The majority of stranded Swiss people repatriated during the first pandemic wave have paid back their share of flight bills. But the foreign ministry has been forced to write off CHF210,000 ($230,000) and is still haggling over another CHF360,000. I...

Switzerland’s national rail system has been recognised for its innovative approach to regulating electricity consumption that could serve as a blueprint for the country’s grid. Swiss Federal Railways has developed an IT system that temporarily s...

Japan's Masahiko Metoki has taken over as director general at the Swiss-based Universal Postal Union (UPU). In a ceremony at the UPU headquarters in the Swiss capital, Bern on Wednesday, Metoki pledged to strengthen the organisation and to set it on...

The Swiss Business Federation has called for an easing of quarantine rules to prevent a shortage of staff in companies due to a surge in Covid infections. Roger Wehrli of economiesuisse told public radio SRF on Wednesday that the quarantine and isol...

The use of the WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram messenger services for military purposes in the Swiss armed forces is to be banned. Instead, the Swiss Threema software is to be used as a tool for digital communication. Data security is one of the reas...

The surge in new Covid-19 cases is most likely to lead to additional strain for Swiss hospitals and schools according to health experts. The steep rise in infections with the Omicron variant over the past ten days is not yet visible in the latest st...

Consumer prices in Switzerland increased by 0.6% on average last year, according to the Federal Statistics Office. The rise is due in particular to higher prices for petroleum products and for housing rentals. In contrast, prices for international ...

The value of residential property in Switzerland continued to rise strongly in 2021 in the wake of Covid-19. Property prices are likely to rise further this year, according to an analysis. Owners of freeholder apartments saw an increase in value of ...

Nearly 60,000 Covid-19 infections have been reported in Switzerland over a four-day period encompassing the New Year weekend. The number of new cases is significantly higher than the Christmas period, but there were fewer hospitalisations and deaths....

The Covid pandemic has hit Zurich Airport, one of the biggest employers in the region, hard. But CEO Stephan Widrig says there are sufficient financial resources to get through the crisis, including the Omicron variant. “We don’t need any state ...

Shared e-scooters and e-bikes can have a negative effect on the climate, a Swiss study has found. This is because such services generally replace trips with normal bicycles, rather than cars. Many big cities, including Zurich, have schemes to rent a...

Swiss environmental organisation Pro Natura has named the garden dormouse “Animal of the Year”, in a bid to draw attention to the country’s wild forests and diverse landscapes. “The choice of this rarer rodent also shows the limits of the ad...

Half the country could come down with the coronavirus by the end of January, if the Omicron variant continues to spread at its current pace, Swiss Covid-19 science task force expert Richard Neher says. In an interview with the SonntagsZeitung, Neher...

Switzerland’s new president Ignazio Cassis has underlined the need to stay united, while also maintaining the country’s diversity, in his speech to mark the New Year. The coronavirus pandemic had driven people in Switzerland apart, Cassis said, ...

The Swiss have been celebrating the New Year, as the coronavirus continues to cast a shadow over the country. Police said the night had been a relatively calm one. Zurich city police force said that the night into 2022 had been similar to any other ...

The government has decided not to update the Covid-19 health measures. “The Federal Council (Swiss government) lacks reliable information on whether Omicron patients are burdening intensive care units. Therefore, it is refraining from further meas...

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Technology Institute in Lausanne (EFPL) have used high-performance electron microscopes to examine the spike protein of the Omicron Covid-19 variant for a better understanding of why it is resistant to certain Covid v...

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and the United States Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will meet in Geneva on January 10 to discuss Ukraine and the security situation in Europe. The Russian foreign ministry revealed the head...

The outgoing head of Switzerland’s migration secretariat says the country should see around 15,000 applications for asylum next year, up from 14,500 lodged in 2021, as more migrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean between North Africa and Italy....

The Alpine nation raised concerns about the dissolution of Russian human rights NGO Memorial International by the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, Russia’s Supreme Court dissolved Memorial International for distorting history in its compilation of Sovie...

A pioneer of post-war photography and one of the last members of the French Humanist school died on Tuesday at the age of 97. Her family and staff announced the news in a statement on Wednesday. Weiss had lived in Paris since 1946. Born in 1924 in ...

An additional contribution of CHF900,000 (around $979,000) has been made to the World Food Programme to help Madagascar cope with its food crisis. It is estimated that around one million people require emergency food assistance. The country is reeli...

According to a survey, 99.6% of people in Switzerland see themselves clearly as a man or a woman. The survey published on Tuesday by the Sotomo research institute on behalf of the "Gender Fairer" initiative polled nearly 2,700 Swiss residents. De...

Representing 55% of cases, the Omicron variant now accounts for the majority of Covid-19 infections in Switzerland. Canton Ticino, that borders Italy, is particularly affected, but the variant is also spreading rapidly to other cantons, public heal...

The French ambassador to Switzerland warns that the Alpine nation risks being left behind if it does not compromise with the European Union. In an interview published in the Le Temps paper on Tuesday, Frédéric Journès said that the framework agr...

Medicines regulator Swissmedic has approved the booster of the single-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson. “The second dose of the vaccine can be administered, at the earliest, two months after the first dose,” wrote Swissmedic in a statement o...

E-voting has the support of 84% of the population, according to a survey of Swiss residents by consultancy firm Deloitte. The coronavirus pandemic is increasingly seen as a catalyst for digitalisation, Deloitte wrote in a survey on Tuesday. A clear ...

The Swiss medicines agency, Swissmedic, has given the green light to the monoclonal antibody cocktail Ronapreve developed by Roche and Regeneron for use in the treatment and prevention of Covid-19. Ronapreve, a combination of two monoclonal antibodi...

The annual census of the Swiss watch industry labour force found that partial unemployment helped the industry weather the pandemic over the last year. The number of employees in the industry remained stable in 2021 while the share of high skilled st...

Vladimir Putin said the US and Russia have agreed to meet in January in Geneva for security talks that are expected to include Ukraine. In statements aired on Russian state television on Sunday, President Putin said that he would consider a range of...