Switzerland

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Global leaders and business executives departed a freezing World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting on Friday after a frank exchange of views over how the world will tackle its biggest issues in 2023.

Here's what we learned:

ECONOMY: Gloom and doom heading into Davos turned into cautious optimism by the end with the global economic outlook for the year ahead looking better than feared.

GENEVA, Jan 19 (Reuters) - China reported a large jump in COVID-19 hospitalisations in the week through to January 15 to the highest since the pandemic began, according to a weekly report published by the World Health Organization on Thursday.

However, the WHO said it awaited "detailed provincial data disaggregated by week of reporting" on nearly 60,000 additional COVID-related hospital deaths reported by China last week and did not include them in the tally.

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Inspections of ships carrying Ukrainian grain and other food exports have slowed to half their peak rate under a U.N.-brokered wartime agreement, creating backlogs in vessels meant to carry supplies to developing nations where people are going hungry, United Nations and Ukrainian officials say.

Some U.S. and Ukrainian officials accuse Russia of deliberately slowing down inspections, which a Russian official denied.

20 Jan 2023; MEMO: UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Lynn Hastings, called on the Israeli government to "fulfil its international obligations to ensure Palestinians can have safe access to education."

Writing on her official Twitter account, Hastings commented on the Israeli High Court's rejection of a petition to stop the demolition of the Khashm al-Karm Elementary School in Badia, in the West Bank city of Hebron.

GENEVA, January 19. /TASS/: Finland and Sweden will become full members of NATO this year, said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Thursday.

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg on Thursday slammed corporate bigwigs meeting in Davos, Switzerland, for “fueling the destruction of the planet” by investing in fossil fuels and prioritizing short-term profits over people affected by the climate crisis.

Thunberg was joined by prominent young activists Vanessa Nakate, Helena Gualinga and Luisa Neubauer in a roundtable with International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering.

GENEVA, January 18. /TASS/: Budapest is not supplying weapons to Kiev because it is concerned about the safety of ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told the CNBC TV channel on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Ukraine needs a "significant increase" in weapons at a pivotal moment in Russia's invasion and such support is the only way to a negotiated peaceful solution, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.

Defence leaders from around 50 countries and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will hold talks at Germany's Ramstein Air Base on Friday, the latest in a series of meetings since Russian forces swept into Ukraine nearly 11 months ago.

ZURICH (AP) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met on Wednesday with her Chinese counterpart and pledged an effort to manage differences and “prevent competition from becoming anything ever near conflict” as the two nations try to thaw relations.

Yellen’s first face-to-face meeting with Vice Premier Liu He in Zurich is the highest-ranking contact between the two countries since their presidents agreed last November during their first in-person meeting to look for areas of potential cooperation.

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The world is in a “sorry state” because of myriad interlinked challenges including climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine that are “piling up like cars in a chain reaction crash,” the U.N. chief said at the World Economic Forum’s meeting Wednesday.