The latest UBS Swiss Real Estate Bubble Index published this week shows several regions at risk of overheating property prices. The regions highlighted as exposed include Basel, Lausanne, Vevey, parts of the Vaud Alps, Lugano, Nidwalden, Luzern, Zug and the Zurich region, all parts of Switzerland where there is plenty of high paid work. Lausanne, […]
Project to save lake Zug from pollution abandoned
Lake Zug and a number of other Swiss lakes are polluted with animal manure. The problem stems partly from Switzerland’s oversized livestock sector fed on imported feed. Scientists can gauge of the scale of the problem by measuring the phosphorus content of lake water. In Lake Zug there is currently 80 milligrams of phosphorus per […]
Switzerland stops returning people to Afghanistan
On 11 August 2021, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration (SEM), announced that it was stopping the return of failed asylum seekers to Afghanistan, as the security situation in the country deteriorates. SEM said it was stopping the return of failed asylum seekers until further notice. Only preparations for the expulsion of criminals would continue. Sweden, […]
Preacher accused of racial discrimination by Swiss prosecutor
In a long running case dating back to 2017, a Swiss prosecutor has accused a Libyan preacher of racial discrimination and started legal proceedings against the man, reported SRF. It is alleged that the 68 year old Libyan gave a hate speech targeting Jews, Christians, Hindus, Russians and Shiites in a mosque in the town […]
Swisscom network down for most of Switzerland this week
At 11:20am on Tuesday 3 August 2021, Swisscom’s network went down for 45 minutes, according to Fing, a network monitoring service. The outage stretched across nearly all of Switzerland’s highly populated plateau as well as the most southern part of the canton of Ticino, affecting most of the company’s customers – see image below. According […]
Europe’s first hyperloop opens in Switzerland
Engineers at EPFL’s DESL lab, working in association with EPFL spin-off Swisspod, have built a Hyperloop test track on the Lausanne campus in Switzerland. They will use the loop – a large vacuum tube for ultra-high-speed travel – to test a linear induction motor, an electric motor that can produce a levitation effect. Hyperloops, viewed […]
Swiss heirs must repay 15 years of any illegally claimed welfare
In 2016, the social security office in Zurich discovered a concealed bank account containing CHF 1 million belonging to a deceased man who had received welfare payments for 13 years, reported RTS. Over the 13 years, the man had received financial hardship payments, known as supplemental benefits, and health insurance subsidies amounting to CHF 140,000. […]
Zurich airport: 5% to 10% of passengers not boarding due to Covid document issues
During July 2021, around 5% to 10% of long-haul passengers, many in transit, were unable to depart from Zurich airport because their Covid-19 documents did not comply with destination country regulations, reported the newspaper Le Temps. In June 2021, around 700 passengers, most of which were in transit, found themselves stuck at Zurich airport. According […]
Immigrants pay higher rent than native Swiss
Those with a migration background in Switzerland are on average financially worse off than those without, according to data from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). And those with a migration background pay on average 10% more per square metre of living space than the rest of the population. In Switzerland, around 20% of those with […]
Infectious diseases down sharply in Switzerland with one exception
Most common infectious diseases fell sharply in Switzerland in 2020, according to recently published data from the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). However, one rose. Measures put in place to slow the spread of Covid-19 appear to have cut the spread of most common infectious diseases in Switzerland in 2020. The FOPH examined the […]
