Low water levels mean the River Rhine is now barely navigable for cargo ships at one point. However, this does not affect the supply of essential goods to Switzerland. At the village of Kaub, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the water lev...

Switzerland is closely monitoring the situation in Colombia following the violent earthquake that struck the country on Monday and stands ready to provide support should it be necessary, said Swiss President Guy Parmelin. Parmelin also expressed his ...

The St Alban ferry in Basel has been closed since Monday morning due to low water levels and will remain so until further notice. The other three ferries on the River Rhine are still operating, Dieter Bühler, president of the Basel Ferries Foundatio...

Streaming and cloud-based work above the clouds: Lufthansa is launching its first plane equipped with high-speed wi-fi from the US provider Starlink – and Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) is set to follow suit soon. The Lufthansa Group is equi...

A Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) aircraft flying from Zurich to Boston was forced to make an unscheduled landing in the Irish capital, Dublin, on Sunday night. The unexpected stop was caused by smoke on board, which was triggered by a powerban...

Even at altitudes above 3,000 metres with permanent snow, the high temperatures are making themselves felt. The Marco e Rosa mountain hut – situated at 3,609 metres in Valmalenco, 300 metres from the Swiss border – is witness to this. The hut is ...

On Monday the ALPS Alpine Museum of Switzerland returned a late-Gothic statue of a saint to the municipality of Baltschieder in canton Valais after more than 100 years. The statue was collected from a warehouse in Zollikofen, Bern, on Monday morning ...

Four criminals have broken into the Watch Museum in Le Locle, canton Neuchâtel. Fewer than ten items – mostly watches – were stolen. According to a statement from the cantonal police, the thieves forced open the front door on the north side of t...

Switzerland, and much of Europe, continues to swelter in the heatwave. On Sunday in Meiringen, canton Bern, the temperature reached 34.6°C, a record for the town in August. During the summer of 2003, temperatures reached 34.4°C in this Bernese muni...

On Monday morning around a hundred members of the public, defendants and their lawyers appeared before the Zurich High Court for the appeal hearing against former Raiffeisen chief executive Pierin Vincenz. The main defendant, Pierin Vincenz, arrived ...

Philippe Luchsinger, former president of the Association of General Practitioners, has accused specialists of clinging to a flawed fee schedule for financial gain. Speaking to the Tamedia newspapers, he criticised outdated guidelines for technical he...

As the new school year approaches, there are signs that the teacher shortage in Switzerland is easing in some cantons. In the medium term, falling birth rates and rising student numbers at teacher training colleges could also help to improve the situ...

Organised gangs are targeting GPS systems fitted to tractors and combine harvesters, leading to a surge of thefts in Switzerland. In the canton of Vaud alone, 20 cases have already been recorded in 2026 – a staggering increase compared with the ave...

At least 39 Swiss government ministers were secretly monitored by police during the so-called ‘Secret Files Scandal’ between 1930 and 1989, according the SonntagsZeitung newspaper. Reporters have examined hundreds of thousands of surveillance fil...

Zurich’s emergency medical service provided 906 treatments at the Swiss city’s annual Street Parade. Most treatments were for cuts, grazes or alcohol-related issues. Zurich city police also arrested 30 of the 900,000 revellers at the event on Sat...

On Wednesday evening, the Moon will pass between the Earth and the Sun in a rare astronomical spectacle that has not been seen in Switzerland for 27 years. The eclipse on August 12 will be partial and will obscure up to 93% of the Sun’s disc as see...

Swiss interior minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider wants better protection against sexual violence involving date rape drugs. “We must improve prevention and public information,” Baume-Schneider told the SonntagsBlick newspaper. The public is larg...

The 33rd Street Parade has begun in Zurich with hundreds of thousands of people enjoying the festivities in hot and sunny weather. At 2pm, the first Love Mobiles set off. The parade wound its way round lake Zurich. This year, 30 Love Mobiles are taki...

Celebrated Swiss actor Jean-Luc Bideau will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Locarno Film Festival. Also at the weekend, Bideau will be seen starring in François-Christophe Marzal’s film Ah que le bonheur est proche ! At the age of 86, ...

Belgian-French actress Virginie Efira has received the Leopard Club Award at the 79th Locarno Film Festival. This award recognises a figure whose work in cinema has left a lasting impression on the collective imagination. Winner of a César Award in ...

The owners of a Swiss bar at the centre of a deadly fire disaster must continue to report daily to police and have their movements restricted. Jacques and Jessica Moretti, who own the Le Constellation bar that went up in flames on New Year's Eve, hav...

A judicial investigation has been launched in the Central African Republic into the murder of a geologist from Ticino and a soldier, who were abducted and murdered. The pair were killed between July 31 and August 1 to the north of the country's capit...

Italy has appointed a new ambassador to Switzerland. Luca Sabbatucci, currently ambassador to international organisations in Paris, succeeds Gian Lorenzo Cornado, who has retired. In a statement released today, parliamentarian Simone Billi, represent...

After 33 days at sea, four Swiss rowers are back on solid ground having become the first people to row across the Arctic region unassisted. During their mission, the Arctic Row team braved adverse weather conditions and set new landmarks in the proce...

A wallaby has been captured in central Switzerland and returned to its owner after hopping away from a farm. The newspaper Blick published a short video of the marsupial (originally thought to be a kangaroo) near the edge of a woodland near a youth c...

Summer skiing in the Swiss Saas-Fee resort is to be suspended from next week following a similar decision in Zermatt. At the end of July, canton Valais resport Zermatt suspended operations due to melting glaciers. + Global consequences of a glacier-f...

The 22 members of the Swiss armed forces, who had been fighting the forest fires in Corsica using three Super Puma helicopters, returned to Switzerland on Friday. Since July 28, they had dropped 452 tonnes of water to extinguish the fires. + How to p...

The Swiss Farmers’ Union is calling on the business community and politicians to help agriculture cope with the drought. A lack of rainfall has resulted in emergency slaughter due to a shortage of feed, a slump in milk production caused by animals ...

A Swiss court has sentenced 11 men for rioting at a Turkish Children’s Festival in Basel in 2022. The court handed down suspended prison sentences in the majority of cases. Three further defendants were acquitted. With one exception, the 11 men wer...

Swiss farmers will be allowed to import maize for animal feed duty-free from mid-August. The government announced the new measure to support the agricultural sector, which has been hit hard by the ongoing drought. + Sparse rainfall puts Switzerland o...