Switzerland

GENEVA, June 17 (Reuters) - The World Trade Organization agreed on the first change to global trading rules in years on Friday as well as a deal to boost the supply of COVID-19 vaccines in a series of pledges that were heavy on compromise.

The deals were forged in the early hours of the sixth day of a conference of more than 100 trade ministers that was seen as a test of the ability of nations to strike multilateral trade deals amid geopolitical tensions heightened by the Ukraine war.

GENEVA, Jun 16 (APP): Pakistan has called on the UN Human Rights Council to take “credible steps” to uphold Kashmiri people’s fundamental rights, and to hold India accountable for its illegal colonization and rights abuses in the disputed territory.

“Today, Pakistan echoes this call for action to address the growing human rights crisis in occupied Kashmir,” Ambassador Khalil Hashmi, permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN in Geneva, told the 47-member council.

GENEVA (AP) — After five weeks of declining coronavirus deaths, the number of fatalities reported globally increased by 4% last week, according to the World Health Organization.

In its weekly assessment of the pandemic issued on Thursday, the U.N. health agency said there were 8,700 COVID-19 deaths last week, with a 21% jump in the Americas and a 17% increase in the Western Pacific.

GENEVA, June 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A global deal to cut fishing subsidies could be struck at a major ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization this week even though India in particular pushed for a major exemption, officials said.

The 27-year-old trade body has not reached a major deal among its 164 members in nine years and some observers see the fish talks as the best, and possibly last, chance to do so.

GENEVA, June 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization says it is working with experts to come up with a new name for monkeypox.

It comes after more than 30 scientists wrote last week about the “urgent need for a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatising” name for the virus and the disease it causes.

Continued reference to the virus as African is both inaccurate and discriminatory, they said.

Some 1,600 cases of the disease have been recorded globally in recent weeks.

GENEVA, June 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations on Monday begged world trade ministers meeting at the WTO not to impose export restrictions on food for humanitarian purposes, amid a food security crisis.

  The UN’s human rights chief Michelle Bachelet and its trade and development head Rebeca Grynspan said Russia’s war in Ukraine was increasing the risk of hunger and famine for tens of millions of people who are already food insecure or approaching food insecurity.

GENEVA, June 10. /TASS/: Switzerland has supported the European Union’s decision to adopt the sixth package of sanctions, including an embargo on crude oil, against Russia and Belarus, the government said in a statement on its website.

"On June 10, the Federal Council took the decision to adopt new EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus," said the statement. The government instructed the Federal Department of Economic Affairs "to adapt the Ordinance on measures in connection with the situation in Ukraine," according to the statement.

GENEVA, June 10 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Foreign direct investment is expected to fall this year, with the food, fuel and financial crises triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine dampening the business climate, the UN said.
 
  Global FDI recovered to pre-pandemic levels in 2021, reaching nearly $1.6 trillion, but this is unlikely to be sustained in 2022, said the United Nations’ trade and development agency UNCTAD.
 
  “The global environment for international investment changed dramatically with the onset of the war in Ukraine,” said UNCTAD chief Rebeca Grynspan.

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — As government officials, corporate leaders and other elites at the World Economic Forum grapple with how to confront climate change and its devastating effects, a central question is emerging: to what extent can oil and gas companies be part of a transition to lower-carbon fuels?

In different times the question could have been academic, but today it’s both practical and urgent, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced many countries that depended on Russian oil and gas to make swift changes to energy supplies.

GENEVA, May 23 (Xinhua) -- The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) reiterated here on Monday that the COVID-19 pandemic "is far from over."

"As I said yesterday, the pandemic is far from over. And even as we continue to fight it, we face the task of restoring essential health services, with 90 percent of member states reporting disruption to one or more essential health services," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Addressing the 75th World Health Assembly, Ghebreyesus said the COVID-19 pandemic had demonstrated why the world needed the WHO.