Since 2009 the construction of new minarets in Switzerland has been banned. The picture shows one of the four existing minarets of Switzerland, in Wangen.(13 Photo)Swiss voters have banned the construction of new minarets, burkas and the ritual slaughter of animals for food, which some say amounts t

Tama Vakeesan was bo in Switzerland – to Tamil parents from Sri Lanka. Sometimes she doesn’t know where she belongs. But then she also feels like this makes her more open-minded. In her quirky, fun and thoughtful video series, we meet Tama’s family and friends – and find out what it’s like to be cau...

Does a person’s level of integration play a role when deciding if they are an expat?(Keystone)Who is an expat? It’s a simple question, but it’s far from easy coming up with a succinct and satisfactory answer. With globalised travel and work habits increasingly in the headlines, swissinfo.ch enters t

The recent expulsion of Swiss Imam Hani Ramadan from France is a reminder that Switzerland is home to several controversial Muslims – some with a reach far beyond Swiss borders. Following are four examples.Hani RamadanHani Ramadan: stoning not as cruel as one might thinkxa0(Keystone)Scholar, teacher...

Here are a few of the stories we will bring you during the week starting on April 17.(Keystone)TuesdayWhy don’t we ever speak of an “illegal expat”? And what’s the difference between an expat and an immigrant – or is there one? We look into that riddle as we introduce a new dossier called Making Swi

"What the Homeland Begins With" by Vladimir Dubossarsky and Alexander Vinogradovxa0(Kunstmuseum Be )Be and Switzerland have more connections to the Russian Revolution than we might at first imagine.The Be Museum of Fine Arts and the Paul Klee Centre are looking back 100 years to the October Revol

Teachers in canton Neuchatel protested federal salary measures in November of last year(Keystone)In a comparison of Swiss salaries, teachers do fairly well with ea ings above many other professions. But is there more to the story?According to salary data from the Conference of Education Directors f

What do you really know about Switzerland? Images of mountain scenery and sparkling alpine lakes abound. But what about cannabis consumption and divorce rates? swissinfo.ch offers a dedicated platform to deepen your knowledge of the country in just a few minutes.Not many might know that it is illega

A doctor calls for a patient in the waiting room of xa0a mode group practice in Zurich(Keystone)Young general practitioners want to leave the traditional model of a lone doctor working long hours behind. But will their wish to work in a group practice instead stem Switzerland’s GP shortage?Raphael T

A Catholic priest and a Protestant pastor blessed the new Gotthard rail tunnel at its opening in June 2016(Keystone)Are Swiss pastors really paid more than most other professions? A recently published guide to Swiss salaries revealed some outliers that intrigued our readers, so we looked into them.T

Switzerland's five nuclear power plants produce about a third of the country's electricity.(Keystone)The Swiss must decide if they are ready give up nuclear energy and rely more on renewables, as part of a vote on May 21 on the gove ment’s future energy strategy.In 2011, a few weeks after the nucle

Marthe Gosteli, a pioneering women's rights campaigner(Keystone)Tributes have been pouring in for Marthe Gosteli, a leading figure in the Swiss women’s rights movement, who died last week in her 100th year. She helped lead the battle for universal suffrage in Switzerland, and took charge of document

Besides the honorary award, Ganz was also nominated for his role in 'A Jew Must Die'.(AFP)It was a big night for Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, who won the nation's top acting award and was recognised for his life's work with the Swiss film industry's Honorary Award.In its laudatory as part of the Swiss Fi

Cows are affected by the time change: they produce less milk(Keystone)Whether to "spring forward“ or "fall back“, people in Switzerland – and many other parts of the world – either rejoice or despair in the twice-yearly time change. A look into the history books shows it’s been a hotly debated polit

Mar 25, 2017 - 11:00The building housing the United Nations in Geneva, the Palais des Nations - is due for a renovation. Photographer François Vermot has captured the style and fu ishings from the 1930s and 70s before they are lost forever.There are no people in Vermot's series, titled '

Swiss Parliament has just increased the retirement age for women to 65 years, up from 64. This may be just a first step, since parliament has for several years mentioned the possibility of raising retirement age to 67 years for both sexes. For some, the increase in life expectancy justifies these in

Jorge Paulo Lemann, a Brazilian billionaire stakeholder in Anheuser-Busch InBev, lives in Switzerland with his wife(Keystone)High quality of life and low taxes continue to lure the richest people in the world to Switzerland, now home to the second-highest number of foreign-bo billionaires in the w

Getting their feet wet: the alpine ecosystem of Leysin in French-speaking Switzerland is a fertile environment for budding scientists.(LAS Alpine Institute)If data from school science projects doesn’t just go into the trash at the end of the day, but is instead curated and shared, it can become a un

A still shot from Swiss public television during coverage of the first moon landing(SF DRS)Switzerland has been debating the role of its public broadcaster in the digital age, and it’s not alone. We looked at the state of public media around the world in countries where swissinfo.ch jou alists have

Zug's professional hockey team in action. The hockey academy trains top talent for the team's future while training the athletes in office-based apprenticeships(Keystone)A Swiss programme has found a way to get the best out of promising young athletes while at the same time providing vocational trai