Switzerland

GENEVA, March 31 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations urged the world to stand by Afghanistan at a pledging conference on Thursday where it is seeking a record $4.4 billion in humanitarian assistance to the broken country.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on Aug 15 amid the hasty withdrawal of US-led foreign forces, and the country’s humanitarian crisis has rapidly worsened since.

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.’s aid coordination office, backed by Britain, Germany and Qatar, is launching its biggest-ever appeal for funds for a single country in hopes of collecting $4.4 billion to help Afghanistan, a decidedly ambitious call to assist the impoverished country again run by Taliban militants when much of the world’s attention is on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

26 March 2022; MEMO: United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet announced on Friday that Israel continues violating humanitarian law in Palestine.

GENEVA, March 24 (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights office said on Thursday that at least 1,035 people have been killed and 1,650 wounded in one month of war in Ukraine.

Ninety children were among the dead, it said in a statement, adding that the true figures were believed to be considerably higher due to delays in reporting from areas with intense hostilities, including the southern besieged city of Mariupol.

ZURICH, March 21 (Reuters) - Swiss authorities have seized a luxury mountain home believed to be owned by a Russian oligarch as bankers and officials work overtime to track assets of people linked to Moscow in retribution for the invasion of Ukraine.

The Bern canton's property office said it believed the flat belonged to Petr Aven, identified by Switzerland as a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin and a major shareholder of the group that owns Russia's biggest private bank, Alfa.

GENEVA, March 21 (Reuters) - A U.N. human rights investigator called on North Korea on Monday to reopen its borders to aid workers and food imports, saying that its further self-isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic may have left many facing "hunger and starvation."

Tomas Ojea Quintana, addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council, said chronic food insecurity was already widespread before the pandemic began two years ago. Only 29% of children aged 6-23 months receive the minimum acceptable diet, he said.

ZURICH, March 19 (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights office (OHCHR) said on Saturday that at least 847 civilians had been killed and 1,399 wounded in Ukraine as of March 18.

Most of the casualties were from explosive weapons such as shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes, OHCHR said.

The real toll is thought to be considerably higher since OHCHR, which has a large monitoring team in the country, has not yet been able to verify casualty reports from several badly hit cities, it said.

GENEVA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The United States and the United Kingdom are inextricably linked to the Syrian people's misery, a senior Chinese diplomat said here Friday.

In Syria, air strikes by the United States, the United Kingdom and others have resulted in a substantial number of civilian deaths and displacement, said Jiang Duan, minister of China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office in Geneva.

GENEVA, March 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Trade Organization chief hailed a breakthrough between the EU, the United States, India and South Africa on waiving intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines.

   Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the compromise was a big step forward in a bid to end the logjam at the global trade body.

   However, she cautioned that some of the details on waiving WTO rules on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) still needed to be fleshed out — and it would need the backing of all WTO members to come
into force.

GENEVA, March 17 (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief said on Thursday that nearly 1,100 activists, opposition members and journalists are being detained on "politically motivated charges" in Belarus and called for their release.

Michelle Bachelet said the government of President Alexander Lukashenko was carrying out violations of a "widespread and systematic nature" since large-scale protests against his contested victory in 2020's elections.