Geneva

The largest purple-pink diamond ever to be auctioned has been sold in Geneva, Switzerland for 24,393,000 Swiss francs ($26,700,871).

Car lovers from around the world splashed out more than $27 million at an auction Sunday for dozens of luxury cars seized from the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president in a Swiss money-laundering probe. The 25 lots sold by auction house Bonhams included a white-and-cream 2014 Lamborghini Veneno roadster that cost the buyer 8.28 million Swiss francs ($8.4 million), comprising...

Syria’s top diplomat on Saturday demanded the immediate withdrawal of American and Turkish forces from the country and said his government reserves the right to defend its territory in any way necessary if they remain. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem’s remarks to the United Nations General Assembly were made as Turkey and the United States press ahead with a deal to...

Fridays for Future school strikes — a movement led largely by teenage girls — has eclipsed the quiet, solitary protests started by its founder, 16-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg, in August 2018. Now upward of 2 million supporters from The Hague to Kampala, Uganda, regularly skip class on Friday and take to the streets to protest government inaction on climate change....

From guitars to traditional medicines and from tusk to tail, mankind’s exploitation of the planet’s fauna and flora is putting some of them at risk of extinction. Representatives of some 180 nations are meeting in Geneva to agree on protections for vulnerable species, taking up issues including the trade in ivory and the demand for shark fin soup. The World...

A 12-year-old girl has been charged with spray-painting swastikas on the sides of a church and other buildings in New York’s Finger Lakes region

President Donald Trump pressed the World Trade Organization on Friday to stop letting China and other economies receive lenient treatment under global trade rules by calling themselves “developing” countries. In a memo, Trump directed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to “use all available means” to get the WTO to prevent countries from claiming developing country status if their economic strength...

Swiss residents and tourists alike are partying like they haven’t since 1999. The town of Vevey has kicked off the 12th “Fete des Vignerons,” or Winemakers Festival, the latest installment in a centuries-old tradition of celebrating vineyard workers — which nowadays takes place only once a generation. Festival organizers have pulled out the stops for the celebration in Vevey, a...

The auto industry is always rife with rumors, but one particular topic has kept the rumor mill working overtime for decades. And it’s finally come true. On Thursday, General Motors finally ended what has been one of the biggest mysteries in the auto industry, posting a link on its website and on social media announcing the “next generation Corvette reveal...

The deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo is now an international health emergency, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday after the virus spread this week to a city of 2 million people. A WHO expert committee had declined on three previous occasions to advise the United Nations health agency to make the declaration for this outbreak, which other experts say has...

The International Olympic Committee has formally opened its 145 million Swiss francs ($145 million) new headquarters exactly 125 years after the Olympic Games was revived. “On our 125th anniversary, we clearly see what a great visionary Pierre de Coubertin was,” IOC President Thomas Bach told guests Sunday at the inauguration. “By bringing the entire world together in peaceful competition, the...

Facebook already rules daily communication for more than 2 billion people around the world. Now it wants its own currency, too. The social network unveiled an ambitious plan Tuesday to create a new digital currency similar to Bitcoin for global use, one that could drive more e-commerce on its services and boost ads on its platforms. But the effort, which...

A record 71 million people have been displaced worldwide by war, persecution and other violence, the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday, an increase of more than 2 million from a year earlier — and an overall total that would amount to the world’s 20th most populous country. The annual “Global Trends” report released by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees...

The Congolese pastor who is thought to have caused the Ebola outbreak’s spread into Uganda was unknown to health officials before he died of the disease, the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief said Thursday. That underlines the problems in tracking the virus as a WHO expert panel on Friday discusses whether to declare a global health emergency. As a third...

Health workers battling Ebola in eastern Congo are facing “a climate of deepening community mistrust” nearly seven months after the outbreak began, Doctors Without Borders warned Thursday. The medical aid group has temporarily suspended its operations at two treatment centers located in the epidemic’s epicenter after both were set ablaze by unknown attackers. There have been some “30 different incidents...

Two months after declaring all U.S. troops are leaving Syria, President Donald Trump wrote to members of Congress that he now agrees “100%” with keeping a military presence in Syria, NBC News reported. A bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives wrote to Trump on Feb. 22, applauding his decision to keep a small residual force in Syria. In a copy...

The United Nations’ refugee agency said Friday there were nearly 1,500 civilian casualties in Yemen from August through October, the latest grim tally to emerge from a four-year civil war as opposing parties hold talks in Sweden. The announcement came as Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the internationally recognized government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, met for a second day...

A large, drop-shaped natural pearl pendant sold for more than $36 million Wednesday at a rare auction of jewelry that once belonged to French Queen Marie Antoinette, which Sotheby’s is calling a record price for a pearl at auction. The “Queen Marie Antoinette’s Pearl,” a diamond-and-pearl pendant, was among the highlight offerings on the block at the Sotheby’s sale of...

Christie’s sold the “Pink Legacy” diamond at auction Tuesday for more than $50 million including fees, saying it’s a new world record price per carat for a pink diamond. Christie’s said renowned jeweler Harry Winston was the buyer. The auction house had expected to fetch $30 million to $50 million for the nearly 19-carat, rectangular-cut stone, the largest fancy vivid...

Yemen’s Shiite rebels on Friday backed a U.N. call for a probe into a Saudi-led coalition airstrike in the country’s north that killed dozens of people the previous day, including many children, in an attack that drew wide international criticism. Senior Yemeni rebel leader Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said on Twitter that the rebels — known as Houthis — welcome the...