This afternoon, Switzerland’s health authority announced a fifth person in Switzerland had contracted the new coronavirus Covid-19. The announcement follows another this morning announcing three new cases. The latest case involves a man in the canton of Aargau who arrived back in Switzerland after spending time in northern Italy. Like the others he has been […]
Geneva would like to offer Assange refuge
The canton of Geneva could ask Bern to issue a humanitarian visa to Julian Assange, the 48 year old WikiLeaks founder, according to the newspaper Tribune de Genève. Jean Rossiaud, a member of the canton’s parliament and the Green party, is behind the project. Last week he confirmed on Swiss television that he had met […]
Switzerland announces first coronavirus case
A man in his 70s in the canton of Ticino has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, according to a statement by Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). The man, who has been isolated in a clinic in the city of Lugano, is the first person in Switzerland to have tested positive for the […]
Non-smokers remain a minority among men in Switzerland
A recently published report breaks the population of Switzerland down into smokers, ex-smokers and non-smokers. Only 45% of men fall into the last category of non-smokers. The percentage of non-smokers has risen by 7.1 percentage points since 1992 when 62.4% of men in Switzerland were current or former smokers. In 2017, the slices of society […]
Swiss government wants to quickly change laws to allow gay marriage
Switzerland’s Federal Council announced that it would like to quickly give gay couples the right to marry, according to RTS. It also said that it did not think the change would require changing the constitution and could be achieved by changing laws. It would like to see legal changes that would make it easy for couples […]
Switzerland remains second in global Human Development Index ranking
Switzerland remains second in the United Nations (UN) global Human Development Index (HDI) ranking in 2019. Switzerland ranked just behind Norway. Ireland (3rd), Germany (4th) and Hong Kong (4th) completed the top five. The HDI looks at life expectancy, mean years of schooling and per capita income – Gross National Income (GNI). In 2019, Switzerland was ranked third […]
Swiss naturalisation boosts earnings, says research
Academics from ETH Zurich, London School of Economics and Stanford have produced research that suggests naturalisation boosts long term earnings. At first glance this might appear to be an impossible task. Surely those who gain Swiss citizenship are likely to earn more because they possess a range income-boosting attributes that also help them gain citizenship. […]
Bernese Young Boys get their Wankdorf back
Sometimes things get lost in translation. A recent headline in German-speaking Switzerland shows how translation can go awry. An article published by SRF, Switzerland’s broadcaster, bears the headline “Die Berner Young Boys erhalten ihr Wankdorf zurück“. This translates to “Bernese Young Boys get their Wankdorf back”. Wankdorf – “dorf” is close the English word village […]
Compensating victims of Switzerland’s administrative detention ahead of schedule
Up until 1981, the Swiss authorities imprisoned thousands of people who were not tried for any crime, under a procedure known as administrative detention. 60,000 were imprisoned in this way, often for years at a time, according to an estimate published by RTS. Referred to as a kind of compulsory welfare, people, including men, women […]
You’re in the army now: an expat recruit’s experience in Switzerland’s militia
This article was first published on Global Geneva As one of Europe’s most culturally mixed immigrant nations, Switzerland is witnessing the rise of a steadily growing group of citizens known as the ‘new’ Swiss. These are citizens of expatriate background, some born in Switzerland, others not, ranging from Kosovars and Spanish to British, Americans, Bangladeshis and […]
