Several cantons have cancelled the traditional firework displays for the national holiday on 1 August due to fire risk, including Basel, that reinforced ban on any fire in the city except the beloved lantern parade, involving several hundred children

Draught is having multi-faced consequences in Switzerland: while in St Gallen in some cases water has to be transported to the Alps by helicopter, high temperatures and lack of rainfall seem to curb ticks and invasive beetles like Takahashia japonica

Hundreds of people queued outside Swatch shops in Switzerland in the hope of being able to buy one of the newly launched 'Royal Pop' watches; scuffles broke out in some places and the producer introduced a worldwide policy of quotas for queuers

A photo-trap has snapped a bear in the Valposchiavo valley in the southeast corner of Switzerland for the first time in several years, though no one had the luck to see it with their own eyes