Pussy Riot, an anti-Kremlin feminist punk band, say they were temporarily detained on Monday night for spraying graffiti ahead of a concert in Bern. The band posted on social media that three of their members had been spraying anti-war graffiti on a...

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...

Only 50% of Swiss are satisfied with the country’s seven-person government, the Federal Council. This figure was 15 percentage points higher at the end of 2021. Since then not only the Federal Council as a whole but also the individual Federal Cou...

A Geneva court will on Monday begin hearing the appeal of Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz against his conviction for corruption and forgery over his pursuit of iron ore deposits in Africa. Steinmetz has consistently denied the charges for whic...

Joel Wicki is the new “Schwingen King” of Switzerland. The 25-year-old triumphed in this weekend’s national wrestling championships held near Basel. After finishing as runner-up in the 2019 Federal Wrestling and Alpine Games Festival (Schwingf...

Two days of events and discussions on the anniversary of the first Zionist Congress have begun in the northwestern Swiss city of Basel. Some 1,200 Jews have travelled from around the world to commemorate the August 1897 congress, which took place un...

Healthcare costs, the pension system and climate change are the top three burning issues for the Swiss, according to a survey published by the Tamedia group. Covid has slipped out of sight and mind. The cost of healthcare was most pressing for over ...

The Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) is concerned that Russia could use Swiss servers as part of campaigns to destabilise western democracies, according to a newspaper report. An internal FIS document, seen by the SonntagsBlick, says a direct atte...

The head of the Swiss Federal Electricity Commission (Elcom) reckons a winter energy crisis is virtually unavoidable. However, he said the cause of the problem – war in Ukraine – was also difficult to predict. Speaking to SRF public radio on Sat...

Switzerland’s top wrestlers are gathering for a national tournament that is expected to draw big crowds and big bucks for the best performing athletes. The Federal Wrestling and Alpine Games Festival (Schwingfest) takes place every three years and...

Research at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich is helping to identify potential landing sites on the south polar region of the Moon for NASA’s Artemis programme. The first Artemis spaceflight is primed to launch this month on a test missi...

Former world number one Roger Federer is the world's highest-paid tennis player for the 17th year despite not playing a match for nearly 14 months. The 41-year-old Swiss tennis legend has a sponsorship portfolio that is unmatched in the sports world...

Centre-right political parties are making slight gains in Switzerland, while the Greens are losing a bit of ground, according to a new media poll ahead of the 2023 federal elections. If the federal election were held today, there would be a slight s...

Researchers behind the James Webb Space Telescope have detected CO2 in the atmosphere of WASP-39b, a planet located outside the solar system. This is the first time that carbon dioxide has been clearly detected on a planet outside the solar system. ...

The GoldenPass Express (GPX) panoramic train, which will link Montreux to Interlaken without any station changes, will make its debut on December 11. The train will link three popular tourist destinations: Montreux, Gstaad and Interlaken, Montreux ...

Switzerland's permanent resident population reached 8,738,800 at the end of 2021, which is 0.8% more than in 2020. This is within the average rate of annual population growth over the last five years, according to figures released by the Federal Sta...

The elite Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) will receive CHF40 million from Switzerland’s biggest bank to promote entrepreneurship and build infrastructure. The money (around $41.5 million) will be invested over a period of 10...

Swiss pharma firm Novartis has said it plans to spin off its generics and biosimilars division Sandoz into a separate entity to allow both companies to pursue their own growth strategies. The decision was in the best interest of shareholders, said N...

The Swiss government has set a voluntary reduction target for the winter to safeguard against potential gas shortages in Europe. On Wednesday, the Federal Council announced that it wants demand for gas to be reduced by 15% from October 2022 to the ...

The government has decided to purchase 100,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine, as well as 1,000 units of a treatment for the infectious disease. The decision on a centralised procurement was made by Federal Council on Wednesday. The monkeypox vacci...

Between 85,000 and 120,000 refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine could be living in Switzerland by the end of the year. The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) shared its projection via Twitter on Wednesday. However, this forecast is still uncertain...

Six months on from the Russian invasion, the Swiss Solidarity charity has financed 54 projects to the tune of CHF30 million ($31.1 million) to help people affected in and around Ukraine. The total numbers of those in Ukraine who have received some f...

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis has again called for Russia to end hostilities and withdraw from Ukraine, including the Crimea territory it has occupied for eight years. In a video address on the Crimea Platform, Cassis condemned Russia’s in...

The Swiss Federal Electricity Commission (Elcom) has laid out plans to hold back hydropower reserves to help compensate for anticipated energy shortages this winter. Elcom wants hydropower operators to hold back up to 666 gigawatt hours of electrici...

Switzerland’s busiest airport has posted a CHF55 million ($57 million) net profit for the first six months of the year as post-pandemic air travel picks up. By comparison, Zurich airport made a CHF45 million loss in the corresponding period of 202...

Swimmable “practically everywhere”, but in some places still too many chemical traces: a national study of Swiss water paints a largely positive picture. Thanks to measures taken over the past decades, notably in waste-water treatment, only a mi...