In 2024, Swiss administrations will start using a new IT system that will recognise special characters from, for example, Eastern European languages. The current character encoding system allows for western European signs like the Spanish ñ, Danish...

Switzerland plans to allow larger gatherings, re-open wellness centers and let restaurants serve food indoors as the country gets a better grip on the coronavirus pandemic. “We want to enable a return to normality – and restaurant interiors are ...

The average global temperature during the last ice age was some 8°C cooler than today – several degrees colder than previously thought, according to scientific research with Swiss participation published on Wednesday. The last ice age, when much ...

The Swiss government decided on Wednesday to accept the mutually-agreed departure of its top intelligence officer, who was criticised for his handling of last year’s Crypto affair. The mandate of Jean-Philippe Guadin, head of the Federal Intellig...

The Italian mafia has found ways to expand and steal millions from Switzerland during the coronavirus pandemic, public broadcaster RTS reported on Wednesday. “We can see that the money allocated to companies as Covid loans very quickly goes abroa...

Switzerland has launched a global alliance on missing persons to the raise the profile of the issue. Hundreds of thousands of people are missing around the world due to conflicts or disasters. The group, which was announced on Tuesday, has already ...

Rail travel between Switzerland and neighbouring countries is resuming by the end of May. After a break in services due to the coronavirus pandemic, Swiss Federal Railways is restoring international connections to France and Italy, as well as night t...

The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) has called on Switzerland to conduct an impartial investigation into past illegal adoptions from Sri Lanka and pay reparations to victims. In its review of Switzerland’s record on enforced disappe...

In Brussels on Tuesday, European Union foreign ministers discussed, among other issues, the future of the Swiss-EU framework deal. After the meeting, EU Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic reiterated that the EU was ready to continue negotiatin...

A survey on the ongoing rollout of 5G in Switzerland found the population fairly evenly divided on the issue, with those holding extreme positions in the minority. Some 13% of the 7,000 respondents polled were “strongly opposed” to 5G, while 11%...

An Israeli investigation into last year’s crash of a drone ordered by the Swiss army has found that the cause was a structural design flaw which has since been fixed. The Hermes 900 HFE unmanned aircraft crashed during a test flight last August in...

The trend of fewer but larger farms continues in Switzerland with the biggest growth in the poultry sector, according to latest statistics. The number of farms across the country fell by 1.3% to 49,363 in 2020, while the total area of farmland staye...

Over a two-week period hackers will be invited to identify vulnerabilities in government IT systems, receiving a financial reward for any bugs they find. The pilot project, which began on Monday, will target two government IT systems: The Federal ...

Ostrov – Lost Island has won best international feature documentary at North America’s largest documentary film festival. It thus automatically earns a place at the 2022 Oscars. Filmmakers Svetlana Rodina and Laurent Stoop will receive $10,000 ...

By May 11, Swiss residents had already consumed their theoretical annual “quota” of renewable natural resources. This is according to the Global Footprint Network, an ecological think-tank based in the US, which calculates the dates at which nat...

Switzerland has added its voice to growing international calls for an end to violence in Jerusalem, following a week of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police. The foreign ministry said on Sunday it was concerned about the escalation of vio...

The Stapferhaus in Lenzburg, a town just west of Zurich, was handed the prestigious European Museum of the Year Award for 2020 during an online event, after last year’s awards were postponed due to the pandemic. The museum was lauded by the Europe...

Police forces in Switzerland used their firearms a total of 12 times in 2020 – three times less than in the previous year – but caused comparatively more fatalities. Three people died following police use of force. That’s up from one fatality ...

The Foundation for the History of the Swiss in the World, which has operated a museum near Geneva since 1978, has fallen victim to Covid-19, according to the foundation’s director. Ronald Asmar told the Tribune de Genève newspaper on Monday that ...

Switzerland has convicted three more border guards over the miscarriage of a Syrian woman who was sent back to Italy in the summer of 2014. Judges ruled they should have shown moral courage and called an ambulance against the wishes of their superior...

Only 52% of the staff in nursing homes in the canton of Zurich have been vaccinated, even though the pandemic took a heavy toll on elder care homes. In an interview with the NZZ am Sonntag, the co-leader of the canton’s vaccination campaign, Gabri...

The chances of easing coronavirus restrictions in Switzerland are improving, according to the president of the Swiss Covid taskforce. But the business community is losing patience. In an interview published Sunday in the German-language weekly NZZ a...

While most Swiss ministers are convinced that an overarching agreement with the European Union would not stand a chance if put to a vote, a new poll suggests a strong majority would support it. The survey conducted by the research institute gfs.bern...

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 ...