The Swiss Connection

Send us Fan Mail Every year, over 1,000 seriously ill people end their lives in Switzerland with the help of suicide assistants.     Assisted suicide is legal in several countries, including Switzerland, Canada and the Netherlands. A handful of other countries – like Germany and Colombia – are working out the legal and practical details. Some people even travel great distances to die in Switzerlan...

Send us Fan Mail Now that Switzerland has approved marriage for all, host Susan Misicka talks with some couples who explain why it's important to them. We also hear from opponents of Swiss legislation granting same-sex couples the right to marry. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail In this encore episode of The Swiss Connection, we visit Swiss century-old pen and pencil maker Caran d'Ache. Podcast host Susan Misicka takes a tour of the factory and feels a bit silly when Caran d’Ache President Carole Hubscher sees her hasty choice of writing instrument. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail Swiss designers gave us the big-name Helvetica and Frutiger typefaces in the 20th century. Now a modern-day designer from Basel is collaborating on a new font that we might soon be seeing a lot more of.  Nina Stoessinger of Frere-Jones Type in Brooklyn talks about inspiration and challenges. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail How soon will we start buying our groceries with Bitcoin? What kind of scams do we need to be aware of? And why is Switzerland so sweet on cryptocurrencies and blockchain? SWI finance correspondent Matt Allen gives host Susan Misicka an overview of what he's learned while covering this scene over the past several years. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based...

Send us Fan Mail A gorgeous location for a film festival: Locarno in southern Switzerland. The international event features about 200 films in 10 days. But what makes the Locarno Film Festival so special? In this episode, SWI culture editor Eduardo Simantob tells podcast host Susan Misicka why he loves it.  SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail Swiss architect Renata von Tscharner has devoted over two decades to improving the public spaces along the Charles River in Massachusetts. She even hopes to get people swimming in Boston's so-called "dirty water" on a regular basis. We met her at the Rhine River in her native Basel. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail In this episode host Susan Misicka introduces our sister podcast, Inside Geneva. Nuclear weapons were banned by international treaty at the start of 2021. But the treaty doesn’t apply to any of the nuclear powers, since none of them signed it. So are nukes really banned? Inside Geneva host Imogen Foulkes talks to Cordula Droege, Chief Legal Officer of the International Committee o...

Send us Fan Mail The success of Swiss chocolate depends on cocoa beans harvested far away, often with the help of minors. In this episode we discuss whether it's OK for children to work, and how to figure out if kids helped make your candy bar. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail What does soil sound like, and what do those sounds mean? We find out from the world’s first scientist to use acoustics to research the soil and underground biodiversity. Also, we explore some of Zurich's greenspaces with a conservation biologist. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail Switzerland missed its target to reduce its carbon footprint in 2020. But there are still some promising developments when it comes to electric mobility in Switzerland – on the roads and up in the air. In this episode we take a ride in an electric plane and kick the tires on Swiss electric car infrastructure. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switze...

Send us Fan Mail In this follow-up to "The Dirt on Digging for Gold" we hear about some measures to make the gold trade more sustainable. Swiss anti-corruption champion Mark Pieth provides insight into the social problems sparked by gold mining. And members of the Swiss Better Gold Association share their experiences in Latin America. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company ba...

Send us Fan Mail The past year has been a strange time for all of us. It can be even harder if you’re an expat. One in ten Swiss people lives outside of Switzerland. In this episode, we hear from a few Swiss citizens who are living in the United States. They tell us how they’re experiencing the coronavirus pandemic and politics in their adopted homeland. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media...

Send us Fan Mail Switzerland is the home of some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies. But when it comes to coronavirus vaccines, the Swiss pharma giants are not part of the discussion. How did they miss out? Or did they? And what does it mean for the next pandemic? SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail The case of a Swiss couple abusing Indian children –   and getting away with it –   shows the limits of the international police network. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail Multiple spy agencies, secret documents, international intrigue, and a Swiss company's encryption machines are at the heart of this episode. But does anybody really know the whole story? SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail Switzerland is celebrating a rather awkward anniversary this year. It was only 50 years ago that women got the right to vote at the federal level. What was the hold-up? And what’s still holding women back today? SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail Sometimes changing names and continents is the best way to cope in a pandemic. For Swiss country music singer-songwriter Florian Fox, this meant moving to Nashville, Tennessee. He tells us why he's in the right place at the right time. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail Switzerland is the world’s leading gold refiner. But in spite of efforts to make the supply chain more transparent, there are still some big questions about the origins of all this gold, and how it's extracted from the earth. In this episode we travel to Peru to find out what happens during the gold mining process. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in B...

Send us Fan Mail Part three of a three-part series about the connection between nostalgia and homesickness.  If a friend abandoned you in a foreign country, how angry would you be? And how healthy is it to dwell on the past? SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail Part two of a three-part series about the connection between nostalgia and homesickness.  We "meet" a medical student who attended Basel University in the 17th century, and we try to retrace the steps of the Swiss mercenaries who inspired him. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail Part one of a three-part series about the connection between nostalgia and homesickness.  For this we travel back in time to join two backpackers exploring Europe in the 1980s, and we find out how they’re connected to Swiss mercenaries hitting the road in the 17th century.  SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail In 2020, getting the kind of schooling you want for your kids sometimes meant moving halfway across the world, at the drop of a hat. Meet a Swiss woman in California who did just that. SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland. 

Send us Fan Mail When you first see her with her sleek bob and glossy fingernails, it’s kind of surprising to learn that Gabriela Martina was raised on a farm. But it’s memories of her rural upbringing that power some of her music. Over a decade ago, she left her home in the Lucerne countryside to study jazz in the United States. Today, the vocalist and composer lives in Boston and teaches at her...

Send us Fan Mail SWI swissinfo.ch is a public service media company based in Bern, Switzerland.