Football’s world governing body, FIFA, has set up a fund to reclaim $201 million (CHF183 million) that was stolen from the sport by corrupt officials and marketing executives. The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has agreed to pay the sum...

All Swiss citizens and people working for the Swiss development agency in Afghanistan are in safety. Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said a total of 292 people had been flown out and some 60 others were currently in a safe place at Kabul airport wai...

Senior health officials have warned of an increase in Covid-19 infections in Switzerland amid rising hospital admissions notably of patients without vaccinations. Patrick Mathys, the head of the government’s crisis team at the Federal Office for P...

The Swiss mechanical and electrical engineering sectors were boosted by a significant rebound in export sales and new orders in the first half of 2021 as the industry recovered from the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sales picked up 9.3% from the...

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis and his counterpart from Oman have participated in a Middle East Mediterranean forum for young adults in the Swiss city of Lugano. Cassis highlighted the close relations with the Middle East and North Africa for...

An airplane carrying 219 people evacuated from Afghanistan has landed in Switzerland. The passengers included 141 Afghanistan nationals who had worked at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) office in Kabul, plus their family mem...

While a third of boys consider hateful comments on the internet interesting or entertaining, only 10% of girls find such comments interesting and 14% entertaining. These are the findings of the latest JAMESfocus report by the Zurich University of Ap...

Swiss robotics experts are drawing inspiration from the complex movements of an elephant’s trunk. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) analysed this highly versatile nasal organ – which can manipulate a blade of grass as well as carry...

After a slump in snowy 2018, the number of ibex has increased again and 2020 saw “a record since their extinction in Switzerland”, according to the Federal Office for the Environment. The Alpine ibex, a wild mountain goat, was re-introduced to n...

The Swiss government’s decision to buy F-35A jets from US manufacturer Lockheed Martin could be challenged in a popular vote if critics get enough signatures. The Group for a Switzerland without an Army (GSoA) began collecting signatures on Mond...

Swiss National Bank Chairman Thomas Jordan had to undergo a medical procedure over the weekend and will return to work after a convalescence period, the central bank announced on Monday. “The operation was successful and Thomas Jordan is in a good...

Government ministers admonished Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) directors for paying out bonuses last year despite receiving state aid to help the company through the liquidity crisis caused by Covid-19. In October 2020, it was reported that S...

A researcher at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich has warned of the possible emergence of a new "super variant" of the coronavirus that could combine existing strains. “It is very likely that a new variant will emerge and that we will no...

Switzerland is investigating the possibility of hosting an international conference on Afghanistan on Swiss soil, according to a news report. The NZZ am Sonntag wrote on Sunday that Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis had tasked State Secretary Li...

A SWISS charter flight set to go to Uzbekistan on Saturday to help with the evacuation effort from neighbouring Afghanistan has been postponed due to the worsening security in Kabul. “The security situation around Kabul airport has worsened signif...

Swiss scientists claim to have set a new world record for calculating the number Pi to 62.8 trillion decimal places. The University of Applied Sciences in Graubünden said last week that it took 108 days and nine hours to achieve the result using a ...

Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter has defended Switzerland’s refugee policy on Afghanistan. The Alpine country cannot unilaterally help people leave the country, she declared in an interview on Saturday. “Switzerland has absolutely no way of ...

Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter has defended Switzerland’s refugee policy on Afghanistan. The Alpine country cannot unilaterally help people leave the country, she declared in an interview on Saturday. “Switzerland has absolutely no way of ...

Switzerland is sending a plane to Uzbekistan to repatriate people evacuated from Kabul, the foreign ministry said on Friday. Bern is also offering its mediation services for Afghanistan should they be desired. A SWISS plane will fly to Tashkent on S...

The Federal Court has upheld a move by Swiss authorities to designate a refugee from Western Sahara as “without nationality”. The man, who arrived in Switzerland in 1998, had been registered for 20 years as being from “Western Sahara”, but i...

The Organisation of the Swiss Abroad has elected its long-time Vice-President Filippo Lombardi to be its new president. Following his election at a Council meeting on Friday, Lombardi said he had learned a lot about the concerns of the Swiss Abroad ...

Work has started on constructing Switzerland’s largest alpine photovoltaic power plant at an altitude of 2,500 metres above sea level. The 2.2 megawatt plant is expected to produce enough electricity from its 5,000 solar units to power 740 four-pe...

An international team of archaeologists is to determine whether a prehistoric settlement is hidden at the bottom of Lake Lucerne, after traces of a Bronze Age village were found earlier. The geological investigations will begin on Monday and run un...

The head of the Swiss cooperation office in Kabul has described the evacuation of the team from Afghanistan as “intense and emotional”. Six members of the Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development (SDC) were airlifted to safety by the German ...

Switzerland needs to invest CHF13 billion a year ($14 billion), the equivalent of 2% of gross domestic product (GDP), over the next three decades to meet its 2050 carbon-zero goal, a study has found. The joint study by the Swiss Bankers Association ...

Generic drugs are now two and a half times more expensive in Switzerland than in other European countries, according to the Swiss price watchdog. Price supervisor Stefan Meierhans has demanded that parliament vote in favour of a proposal to introduc...

A Swiss doctors’ association has warned of a “very steep” rise in the number of seriously ill Covid-19 patients - mostly unvaccinated - in intensive care in the past few days. Many of them are young people. “Health teams in intensive care un...

Several Swiss cities have added their voice to growing demands for Switzerland to open its doors to refugees from Afghanistan. On Wednesday, government ministers said they were concentrating on evacuating Swiss nationals and around 230 locals who wo...

Twelve months after Switzerland's top federal prosecutor left under a cloud, a parliamentary commission has proposed Stefan Blättler, the current head of Bern’s cantonal police, as Switzerland's new attorney general. Parliament will vote on his ca...

Switzerland has sent a team of seven specialists to Haiti as the death toll from a recent earthquake tops the 2,000 mark. The 7.2-magnitude earthquake that hit the southwestern part of the country on Saturday has also injured around 12,000 people an...