Theme: Switzerland

Switzerland's Supreme Court upheld on Friday the 20-year prison sentence of former Liberian rebel commander Alieu Kosiah for war crimes, but overturned his conviction for crimes against humanity, according to Al Jazeera.

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday for talks with North Korean officials and the formal reopening of Switzerland's diplomatic office there, according to the Korea Herald. The office, which resumed operations on October 19, is Switzerland's first political and diplomatic presence in Pyongyang since the two countries established relations in 1974. North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) confirmed Cassis's arrival, greeted by foreign ministry officials and the North's ambassador to Switzerland, according to Yonhap.

A Swiss woman being treated for Ebola in Nigeria was medically evacuated to Switzerland with her husband on Monday, according to the Associated Press (AP). According to AP, with the evacuation Nigeria currently has no Ebola cases, and the country will continue following 52 contacts while Switzerland takes over the patient’s care and monitors her husband.

The Ebola patient in Nigeria is a Swiss woman, the wife of a Swiss diplomat, who has not travelled to the epicentre of the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is believed to have contracted the virus while travelling with her husband in Uganda, the Swiss foreign ministry has said. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating whether the patient may have come into contact with an Ebola patient in Kenya, as both travelled from Uganda's Entebbe airport on October 3. The World Health Organization (WHO) said investigations were continuing to establish the likely source of infection for the Ebola patient in Nigeria.

The Swiss government said the Ebola patient in Nigeria, the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja, did not travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), contradicting accounts from Uganda, according to Reuters. Ugandan authorities have said the woman who fell ill in Nigeria had travelled to eastern Congo, where the outbreak was declared in mid-May and has since become the fastest-spreading on record.

Switzerland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Israeli settler violence on Wednesday after an attack on the village of Jalud by around 100 settlers the day before, according to the Middle East Eye. In a post on X, the ministry said “the unprecedented level of settler violence cannot be tolerated” and that Israel must protect Palestinian civilians and bring those responsible to justice.

About 71 percent of voters voted against an initiative to tighten the constitutional rules of neutrality, in a referendum on Sunday, September 27, 2026, according to a projection by the polling institute GFS Bern for the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG). In the preliminary count by the Federal Statistical Office, reported by the TASS news agency, the result was 68.6 percent opposed, 31.4 percent in favour and a turnout of 46.36 percent. The initiative sought to define Swiss neutrality as “perpetual and armed”.