresented in executive positions of top Swiss companies by international comparison, according to a study. The proportion of women on the executive floors of the 20 blue-chip companies on the SMI (Swiss Mar...

The World Trade Organization's (WTO) first female and first African director-general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has welcomed an apology from several Swiss newspapers that had dismissed the experienced Nigerian politician and economist as a grandmother. �...

Switzerland has pledged CHF14 million ($15.3 million) towards the United Nations humanitarian activities in Yemen, where over six years of war has created the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The announcement was made by Swiss Foreign Ministe...

Too few Swiss companies are made to answer for corruption or money laundering offences, exposing gaps in current legislation, says the Swiss chapter of campaigning NGO Transparency International. The law was changed in Switzerland in 2003 to make fi...

Switzerland’s reputation as a “perfect, well-organised” country took a hit during the pandemic, especially after the second wave in late autumn, according to the head of the country’s branding agency. Speaking to the Le Nouvelliste newspaper...

For the first time since 1982, average annual chocolate consumption in Switzerland has fallen below the 10 kg per person mark. On average, a Swiss resident munched 9.9 kg of chocolate in 2020, 6.9% less than the year before, according to the Associ...

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) recorded a profit of CHF20.9 billion (almost $23 billion) in 2020, less than half of the CHF48.9 billion it made in 2019. Some CHF6 billion of the profits will be distributed to the Swiss government and cantons, compa...

The Swiss winter brought wild fluctuations in temperature, unseasonal rainfalls, abundant snow brought on cold fronts from Siberia and even a helping of Saharan sand. In general, temperatures were two degrees Celsius higher than the average measured...

Companies based in Switzerland spent between €44 million and €60 million (CHF48-66 million) lobbying European Union bodies, according to the monitoring organisation Lobbywatch. The chemicals industry invested the most money (up to €8.4 million...

Swiss people living abroad will still be able to use the services of assisted suicide organisation EXIT after members rejected a proposal to restrict its activities to within Switzerland. In August last year, the group warned that legal hurdles to e...

Three dogs are being trained to sniff out people infected with coronavirus in Switzerland. If successful, the canines could be used to detect outbreaks in schools, offices, events and other crowded places. Dogs are also being trained this way in oth...

Switzerland’s fading influence on the international stage is a cause of concern to former Swiss National Bank (SNB) chairman Philipp Hildebrand. Hildebrand, who this week ended his race to become the next head of the Organisation for International...

The Swiss government is facing intensified calls from cantons and parliamentarians to re-open restaurants and ease lockdown measures at a faster rate than previously announced. Shops, cultural and outdoor recreational facilities will be allowed to o...

A number of influential Swiss figures are backing the launch of a group called Progresuisse, which hopes to stimulate a new era of “constructive” relations between Switzerland and the European Union. Representatives of politics, science, academi...

Two Swiss men suspected of conspiring in a deadly terror attack in Vienna last year have been denied bail, according to media reports. The duo were aged 18 and 24 when they were arrested in the Swiss city of Winterthur in November, the day after a g...

The Swiss poet, translator and literary critic Philippe Jaccottet, winner of numerous prizes including the Goncourt poetry prize, has died at the age of 95. His family said on Thursday night that he died at his home in Grignan in southeast France, w...

Several Swiss cantons that had re-opened ski resort restaurant terraces in defiance of national rules are now reluctantly performing a U-turn under pressure from the federal government. Cantons in central Switzerland as well as Glarus and Ticino sa...

The Swiss federal prosecutor is examining whether a former government minister broke the official secrets act by suggesting that Switzerland has paid ransoms for hostages. Moritz Leuenberger, who served in cabinet between 1995 and 2010, recently tol...

Passengers departing from Zurich airport will have access to Covid-19 antigen tests as well as swab (PCR) tests, as of March 1. The testing centre in the airport will also be open from 4am to 8pm compared with 6am to 8pm at present, airport handlin...

The world governing body for football, FIFA, says it has run out of time to prosecute Franz Beckenbauer and two others for allegedly paying bribes in the build up to the 2006 World Cup. FIFA’s adjudicatory chamber, which judges ethical breaches, r...

Former Swiss National Bank (SNB) chairman, Philipp Hildebrand, has pulled out of the race to become the next secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Hildebrand announced that he had withdrawn his candi...

Representatives of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, as well as the three guarantor powers Greece, Turkey and the United Kingdom will meet in Geneva at the end of April for informal talks. These talks, the first in this format since 2017, will be conven...