LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud Police are asking for help in finding the driver of a dark blue car that hit a 10-year-old girl in Epalinges Wednesday 9 November at noon.
The girl was walking along the chemin des Tuileries at 12:00 when she stepped into the crosswalk at Petit-Vennes. She was 1.5 metres into the striped crosswalk when the car struck her, knocking her down. The car was heading on chemin des Croisettes in the direction of the chemin des Ormeaux. The driver failed to stop after the accident.
The girl, who was hit in the right arm, took refuge on the sidewalk. Her parents took her to the hospital early in the afternoon and only later contacted police. The child is suffering from a broken wrist, broken tooth, and bruising to her right knee and face.
Pollice are asking anyone with information to call them at +41 21 644 4444 or to contact the nearest police station.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 17-year-old was mugged in Geneva in mid-July, reportedly sustaining fractures and bruises. In most major cities, the news would have barely made the inside pages of the local paper. But the victim was the child of a US diplomat to the United Nations, and Geneva is a small city, widely considered to be relatively safe, so the news has struck a nerve and caught the attention of media far beyond Switzerland, particularly in the US.
The United Nations in Geneva sent out a warning to staff about going out alone at night, later tamed down. The Swiss president, Micheline Calmy-Rey, a Genevan who has put time and energy into promoting the city’s international centre reputation, had firm words for Geneva authorities about her concerns over “the deterioration of the security situation” in the city, and with 2011 a federal election year in Switzerland, the story has made headlines.
The Associated Press has run a feature that is being picked up by several US news media. The US news agency says “reports of the attack have spooked Geneva’s large foreign and diplomatic community, prompting water cooler tales of muggings, break-ins and assaults.” It cites a 2009 survey: “Last year, Geneva authorities published a survey showing more than two-thirds of foreigners felt security in the city had worsened. The survey, which questioned 1,082 people working for international organizations, diplomatic missions and multinational companies, found one in ten had been victims of burglary or street crime in the past three years.”
The survey (French, pdf) also notes, however, that “the expatriates were almost unanimous in saying they felt the level of safety in Geneva was well above that in their home country or their last country of residence.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Police in late May seized a pitbull after it bit a policeman in the hand. A five-year-old boy was out walking the dog, which is on the canton’s dangerous dogs list. Dogs on the list can only be out with an adult. The boy had left without his parents being aware, city authorities told 20 Minutes (Fr).
Ed. note: GenevaLunch, like most businesses in Switzerland, is taking a four-day weekend. Our news today is brief headline stories.
This is the end of the ride for a small driver in Switzerland - Photo St-Gallen Police
Kaltbrunn, canton St Gallen, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A precocious four-year-old is making headlines in Switzerland for taking his car for a spin on his birthday. His dad’s two-ton car, that is.
According to authorities, the child, who was celebrating his birthday 17 January, took the keys to his father’s Ford, hopped into the car, somehow managed to engage the gears, drove 200 metres—passing a school along the way—and climbed the sidewalk before hitting a tree head-on.
The child was rescued by passing neighbours who took him home to a surprised father.
Police say that with his height of just over one metre it was impossible for the little driver to see through the windshield. The small driver was probably too busy shifting gears and pushing on the gas pedal to worry about driving without seeing.
Fortunately, no one was injured during the small boy’s escapade.
Local authorities have not said if this little Schumacher wannabe or his parents will face any fines.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – An eight-year-old boy died New Year’s Eve, Vaud police announced Monday, from injuries he sustained when his sled crashed into a barn that afternoon in Gryon, near Villars. The child lost control of his plastic sled on a steep (15 percent gradient) snowy road that had been closed to traffic, and he went into the barn at full speed. He was in an area called La Poreyre, heading towards the Alpe des Chaux road.
It was the
View Larger Map“>second sledding fatality in Switzerland in three days. A 21-year-old woman died earlier in the week in Grindelwald, canton Bern.
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Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Investigators have been hearing the case of a 71-year-old man, arrested in Geneva at the end of August, the Tribune de Geneve reports, when he was caught with a 13-year-old Roma boy.
The pair were nabbed coming out of the public toilets at the Cornavin train station in Geneva after a security guard heard unusual noises.
The man reportedly paid CHF50 for the youth’s time, and the mother was taken in on suspicion of encouraging prostitution.
The boy has since run away from home.
A two year-old Indonesian toddler hooked on ciggarrettes has reportedly kicked the habit.
The child became known worldwide when his mother, who said she was powerless to deny him his habit, sought help for her baby.
The AFP reports that the secretary-general of the Indonesian national commission for child protection said the child “received psychosocial therapy for one month, during which therapists kept him busy with activities and encouraged him to play with kids of the same age.”
“We diverted his addiction from cigarettes to playing,” the Secretary added.
Video of the child in early May
Smoking Baby Hooked on Cigarettes – Watch more Funny Videos
Four successive archbishops of Dublin, over a period of 30 years, “routinely” covered up child sexual abuse by priests in their diocese, an Irish government report published Thursday 26 November shows. Dermot Ahern, the Irish justice minister responsible for the “Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin”, said it documented “a scandal on an astonishing scale.” The Irish state is also blamed for not ensuring that all were treated equally under the law and “allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes.” Police are accused of actively colluding with Church officials and priests on a regular basis to cover up crimes from 1974-2004, the period covered by the study. This is the third major Irish investigative report in 10 years into abuse by Church clergy.
Links to other sites: Boston Globe, Guardian, UK, Irish Times and Irish Department of Justice statement
Update 16 September Yverdon, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The mother of a young child who fell out of a window and died while she was out partying has been given a six month suspended sentence for negligent homicide. The state prosecutor had asked for a 10-month prison sentence plus two years suspended sentence in the trial of a 24-year-old woman who left her three-year-old daughter alone while she went out for most of the night with friends. The child died in December 2006 after falling out of a six-storey kitchen window. She had managed to pull a chair up to the window, which had been left open, and climb out, then fell to her death.
Schaffhausen, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A four-year-old boy was bitten by a one-year-old Rotweiler dog while his family picnicked near a main road in an industrial zone in Schaffhausen, north of Zurich, Sunday, around 17:00. The boy is in serious condition with head injuries but his life is not in danger.
Geneva and Ollon, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two dramatic accidents in the Lake Geneva region within two hours have killed a 10-year-old boy and critically injured several others. The first, in the center of Geneva on Boulvard Georges Favon in Plainpalais around noon Wednesday 22 July saw a motorcycle slam into a police car with its sirens going and lights flashing. The biker is in critical condition and the two police officers, whose car ended up against a lamppost, had to be cut out of their car. (photo, 20 Minutes)
In Ollon, a 10-year-old boy was killed when the car driven by his father was hit broadside by a heavy vehicle around 14:00. Police were nearby, answering another, minor accident call.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 16-month-old girl from Bern was hit by a car Sunday and died after being taken to hospital, Geneva police say. Her grandfather was watching the child at the time of the accident, which happened on a private drive off the Route de Thonon. The 43-year-old driver of the car, from Geneva, had stopped to talk to the grandfather and didn’t see the child in front of the car as she began to drive off.
Former US boxer Mike Tyson’s four-year-old daughter Exodus died in a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona a day after an accident where she became entangled in a cord on a treadmill which strangled her. She was found by her seven-year-old brother and rushed to hospital in critical condition. NPR
Yvorne, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A nine-year-old died at the scene of an accident Saturday afternoon on the A9 autoroute next to the rest stop near Yvorne. The driver of a van was heading towards Lausanne and moved from the left lane into the right when she was startled by a motorcycle coming back onto the autoroute from the emergency lane, according to Vaud police.
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Roger Federer and longtime companion Mirka Vavrinec were married in a small, intimate ceremony in Basel Saturday 11 April, the Swiss tennis star announced on his web site. The two met in 2000 and have been a steady couple since, but they caught even local media by surprise. The Federers are expecting their first child this summer. Federer’s guestbook on his web sites had dozens of messages from wellwishers by midday Sunday.
The four-year-old grandson of Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangerai, drowned in a swimming pool at the family home in Harare Sunday. The child, Sean Tsvangerai, was the son of Garikai, the political leader’s second son, who lives in Canada and who has been in Zimbabwe since his mother’s death less than a month ago: Susan Tsvangerai died in a highway accident when a truck ran into the car she was traveling in with her husband. Morgan Tsvangerai had only recently returned to work after his wife’s death. He was at what the BBC describes as a bonding sessions between the two political groups that make up the unity government when he was called away by this latest family death. All Africa carries a report from the government-published Herald newspaper that President Robert Mugabe addressed the unity government retreat Saturday then flew back to Harare.
Geneva, Switzerland (Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – A number 19 bus hit a child crossing the road early Monday afternoon, sending him several metres. He was treated by the cardiomobile, reports the Tribune, and taken to the university hospitals (HUG). An hour after the accident the bus was still blocking the road.
