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Hello, this is Michelle with our last weekly digest before coming back in full force with our daily briefs on Monday. The new year hasn't even started, and political debate is already bubbling. A Swiss popular vote next month is set to prove decisive for the future of the country's centuries-old tradition of neutrality, and civil society groups don’t all see eye to eye.

UN elections are also heating up as the end of the year draws closer. We look at the race for the top job so far and what the latest straw poll tells us. At the UN health agency, the list of contenders is growing, with Indonesia’s health minister and a top WHO European official among the latest to throw their hats in the ring.

photo journaliste

Michelle Langrand

28.08.2026


On our radar this week


Photo article

A Security Council meeting at UN headquarters in New York, July 23 2026. (Keystone/Loey Felipe/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua)

Deep rifts and secrecy cloud race to pick next UN chief. The contest to find the next UN secretary general is well underway, with no clear favourite emerging yet. The impasse has laid bare rifts within the UN Security Council, stoked concerns of closed-door horse-trading and raised the prospect of more mystery candidates entering the fray in the months ahead.

Michelle Langrand

Civil society split over vote to tighten Swiss neutrality. A month before a vote on tightening Swiss neutrality, diplomats, humanitarians and academics are joining the campaign. Whether for or against the proposal, all agree that the outcome on 27 September will be pivotal.

Yan Pauchard (Le Temps)

Here's what else has happened


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