Switzerland

Lugano city is now accepting bitcoin payment for all invoices issued by the city. This includes taxes and other municipal services.

As is already possible in canton Zug, the city of Lugano now also accepts payments for taxes and other municipal services in bitcoin. Previously, payments with cryptocurrencies in Lugano were only possible via the city's online portal.

Private individuals and companies can now pay all invoices issued by the city of Lugano using bitcoin and the cryptocurrency Tether, which is pegged to the US dollar, as Bitcoin Suisse announced on Tuesday. The Zug-based crypto company enables crypto payments. ...

The number of births in Switzerland increased significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Statistical Office confirmed on Tuesday.

A total of 6,875 children were born in December 2020 (+1.5% more than in December 2019), or nine months after the first lockdown in Switzerland. The rise in the number of births continued from January to March 2021 (+4.5%), the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) said on Tuesday.

The number of children born between July and October 2021 and conceived during the second lockdown in Switzerland (from October 2020 to January 2021) was also higher: 1,629 babies, or +5.5%. The increase in births was greater in German-speaking Switzerland than in French-speaking regions. ...

Swiss 15-year-olds scored well for mathematics in an international survey published on Tuesday. They are also above average for science and reading. But 25% of Swiss pupils failed to reach the minimum level in reading.

The latest PISA survey from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), published on Tuesday, found that Swiss 15-year-olds scored 508 points on the PISA scale in 2022, compared with an average of 472 points. Six countries scored better, all in East Asia.

Estonian students had a similar level to Switzerland in maths; 73 countries score lower, including France, Germany, Italy and Austria. ...

Working as a doctor is one of the most prestigious professions in Switzerland, but the reality seems quite different: one-third of medical students say they are ready to give up after their first internship in a hospital due to the long hours and heavy administrative workload expected in the years ahead.

According to a study by the Swiss Association of Medical Students, 34% of students want to change career path following their end-of-studies internship in a Swiss hospital. This generally takes place in their sixth year of studies and consists of 6-12 months in a hospital helping assistant doctors. ...

Credit Suisse reinstated Neil Barofsky as an independent ombudsperson to oversee the Swiss bank’s review into its history of servicing Nazi-linked accounts.

The decision was announced on Monday by the US Senate Budget Committee, which has been probing Credit Suisse’s handling of the internal investigation.

“A clear-eyed and historically complete evaluation of Credit Suisse’s servicing of Nazi-linked accounts demands painful facts to be met head on, not swept aside,” Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said in a statement. “At our insistence, Credit Suisse has agreed to dig deeper into its own history, and Mr. Barofsky will again oversee this review.” ...

Banque Pictet & Cie SA, the Swiss private bank and asset manager, agreed to pay $123 million (CHF107 million) to resolve a US investigation into how it helped Americans hide more than $5.6 billion in secret bank accounts.

Federal prosecutors charged Pictet with conspiring to help taxpayers use 1,637 accounts to conceal assets and income from the Internal Revenue Service between 2008 and 2014. The bank’s US clients evaded $50.6 million in taxes over that period.

The US said it will drop the case after three years if the bank agrees to certain conditions, including protecting against future tax evasion. Pictet will pay a $39 million criminal fine, forfeit $52.1 million and pay $31.8 million in restitution to the US. ...

Switzerland's largest insurance company, Swiss Life, is set to undergo a change in its top leadership as Chief Executive Officer Patrick Frost is slated to step down during the upcoming Annual General Meeting in mid-May 2024. His successor will be the current Chief Financial Officer, Matthias Aellig.

Frost, who has held the reins of Switzerland's premier life insurer since July 2014, plans to transition to the Board of Directors in 2026. Aellig, the incoming CEO, has been overseeing the financial aspects of the country's largest property owner since March 2019, following a nine-year stint as the chief risk officer. The role of Chief Financial Officer will be assumed by Marco Gerussi, currently overseeing financial transformation and IT, who will join the group's general management. ...

The price of a cup of Swiss coffee is expected to rise by as much as 15% next year as cafés grapple with rising costs.

The price of the classic café crème drink rose by a record 10 rappen this year in German-speaking Switzerland. In 2024, prices are expected to rise between 5% and 15%, according to the umbrella organisation CafetierSuisse.

A single café crème in German-speaking Switzerland has risen almost 3% to CHF4.49 this year. “This is the highest price increase in the last ten years,” CafetierSuisse president Hans-Peter Oettli said on Monday. ...

The Swiss authorities have cancelled a CHF4 billion ($4.6 billion) emergency credit line to key energy provider, Axpo, which no longer needs the financial back-up.

In autumn 2022, the federal government made the billions available to Axpo. The untapped lifeline was revoked on December 1 as it is no longer needed.

Axpo had announced that it was no longer dependent on the credit line, the Swiss energy ministry announced on Monday.

Since the decree was issued, key factors have changed significantly. The electricity company is now significantly less susceptible to unexpected and difficult to predict market upheavals. ...

Swiss bank UBS has set itself the ambitious target of catching up with competitors in the United States by investing heavily over the next three years, Director of Global Wealth Management, Iqbal Khan, told NZZ am Sonntag.

The goal is to acquire $150 billion (CHF130 billion) in new customer funds each year.

On the customer side, the bank is expected to constitute a counterweight to the oligopoly of American banks. “We have the unique opportunity to be a fully global bank based in Switzerland,” noted Khan.

As for the fear that UBS's size could become a risk, Khan emphasises that on the contrary, a global presence constitutes an advantage, guaranteeing more stability and predictability of business. ...

The Chair of the Military Committee of the North Atlantic Defense Alliance (NATO) is paying a two-day official visit to the Swiss Army. Admiral Rob Bauer is meeting Swiss Army chief Thomas Süssli and Federal Councilor Viola Amherd.

The visit on Monday and Tuesday is intended to strengthen cooperation. The Federal Council announced in a statement on Monday that discussions were taking place with Amherd, head of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport, on the development of the security situation and the possibilities of intensifying cooperation in the area of ​​security policy. ...

The Pierre Gianadda Foundation has transformed the town of Martigny into a world capital of modern art.

Since 1978, over six million people have visited the museum to admire the works of the greatest masters of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Located at the entrance to the Great Saint Bernard Pass - one of the few routes that the Alps allowed to connect Italy and Switzerland - Octodurus had too great a strategic importance to leave the Romans indifferent.

The conquerors who came from the south then made it an imperial village and then even the capital of the province of the Graian and Pennine Alps. Rather agitated centuries followed for this crossroads of people and trade, through which hordes of invaders and armies too often passed, up to that of Napoleon. ...

Pharmaceutical company Roche is entering the fight against obesity with the $2.7 billion (CHF2.3 billion) takeover of United States firm Carmot Therapeutics.

Milestone payments of up to $400 million can also be made. According to Monday's announcement, Carmot Therapeutics is privately held and has in its pipeline product candidates that can be used to treat obesity in patients with and without diabetes. They are all based on the novel GLP-1 mechanism of action, which has recently been the subject of a lot of media attention.

Recently, the drug Wegovy caused a stir. It is a product from the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. It contains the active ingredient semaglutide, which promotes weight loss in people who are very overweight. ...

Swiss inflation unexpectedly slowed to a two-year low, adding to the case for Swiss National Bank (SNB) officials to keep borrowing costs steady when they meet next week.

Consumer prices rose 1.4% in November from a year earlier, the weakest since October 2021. That was lower than predicted by any economist in a Bloomberg survey, which foresaw no change from 1.7%. The drop was driven by lower costs for hotels, package holidays, fuel and fruit and vegetables.

The so-called core gauge, which strips out volatile elements like energy and food, also decelerated to 1.4%, the Swiss statistics office said Monday.

With Switzerland’s inflation rate keeping within the central bank’s target range of between 0 and 2%, the SNB paused hiking in September. Officials led by President Thomas Jordan have been careful to stress that more tightening might be required. ...

After warning Switzerland over two years ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recommends the authorities develop a roadmap to deal with the impending problem of labour shortage in Swiss nuclear power plants.

Switzerland's existing nuclear power plants are on the verge of having their lifetimes extended from 50 to 80 years. But now a problem is threatening to thwart these plans.

The search for skilled labour is becoming increasingly challenging, as reported by the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday. There are currently over 40 vacancies at the Beznau, Gösgen and Leibstadt nuclear power plants. ...

More and more people in the southern Swiss canton of Ticino lack money for basic needs. Poverty is growing and politicians seem powerless.

In canton Ticino, aid organisations such as Winterhilfe and the “Set the Table” association are sounding the alarm bells. They say that poverty among the local population is growing. So, they are stepping up their aid programmes, including food donations.

apuchin friar Martino, who is responsible for the “Francesco Foundation”, also notes that more and more people are asking for help at his food bank. An increasing amount of people lack the money to fulfil their basic needs. Many find it difficult to talk about it: "Poverty is a disgrace for many people in canton Ticino," he says. ...

Basel Social Democrat Eric Nussbaumer is expected to be elected speaker of the House of Representatives on Monday. As President of the European Movement Switzerland, the rapprochement with the European Union (EU) is at the top of his agenda.

The 63-year-old electrical engineer has been a politician in the House of Representatives for 16 years. He has made a name for himself in parliament, particularly in the areas of energy and European policy.

In the federal elections in October, Nussbaumer was easily re-elected and achieved the best result in the canton of Basel Country with almost 34,000 votes. This paved the way for him to become the "highest Swiss citizen". ...

The general assembly of the Central Conference of the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland, which met on Friday and Saturday, voted on measures to combat sexual abuse in the clergy. The assembly rejected a proposal for financial sanctions.

Two weeks after the publication of a preliminary report on sexual abuse in the clergy, the Swiss Catholic Central Conference made some surprising statements. The committee of the umbrella organisation made four demands and concluded its letter with a financial threat should talks with the bishops fail. ...

According to media reports, representatives of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the Catalan separatist party Junts began talks in Switzerland on Saturday under strict confidentiality about a settlement to the long-running conflict. This was reported by the Spanish public television channel RTVE and the newspaper "El País", among others.

The negotiators from both sides arrived in Geneva on Friday, as was shown on television. It was not known whether Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont himself would attend. There was initially no official announcement from either side. Not even the exact location of the meeting was known. ...

Heavy snowfall disrupted travel in Switzerland and southern Germany, with hundreds of flights delayed or canceled so far.

Munich airport took the main hit. The nation’s second-biggest hub closed at around 10:35pm on Friday night and won’t reopen until Sunday. Some 760 flights were scheduled for Saturday.

In Switzerland, 22 departures and 21 arrivals have been canceled so far at Zurich Airport because of continuing snowfall. Additionally, de-icing procedures added some 20 to 40 minutes to take-offs, delaying departures. ...

The University of Bern has awarded Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh an honorary doctorate.

The university said it wanted to honour the lawyer and journalist's "courageous fight" for the rights of women and girls.

“Sotoudeh gives Iranian civil society a face through her activities,” wrote the University of Bern in its laudatory speech. Sotoudeh pursues her commitment to peace and freedom, risking her own freedom and life. The sixty-year-old is a member of the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement. ...

A young wolf from the Swiss Augstbord pack was killed on Friday inside the authorized perimeter as part of the proactive regulation of the large predator organized by the canton of Valais.

Around 30 wolves are still in the hunters' sights.

“The wolf shot by the cantonal professional guard, accompanied by the hunting support group, will be autopsied according to the usual procedure in force.

The genetic analysis will be carried out at the conservation biology laboratory of the University of Lausanne,” specifies the wolf. State of Valais in a press release. ...

Switzerland has frozen an estimated CHF7.7 billion ($8.81 billion) in financial assets belonging to Russians, the government said on Friday, under sanctions designed to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

The figure, a provisional estimate, represented a slight increase from the CHF7.5 billion the Swiss government said it had blocked last year after the neutral country adopted European Union sanctions. ...

Swiss President Alain Berset has described the 28th UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai as a “key moment”. The conference will take stock of the progress made under the Paris Agreement.

It is the last moment to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century, said Berset, according to a statement from the Federal Department of the Interior on Friday.

Without rapid and coherent action by the international community, the situation will continue to worsen. ...

Reptile populations in Switzerland are steadily declining. The situation is particularly critical for the ring-necked snake and the Aesculapian snake. Amphibians are faring slightly better, with protection measures having partially halted their decline.

On Thursday, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) published updated red lists for the two classes of animal, reptiles and amphibians.

The results show that more than 80% of the sixteen reptile species native to Switzerland are on the Red List, in accordance with the criteria defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Compared with neighbouring countries, Switzerland has a particularly high proportion of threatened reptiles. ...