CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland, Jan 5 (Reuters) – Pressure was building for answers on Monday from the investigation into a New Year bar fire in a Swiss ski resort that killed 40 people, after authorities said they had now identified all the victims, most of whom were teenagers.
The Alpine getaway of Crans-Montana in the canton of Valais united in mourning on Sunday with condolences coming in from leaders ranging from Pope Leo to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Prosecutors said the fire that spread rapidly in the early hours of January 1 was likely caused by sparkling candles igniting the ceiling of the bar’s basement.
Authorities are investigating the two people who ran the bar on suspicion of crimes including homicide by negligence. On Sunday, police said circumstances did not currently merit them being put under arrest and they did not see a flight risk.
On Monday morning, Swiss newspaper Blick said anger over the case was growing.
“Why are the couple running the bar free?” the paper said on its front page, pasted over a photo of mourners and media gathered around the huge pile of flowers left in front of the “Le Constellation” bar.
The youngest victims of the blaze, which also injured well over 100 people, were only 14 years old, and the dead were from all around Europe, including several from France and Italy. Swiss authorities have not named the victims.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said in a social media post that “in civilized Switzerland, the prison gates will have to open for quite a few people”.
Salvini said there had been a failure to ensure the bar’s basement was safe, questioning the emergency systems and whether there had been enough inspections.
Aika Chappaz, a local resident who took part in a silent procession through the town on Sunday, said justice must be done for the sake of future generations.
“It’s crucial that such a tragedy never happens again. And the investigation must be thorough, because it’s so unbelievable,” she said.
Tages-Anzeiger, another leading Swiss newspaper, said questions must be answered about the age checks at the bar, the soundproofing material used in the basement and the standards governing use of the so-called fountain candles.
One of the bar’s two operators, Jacques Moretti, told Swiss media that Le Constellation had been checked three times in 10 years and that everything was done according to the rules.
Valais authorities say investigators were checking if the bar had undergone its annual building inspections, but that the town had not raised concerns or reported defects to the canton.
(Reporting by Dave Graham and Cecile Mantovani; Editing by Alex Richardson)
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland, Jan 4 (Reuters) – Hundreds of people silently filed through the frosty streets of the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana on Sunday to remember victims of a New Year bar fire that killed at least 40 people and injured more than a hundred others.
Following a packed church mass that spilled outdoors, the crowd slowly walked towards an impromptu shrine to the victims next to the “Le Constellation” bar that went up in flames in the early hours of January 1.
“It’s to be together with the people who are suffering, who have lost somebody in the family, children or friends,” said 76-year-old Charlotte Schumacher, a participant in the procession. “I know people who have lost their grandchildren.”
Teenagers as young as 14 or 15 years old were among the dead, and the severity of the burns suffered by the victims has made the process of identifying them difficult.
Attendees of the interconfessional church service hugged and shook hands as the prosperous Alpine town sought to pull together to process the trauma of one of the deadliest tragedies to strike modern Switzerland.
Prosecutors said the fire was likely caused by sparkling candles igniting the ceiling of its basement. Swiss authorities have put the two people who ran the bar under investigation on suspicion of crimes including homicide by negligence.
The injured and missing came from all corners of Europe and as far afield as Australia, underlining the international appeal of the picturesque resort with panoramic views of the Alps.
But most of the tally were Swiss. The toll might have been worse if emergency services had not acted so quickly, residents said.
“Within minutes you had ambulances; within minutes you had the police that did their job and they did it unbelievably well,” said Max Haus, a local business owner who witnessed the harrowing aftermath of the blaze.
As Sunday’s sombre procession reached its conclusion, applause began rippling from one end to the other as dozens of police and emergency services workers, some of them in tears, came up through the middle to be celebrated as heroes.
“It’s unimaginable what they did, what they have seen,” Bruno Huggler, the director of tourism for Crans-Montana, said of the rescue workers. “And now it’s very important to take care of them.”
(Reporting by Dave GrahamEditing by Christina Fincher)
By Sunday morning, Swiss authorities had identified 24 out of the 40 fatalities, 16 more than they had previously. The dead include 18 Swiss citizens aged 14 to 31 years, two Italians 16 years old, one dual citizen of Italy and the United Arab Emirates also 16 years old, an 18-year-old Romanian, a 39-year-old French and a Turkish citizen, 18.
In addition to the 40 who died, 119 were injured in the blaze that broke out around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday at Le Constellation bar. Police have said many of the victims were in their teens to mid-20s.
Gray-haired parents, teenagers and members of the police were seen comforting one another during the service, which took place at the Chapelle Saint-Christophe in Crans-Montana. Mass was followed by a silent march to the site of the tragedy.
People walk during a memorial procession in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, on Jan. 4, 2026, after a devastating fire in Le Constellation bar left many dead and injured during New Year’s celebrations.
Antonio Calanni / AP
In the crowded pews, a grieving woman listened intently, her hands clasped tightly and sometimes clasping rosary beads, as speakers delivered readings in German, French and Italian. Despite freezing weather, several hundred followed the Mass on the screen installed outside the church.
The Rev. Gilles Cavin spoke of the “terrible uncertainty” for families unsure if their loved ones are among the dead or still alive, among the injured. “We pray for their friends hard hit by misery on this day that was meant to be one of festivities and friendship,” he said.
One of the victims was 16-year old Arthur Brodard, whose mother had been frantically searching for him.
“Our Arthur has now left to party in paradise,” a visibly shaken Laetitia Brodard said in a Facebook story posted on Saturday night, speaking to camera. “We can start our mourning, knowing that he is in peace and in the light.”
Brodard’s frenzied search for her son reflected the desperation of families of the young people disappeared during the fire, who didn’t know whether their loved ones were dead or in the hospital.
People mourn on Jan. 4, 2026 at a makeshift memorial outside the “Le Constellation” bar after a deadly fire and explosion during a New Year’s Eve party in the upscale ski resort of Crans-Montana in southwestern Switzerland.
Umit Bektas / REUTERS
Swiss authorities said the process of identifying victims was particularly hard because of the advanced degree of the burns, requiring the use of DNA samples. Brodard also had given her DNA sample to help in the identification process.
In her Facebook post, Brodard thanked those who “testified their compassion, their love” and to those who shared information as she anxiously searched and waited for news of her son.
Other parents and siblings are still waiting in anguish.
The two are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, the Valais region’s chief prosecutor, Beatrice Pilloud, told reporters Saturday. The announcement of the investigation didn’t name the managers.
Authorities planned to look into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar. Officials said they also would look at other safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin announced a national day of mourning for the victims on Jan. 9.
France’s Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said 17 patients have received care in France, out of a total of 35 transferred from Switzerland to five European countries. Other patients were planned to be transferred to Germany, Italy and Belgium.
ZURICH, Jan 4 (Reuters) – The bodies of four more people who died in the fire that killed 40 people at a bar in Switzerland on New Year’s Eve have been identified, cantonal police said.
Two Swiss women aged 24 and 22 along with two Swiss men aged 21 and 18 have been identified and their bodies have been returned to their families, Valais police said. No further information was given.
The news takes the number of identified bodies following the blaze in the ski resort of Crans-Montana to eight, after the identification of four other bodies on Saturday.
Officials are still trying to identify many of those killed in the fire at the Le Constellation bar, which has become one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies.
Some 119 people suffered injuries, including severe burns, with many transferred to burn units in hospitals around Europe. Work on identifying the dead and the injured are continuing, the police said.
Two people who ran the bar are under criminal investigation on suspicion of offences including homicide by negligence, prosecutors said on Saturday.
(Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
Swiss authorities have opened a criminal investigation into the managers of the bar where a fire at a New Year’s Eve party left 40 people dead and more than 100 injured, authorities said Saturday.
The two are suspected of involuntary homicide, involuntary bodily harm and involuntarily causing a fire, the Valais region’s chief prosecutor, Beatrice Pilloud, told reporters. She said the investigation was opened on Friday night and that it would help “explore all the leads.” The announcement of the investigation did not name the managers.
Investigators said Friday that the deadly fire was caused by sparklers on Champagne bottles, which ignited the ceiling of the crowded bar around 1:30 a.m. Authorities planned to look into whether sound-dampening material on the ceiling conformed with regulations and whether the candles were permitted for use in the bar.
Officials said they also would look at other safety measures on the premises, including fire extinguishers and escape routes. Videos shared on social media showed people screaming as dozens raced to escape through narrow exits. Parisian tourist Axel Clavier, 16, told the Associated Press on Thursday that he forced a window open with a table. Another witness told the British newspaper The Daily Mail that bar patrons used chairs to break windows as the flames swirled.
“It was a real flame coming out. It was coming out and … in fact, people were running through these flames,” he said.
The Valais region’s top security official, Stéphane Ganzer, told SRF public radio Saturday that “such a huge accident with a fire in Switzerland means that something didn’t work — maybe the material, maybe the organization on the spot.” He added: “Something didn’t work and someone made a mistake, I am sure of that.”
A flower with a note is laid after a fire broke out overnight at Le Constellation bar on Jan. 1, 2026, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Harold Cunningham/Getty
Nicolas Féraud, who heads the Crans-Montana municipality, told RTS radio he was “convinced” checks on the bar hadn’t been lax, the broadcaster reported.
Asked whether the tragedy could have been avoided, Swiss Justice Minister Beat Jans replied that officials could not yet answer and “we know that the world needs an answer on this question.”
An “unbearable” wait for answers
The process of identifying the dead and injured continued on Saturday, leading to an agonizing wait for relatives. Many of the bar’s patrons were in their teens to mid-20s.
The severity of burns has made it difficult to identify the dead and injured, requiring families to supply authorities with DNA samples. In some cases, wallets and any identification documents inside were turned to ash.
On Saturday, regional police said the bodies of four victims — a boy and a girl, both 16, an 18-year-old man and a 21-year-old woman, all of them Swiss — had been identified and handed over to their families.
Several injured people still haven’t been identified.
Laetitia Brodard, whose 16-year-old son, Arthur, went to Le Constellation to celebrate the New Year, held out hope that he might be one of them.
“I’m looking everywhere. The body of my son is somewhere,” Brodard told reporters Friday evening. “I want to know where my child is and be by his side. Wherever that may be, be it in the intensive care unit or the morgue.”
Mourners gather to leave flowers and candles at the scene after a fire broke out overnight at Le Constellation bar on Jan. 1, 2026 in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Harold Cunningham / Getty Images
On Saturday, she told French broadcaster BFM TV that “we, parents, are starting to get tired … and anger is starting to rise.”
“It’s a wait that destroys people’s stability,” said Elvira Venturella, an Italian psychologist working with the families. “And the more time passes, the more difficult it becomes to accept the uncertainty, not having information.”
Swiss officials said Friday that 119 people were injured and 113 had been formally identified.
On Saturday, Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told reporters he had just been briefed by local authorities that the number of injured stood at 121, with five not yet identified. He said 14 Italians were being treated in hospitals. Swiss police have said the injured included more than 70 Swiss nationals and over 10 each from France and Italy, along with citizens of Serbia, Bosnia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Poland.
Cornado acknowledged “a lot of stress,” but said it was right for authorities to share information only when it is “accurate and 100% sure.”
Ganzer, visiting the site along with Jans, called the families’ wait “unbearable,” and said officials’ top priority was providing them the “legitimate answers they are waiting for.”
Mourners and well-wishers bearing flowers flowed to makeshift memorials outside Le Constellation, some consoling one another with hugs as they shed tears. “RIP you are all our children” one handwritten note said.
VIENNA, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Swiss prosecutors said on Saturday they have placed under criminal investigation the two managers of a bar where a blaze on New Year’s Day killed at least 40 people.
The offences they are suspected of having committed are homicide by negligence, causing bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence, the prosecutors’ office in the canton of Valais said in a statement.
(Reporting by Francois Murphy; editing by Jason Neely)
Investigators said that the deadly fire that tore through a popular bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana early on New Year’s Day was caused by sparklers on Champagne bottles, which ignited the bar’s ceiling. Ramy Inocencio reports.
Crans-Montana, Switzerland — Investigators said Friday that the deadly fire that tore through a popular bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana early on New Year’s Day was caused by sparklers placed in Champagne bottles, which ignited the bar’s ceiling.
Police have said about 40 people were killed and dozens were badly injured. Most of the victims were just teenagers celebrating the holiday, and the intensity of the deadly fire has left authorities with grim work to identify badly burned remains, which they say may take days, as desperate families are left to wait for word of their missing loved ones.
Swiss authorities said Friday that 113 out of the 119 people injured had been identified.
Prosecutor-General Beatrice Pilloud said authorities have interviewed two bar managers to help them understand the internal configuration of the venue and its capacity. She said the investigation was still ongoing.
Video has emerged that shows the moment a man tried but failed to snuff the first flames in the basement of the Le Constellation bar with a white cloth. The fire swept upward, to the upper level of the building.
In videos posted on social media, people can be heard screaming as dozens raced to try and escape through narrow exits. Many suffered horrific burns and smoke inhalation, and dozens remained hospitalized on Friday across the country, as well as in neighboring France, Italy and Germany.
Some 36 hours after the disaster, which authorities say appears to have been accidental, at least two dozen people were still missing.
A flower with a note is laid after a fire broke out overnight at Le Constellation bar on Jan. 1, 2026, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Harold Cunningham/Getty
The facade of the bar was hidden on Friday behind a white barricade.
One survivor said bar staff had inadvertently sparked the inferno.
“One woman climbed onto another woman’s shoulders with two bottles and birthday sparklers were going off,” said 16-year-old French visitor Axel Cavalier. “She waved them too high, they hit the ceiling and it caught fire.”
Lucas Rebot, 24, told CBS News he and his girlfriend tried to get into Le Constellation at 1 a.m., about 30 minutes before the fire started, but were told the venue was full and were turned away. He said he had been at the bar a few days earlier and noticed at the time that the ceiling was covered in foam insulation, “like a music studio.”
CBS News’ partner network BBC News and France’s BFM TV published photos Friday that they said showed the moment the sound insulation on the ceiling was set alight just above people holding sparklers, as described by the witnesses.
Other witnesses have relayed similar information, though authorities have said only that there’s been no indication of an attack or explosion, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Beatrice Pilloud, the attorney general for Switzerland’s Valais Canton, said Thursday, adding later that it was unclear how many people had been in the bar at the time of the fire, but that its maximum capacity would be one of the factors looked at as part of the investigation.
“For the time being, we don’t have any suspects,” she said when asked if anyone had been arrested. “An investigation has been opened, not against anyone, but to better understand the circumstances of this dramatic fire.”
Forensic police and other officials are seen at the site of a New Year’s Day fire that broke out at Le Constellation bar, Jan. 1, 2026, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Harold Cunningham/Getty
Forensic experts, meanwhile, have begun using dental and DNA records to identify the dead.
Clavier said one of his friends had died in the fire and two or three more were among those still listed as missing.
“The first objective is to assign names to all the bodies,” Crans-Montana’s mayor Nicolas Feraud said Thursday, adding that it could take days.
Mathias Reynard, who heads the regional Valais government, said it was essential to carry out the work “because the information is so terrible and sensitive that nothing can be told to the families unless we are 100 percent sure.”
One of the first victims identified was a promising young Italian golfer Emanuele Galeppini, who was mourned by the Italian Golf Federation in a statement issued Thursday as “a young athlete who embodied passion and authentic values.”
Crans-Montana is a popular destination for skiing, but is also an international golf resort in the warmer months.
Italian outlet SportMedia said Galeppini, originally from Genoa, was 16 years old. It said his father was in Crans-Montana and had spent much of Thursday searching for information about his missing son.
ROME, Jan 1 (Reuters) – Swiss police believe around 40 people died and 100 were injured in a fire during a New Year’s Eve party in the resort town of Crans-Montana, the Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
It added that the blaze was not thought to have been caused by arson. The victims could not be immediately identified because of the severity of their burns, the ministry added.
(Reporting by Crispian BalmerEditing by Gareth Jones)
Crans-Montana, Switzerland — A fire at a bar in the Swiss Alps left many people dead and injured during New Year’s celebrations, police said early Thursday. Multiple people were killed in the blaze and many others were injured in the Alpine ski resort municipality of Crans-Montana, Switzerland, police said.
“The fire started around 1:30 a.m. this morning in a bar called ‘Le Constellation,’” police spokesperson Gaëtan Lathion said. “More than a hundred people were in the building, and we are seeing many injured and many dead.”
Investigators were working to determine the cause of the fire, police said.
A photo provided by the Valais Canton Police force in Switzerland shows members of the force outside a bar called The Constellation, in the Crans-Montana Swiss Alps ski resort, where a fire killed multiple people celebrating the beginning of the new year, early on Jan. 1, 2026.
Police Valais/Handout
“We’re just at the beginning of our investigation, but this is an internationally renowned ski resort with lots of tourists,” Lathion said.
The regional Valais Cantonal Police earlier released a statement saying there was a major response to the disaster by “police, fire and rescue forces” who focused on rescuing as many people as possible.
“The intervention is still ongoing. The area is completely forbidden to access. A ban on flying over Crans-Montana has been issued,” the police said, adding that a reception center and helpline had been established for impacted families.
The Crans-Montana community is in the heart of the Swiss Alps, just 25 miles north of the Matterhorn.
ZURICH, Jan 1 (Reuters) – Several people were killed and others injured after a fire broke out in a bar in the ski resort of Crans-Montana in southwestern Switzerland, Swiss police said on Thursday.
The fire broke out at 1.30 a.m. (0030 GMT) in a bar called “Le Constellation”, police said in a statement. Swiss media said the blaze was sparked by an explosion.
The area has been completely closed off, and a no-fly zone has been imposed over Crans-Montana, police said, adding that the cause of the fire remained unclear.
More than 100 people were in the bar at the time of the explosion, Swiss media outlet Blick reported, citing police.
(Reporting by Shivani Tanna in BengaluruEditing by Neil Fullick and Gareth Jones)
LONDON, Dec 30 (Reuters) – The humanitarian situation in Gaza has worsened again and is of serious concern, Britain, Canada, France and others said in a joint statement on Tuesday that also called on Israel to take urgent action.
The statement, published online by the British Foreign Office, said Israel should allow non-governmental organisations to work in Israel in a sustained and predictable way, and ensure the U.N. could continue its work in the Palestinian enclave.
“(We) express serious concerns about the renewed deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza which remains catastrophic,” read the statement from the foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
It also said Israel should lift what it called “unreasonable restrictions” on certain imports including medical and shelter equipment, and open border crossings to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in October after two years of intense Israeli bombardment and military operations in Gaza that followed a deadly attack by Hamas-led fighters on Israeli communities in October 2023.
A global hunger monitor said on December 19 that there was no longer famine in Gaza after access for humanitarian and commercial food deliveries improved following the ceasefire.
But humanitarian agencies say far more aid needs to get into the small, crowded territory and that Israel is blocking needed items from entering. Israel says more than enough food gets in and that the problems are with distribution within Gaza.
(Reporting by William James; editing by Andrew Heavens and Mark Heinrich)
Yodelling, the traditional singing of herders in the Swiss Alps, was recognised by the United Nations on Thursday as part of the world’s cultural heritage.
Yodelling was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, at a meeting in New Delhi.
“As the emblematic song of Switzerland, yodelling encompasses a wide variety of artistic expressions and is deeply rooted in the population,” the Swiss culture ministry said.
Yodelling is also sung in Austria and Germany, but while Switzerland joined forces with France to have the mechanical watchmaking tradition of the Jura mountains recognised by UNESCO in 2020, it pursued this nomination independently.
In Switzerland, yodelling is passed on in families, clubs, music schools or simply between singers.
More than 12,000 yodellers are members of one of the 711 groups of the country’s Federal Yodelling Association.
“As a characteristic vocal technique, yodelling alternates between chest and head voice and uses meaningless syllables that are often associated with local dialects,” the culture ministry explained.
Natural yodelling consists of melodies without lyrics, while the yodelling song combines verses and refrains and often touches on nature and everyday experiences, it added.
“Whether soloist, in small groups or in choirs — sometimes accompanied by instruments such as the accordion — the yodel is characterised by its rich sound and its presence at concerts, festivals and competitions, which are often associated with the wearing of regional costumes.”
Ron Curtis, an English professor in Montreal, lived for 40 years with a degenerative spinal disease, in what he called the “black hole” of chronic pain.
On a July day in 2022, Mr. Curtis, 64, ate a last bowl of vegetable soup made by his wife, Lori, and, with the help of a palliative care doctor, died in his bedroom overlooking a lake.
Aron Wade, a successful 54-year-old stage and television actor in Belgium, decided he could no longer tolerate life with the depression that haunted him for three decades.
Last year, after a panel of medical experts found he had “unbearable mental suffering,” a doctor came to his home and gave him medicine to stop his heart, with his partner and two best friends at his side.
Argemiro Ariza was in his early 80s when he began to lose function in his limbs, no longer able to care for his wife, who had dementia, in their home in Bogotá.
Doctors diagnosed A.L.S., and he told his daughter Olga that he wanted to die while he still had dignity. His children threw him a party with a mariachi band and lifted him from his wheelchair to dance. A few days later, he admitted himself to a hospital, and a doctor administered a drug that ended his life.
Until recently, each of these deaths would have been considered a murder. But a monumental change is underway around the world. From liberal European countries to conservative Latin American ones, a new way of thinking about death is starting to take hold.
Stephanie Nolen is exploring access, attitudes and approaches to medically assisted death around the world.
Over the past five years, the practice of allowing a physician to help severely ill patients end their lives with medication has been legalized in nine countries on three continents. Courts or legislatures, or both, are considering legalization in a half-dozen more, including South Korea and South Africa, as well as eight of the 31 American states where it remains prohibited.
It is a last frontier in the expansion of individual autonomy. More people are seeking to define the terms of their deaths in the same way they have other aspects of their lives, such as marriage and childbearing. This is true even in Latin America, where conservative institutions such as the Roman Catholic church are still powerful.
“We believe in the priority of our control over our bodies, and as a heterogeneous culture, we believe in choices: If your choice does not affect me, go ahead,” said Dr. Julieta Moreno Molina, a bioethicist who has advised Colombia’s Ministry of Health on its assisted dying regulations.
Yet, as assisted death gains more acceptance, there are major unresolved questions about who should be eligible. While most countries begin with assisted death for terminal illness, which has the most public support, this is often followed quickly by a push for wider access. With that push comes often bitter public debate.
Should someone with intractable depression be allowed an assisted death?
European countries and Colombia all permit people with irremediable suffering from conditions such as depression or schizophrenia to seek an assisted death. But in Canada, the issue has become contentious. Assisted death for people who do not have a reasonably foreseeable natural death was legalized in 2021, but the government has repeatedly excluded people with mental illness. Two of them are challenging the exclusion in court on the grounds that it violates their constitutional rights.
In public debate, supporters of the right to assisted death for these patients say that people who have lived with severe depression for years, and have tried a variety of therapies and medications, should be allowed to decide when they are no longer willing to keep pursuing treatments. Opponents, concerned that mental illness can involve a pathological wish to die, say it can be difficult to predict the potential effectiveness of treatments. And, they argue, people who struggle to get help from an overburdened public health service may simply give up and choose to die, though their conditions might have been improved.
Should a child with an incurable condition be able to choose assisted death?
The ability to consent is a core consideration in requesting assisted death. Only a handful of countries are willing to extend that right to minors. Even in the places that do, there are just a few assisted deaths for children each year, almost always children with cancer.
In Colombia and the Netherlands, children over 12 can request assisted death on their own. Parents can provide consent for children 11 and younger.
Denise de Ruijter took comfort in her Barbie dolls when she struggled to connect with people. She was diagnosed with autism and had episodes of depression and psychosis. As a teenager in a Dutch town, she craved the life her schoolmates had — nights out, boyfriends — but couldn’t manage it.
She attempted suicide several times before applying for an assisted death at 18. Evaluators required her to try three years of additional therapies before agreeing her suffering was unbearable. She died in 2021, with her family and Barbies nearby.
The issue is under renewed scrutiny in the Netherlands, where, over the past decade, a growing number of adolescents have applied for assisted death for relief from irremediable psychiatric suffering from conditions such as eating disorders and anxiety.
Most such applications by teens are either withdrawn by the patient, or rejected by assessors, but public concern over a few high-profile cases of teens who received assisted deaths prompted the country’s regulator to consider a moratorium on approvals for children applying on the basis of psychiatric suffering.
Should someone with dementia be allowed assisted death?
Many people dread the idea of losing their cognitive abilities and their autonomy, and hope to have an assisted death when they reach that point. But this is a more complex situation to regulate than for a person who can still make a clear request.
How can a person who is losing their mental capacity consent to dying? Most governments, and doctors, are too uncomfortable to permit it, even though the idea tends to be popular in countries with aging populations.
In Colombia, Spain, Ecuador and the Canadian province of Quebec, people who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or other kinds of cognitive decline can request assessment for an assisted death before they lose mental capacity, sign an advance request — and then have a physician end their life after they have lost the ability to consent themselves.
But that raises a separate, challenging, question: After people lose the capacity to request an assisted death, who should decide it’s time?
Their spouses? Their children? Their doctors? The government? Colombia entrusts families with this role. The Netherlands leaves it up to doctors — but many refuse to do it, unwilling to administer lethal drugs to a patient who can’t clearly articulate a rational wish to die.
Jan Grijpma was always clear with his daughter, Maria: When his mind went, he didn’t want to live any more. Maria worked with his longtime family doctor, in Amsterdam, to identify the point when Mr. Grijpma, 90 and living in a nursing home, was losing his ability to consent himself.
When it seemed close, in 2023, they booked the day, and he updated his day planner: Thursday, visit the vicar; Friday, bicycle with physiotherapy and get a haircut; Sunday, pancakes with Maria; Monday, euthanasia.
All of these questions are becoming part of the discussion as the right to control and plan one’s own death is pushed in front of reluctant legislatures and uneasy medical professionals.
Dr. Madeline Li, a Toronto psychiatrist, was given the task of developing the assisted-dying practice in one of Canada’s largest hospitals when the procedure was first decriminalized in 2015. She began with assessing patients for eligibility and then moved to providing medical assistance in dying, or MAID, as it is called in Canada. For some patients with terminal cancer, it felt like the best form of care she could offer, she said.
But then Canada’s eligibility criteria expanded, and Dr. Li found herself confronting a different kind of patient.
“To provide assisted dying to somebody dying of a condition who is not happy with how they’re going to die, I’m willing to assist them, and hasten that death,” she said. “I struggle more with people who aren’t dying and want MAID — I think then you’re assisting suicide. If you’re not dying — if I didn’t give you MAID, you wouldn’t otherwise die — then you’re a person who’s not unhappy with how you’re going to die. You’re unhappy with how you’re living.”
Who has broken the taboo?
For decades, Switzerland was the only country to permit assisted death; assisted suicide was legalized there in 1942. It took a further half century for a few more countries to loosen their laws. Now decriminalization of some form of assisted death has occurred across Europe.
But there has recently been a wave of legalization in Latin America, where Colombia was long an outlier, having allowed legal assisted dying since 2015.
Paola Roldán Espinosa had a thriving career in business in Ecuador, and a toddler, when she was diagnosed with A.L.S. in 2023. Her health soon deteriorated to the point that she needed a ventilator.
She wanted to die on her terms — and took the case to the country’s highest court. In February 2024, the court responded to her petition by decriminalizing assisted dying. Ms. Roldán, then 42, had the death she sought, with her family around her, a month later.
Ecuador has decriminalized assisted dying through constitutional court cases, and Peru’s Supreme Court has permitted individual exceptions to the law which prohibits the procedure, opening the door to expansion. Cuba’s national assembly legalized assisted dying in 2023, although no regulations on how the procedure will work are yet in place. In October, Uruguay’s parliament passed a long-debated law allowing assisted death for the terminally ill.
The first country in Asia to take steps toward legalization is South Korea, where a bill to decriminalize assisted death has been proposed at the National Assembly several times but has not come to a vote. At the same time, the Constitutional Court, which for years refused to hear cases on the subject, has agreed to adjudicate a petition from a disabled man with severe and chronic pain who seeks an assisted death.
Access in the United States remains limited: 11 jurisdictions (10 states plus the District of Columbia) allow assisted suicide or physician-assisted death, for patients who have a terminal diagnosis, and in some cases, only for patients who are already in hospice care. It will become legal in Delaware on Jan. 1, 2026.
In Slovenia, in 2024, 55 percent of the population who voted in a national referendum were in favor of legalizing assisted death, and parliament duly passed a law in July. But pushback from right-wing politicians then forced a new referendum, and in late November, 54 percent of those who voted rejected the legalization.
And in the United Kingdom, a bill to legalize assisted death for people with terminal illness has made its way slowly through parliament. It has faced fierce opposition from a coalition of more than 60 groups for people with disabilities, who argue they may face subtle coercion to end their lives rather than drain their families or the state of resources for their care.
Why now?
In many countries, decriminalization of assisted dying has followed the expansion of rights for personal choice in other areas, such as the removal of restrictions on same-sex marriage, abortion and sometimes drug use.
“I would expect it to be on the agenda in every liberal democracy,” said Wayne Sumner, a medical ethicist at the University of Toronto who studies the evolution of norms and regulations around assisted dying. “They’ll come to it at their own speed, but it follows with these other policies.”
The change is also being driven by a convergence of political, demographic and cultural trends.
As populations age, and access to health care improves, more people are living longer. Older populations mean more chronic disease, and more people living with compromised health. And they are thinking about death, and what they will — and won’t — be willing to tolerate in the last years of their lives.
At the same time, there is diminishing tolerance for suffering that is perceived as unnecessary.
“Until very recently, we were a society where few people lived past 60 — and now suddenly we live much longer,” said Lina Paola Lara Negrette, a psychologist who until October was the director of the Dying With Dignity Foundation in Colombia. “Now people here need to think about the system, and the services that are available, and what they will want.”
Changes in family structures and communities, particularly in rapidly urbanizing middle-income countries, mean that traditional networks of care are less strong, which shifts how people can imagine living in older age or with chronic illness, she added.
“When you had many siblings and a lot of generations under one roof, the question of care was a family thing,” she said. “That has changed. And it shapes how we think about living, and dying.”
How does assisted dying work?
Beyond the ethical dilemmas, actually carrying out legalized assisted deaths involves countless choices for countries. Spain requires a waiting period of at least 15 days between a patient’s assessments (but the average wait in practice is 75 days). In most other places, the prescribed wait is less than two weeks for patients with terminal conditions, but often longer in practice, said Katrine Del Villar, a professor of constitutional law at the Queensland University of Technology who tracks trends in assisted dying
Most countries allow patients to choose between administering the drugs themselves or having a health care provider do it. When both options are available, the overwhelming majority of people choose to have a health care provider end their life with an injection that stops their heart.
In many countries only a doctor can administer the drugs, but Canada and New Zealand permit nurse practitioners to provide medically assisted deaths too.
One Australian state prohibits medical professionals from raising the topic of assisted death. A patient must ask about it first.
Who determines eligibility is another issue. In the Netherlands, two physicians assess a patient; in Colombia, it’s a panel consisting of a medical specialist, a psychologist and a lawyer. The draft legislation in Britain would require both a panel and two independent physicians.
Switzerland and the states of Oregon and Vermont are the only jurisdictions in the world that explicitly allow people who are not residents access to assisted deaths.
Most countries permit medical professionals to conscientiously object to providing assisted deaths and allow faith-based medical institutions to refuse to participate. In Canada, individual professionals have the right to refuse, but a court challenge is underway seeking to end the ability of hospitals that are controlled by faith-based organizations and that operate with public funds to refuse to allow assisted deaths on their premises.
“Even when assisted dying has been legal and available somewhere for a long time, there can be a gap between what is legal and what is acceptable — what most physicians and patients and families feel comfortable with,” said Dr. Sisco van Veen, an ethicist and psychiatrist at Amsterdam Medical University. “And this isn’t static. It evolves over time.”
Jin Yu Young in Seoul, José Bautista in Madrid, José María León Cabrera in Quito, Veerle Schyns in Amsterdam and Koba Ryckewaert in Brussels contributed reporting.
GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. human rights office voiced concern on Friday that the Myanmar junta was pressuring people into voting in an election next month and that electronic voting machines and AI surveillance could help authorities to identify opponents.
International officials have already raised concerns about Myanmar’s phased election from December 28 into January, calling it a sham exercise aimed at legitimising the military’s rule after it overthrew a civilian democratic government in 2021.
The electronic voting machines did not allow people to leave their ballot blank or spoil it, meaning they have to pick a candidate, said James Rodehaver, head of the Myanmar team for Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
“There’s a real worry that this electronic surveillance technology is going to be used to monitor how people are voting,” he told a Geneva press conference, saying that authorities could track if people are voting, and who for.
The military authorities in Myanmar intend “to enable all eligible voters to exercise their franchise freely and fairly in the upcoming general election”, state media reported on Friday. Reuters was unable to reach a junta spokesperson for further comment.
Rodehaver said his team is verifying reports that locals are being forced to attend military training sessions on how to use the electronic voting machines in contested areas.
“After such training, some participants were warned by armed groups not to vote,” he said, saying civilians were caught between the two sides.
OHCHR has also received reports of displaced people being ordered by the military to return to their villages to vote, Rodehaver said.
Authorities have arrested three young people who hung up posters depicting a ballot box with a bullet, he added. Myanmar previously said it has pardoned thousands in order to allow them to vote.
The country has been in turmoil since the coup overthrew the civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in detention ever since. Nationwide protests afterwards grew into an armed resistance.
The Trump administration announced that it will end temporary legal status for Myanmar citizens in the United States, claiming they can now safely return, citing the junta’s planned elections as a sign of improvement. OHCHR is urging the United States to reconsider, it said.
Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun previously said that the U.S. announcement was a positive sign and citizens abroad were welcome to return to take part in the vote.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
ZURICH (Reuters) -Switzerland will vote on a proposed wealth tax on Sunday that will be a litmus test of appetite for wealth redistribution in one of the world’s richest countries.
The proposal from the youth wing of the leftist Social Democrats, or JUSOs, is for a 50% tax to be levied on inherited fortunes of 50 million Swiss francs ($62 million) or more to fund projects to reduce the impact of climate change.
Around 2,500 taxpayers in Switzerland have assets worth more than 50 million francs, according to Swiss tax authorities, with a total wealth of about 500 billion francs.
With as many as two-thirds of respondents against the proposed tax in recent polls, the measure is widely expected to fail, turning attention to the level of support.
“I hope it doesn’t pass,” UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti said during a business event in Zurich last weekend. “But how it’s rejected, what the outcome is, that’s important. Because … it does give an indication of where Switzerland is heading.”
Switzerland is the world’s largest wealth management hub, but could lose that crown as early as this year, according to a forecast from Boston Consulting Group.
The country is home to some of the most expensive cities on the planet and anxiety about the cost of living has been gaining currency in local politics.
In 2024, Switzerland voted to introduce an additional month’s pension payments for the elderly as living-cost concerns trumped warnings about its affordability.
If enacted, the wealth tax initiative would theoretically boost the tax take by 4 billion francs.
JUSO leader Mirjam Hostetmann argues the very wealthy are damaging the climate most with their luxury consumption, and that the 10 richest families in Switzerland together cause as many emissions as the vast majority of the Swiss population.
Critics of the initiative say it could trigger an exodus of wealthy people from Switzerland, reducing overall tax revenues. The Swiss government has urged voters to reject it.
“The initiative would greatly reduce Switzerland’s attractiveness for wealthy individuals,” Swiss Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said last month.
($1 = 0.8055 Swiss francs)
(Reporting by Ariane Luthi and Dave Graham; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi on Monday and Tuesday, a sign that talks to end the war in Ukraine have hit a new phase involving direct negotiations with the Russians.
Driscoll, fresh off peace talks in Kyiv and Geneva with Ukrainian officials, landed in Abu Dhabi on Monday to meet with the Russians, according to U.S. officials. After holding initial meetings, he planned to conduct more substantive engagements with the delegation on Tuesday, the officials said.
President Trump criticized Ukrainian and European officials on Sunday, as they launched a diplomatic offensive aimed at reshaping a 28-point peace plan that has been criticized as too favorable to Russia.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump called the war a “loser” for everyone and said Ukrainian leaders had expressed “zero” gratitude for U.S. efforts. He said Europeans continue to buy oil from Russia.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Below is the text of a European counter-proposal to the United States’ draft 28-point Ukraine peace plan, seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The counter-proposal, drafted by Europe’s E3 powers of Britain, France and Germany, takes the U.S. plan as its basis but then goes through it point by point with suggested changes and deletions.
1. Ukraine’s sovereignty to be reconfirmed.
2. There will be a total and complete non-aggression agreement reached between Russia and Ukraine and NATO. All ambiguities from the last 30 years will be resolved.
(Point 3 of U.S. plan is deleted. A draft of that plan seen by Reuters said: “There will be the expectation that Russia will not invade its neighbours and NATO will not expand further.”)
4. After a peace agreement is signed, a dialogue between Russia and NATO will convene to address all security concerns and create a de-escalatory environment to ensure global security and increase the opportunity for connectivity and future economic opportunity.
5. Ukraine will receive robust Security Guarantees
6. Size of Ukraine military to be capped at 800,000 in peacetime.
7. Ukraine joining NATO depends on consensus of NATO members, which does not exist.
8. NATO agrees not to permanently station troops under its command in Ukraine in peacetime.
9. NATO fighter jets will be stationed in Poland
10. US guarantee that mirrors Article 5
a. US to receive compensation for the guarantee
b. If Ukraine invades Russia, it forfeits the guarantee
c. If Russia invades Ukraine, in addition to a robust coordinated military response, all global sanctions will be restored and any kind of recognition for the new territory and all other benefits from this agreement will be withdrawn.
11. Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will get short-term preferred market access to Europe while this is being evaluated
12. Robust Global Redevelopment Package for Ukraine including but not limited to:
a. Creation of Ukraine Development fund to invest in high growth industries including technology, data centres and Al efforts
b. The United States will partner with Ukraine to jointly restore, grow, modernize and operate Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, which includes its pipeline and storage facilities
c. A joint effort to redevelop areas impacted by the war to restore, redevelop and modernize cities and residential areas
d. Infrastructure development
e. Mineral and natural resource extraction
f. A special financing package will be developed by the World Bank to provide financing to accelerate these efforts.
13. Russia to be progressively re-integrated into the global economy
a. Sanction relief will be discussed and agreed upon in phases and on a case-by-case basis.
b. The United States will enter into a long-term Economic Cooperation Agreement to pursue mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, AI, datacenters, rare earths, joint projects in the Arctic, as well as various other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities.
c. Russia to be invited back into the G8
14. Ukraine will be fully reconstructed and compensated financially, including through Russian sovereign assets that will remain frozen until Russia compensates damage to Ukraine.
15. A joint Security taskforce will be established with the participation of US, Ukraine, Russia and the Europeans to promote and enforce all of the provisions of this agreement
16. Russia will legislatively enshrine a non-aggression policy towards Europe and Ukraine
17. The United States and Russia agree to extend nuclear non-proliferation and control treaties, including Fair Start
18. Ukraine agrees to remain a non-nuclear state under the NPT
19. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant will be restarted under supervision of the IAEA, and the produced power shall be shared equitably in a 50-50 split between Russia and Ukraine.
20. Ukraine will adopt EU rules on religious tolerance and the protection of linguistic minorities.
Ukraine commits not to recover its occupied sovereign territory through military means. Negotiations on territorial swaps will start from the Line of Contact.
22. Once future territorial arrangements have been agreed, both the Russian Federation and Ukraine undertake not to change these arrangements by force. Any security guarantees will not apply if there is a breach of this obligation
23. Russia shall not obstruct Ukraine’s use of the Dnieper River for purposes of commercial activities, and agreements will be reached for grain shipments to move freely through the Black Sea
24. A humanitarian committee will be established to resolve open issues:
a. All remaining prisoners and bodies will be exchanged on the principle of All for All
b. All civilian detainees and hostages will be returned, including children
c. There will be a family reunification program
d. Provisions will be made to address the suffering of victims from the conflict
25. Ukraine will hold elections as soon as possible after the signing of the peace agreement.
26. Provision will be made to address the suffering of victims of the conflict.
27. This agreement will be legally binding. Its implementation will be monitored and guaranteed by a Board of Peace, chaired by President Donald J. Trump. There will be
28. Upon all sides agreeing to this memorandum, a ceasefire will be immediately effective upon both parties withdrawing to the agreed upon points for the implementation of the agreement to begin. Ceasefire modalities, including monitoring, will be agreed by both parties under US supervision.
