Switzerland

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations hosted a conference on Monday to help Pakistan cope with the fallout of last summer’s devastating flooding, which the U.N. chief called a “climate disaster of monumental scale” that killed more than 1,700 people in the immediate aftermath. Millions are still living near contaminated and stagnant flood waters.

GENEVA, Jan 2 (NNN-XINHUA) — Alain Berset from the Social Democrat party of Switzerland on Sunday took office as President of the Swiss Confederation for the second time.

Berset is also head of the Swiss Federal Department of Home Affairs. Born in Fribourg on April 9, 1972, he previously held the presidential post in 2018.

GENEVA, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Alain Berset from the Social Democrat party of Switzerland on Sunday took office as President of the Swiss Confederation for the second time.

Berset is also head of the Swiss Federal Department of Home Affairs. Born in Fribourg on April 9, 1972, he previously held the presidential post in 2018.

19 Dec 2022; MEMO: The UN Human Rights Office on Monday condemned Israel's recent deportation of Palestinian-French human rights defender Salah Hammouri to France, reports Anadolu Agency.

"We are deeply concerned by the chilling message this sends to those working on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory," UN Human Rights spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said in a statement after the decision issued on Sunday.

GENEVA, Dec 15 (NNN-XINHUA) – The chief of the World Health Organisation (WHO), said, he hopes that COVID-19 will no longer be a global health emergency sometime next year.

Addressing a press briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said, the WHO COVID-19 Emergency Committee will discuss next month, the criteria for declaring an end to the COVID-19 emergency.

“We’re hopeful that at some point next year, we will be able to say that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency,” he said.

GENEVA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - COVID-19 infections were exploding in China well before the government's decision to abandon its strict "zero-COVID" policy, a World Health Organization director said on Wednesday, quashing suggestions that the sudden reversal caused a spike in cases.

The comments by the WHO's emergencies director Mike Ryan came as he warned of the need to ramp up vaccinations in the world's No. 2 economy.

Speaking at a briefing with media, he said the virus was spreading "intensively" in the nation long before the lifting of restrictions.

GENEVA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) criticized U.S. trade policies on Wednesday here at the ongoing 15th Trade Policy Review of the United States.

China, the European Union (EU), Canada, Türkiye and many other WTO members strongly urged the United States to fulfill its obligations as a WTO member and avoid unilateralism and protectionism.

GENEVA, Dec 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Negotiators are meeting in Geneva this week to thrash out a pandemic treaty aimed at ensuring the flaws that turned Covid-19 into a global crisis could never happen again.

As the third anniversary of the virus emerging rolls around, negotiators are raking over an early concept draft of what might eventually make it into an international agreement on how to handle future pandemics.

Israel's decision to deport French-Palestinian human rights defender and lawyer Salah Hammouri to France against his will may constitute a war crime under the Geneva Convention, UN experts said Friday, reports Anadolu Agency.

Israel reaffirmed the revocation of Hammouri's permanent residency in Jerusalem on November 30.

Authorities said Hammouri would be deported December 4 to France because of his alleged "breach of allegiance to the State of Israel" and based on secret evidence.

05 Dec 2022; MEMO: UNHCR has criticised a report issued by the Centre for Policy Studies on UK asylum reform, which includes a blanket ban on anyone arriving on a small boat from claiming asylum, with the UN agency stating that access to asylum should not be dependent on how people arrive, or their nationality.

Among the report's recommendations is that the Modern Slavery Act should be reformed to include a ban on entire nationalities such as Albania using the act to claim asylum.