Climate activists aligned with the Extinction Rebellion (XR) environmental movement created traffic disruptions on Saturday across Switzerland. "I am terrified by the state's inaction in the ecological disaster," said a student in the Plainpalais di...

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) have repurposed an algorithm they initially developed for self-driving cars to help people observe social distancing rules. “When Switzerland went into lockdown last year, we...

Vaccine hesitancy is subsiding in Switzerland where a poll found that almost three-quarters of the population are now willing to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. The vast majority of Swiss people (73%) wants to get inoculated, according to su...

Without a framework agreement there is no possible status quo in relations between Switzerland and the European Union, according to the bloc’s envoy in Bern. EU Ambassador Petros Mavromichalis warns there will be no new deals on access to the EU s...

Speaking at the St Gallen Symposium in Switzerland, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has shared the Indian viewpoint on the pandemic and the consequences for international relations. “Nothing can prepare you for this kind of a surg...

A doctor who helped a mentally ill woman take her life has once more been cleared of intentional homicide. A Swiss appeals court in canton Basel rejected attempts by prosecutors to overturn a 2019 verdict that had cleared the doctor of murder. The c...

The number of people in Switzerland who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 has topped the one million mark, the authorities said on Friday. A total of 1,007,469 people have had two vaccine doses, corresponding to 11.7% of the population of ...

More than two weeks after re-opening, Swiss cinema owners have mixed feelings: the public seems keen to return to theatres, but attendance is four to six times lower than usual because of the 50-person audience limit. Although some cinemas re-opened...

A system for issuing a forgery-proof Covid-19 certificate on request will be available by the end of June to anyone in Switzerland who has been vaccinated, has recovered from or has recently tested negative for coronavirus. The Federal Office of Pub...

Two of Switzerland’s leading federal science and technology research institutes have started construction work on the major expansion of their campus near Zurich. Bulldozers are due to start work this month at the research campus of the Swiss Fede...

Swiss laboratories are no longer trying to detect the British mutation of Covid-19 but are developing new tests to pinpoint a newer Indian variant in the country. The British variant is now the most widespread strain of the virus in Switzerland, mak...

Switzerland has reacted cautiously to the US decision to back a suspension of patents on Covid-19 vaccines, saying a waiver is not the best way to achieve better global supply. On Wednesday, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the US would su...

Switzerland is helping India confront its brutal second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic with more than 13 tonnes of supplies. A cargo plane took off from Zurich on Thursday bound for New Delhi carrying 600 oxygen concentrators and 50 respirators for ...

Switzerland’s President Guy Parmelin met Pope Francis in the Vatican on Thursday, in a visit that also included the swearing-in of 34 new Swiss Guards. “This morning I had the honour of speaking to Pope Francis,” Parmelin tweeted in the early...

The Swiss-based International Olympic Committee (IOC) says vaccine developers Pfizer and BioNTech will donate doses to inoculate athletes and officials gearing up for the Tokyo Olympics. The doses will be delivered this month so that Olympic delega...

A Zurich court has ruled that a cantonal ban on public demonstrations of more than 15 people – which was in place until last month as part of Covid-19 measures – was unconstitutional. Judges at the Zurich administrative court said that the limit...

A former leader of the far-right Swiss Nationalist Party PNOS (Partei National Orientierter Schweizer), Tobias Steiger, made a speech in 2018 blaming Jews for World War I and II. On Wednesday, the public prosecutor’s office in Basel sentenced Ste...

Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) is cutting hundreds of jobs and downsizing its fleets as the company struggles to weather the disruption of Covid-19. Up to 780 employees – including pilots, cabin crew, ground crew, and technicians – could ...

Researchers in Switzerland have investigated different strategies to mitigate the negative environmental impact of mask use by the general population. They have concluded that the “wait and reuse” or “weekday strategy”, which involves keepin...

Violence against health workers and facilities continues unabated with over 4,000 incidents reported in conflict zones over the past five years, a new Swiss-UK funded report reveals. On May 3, 2016, the United Nations Security Council adopted a reso...

The recent drop in new Covid-19 cases in Switzerland and the accelerating vaccination programme are extremely encouraging, according to a top federal health official. “We have good reasons to be optimistic,” Patrick Mathys, head of crisis manage...

Nursing homes in Switzerland increasingly struggle to recruit enough skilled personnel and health workers say they have reached their limits in terms of the provision of quality healthcare. A new survey of healthcare staff at 118 nursing homes acros...

An independent investigation has been opened into allegations of violence at several federal asylum centres in Switzerland. Former federal judge Niklaus Oberholzer has been chosen to lead the investigation after criminal complaints were filed, the S...

Switzerland’s special prosecutor Stefan Keller, who was investigating FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s undocumented meetings with Switzerland’s former attorney general, has been withdrawn from the case. The Federal Criminal Court has approved...

Eight environmental activists have been charged with blocking the entrance of a Credit Suisse bank in Zurich in 2019. The Zurich public prosecutor’s office has accused them of coercion and trespassing. On July 8, 2019, the eight defendants – six...

Five people have been arrested in France accused of robbing a Swiss cash truck carrying cash and valuables worth around CHF20 million ($21.8 million) in 2019. After several months of investigation, French and Swiss police apprehended the five Frenc...

Around half of all people stop working before the official retirement age in Switzerland, according to new federal data. On Tuesday, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) reported that in 2019 between 40-50% of people started receiving their pension ...

The stalled bilateral treaty talks between the European Union and Switzerland have halted Swiss participation in a major project aimed at transforming the European rail system. On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Swiss Federal Railways confirmed a report...

The woman fell from her residential apartment building in Tehran on Tuesday, according to local reports. Iranian police have announced an investigation into the woman's death. The Iranian ILNA news agency said she lived on the 18th floor of a buildi...

Switzerland’s foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, has called on Burundi to implement concrete human rights reforms during a meeting with his counterpart from the small African nation, Albert Shingiro, in Bern. Cassis noted the good cooperation betwe...