Switzerland

16 June 2023; MEMO: The Turkish Foreign Ministry yesterday summoned the Swiss ambassador in Ankara after protesters burned the Turkish flag and an effigy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Swiss city of Zurich.

According to a statement by the Turkish presidency's Directorate of Communications, the Swiss authorities were asked to "launch an investigation without delay, identify the perpetrators, and take necessary steps swiftly."

16 June 2023; MEMO: "Urgent and further decisive" action is needed to prevent deaths at sea, the UN agencies for migration and refugees said, Friday, after a migrant boat disaster off Greece, Anadolu Agency reports.

09 June 2023; MEMO: The UN is gathering evidence that could potentially be used in future prosecutions of those involved in Israel's expulsion of French-Palestinian human rights lawyer, Salah Hamouri.

GENEVA (AP) — Cristiano Ronaldo is already in Saudi Arabia. Karim Benzema looks sure to be next. And as the oil-rich kingdom pursues Lionel Messi as well, it is making sure that money continues to flow into the domestic soccer league.

GENEVA, June 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Meteorological Organisation voted for Argentina’s Celeste Saulo to become its first woman leader and steer the WMO’s critical global role in tracking climate change.

Saulo, a WMO vice-president who has headed Argentina’s weather service since 2014, won a landslide vote at the UN climate and weather agency’s congress in Geneva.

The WMO’s role in climate change has become increasingly prominent and Saulo, 59, will likely become a well-known advocate on this pressing world issue.

31 May 2023; MEMO: The city of Geneva has decided to ban a Palestinian exhibition that highlights the suffering of Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails, Israeli media reported yesterday.

According to Ynet News, this came following pressure from the Israeli Embassy in Switzerland and several pro-Israel organisations.

Secours Rouge Geneva, in collaboration with Samidoun Geneva, prepared for the exhibition, which should have lasted from 25-27 May.

GENEVA, May 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization said it was helping a growing number of farmers turn away from tobacco to help strengthen food security, particularly in Africa.

Ahead of World No Tobacco Day on Wednesday, the WHO said it had teamed up with other United Nations agencies to support farmers wishing to convert from growing tobacco to growing food.

The scheme’s pilot in Kenya has proved successful and now the UN wants to export it to other countries and continents.

GENEVA, May 25 (NNN-ACN) — Cuban Health Minister Jose Angel Portal Miranda and his Italian counterpart Orazio Schillaci penned a Memo of Understanding on bilateral cooperation in healthcare and medical sciences to further strengthen links between the two ministries.

At the meeting, which took place during the 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Portal Miranda said that the accord backs the goal of Italy and Cuba to deepen cooperation in the benefit of their peoples.

GENEVA, May 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A new pandemic accord under negotiation must be a “historic agreement” marking a dramatic shift in the approach to global health security after the Covid crisis, the WHO chief said.

“We cannot simply carry on as we did before,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as he opened the World Health Organization’s annual assembly in Geneva.

WHO’s member states have begun negotiations towards an international agreement aimed to ensure the world is better equipped to prevent or more effectively respond the next time a pandemic hits.

GENEVA, May 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization won basic approval for a $6.83-billion budget over the next two years, including a 20-percent hike in mandatory membership fees.

As the UN health agency kicked off its annual decision-making assembly, member states in a key committee approved the budget without objection.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hailed the move as “historic and a big milestone”.

The budget still needs to be approved by all the member states at the end of the 10-day event, but this is basically a formality.