The Swiss medical regulator has approved the use of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11. However, the Federal Vaccination Commission has yet to recommend extending the immunisation campaign to this group. “The clinica...

A week after tightening rules for certificates and mask-wearing, the government has proposed new measures to stem surging Covid-19 infections and ease the pressure on hospitals. The situation remains “critical”, said President Guy Parmelin on Fr...

The Bern Museum of Fine Arts has said it will relinquish works bequeathed by controversial collector Cornelius Gurlitt when their provenance is linked to “conspicuous circumstances”. However, the museum will retain most of the 1,600-strong trove....

Switzerland has frozen all direct financial and technical cooperation with the ruling junta in Myanmar, the Swiss public broadcaster has reported. While no development cooperation projects would be stopped completely – this would be detrimental to...

The French group Alstom-Bombardier will be reducing its workforce by a third at its Villeneuve factory. According to the newspaper Le Temps, a total of 150 jobs will be cut. The staff was informed of the decision on Thursday. A social plan is to be ...

A Swiss study has found that poorly ventilated school classrooms record up to six times as many Covid-19 cases compared with those which are regularly aired. The research by the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) ...

The federal court has overturned the conviction of a former regional vice president of assisted suicide group Exit for having helped a healthy 86-year-old woman to die. The case has been sent back to the cantonal court in Geneva. In 2019, retired do...

MeteoSwiss, which had been part of a European project to develop a virtual model of the Earth, has been excluded due to the tensions around the ditched framework agreement between Bern and Brussels. The European Union (EU)’s “Destination Earth�...

Swiss economic experts expect a significant economic slowdown as supply chain bottlenecks, inflation and pandemic restrictions persist in many parts of the world. On Thursday, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) announced that the econ...

An international team of scientists, including several Swiss, have captured an image of a giant gaseous exoplanet orbiting two massive suns in a distant solar system, a configuration that researchers until now thought might be impossible. The planet...

New data on Swiss travel habits during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic show fewer overnight stays, less air travel and a collapse in trips beyond the borders of Europe. In 2020 the Swiss resident population made a total of 15.1 million trips...

The 2021 Words of the Year in Switzerland reflect societal shifts that have triggered heated debate across the country. While the vaccination debate and divisions dominated the German-speaking part of the country, the emergence of gender-neutral pron...

Direct discussions between Switzerland and China on human rights issues will resume in 2022 after a three year gap, the Swiss foreign minister has said. Ignazio Cassis said on Wednesday he had agreed this with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during ...

More than 11,000 candles were lit on Tuesday evening in front of the federal parliament building to honour those who have died from Covid-19 in Switzerland. "We want to create a space to remember and mourn the victims," Simon Gehren of the "Corona-M...

The Swiss data protection commissioner is investigating allegations that a Swiss text messaging service, used by the likes of Google and TikTok, was secretly used to spy on people through their smartphones. The allegations against the canton Zug com...

Up to 2,500 military personnel have been put on alert to support the struggling Swiss healthcare system should the new pandemic wave intensify further. The government on Tuesday put the army on standby for the first time this year. The military was ...

The Swiss authorities have negotiated the release of two half-sisters, aged 15 and nine, from a Kurdish-controlled camp in Syria back to Switzerland. They were taken from Geneva to Syria by their mother in 2016 when she joined the Islamic State terr...

The leaders of the Catholic Church in Switzerland have commissioned a study into the Swiss church’s history of sexual exploitation since the mid-20th century. The Swiss Bishops’ Conference and two other organisations announced on Monday that two...

Switzerland has rebuked a military tribunal in Myanmar for sentencing the country’s overthrown democratic leaders to prison. On Monday, Myanmar’s former de facto Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were handed four-year jail ...

Renowned Swiss architect and urban designer Aurelio Galfetti, founder of the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture, has passed away aged 85. Born in 1936, Galfetti was one of the most prominent “Ticino School” of architects in the Italian-speaking c...

The Federal Court has confirmed that a Calabrian 'Ndrangheta mafia boss, who was extradited to Italy in 2017, cannot enter Switzerland for 20 years. The Italian justice system says Leo Caridi is head of a Reggio Calabria 'Ndrangheta mafia gang. He w...

Swiss hotels saw an increase of 80% more tourists from other countries during the summer months compared with the same period in 2020 when Switzerland was in lockdown. Between the start of May and the end of October, overnight stays at hotels increa...

Swiss National Bank (SNB) Vice Chairman Fritz Zurbrügg will retire at the end of July 2022, the bank announced on Monday. Zurbrügg, 61, who has served as SNB vice-chairman since 2015 - and heads the department that looks at financial stability and...

Switzerland’s financial regulator has reprimanded two more banks for breaching money laundering rules. The decisions on Thursday wrap up a five-year investigation into banks’ dealings with people linked to Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA. ...

The Swiss government, which buys and distributes Covid-19 vaccines in the Alpine nation, will massively increase the price of these products next year, according to the NZZ am Sonntag. Each dose will cost CHF25 ($27) rather than CHF5, the weekly Ger...

The Swiss hotel industry is confronting a wave of cancelled bookings after the discovery of another variant of the coronavirus, Omicron, the Sunday weekly SonntagsZeitung reported. Many Belgian, British and Dutch guests have already cancelled their ...

Cyber-attacks are on the rise in Switzerland with 94 ransomware incidents reported in the first half of the year, according to the Sunday weekly Le Matin Dimanche. The source of that figure is the network supporting investigations against digital cr...

A Swiss health official says stricter nationwide rules could be in the cards if epidemiological dynamics do not improve. But mandatory vaccination and restrictions on individuals who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 are considered, for now, ...

Switzerland’s largest trade union issued a statement on Saturday demanding a “massive reduction” of working hours with full wage compensation for lower and income earners. “Nowhere in Europe do people work as hard as in Switzerland. At prese...

Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) announced that it is suspending its flights from Zurich to Hong Kong temporarily. This is due to the tightening of quarantine regulations for crew members" on arrival to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Four fli...