Switzerland

NYON, Switzerland (AP) — UEFA insisted Friday that the Champions League final will be played in Istanbul, hitting back at a newspaper report that claims the European soccer body has explored Lisbon as a standby option if there is turmoil in Turkey after this weeekend’s elections.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in a close race to extend his 20-year grip on power. He is seeking a third term in Sunday’s election.

ZURICH (AP) — A FIFA fund to compensate for unpaid wages helped 225 players in the latest round of payments, including 61 in Portugal and 50 in Greece, the governing body of soccer said Friday.

The $16 million FIFA Fund for Football Players was created in 2020 with the FIFPRO player union. Some clubs were suspected of closing down to avoid paying salaries and then re-started anew as a “phoenix” operation.

FIFA allocated $4 million to applications for financial help from the 2021 calendar year.

GENEVA, May 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — More than 600 people were killed last month in violence in the capital of Haiti, which is in the grip of a political-economic crisis, the United Nations said.

‘In the month of April alone, more than 600 people were killed in a new wave of extreme violence that hit several districts across the capital,” said the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

05 May 2023; MEMO: The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday announced the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a global health emergency, Anadolu News Agency reports.

"Yesterday, the Emergency Committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that advice," WHO head, Tedros Ghebreyesus, told a press briefing.

BURE, Switzerland, May 5 (Reuters) - In a sleepy village on the French border, Swiss soldiers rode down a dusty road on a Leopard 2 tank, an armoured vehicle that has spurred debate around Switzerland's role in European defence.

Switzerland has 134 Leopard 2 tanks in service, some of which were used in training exercises by the country's Tank School 21 in the northwestern canton of Jura this week.

But the Leopard 2 tanks that have drawn attention in Switzerland are, in fact, the 96 it keeps in storage.

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions of people worldwide.

The announcement, made more than three years after WHO declared the coronavirus an international crisis, offers a coda to a pandemic that stirred fear and suspicion, hand-wringing and finger-pointing across the globe.

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization says it has fired the scientist who led a high-profile delegation from the U.N. health agency to China two years ago to jointly look into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, citing sexual misconduct.

Peter Ben Embarek, who led the WHO side of a joint team with scientists in China, was dismissed last year, the health agency said. WHO says it has stepped up efforts to root out sexual abuse, exploitation and harassment in recent months after a string of cases and incidents were reported in the press.

26 Apr 2023; MEMO: The World Health Organisation (WHO) welcomed the cease-fire reached in Sudan, urging the parties to the conflict to "fully" respect it, the Director-General said on Wednesday, Anadolu News Agency reports.

"The bloodshed we have seen in the past 10 days in Sudan is heartbreaking," Tedros Ghebreyesus told a press briefing." WHO welcomes the cease-fire agreed between the parties. We urge all parties to fully respect the cease-fire. Already, the violence has taken a terrible toll on health."

GENEVA, April 25 (Reuters) - There is a "high risk of biological hazard" in Sudan's capital Khartoum after one of the warring parties seized a laboratory holding measles and cholera pathogens and other hazardous materials, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Sudan, the WHO's representative in the country, Nima Saeed Abid, said technicians were unable to gain access to the National Public Health Laboratory to secure the materials.

GENEVA, April 25 (Xinhua) -- A new drive to vaccinate millions of children was announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday.

"The Big Catch-Up" aims at restoring vaccination progress lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The pandemic saw essential immunization levels decrease in over 100 countries, leading to rising outbreaks of measles, diphtheria, polio and yellow fever," said the WHO. "The Big Catch-up" is an extended effort to lift vaccination levels among children to at least pre-pandemic levels, and endeavors to exceed those.