The year started with a banger. A minor panic ensued when the import of Brazilian cows' intestines was banned. These encase the cervelat, the nation's favourite sausage.

(Keystone/Martin Ruetschi)

A starry starry night over Arosa in eastern Switzerland.

(Keystone/Alessandro Della Bella)

Heist of the Year took place at the private Bührle collection in Zurich, from where four masterpieces worth SFr180 million were stolen in February. Two were found.

(Keystone/Eddy Risch)

A Kosovo Albanian in Geneva celebrates the breakaway Serbian province's declaration of independence in February.

(Keystone/Martial Trezzini)

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey ruffled feathers in March when she donned a headscarf at a meeting with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right).

(Keystone/Martial Trezzini)

Swiss railway staff let off balloons in March during a strike against job cuts.

(Keystone/Karl Mathis)

Former UBS chairman and CEO Marcel Ospel (left) gives Peter Kurer a massive key - and even bigger challenge - at UBS's general assembly in April.

(Keystone/Steffen Schmidt)

Labour Day Zurich-style.

(Keystone/Alessandro della Bella)

UBS became Europe's biggest casualty of the US subprime mortgage crisis and wrote down a total of $44 billion in 2008.

(Keystone/Eddy Risch)

Zurich Ballet director Heinz Spoerli won the 2008 German Dance Prize.

(Keystone/Eddy Risch)

In June five soldiers died in a boating accident on the River Kander in the Bernese Oberland.

(Keystone/ Michael Buholzer)

A giant inflatable ball on the Jet d'Eau in Geneva heralds the kick-off of Euro 2008, co-hosted in June by Switzerland and Austria.

(Keystone/Magali Girardin)

It was hard to escape the European football championships: here a shepherd in Obersaxen follows a match on his laptop.

(Keystone/Arno Balzarini)

Tens of thousands of Dutch fans descended upon Bern, and then Basel, during Euro 2008.

(Keystone/Ennio Leanza)

Silence is golden: relaxing during the federal yodelling fest in Lucerne.

(Keystone/Urs Flüeler)

One of 6,970 recruits called up for military service this summer.

(Keystone/Martin Ruetschi)

Soaking up the atmosphere on Swiss National Day, August 1.

(Keystone/Sigi Tischler)

Chinese workers clean up around the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing, designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron for the Olympic Games.

(AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Golden boys: Roger Federer, Stanislas Wawrinka and Fabian Cancellara receive a warm welcome in Basel after their Olympic successes.

(Keystone/Georgios Kefalas)

Köbi Kuhn retired as coach of the Swiss national football team on a low note, after a disappointing performance at Euro 2008.

(Keystone/Alessandro Della Bella)

In October the Westside shopping centre, designed by American archiect Daniel Libeskind, opened just outside Bern.

(Keystone/ Lukas Lehmann)

Controversial ex-cabinet minister Christoph Blocher, here with his wife, is kept at a safe distance from the Swiss public in Bern.

(Swiss Press Photo 2008/Charles Ellena)

Born in 1848, Sister Maria Bernarda Bütler (left) in October became the first Swiss in recent times to be canonised by the Vatican.

(Keystone/Urs Flüeler)

After decades of waiting, scientists from Cern research centre near Geneva in September fired a beam of proton particles around the 27km-long underground tunnel. The machine broke down nine days later.

(Keystone/Fabrice Coffrini)

Migrating birds fly in Hitchcockian style over the Lavaux vineyards by Lake Geneva.

(Keystone/Laurent Gillieron)

Boxed in: Defence Minister Samuel Schmid bowed to the pressure in November and announced he would stand down at the end of the year.

(Béatrice Devènes / Pixsil)

Visitors to the Museum of Modern Art in New York entered the world of Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist.

(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Ueli Maurer, who on January 1 replaces Samuel Schmid as defence minister, preparing for a television interview.

(Keystone/Salvatore Di Nolfi)

A thick blanket of snow covered Switzerland in December, with record levels measured in and around Bern.

(Reuters/Stefan Wermuth)