The amount of Syrian assets frozen by Switzerland has now reached 45 million francs (37.3 million euros, $51 million), Bern said Monday.

"This is a total for all sanctions against Syria, whether they be individuals or companies" and is up from 27 million francs in mid-August, a spokeswoman for the economy ministry told Agence France Presse.

Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse on Sunday said it had provided Washington data about its U.S. customers, local media reported.

"Credit Suisse has provided information about U.S. customers" to U.S. authorities, the bank's Chairman of the Board of Directors Urs Rohner said in an interview in the Swiss weekly NZZ am Sonntag.

Swiss President and Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey announced on Wednesday she would not be running for reelection in December, Swiss newswire ATS reported.

According to the newswire, the Socialist Party figurehead informed the head of the lower house she would be standing down at the end of the year.

U.S. authorities have given Switzerland until Tuesday to transmit data from tax evaders in the United States who have stashed assets away in Swiss banks, the SonntagsZeitung reported Sunday.

The United States has asked for detailed information on U.S. nationals who have hidden their money in Switzerland, the paper said, basing its report on a three-page letter from the U.S. deputy attorney general James Cole, dated August 31, addressed to the Swiss authorities.

The Emmental Show Dairy has cranked out tons of cheese for years. But now it's in trouble — production is down by a third and the company fears it may be forced to cut back to just a few wheels a day, enough to show tourists.

The dramatic slide in sales of Emmental, popularly known as "Swiss cheese" in North America, is caused by the strength of the Swiss franc, a financial phenomenon that is driving down profits in sectors across all of export-driven Switzerland.

Coco Chanel: A fashion icon whose name has become shorthand for timeless French chic, a shrewd businesswoman who overcame a childhood of poverty to build a luxury supernova and ... a Nazi spy?

A new book by a Paris-based American historian suggests Chanel not only had a wartime affair with a German aristocrat and spy, but that she herself was also an agent of Germany's Abwehr military intelligence organization and a rabid anti-Semite.

Switzerland widened sanctions against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime on Wednesday, adding 12 individuals to a list of key players under financial embargo and travel restriction.

"These restrictive measures have been decreed due to the violent repression that the army and the Syrian security forces have enforced for two months to snuff out peaceful demonstrations by the population," the economy ministry said.

After years, sometimes decades of neglect, Budapest's historic thermal baths are in different stages of renovation to restore crumbling and rotting infrastructure to their heyday state.

The city's 50-odd baths are a major tourist magnet for Budapest, also known as the "world spa capital" -- ranging from 500-year-old Turkish pools with intricate mosaic patterns and high domes supported by massive pillars left by the former Ottoman occupiers to more modern Art Nouveau spa complexes.

Swiss officials and businesses may be fretting about the franc's rise against other currencies, but one group of people are clearly loving it: Swiss consumers.

A mere 300 metres across the border in the little French town of Ferney-Voltaire, the first sign of the franc's rise against the euro can be found at the Carrefour supermarket's parking lot, where six out of 10 cars bear Swiss licence plates.

Pakistan Taliban militants on Friday said they were holding a Swiss couple kidnapped a month ago while on holiday in the remote province of Baluchistan.

Wali-ur Rehman, deputy head of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), did not provide proof that the group had the pair but said they were in good health and demanded they be exchanged for a Pakistani scientist jailed in the U.S.