In 2016, 7.5% of Switzerland’s population survived on a income below the poverty line, defined as CHF 3,981 a month for a couple with two young children, CHF 3,039 for a couple without children and CHF 2,247 for a single person. Among the 615,000 people encountering poverty in Switzerland in 2016, 140,000 were working. Over […]
International aid – Switzerland gives less but still 8th most generous
A club of countries known as the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) together gave US$ 147 billion in international aid in 2017, 0.6% less than in 2016. The figure includes money spent on refugees. In percentage of GDP terms, the most generous nations were Sweden (1.01%), Luxembourg (1.00%), Norway (0.99%), Denmark (0.72%) and the UK (0.70%). […]
62% of electricity consumed in Switzerland attributed to renewable sources
Last week the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) announced that 62% of the electricity consumed in Switzerland had been linked to renewable sources. It is difficult to know where the electricity from your plug came from. It is sometimes a bit like taking water from the sea and claiming it came from a particular […]
Heavy floods could hit Switzerland this year, says one insurance CEO
Heavy snow this winter means there is a lot of snow in high places ready to melt and flow from the mountains to the plains. According to the 20 Minutes, Ueli Winzenried, head of insurance at the GVB, the canton of Bern’s state buildings insurer, told the Bieler Tagblatt that he is very concerned that […]
New online app lets you see Swiss neighbourhoods 30 years ago
Swisstopo, Switzerland’s mapping agency, has launched a new online app that lets you see what your neighbourhood looked like around 30 years ago. Moving the slider left or right reveals before and after aerial photographs. Click here to go to the app. For more stories like this on Switzerland follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Switzerland experiences an exceptionally cold March this year
According to Swiss Meteo, north of the Alps, March 2018 was around one degree colder than average monthly temperatures between 1981 and 2010. South of the Alps it was one of the coldest in 30 years. March 2017 was Switzerland’s hottest March since 1864, registering an average temperature 3 degrees above the norm, an average […]
The Swiss National Bank owns more A-class Facebook shares than Zuckerberg
At the end of March 2018, the Swiss National Bank (SNB), held 8.93 million A class shares compared to Mark Zuckerberg’s holding of 8.91 million, according to the newspaper Handelszeitung. However, most of Zuckerberg’s shares are B class shares, a class of shares which is not quoted and give the founder control of the business. […]
How a Swiss-American journalist ended up in court for defending French cultural heritage
In 1989, war correspondent Edward Girardet came face to face with Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden threatened to kill him. This time around it’s money and principle rather than his life that are at stake. On 4 April 2018, he’ll be in a French court defending himself against a defamation charge brought by a French […]
Food consumes far less of Swiss budgets than it did 25 years ago
Comparing the most recent statistics on Swiss consumer inflation to those in 1993 reveals a steep drop in the percentage of spending allocated to food. When statisticians calculate consumer price rises they look at the prices of a standard basket of goods. In 1993, food and non-alcoholic beverages made up 14.3% of the value of […]
Swiss fact: more than 60% of one Swiss canton is farmed organically
25% of Switzerland’s surface is farmed, a total of just over 1 million hectares. Much of the rest is mountains or forest. Of this roughly 1 million hectares, 142,000 hectares (13.5%) is farmed organically. The organic percentage varies hugely by canton and even more by region. The canton with the least organic farming is Appenzell […]
