These are some of the stories coming up on swissinfo.ch for the week beginning October 2, 2017. (Thomas Ke /swissinfo.ch) MondayDavid Leuenberger dreams of marriage and perhaps children. But both are not possible for homosexual couples under Swiss law. The 30-year-old design manager from Be talks to...

luca1 Luca Luca Orduña, 27, put all his eggs in one basket. At the age of 22, he went to Japan for the first time and set himself up in business. Fascinated by the varied cuisine and the natural environment, this adventurous entrepreneur still isn’t thinking about retu ing to Switzerland. As the man...

Shelly Power, Artistic Director and CEO of the Prix de Lausanne, has been in the post since last year(swissinfo.ch) The world-renowned Prix de Lausanne ballet competition has announced that it is changing its selection rules for the 2018 contest, opening its doors to dancers under 15 for the first t...

Twenty-five years ago, the Swiss said 'yes' to thexa0New Rail Link through the Alps, or NRLA (NEAT in German).(RDB/Ex-Press/David Adair) Travelling at speeds of 200km/h (124mph), trains have now been traversing the longest tunnel in the world under the Alps for a year.xa0The achievement comes 25 yea...

(Thomas Ke /swissinfo.ch) More than ever, today’s younger generations are refusing to be defined by a binary view of sexuality. And although the acronym has expanded to recognise this, people who identify as being part of the LGBTIQ community in Switzerland remain targets of violence and discriminat...

Valérie D’Acremont is a specialist in tropical medicine whoxa0researches new methods for diagnosis of acute feverxa0in developing countries. Her work contributes to better targeted treatment and preventing the over-prescription of antibiotics. (SRF, swissinfo.ch)D'Acremont is a clinical epidemiologi...

Tama Vakeesan was bo in Switzerland – to Tamil parents from Sri Lanka. This week, she joins a club for foreign women called "Femmes-Tisch" in her home town of Langenthal, which provides members with different forms of training such as German classes, and helpsxa0them to integrate in Swiss society.xa...

A Polish/Scottish couple decidedxa0to apply for Swiss citizenship to boost their children's integration. This is their story. (Julie Hunt, swissinfo.ch)David Kirk comes from Rothesay on the Isle of Bute in Scotland. Dominika Wieczorek Kirkxa0is from the town of Piastow in central Poland.xa0They came...

Anne Jorstadxa0calling Senator Patty Murrayxa0 (Democrat, Washington State) from the terrace of the Swiss parliament in Be . She asked Murray to protect DREAMERS and increase federal funding for science.(Anne Jorstad) No matter where you live, you’re never too far away to call the people representin...

One Swiss-based researcher who is conce ed about the future of research freedoms in Turkey has been working on a project involvingxa0old press photos of the country in the 1920s and 1930s, such as this one of a woman in a courtroom.(SIBA-Datenbank) The tense situation in Turkey is making it increasi...

(© KEYSTONE / JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BOTT) Huge crowds filled the streets of Geneva on Friday to marvel at an eight-metre 83-year-old grandmother and her six-metre daughter: puppets from the French street theatre group Royal de Luxe.xa0Smiles and cameras greeted the enormous marionettes, which awoke from a...

Agassiz's reputation for his acclaimed early work on Ice Age theory became marred by his later writings on racist theories of anthropology and human origins.(Wikimedia Commons) The Swiss Alpine Club’s recent decision not to revoke the honorary membership of a controversial Swiss glaciologist raises ...

In Vas Narasimhan, a physician and Harvard Medical School graduate, the Novartis board has found a CEOxa0whose professional background contrasts strikingly with that of his customer-focused predecessor.(Keystone) Vas Narasimhan estimates that using digital technology more efficiently could save up t...

Honorary consuls are local personalities who represent foreign states in Switzerland, and they are not paid for their work. What motivates them? (RTS/swissinfo.chexte al link)There are about 130 honorary consuls them in Switzerland. They are not professional diplomats, but people who workxa0on a vol...

The words - in German and French - most often used during the debate in the House of Representatives.xa0(gramener.com) A majority in both chambers of the Swiss parliament have voted against a 'No Billag'xa0initiative to scrap the compulsory Swiss TV and radio licence fee. We checked the claims of th...

A demonstratorxa0is detained by police during a protest rallyxa0in Moscowxa0earlier this year.(Keystone / EPA / Maxim Shipenkov) The automatic exchange of tax information (AIE) between countries is generally seen as an effective way of cracking down on tax cheats. But what if a country uses the data...

Jewish refugees who had been tu ed away at the Swiss border(RDB) On September 25-26, 1942, the annual conference of cantonal immigration directors took place in Montreux. On the agenda was Switzerland’s policy towards the growing number of refugees trying to enter the country, specifically Jewish pe...

For 20 years, Switzerland has been helping asylum seekersxa0who choose to retu to their home countries.xa0The gove ment isxa0positive that giving money and advice to people to retu homexa0is part and parcel of a credible asylum policy. (SRF/swissinfo.ch)For the gove ment Switzerland's repatriation p...

We wanted to know how you would vote if you could(Keystone / Alexandra Wey) Although not all of our readers can vote in Switzerland, we suspected manyxa0had an opinion anyway. So, we put the main issues into a poll for our readers and fans on social media. These are the results.We asked:"Would you p...

Jean-Marc Duvoisin - the 'real' face behind Nespresso(Keystone) If Hollywood star George Clooney is the public face of Nespresso, then Jean-Marc Duvoisin is the behind-the-scenes chief executive of a brand that transformed a commodity into a luxury through the coffee pod revolution.A soft-spoken Swi...