The Swiss president says Switzerland is among 15 countries with which the United States plans to conduct “privileged” negotiations to help reach a deal in the wake of sweeping U.S. tariffs on dozens of countries that have shaken global markets.

Switzerland says it will host a high-level international conference in June to help chart a path toward peace in Ukraine after more than two years of war, in hopes that Russia might join in the peace process one day.

Leaders of talks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s peace formula say a growing number of countries are working to help set the groundwork for Russia to join one day.

The world’s divided nations agree on one thing: There is a lack of trust in a world beset by conflicts and crises.

GENEVA – Switzerland’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that a Swiss woman who was held hostage in Mali has been killed by an Islamist group. The ministry said it was informed by French authorities that the hostage had been “killed by kidnappers of the Islamist terrorist organization Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam Muslimeen about a month ago.”The group, known as JNIM, is Mali’s branch of al-Qaida. Switzerland’s foreign minister condemned the killing of the hostage, Beatrice Stoeckli, whose release his country had quietly been trying to negotiate since she was kidnapped four years ago. “The information about the killing was obtained by the French authorities from the recently released French hostage,” the ministry said. The Swiss Foreign Ministry said it was trying to find out more about the circumstances of the killing and the whereabouts of her remains.