Switzerland

05 Jan 2019; DW: Shipping firm MSC is under criminal investigation after more than 270 cargo containers fell off one of its ships and washed ashore. Most of the containers, some holding hazardous material, have not been located.

Swiss shipping line MSC said on Saturday it will bear the "full costs" of cleaning up debris from a container spill that washed up on Dutch and German shores.

GENEVA, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- A UN expert on Monday expressed his deep concern about the death of a seven-year-old Guatemalan migrant girl while she was in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities.

Emphasizing that the U.S. should stop the detention of children, either unaccompanied or with their families, based on their migratory status, and seek alternatives to detention, Felipe González Morales, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, also called for a thorough investigation into how the girl died.

18 Dec 2018; AFP: Losses from natural and man-made disasters are estimated to total $155 billion (136 billion euros) this year, down sharply from a hurricane-plagued 2017, the reinsurance giant Swiss Re said Tuesday.

The trio of hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma last year pushed losses to $350 billion, but Swiss Re noted that a "number of smaller and mid-sized events, alongside some major man-made disasters" in 2018 were still cause for serious concern.

GENEVA (AP) — A U.N. agency says China has issued the most international patent applications for an eighth straight year, showing the country’s heft in intellectual property amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s accusation that the growing Asia power steals it.

The World Intellectual Property Organization said Monday that innovators around the world filed a record 3.17 million patents last year, an annual increase of nearly 6 percent.

25 Nov 2018; DW:Swiss voters have weighed in on a controversial set of measures including spying and cow horns, as well as a judicial independence issue close to the famously neutral country's heart.

Swiss voters headed to the polls Sunday on a set of referenda including a proposed constitutional amendment to preserve cow horns headed by a livestock farmer inspired by talking to his herd of cattle.

22 Nov 2018; AFP: The World Trade Organization agreed Wednesday to hear complaints from a range of countries over new US steel and aluminium tariffs, as well as complaints from Washington over retaliatory duties.

The WTO's Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) agreed to establish panels to review US President Donald Trump's decision to hit a long line of countries with tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminium.

GENEVA (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump wants to rip up the rulebook for global trade. China is by many accounts abusing it.

As a battle rages between the world’s top economic power and the fast-growing Asian giant striving to take its place, Canada and the European Union are quietly working to update the laws of international commerce, which have not been changed since the internet boom.

GENEVA (AP) — More than half of all workplace tasks will be carried out by machines by 2025, organizers of the Davos economic forum said in a report released Monday that highlights the speed with which the labor market will change in coming years.

GENEVA, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- China asks for the authorization from the World Trade Organization (WTO) to impose an annual trade sanction of 7 billion U.S. dollars on U.S. goods, as a result of the failure of the United States to comply with a WTO's ruling, according to documents published on Tuesday by the WTO.

GENEVA, September 10. /TASS/. High-ranking Russian diplomats have begun consultations with United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on the formation of a Syrian constitutional committee in Geneva. The Russian delegation includes Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin.