Switzerland

ZURICH, Dec 26 (Reuters) - People in Switzerland will be able to legally change gender by a visit to the civil registry office from Jan. 1, putting the country at the forefront of Europe's gender self-identification movement.

Switzerland joins Ireland, Belgium, Portugal and Norway as one of the few countries on the continent that allow a person to legally change gender without hormone therapy, medical diagnosis or further evaluation or bureaucratic steps.

25 Dec 2021; MEMO: A majority of 125 countries in the UN General Assembly backed on Thursday an unprecedented open-ended war crimes probe against Israel, news agencies reported.

The probe was initially approved in May by UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in the aftermath of the Israeli aggression on Gaza that took place in May 2021.

23 Dec 2021; MEMO: The international community must hold Israel to account for its 54-year occupation of Palestine, a UN human rights expert said on Thursday, five years after the UN Security Council called for all settlement activities in Palestinian territories to end, Anadolu Agency reported.

GENEVA, Dec 22 (APP): UN human rights experts Wednesday called on Indian authorities to stop targeting Kashmiri human rights defender Khurram Parvez and to release him immediately.

“We are concerned that one month after Mr. Parvez’s arrest, he is still deprived of liberty in what appears to be a new incident of retaliation for his legitimate activities as a human rights defender and because he has spoken out about violations,” the independent experts said.

GENEVA, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday called on the world to pull together to end the COVID-19 pandemic within the next year.

The UN health agency said, "2022 must be the year we end the pandemic."

With festivities coming at the end of the year, "all of us want to get back to normal," said the WHO, adding that "we need to protect ourselves now."

It is better to cancel events now and celebrate later than to celebrate now and grieve later, it said.

GENEVA, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- The World Economic Forum (WEF) will defer its 2022 annual meeting from January to early summer, it said on Monday.

The meeting, scheduled for Jan. 17-21 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, was postponed due to the "continued uncertainty over the Omicron outbreak."

"Current pandemic conditions make it extremely difficult to deliver a global in-person meeting," the WEF explained in a news release published on its website.

GENEVA, Dec 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The new coronavirus variant Omicron is spreading across the globe at an unprecedented rate, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

Cases of the heavily mutated variant have been confirmed in 77 countries.

But at a press conference, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was probably in many others that had yet to detect it.

Dr Tedros said he was concerned that not enough was being done to tackle the variant.

13 Dec 2021; MEMO: The UN Human Rights Council (HRC), this Friday, will hold a special session to address "the grave human rights situation in Ethiopia" after a request by the European Union and following a warning last week from the US, it announced, and reported by Anadolu News Agency.

LAUSANNE, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Two Tibetan students chained themselves to the Olympic rings outside the Swiss headquarters of the International Olympic Committee on Saturday to call for an international boycott of next year's winter games.

The pair were part of the latest protest against the 2022 Olympic Games over Beijing's abuse of human rights and its treatment of minorities.

The United States will not send government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics due to China's human rights "atrocities," it said earlier this month. 

GENEVA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - China's ambassador to the World Trade Organization said on Friday that Beijing would remain a "developing" country at the global trade body but would forego many of the benefits, signalling an important shift to trading partners.

China, which has the world's second largest economy, is this week celebrating 20 years since joining the Geneva-based trade watchdog, during which it has seen outstanding economic growth thanks largely to its participation in global trade.