This week a high profile case of assisted suicide in Switzerland made the news in the UK. Paola Marra, a UK woman with terminal cancer, who felt she had no choice but to end her life at Dignitas in Switzerland left behind a video message calling on people to help change the law on assisted […]
Switzerland falls behind in happiness ranking
This year, Switzerland slipped further in the global happiness ranking and is now in 9th place. The year before it was 8th, and two years earlier it was 4th. The ranking is based on polling across the world. It aims to get beyond narrow measures of wellbeing such as GDP and HDI. It gathers a […]
Swiss court acquits defendant in euthanasia trial
In 2017, a Swiss doctor prescribed pentobarbital, a drug used in anesthesia, to a healthy 86-year-old woman who wanted to die alongside her seriously ill husband. Before consulting the doctor, the woman had already signed a notarised document stating that she could not psychologically bear the prospect of living without her husband. Pierre Beck, the […]
Search ends for sixth person missing near Zermatt
On 9 March 2024, six people left Zermatt on skis bound for Arolla on a high mountain path that links Zerrmatt and Verbier known as the Haute Route. Upon reaching the region near the Tête Blanche pass at around 3,500m bad weather rapidly set in. At around 4pm, one member of the group alerted search […]
Switzerland one of the first four nations to celebrate International Women’s Day
The 8th of March is International Women’s Day, an event started in 1911 when Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland celebrated it for the first time. The idea was inspired earlier by movements in the United States and Germany. In 1910, Clara Zetkin, a communist activist and women’s rights advocate in Germany, presented the idea at […]
Switzerland shocked by antisemitic attack
On the evening of 2 March 2024, a 15-year-old naturalised Tunisian boy attacked a 50 year old Orthodox Jewish man with a knife outside a busy bar in Zurich, reported SRF. The man was seriously injured but is now recovering. However, the incident has shaken the public and politicians across the country. Swiss officials have […]
Switzerland chooses 2024 Eurovision entry
Switzerland’s entry is a rapper named Nemo performing a song titled “The Code”, reported RTS. This year’s competition takes place in May in the Swedish city of Malmo. The event will mark the 68th Eurovision competition. Nemo, the 24 year old who grew up in Bienne/Biel and now lives in Berlin, sings a song with […]
Swiss town wants to stop tandem base jumping
The town of Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, wants tandem base jump tourism stopped. The Swiss Base Association (SBA) is also against the practice, reported SRF. Base jumping, where people leap from high places and land with a parachute, was once a fringe sport. Although it is now far from mainstream, it has become increasingly […]
Switzerland’s marriage tax penalty back in the spotlight
Married couples in Switzerland are taxed together, unlike unmarried couples who are taxed individually. This often acts as a tax disincentive for one spouse to work, disproportionately affecting women. For many years, certain political parties have been pushing to remove what is essentially discrimination on the basis of marital status. The issue came back into […]
European court rules Swiss police engaged in racial profiling
In 2015, a Swiss man with Kenyan roots was stopped by the police at Zurich train station and asked for identification. He refused to provide it and was fined CHF 150 for not complying. What exactly happened or went on in the minds of those involved is unclear. The man who was stopped, a librarian […]
