Switzerland

OSLO/GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for its efforts to combat hunger around the world and improve conditions for peace in areas affected by conflict.

The Rome-based organisation says it helps some 97 million people in about 88 countries each year, and that one in nine people worldwide still do not have enough to eat.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Former Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and South Korean trade minister Yoo Myung-hee are the final candidates to head the World Trade Organization, ensuring the 25-year-old WTO will have its first female leader.

The WTO said on Thursday that the two women were the remaining candidates for director-general after the field was cut from five to two, confirming what Reuters reported on Wednesday.

GENEVA, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- World merchandise trade is expected to fall by 9.2 percent in 2020, followed by a 7.2-percent rise in 2021, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Tuesday in its revised trade forecast.

In April, the WTO had predicted a decline in the volume of world merchandise trade for 2020 between 13 percent and 32 percent as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted normal economic activity and life around the world.

GENEVA (AP) — The head of emergencies at the World Health Organization said Monday the agency’s “best estimates” indicate roughly 1 in 10 people worldwide may have been infected by the coronavirus — more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases — and warned of a difficult period ahead.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Services for mentally ill and substance abuse patients have been disrupted worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the disease is expected to cause further distress for many, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

Only 7% of the 134 countries responding to the WHO’s survey

reported that all mental health services were fully open, with 93% reporting curtailed services for various disorders, it said.

30 Sep 2020; MEMO: Kamel Jendoubi, chairman of the Group of Independent Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen, on Wednesday, submitted a third report on violations in Yemen to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Yemen Shabab reported.

The report was prepared by a team of experts tasked by the UNHRC to document human rights violations in the war-torn country.

GENEVA, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) has reiterated the natural origin of the novel coronavirus.

"The virus has happened naturally," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday at a media briefing on COVID-19.

"WHO believes in science and evidence and that's why we say science, solutions and solidarity," he said.

Many studies on the origin of the virus have overwhelmingly showed that the virus, or SARS-CoV-2, originated naturally rather than from any institution. 

GLION, Switzerland (Reuters) - Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to exchange around 1,000 prisoners, including 15 Saudis, as part of trust-building steps aimed at reviving a stalled peace process, the United Nations and sources said on Sunday.

The Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led military coalition, and the Houthi movement they have been battling for over five years, in late 2018 signed a deal to swap some 15,000 detainees split between both sides but the pact has been slowly and only partially implemented.

GENEVA (AP) — Voters in Switzerland cast ballots Sunday on a nationalist party’s proposal to limit the number of European Union citizens allowed to live and work in their country.

Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported after polls closed at noon that projections based on partial counts indicated most voters had rejected the measure, which was championed by the populist Swiss People’s Party. It had proposed giving preferential access to jobs, social protection and benefits to people from Switzerland over those from the 27-nation bloc that surrounds it.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Swiss health authorities have ordered a quarantine for a staggering 2,500 students at a prestigious hospitality management school in the city of Lausanne after “significant outbreaks” of the coronavirus that are a suspected byproduct of off-campus partying.