The News Journal

 Switzerland has been told to pay nearly €7,000 to a Christian convert from Islam because it failed to assess the risk to his life if he was sent back to Pakistan following an unsuccessful asylum claim. A European court ruled that the authorities would violate the rights to life and to avoid torture or degrading treatment if they sent the man — identified only as M.A.M — back to Pakistan after seven years in Switzerland. The man first claimed asylum in Switzerland in 2015 after claiming that a local family had tried to kill him following a land dispute in Pakistan. He moved between different refugee centres in the Alpine nation and was baptised the following year after attending different Christian places of worship, according to a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights. He was joined only by a pastor at his asylum hearing and did not have a lawyer throughout the asylum process, it said. His asylum request was turned down in 2018 and a series of appeals were thrown out before...

 Lombard Odier, Geneva's oldest private bank and one of Switzerland's biggest private lenders, aims to double its assets under management in the Middle East in the next five years as regional economies recover strongly from the pandemic on the back of higher oil prices and a rapid vaccination programme. The 226-year old bank, which had $383 billion in total assets globally at the end of 2021, up 13 per cent on the previous year, has been active in the wealth management business in the Middle East for more than 50 years, with offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. “The Middle East [has been] one of the fastest-growth businesses for Lombard Odier for the last 10 years,” Arnaud Leclercq, group managing director of Lombard Odier, told The National . “We want even more because we have reached a certain level of recognition and we believe we have the opportunity to double what we have today.” Arnaud Leclercq, group managing director of Lombard Odier. The bank with total assets of $393 billi...