GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Egyptian state television is reporting that at least 73 people have died, and numbers are being revised upwards late Wednesday 1 February, after two football teams’ fans clashed in Port Said. More than 150 people are reported to be injured. Fans of Masry and al-Ahly teams, both in the top group, poured onto the football field after a match between the two. Masry won 3-1, an upset that triggered the violence. The BBC reports that some fans appear to have carried knives into the stadium, with policy keeping a lower than usual profile after riots in 2011 that was often directed at police under former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Links to other sites: BBC, Reuters
Aljazeera video
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The death toll has been steadily mounting with at least 140 people known to have died in Kano, Nigeria, after the city was shaken by a series of bomb explosions Friday night 20 January. The bombs were planted in security areas such as police stations. Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group that operates mainly in the northern, Muslim-predominated part of the country has claimed responsibility for the attacks. The group killed 37 people and injured scores more in a Christmas Day attack on a church outside the capital, Abuja.
Nigeria has been under pressure from protests over oil prices in recent weeks: it produces nearly 3 percent of the world’s oil, with production in the southern part of the country, but the system is riddled with corruption and the country is dependent on subsidized imported fuel. The government’s efforts to reform the system were behind a 1 January end to the subsidies, but angry protests suddenly broke out when the result was a near doubling of the price of fuel. But Reuters, in a 31 December article, noted that “Its strikes are becoming deadlier and more sophisticated, and suggest that it is trying to ignite sectarian strife in a country historically prone to conflicts between a largely Muslim north and Christian south.”
Links to other sites: AllAfrica, Reuters, WSJ Market Watch
Aljazeera video
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Sunday 15 January announced an amnesty for protestors, state media are reporting, at least the second in the 10 months of civil unrest that has come perilously close to civil war. More than 3,000 prisoners have reportedly been freed by previous amnesties, while other amnesties appear to have resulted in little action and Assad has been criticized for using them to deflect attention from the protests.
The move comes as Assad’s isolation grows, with sharp criticism from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this weekend, calling on Assad to end the killings. The number of people who have died in the fighting is now estimated by the UN to be more than 5,000, and thousands of prisoners are presumed to be held, but there are no reliable numbers for this.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, CBC Canada, Guardian
Two die as high winds sweep the region
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Winds of up to 100mph in Scotland and other parts of Britain 3 January are causing considerable damage, with some areas suffering power cuts and transport disrupted, including the London-Edinburgh trains. A man died in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in southern England when a tree fell on his van and a sailor, one of three injured on a boat in the Channel, died after they were rescued.
Weather alerts remain in place, with strong winds expected throughout the night.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Malaria cases worldwide fell by 25 percent in the past decade and by 33 percent worldwide thanks to better prevention but threatened shortfalls in funding from governments could slow the fight against the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports. Its World malaria report 2011, published 13 December, shows malaria rates falling in all parts of the world, but the disease is far from eradicated.
“In 2010, there were an estimated 216 million cases of malaria in 106 endemic countries and territories in the world. An estimated 81 percent percent of these cases and 91 percent of deaths occurred in the WHO African Region. Globally, 86 percent of the victims were children under 5 years of age.”
The disease is entirely preventable and treatable, notes the WHO, which makes the number of deaths from it, 655,000 in 2010, “disconcertingly high” even though it was 38,000 fewer than the year before.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – At least 73 people have died in a hospital fire in south Kolcata (Calcutta), India, according to initial reports from India’s media, and 75 people were rescued. The fire at Amri Hospital broke out in the early hours of the morning Friday 9 December. The fire department says, according to the Times of India, that it will sue the hospital for not having adequate equipment or a rapid evacuation plan. The seven-storey building was thick with smoke hours after the fire started.
Links to other sites: Reuters, Times of India
GENEVA, SWITZERLEAND -Western leaders’ promises of help to the Afghan government when their troops leave, made Monday at an international conference in Germany, appeared to offer smaller hopes of peace following deadly attacks in Kabul and a city in the north Tuesday 6 December.
Close to 60 people died and 160 were injured when a suicide bomber attacked Shi’ite Muslims at a Kabul shrine crowded with religious observers.The blast was the worst in three years. Several of the wounded are reportedly in critical condition
The Irish Times reports that “a Pakistani militant group with close ties to al-Qaeda said it carried out the attack, although security sources could not confirm the group’s involvement.” Aljazeera says attention is focusing on Sunni groups based in Pakistan, but it is unclear as yet who is to blame.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Guardian (photo gallery), Irish Times, Reuters
GENEVALUNCH – The most comprehensive study ever of the source of cancers in Britain according to its authors shows that smoking, drinking, poor eating habits and excess weight trigger 43 percent of cancers in the country and are responsible for half of all cancer-related deaths.
The study is published today in the British Journal of Cancer and is receiving considerable media attention in the UK.
The biggest lifestyle changes men should make, the report suggests, is to eat more fruits and vegetables and to smoke less. Women should keep their weight down.
The authors, in their introduction to the special supplement to the regular journal say the results show “a limited number of important factors that can, at least to some extent, be affected by personal or political choices. The most important among these is continuation of the significant reduction in tobacco exposure. Next in importance are reductions in obesity and in heavy alcohol consumption, and certain other dietary changes. Each of these four main strategies for cancer control would also substantially reduce the burden of other non-communicable diseases, particularly cardiovascular, diabetic, renal and hepatic disease.”
The UK had 134,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed in 2010. Tobacco alone is responsible for about 20 percent of all cancers and 25 percent of cancer-related deaths.
“Over the past 40 years in the UK, the probability of death before the age of 70 years has been halved, and over the next few decades it could be halved again by continued improvements in the treatment of disease and by paying appropriate attention to the few major avoidable causes of disease.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A fire that Hong Kong officials say broke out at a hawker’s stall at the Ladies’ Market in the city’s Mong Kok district in Kowloon killed 9 people and left 30 injured, 4 of them critically. The market, in an area of narrow lanes and colourful buildings and vendors, is popular with tourists. The blaze caught a highrise residential building and filled the area with thick smoke.
The cause of the mid-afternoon fire is not yet known, but CNN reports that “last year, 50 stalls burned to the ground in the same street, injuring six people.” RTHK local radio cites firemen as saying it may have been caused by arson.
Links to other sites: Herald Sun/AFP, New Zealand, AP video (raw footage)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Pakistan’s foreign minister reportedly had harsh words for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a phone call early Sunday 27 November, in the wake of a Nato airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The soldiers were buried Sunday.
The deaths were the result of a “tragic unintended incident” Saturday, said Nato leader Fogh Rasmussen, but thousands of people protested in the streets of Karachi Sunday after the Pakistan government labeled the incident an “unprovoked assault”, according to Reuters.
The airstrike hit two border posts on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border and Pakistan has now closed Nato’s supply routes into Afghanistan, which Reuters says the alliance uses to send nearly half of its land shipments there.
Links to other sites: Associated Press of Pakistan, Dawn, Pakistan, Times of India, Washington Post
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – An uneasy peace lies over Cairo and other parts of Egypt after the Egyptian army Thursday offered a public apology for the deaths that occurred earlier this week when protesters took to the streets. A truce between the two groups appears to be holding. Army leaders made it clear shortly after offering the apology that they do not intend to relinquish power in the short term.
Strong reactions at home and abroad have put pressure on the army after 38 people died. Aljazeera reports that 3,000 have been wounded in the fighting.
Army leaders promised that they will let elections go ahead as scheduled Monday.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Guardian, New York Times
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Organizers of protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in Egypt are calling for a million people to come out on the streets Tuesday 22 November to force military rulers to hand over power no matter what the results of next week’s elections. At least 25 people have died in fighting in the past four days as the protests turned violent. The civilian cabinet of the military rulers resigned late Monday, adding to the confusion. The military have been ruling since overthrowing Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship early in 2011.
Links to other sites: Al Arabiya, Aljazeera, BBC
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Reports vary from four to seven dead in the earthquake that hit eastern Turkey Thursday morning 10 November, in the area badly damaged by an earthquake 23 October. The earlier quake was 7.3 on the Richter scale; this was one 5.7. Scores of people are missing, with officials estimating 100, after two dozen buildings fell. International news agency reports indicate that at least 15 people have been pulled out alive.
AP reports that some of those missing are journalists who were staying at the Bayram Hotel, “Van’s best-known hotel. It was at least 40 years old, and had been renovated last year.”
Grandes Jorasses, Mont Blanc
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The bodies of two climbers caught on the Mont Blanc for nearly a week were found by an Italian rescue team Wednesday morning 9 November. The last contact with the guide, 47, and his client, an experienced climber age 44, was last Friday, at which point the guide said they had managed to dig a hole in the snow. The cell phone batteries then went dead.
The pair were found at 4,050 metres altitude, reports AFP, east of the route for coming down the Grandes Jorasses, just under the Pointe Walker, the highest point of the Grandes Jorasses, 4,208m. They had been caught there since last Wednesday evening and weather conditions, including high winds, made it impossible to find them quickly.
The men were found without sleeping bags. The bags were located separately but were frozen too solidly to be opened immediately, according to initial reports.
The bodies, on Italian territory, were taken by Italian police helicopter to Courmayeur in Italy.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The number of deaths in Syria as a result of the crackdown on protests has reached 3,500, the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva says. Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a press briefing that 60 deaths have been recorded since the Syrian government reportedly said at the start of November
The OHCHR office headed by Navi Pillay has called on Syria a number of times to end the brutality and allow an independent commission to investigate the situation in the country.
Tuesday Shamdasani said
“Since Syria signed the peace plan sponsored by the League of Arab States last week, more than 60 people are reported to have been killed by military and security forces, including at least 19 on the Sunday that marked Eid al-Adha.
“While the Syrian government announced the release of 553 detainees on Saturday on the occasion of Eid, tens of thousands remain in detention and dozens continue to be arbitrarily arrested everyday. Syrian troops continue to use tanks and heavy weaponry to mount attacks on residential areas in the city of Homs. The situation in the neighbourhood of Baba Amr has been particularly appalling. According to information the UN human rights office has received, the neighbourhood has remained under siege for seven days, with residents deprived of food, water and medical supplies.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 27-vehicle pileup on the M5 motorway in Somerset, England, has killed an unknown number of people but initial reports list 5 dead, at least 43 injured. The accident occurred at 20:35 Friday 4 November at exit 25 northbound, near Taunton, with the crashes sparking a huge fireball. It appears that six trucks and at least 20 cars were involved in the huge crash.
Heavy rain earlier in the day Friday and patches of fog may have been involved in causing the accident, but police investigations have not yet clarified what caused the huge fireball.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Four miners have died and 50 are missing in a coal mine explosion in Sanmenxia in Henan province. Reports about how many miners managed to escape, but at least 14 men made it out and 7 have been pulled out, injured. It appears that a small earthquake had hit the area shortly before a rock exploded but it’s not clear if the two incidents are related.
The mine is owned by the state.
Safety in mines has been a huge issue in China in recent months and a number of illegal mines have been closed.
Links to other sites: BBC, Winnipeg Free Press (AP)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Work continues to find survivors and clear rubble five days after the area around the town of Ercis was struck 23 October by a 7.5 earthquake, but snow and freezing rain are hampering the effort and causing major problems for victims, many of whom are still reportedly without shelter. Survivors have been cheered, nevertheless, by extraordinary rescues: a 13-year-old boy was pulled out alive early Friday morning and an 18-year-old youth Thursday evening, reports Reuters. The government now officially reports 535 people have died. Aljazeera says that about 185 have been brought out of the rubble alive since Sunday. And a mother was reunited with her 18-day-old baby Thursday, reports the Telegraph, although the child’s father is yet to be found.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Deaths of civilians in Syria, at the hands of their government, and deaths of soldiers continue unabated, even as the Arab League pushes President Bashar al-Assad to start a dialogue with the opposition. Aljazeera reports tha 24 people died Monday 17 October in Homs alone, a centre of the popular protests, with at least 8 more people dying in clashes in other towns. At least 11 soldiers are reported to have died in bombing incidents and fighting.
The Economist notes that the death 7 Occtober of Mashaal Tammo, a Kurdish activist in Qamishli, has sparked anger among Kurds, who have until now stayed on the fringes of the protests.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking from Switzerland where he attended the opening of the Interparliamentary Union, the world’s parliaments, urged Bashar to allow a UN human rights team to enter the country and start an inquiry that was mandated in April. Syria has not allowed UN representatives to visit, nor are foreign journalists allowed to work in the country.
Links to other sites: CNN, Economist, Telegraph, UK
Matterhorn victims identified
Jungfraujoch
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The weekend of 15-16 October was a deadly one in the Swiss Alps, with three people dead and one in critical condition following three separate accidents at high altitude.
Speedflyer fails on takeoff from Jungfrau
A speedflyer died Saturday 15 October when his Jungfrau takeoff failed. The 25-year-old Swiss man, paragliding with skis, was with two friends whose flights went off without a hitch at 14:00, but for reasons that Bern police have not provided, he had trouble taking off. He ran into a wall of ice and fell to his death. The trio had left from the Jungfraujoch, a popular tourist destination, to climb to the top of the Jungfrau, at 4,158 metres.
The young man’s body was recovered from a crevasse by a Club Alpine Suisse search and rescue team working with Air Glaciers.
One climber has died and a second is in critical condition after they fell while ascending the north face of the Matterhorn Sunday.
Grand Combin claims 20-yr-old
A 20-year-old Valais man died early Sunday 16 October after he slipped while climbing the Grand Combin in canton Valais. He and a friend had just left the Valsorey hut in order to climb the Combin de Valsorey, 4,184 metres. He was wearing hiking boots equipped with crampons when he slipped and fell about 400 metres to his death.
Zermatt North Face: roped pair fall
One climber, age 43, was killed and his companion critically injured after the first man apparently slipped on the North Face of the Matterhorn, at 07:30 Sunday morning and the pair, who were roped, fell several hundred metres. The two, both Italian and from Brescia, were climbing up, taking the Schmid route, when the accident occurred at about 3,700 metres. The second climber, in his 20s, was flown by helicopter to the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne and is listed in critical condition Sunday evening.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The past week has been a deadly one for two-wheel drivers, with two people killed and one in critical condition after three separate accidents in western Switzerland. A 50-year-old diver also died in Veytaux, near the Chateau de Chillon, close to the spot where noted musician Daniel Cho died in July 2010, shortly before he was to play at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Diver’s body found in Veytaux
The diver, who went diving alone Saturday evening 1 October was reported missing at 05:30 Sunday when he failed to return home. Police and Lake Geneva Gendarme rescue teams began searching for him and found his car parked at the chateau. Four divers began to comb the area, diving to 40 metres, starting at 10:30. An underwater robot also searched, at depths of 50 to 80 metres. The man, Swiss and from the region, was found dead at about 50 metres, early in the afternoon. An investigation into the cause of death has been opened.
Accidents in Nyon, Orbe and Chalais
SION, SWITZERLAND – The bodies of two climbers, a woman from Fribourg and a Belgian man who lives in Switzerland, were found early Tuesday on the Weisshorn.
The pair went missing 16 September after leaving the Mountet hut at 04:30 to climb the peak. Rescue teams have been searching for them since their disappearance was announced Sunday 18 September.
Their bodies were spotted during a helicopter search, on the north face of the peak. The search had been temporarily stopped due to bad weather, including fog. They had fallen 100-150 metres, below the Moming peak, and the bodies were partly covered with snow.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Syrian troops have killed 2,600 people since President Bashar al-Assad began putting down unrest in the country, Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Monday in Geneva. Only one week earlier she said a fact-finding commission had put the number of killings at 2,200.
Syria will be on the agenda during the three week session of the Human Rights Council, which opened Monday morning 12 September in Geneva.
Reuters and Le Temps (Fre) report that the figure is about twice the number released early Monday by the Syrian government. “Bouthaina Shaaban, one of Assad’s advisors, earlier on Monday said about 1,400 people had died — half of them police officers and half opposition activists. Syria blames armed groups and “terrorists” for the violence and argues the security forces are defending public order,” writes Reuters.
Navi Pillay’s opening remarks 12 September at the 18th session of the Human Rights Council
Close to 160 die at sea
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND = A boat carrying more than 800 persons between the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba has sunk off the coast of Zanzibar, with nearly 190 people dead, 20 missing and more than 520 rescued, according to the government of Tanzania.
Zanzibar is an autonomous region of Tanzania and a popular tourist destination.
The boat was registered with about 600 people aboard, but dozens scrambled on in addition to those listed, and the boat’s ballast was well over its limit. It was carrying sugar, rice and wheat, twice its legal load of 60 tons.
It sank in the Indian Ocean after it was hit by high winds and waves.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Eleven people are dead and at least 76 injured following the explosion of a bomb in Delhi, India Wednesday 7 September. HuJI, a Bangladeshi terrorist group earlier “in an email demanded that Afzal Guru’s death sentence should be repealed immediately else the group would target major high courts and the Supreme Court”, reports the Times of India. The group, which reportedly has ties to al Qaeda, has now claimed responsibility for the attack, where a bomb was put inside a briefcase left at the reception of one part of the country’s high court.
Guru is a prisoner, condemned for an attack on parliament.
Several hundred people go through the reception area every day.
Links to other sites: Reuters, Times of India
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Two climbers who fell to their deaths 24 August near Zermatt have been identified, say canton Valais police: a 48-year-old woman and 52-year-old man, both Italian. They were climbing the dent d’Hérens and were at 4,050 metres, roped together, when they fell 400 metres.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Hurricanes and tropical storms in Asia and North America, torrential rains in Africa: heavy rains and flooding are causing heavy damage and deaths. Irene drifted from a hurricane to a tropical storm by the time it hit New York, and while damage was less than feared, the storm killed 16 people in six US states over the weekend. Staten Island firefighters rowed scores to safety when flooding reached five feet, nearly two metres.
Eastern Uganda has had torrential rains that have rotted crops and poisoned some of the maize aid supplies, with cholera and hepatitis outbreaks feared. A government official says that water purification tablets and mosquito nets are urgently needed to stem poor sanitation related diseases.
Southwestern Nigeria, around the city of Ibadan, has had heavy flooding, with at least 20 people dead after a dam broke.
Fifteen provinces in Thailand have been warned to expect heavy monsoon flooding, as the country hunkers down for continuing torrential rains, with high sea waves of two to three metres expected in the Andaman Sea.
Links to other sites: allAfrica, Bangkok Post, BNO news, NY Times
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Two climbers, whose bodies have not yet been identified, died while climbing the dent d’Hérens in canton Valais Wednesday 24 August, bringing to six the number of people who have died in mountain accidents in the Swiss Alps in the past week.
The pair were climbing the peak at 09:45, at 4,050 metres, say canton Valais police, when for unknown reasons they fell 400 metres to their deaths. The pair were roped together.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND = The Taliban say they did it but Nato’s ISAF (International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan) says it is looking into what caused the crash of the helicopter that went down 6 August in Afghanistan, killing 31 US troops and 7 other people on board. Many of the soldiers killed were from the US Navy’s Seal team 6, a special forces unit that was involved in killing Osama bin Laden. Fox News says it was told by a Pentagon official that none of those killed were actually involved in the bin Laden attack, however.
ISAF says “the incident represents the highest number of US forces killed during a single event in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.”
Links to other sites: Fox News, ISAF, Reuters
Football and skiing cause greatest number of sports injuries, Swiss safety statistics show
Source: BPU 2011 (click on image to view larger)
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – The greatest number of injuries to children around the home in Switzerland are due to falling from heights, while by age 26 falling on stairs becomes more of a problem.
By age 45 we become wiser about avoiding falls in general, until age 65 when we suddenly fall more often at level ground and once again from heights. But we remain far more careful about stairs in our old age.
The details of how and when we are likely to injure ourselves in accidents are part of the lastest Swiss safety statistics, published Wednesday 3 August by BPU, the Swiss Safety Council.
Accidents cost the country CHF55 million in 2008
The new figures, culled from 2008 statistics, underscore the often-ignored fact that accidents are a major and costly public health problem. Accidents caused more than 61,000 deaths in 2008, the most recent year for statistics and the one covered by the report.
Disease, by comparison, caused some 57,000 deaths.
The figures hold true for every age group: accidents at all ages take more lives than disease.
The total economic burden of all accidents in 2008 was CHF54.8 million, with home and leisure accidents accounting for more than half, CHF30 million. Road accidents cost more than the sports or home/leisure accidents when tangible costs alone are considered, but the longer-term cost of home and leisure accidents is more than double the figure for either road or sports accidents.
The statistics also show that for the three categories of road, sports and home/leisure accidents, the greatest number of people who are disabled or severely injured have had accidents at home, some 29,000. The figures for people disabled or severely injured by road accidents and sports are about the same: some 12,000 people in 2008 for each group.
The highest number of deaths, 1,538, was due to home accidents, followed by road accidents, 329, and sports accidents, 129.
Road accidents, however, carry the greatest risk of disability, severe injury or death, based on the rates in 2008. BPU registered 91,000 road accidents, 310,000 sports accidents and 600,000 home and leisure accidents.
