Helping prisoners develop the skills they need to retu to society is the goal of a work-based programme at Witzwil prison. But some criminals may never get out of jail. Researchers are looking at the issues that will affect quality of life in prisons now and in the future. You can contact the author...

London is one of Europe's most powerful centres of business and finance. (Keystone) The numbers are clear: with CHF11.7 billion ($11.8 billion) in exports, some CHF80 billion of investments and 194,000 employees, Britain is one of the most important business locations for Swiss firms. What is less c...

With audiences of half a million in Switzerland and 2.4 million worldwide, Alain Gsponer’s remake of Heidi has been hailed as the most successful film in the history of Swiss cinema. This claim is hard to verify, due to the lack of long-term statistics. Anyway, what makes a Swiss film? In a country ...

Mar 18, 2016 - 17:00An American street photographer with an eye for the details of human life that aren’t always the prettiest, but which show us for who we really are. The crumpled trousers of a man clutching a woman’s hand in the street. An older gentleman snoozing on the job. Vivian Maier lived i...

London is one of Europe's most powerful centres of business and finance. (Keystone) The numbers are clear: with CHF11.7 billion ($11.8 billion) in exports, some CHF80 billion of investments and 194,000 employees, Britain is one of the most important business locations for Swiss firms. What is less c...

With audiences of half a million in Switzerland and 2.4 million worldwide, Alain Gsponer’s remake of Heidi has been hailed as the most successful film in the history of Swiss cinema. This claim is hard to verify, due to the lack of long-term statistics. Anyway, what makes a Swiss film? In a country ...

Mar 17, 2016 - 15:49As part of an inte ational project called "Inside Out" by the French street artist JR, Geneva-based photographer Mark Henley shot 51 portraits of asylum seekers in their homes fu ished by the canton of Geneva. Their faces, shown at ground level, have proven irresistible to passer...

Switzerland has become a commodity trading hub over the past 15 years Voters last month rejected a proposal to ban speculation in food products but not as overwhelmingly as had been expected. Another people's initiative dubbed “For Responsible Business” is now directly aimed against the commodities ...

Staffan de Mistura (centre) thanked Switzerland for its role in the Syrian negotiations (swissinfo.ch) Staffan de Mistura, the chief negotiator in Syrian peace talks now underway in Geneva, visited Be on Wednesday to thank the Swiss gove ment for its “discreet” and fundamental role in making the tal...

Damien G. posted this photo to Twitter showing a Swiss passport next to a belt bag, apparently filled with explosives (SRF/10vor10) At least four jihadist fighters with co ections to Switzerland have been uncovered in Islamic State perso el files that have been obtained by the media. The huge haul o...

Many shops sell second-hand watches in the US, like the Tou eau shop in Manhattan Destocking new watches and selling them through alte ative cha els is a taboo subject in the Swiss watchmaking industry. It’s a growing phenomenon spurred on by the business slowdown in some regions of the world and th...

In canton Geneva, red kites are being poisoned by a pesticide that was ba ed years ago. The Swiss have been trying hard to protect the birds. (RTS/swissinfo.ch) Carbofuran is a chemical used against pests that attack co , tu ips, onions and mushrooms. It was withdrawn in Switzerland in 2011 and the ...

Around 200 people gathered early Monday mo ing for the launch of the campaign for an unconditional basic income (Keystone) The organisers of a public initiative that’s captured the imagination of people around the world staged a pricey publicity stunt in Zurich’s main station on Monday. CHF10 ($10) ...

It is estimated that between 300,000 to 500,000 military and paramilitary soldiers are deployed in Kashmir, mainly along the border with Pakistan (Keystone) Lured by virgin snow, adventurous skiers are ignoring travel advisories to stay away from the conflict prone Kashmir valley in northe India. Co...

A child injured in an unidentified bombing at Douma, north-east of Damascus, Syria on 10 March 2016 (Keystone) United Nations-brokered talks aimed at ending Syria’s five-year civil war are getting underway in Geneva on Monday. Here is a short guide to the latest resumption in the so-called Geneva 3 ...

Researchers hope that the pictures from the trip to Mars will reveal more about the planet's surface, including the location of liquid water. On Monday, a rocket will take off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in the direction of Mars. One of the instruments on board will be CaSSIS (Colour ...

Here are the stories we will be watching the week of March 14: (Keystone) Monday Switzerland’s divorce rate is pretty average, but a (sub)urban-rural divide hints that country life is more conducive to wedded bliss. Or is it? Find out the answer when we map out the rates. The European Space Agency (...

The founders of two Swiss startups making technologies for driverless cars explain their vision for the future of transport and predict how soon we'll be letting robots take the wheel. Let's block ads! (Why?)

Mar 12, 2016 - 11:00Tens of thousands of people left canton Ticino at the end of the 19th century and the begi ing of the 20th century for a better life in the United States. The photographer Flavia Leuenberger managed to track down some of their descendants, some of whom still speak dialect or hois...

A healthy pale grass blue (left). A mutated specimen (right) has short wings and an additional ante a (Keystone) The consequences of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima five years ago surfaced in a terrible way in serious mutations in butterflies. This discovery is owing to the tireless work of the Ja...