LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 47-year-old woman received light injuries when she hit a mule on the road from Brig to Raron in canton Valais late Monday 26 September, but the mule was killed outright.
The accident happened at 20:10 on a straight stretch of road after several mules strayed from their enclosure and wandered onto the main road.
The woman’s car was heavily damaged.
Murderer remains at large after Monday morning shooting
TPG tram in Geneva; maintenance manager shot and killed at work
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A 51-year-old Frenchman who was a maintenance department manager for the TPG public transport company was shot and killed at work Monday moring 22 August, at 10:00.
The murderer arrived on a motorcycle, wearing a helmet and kept the helmet on while he walked into the office area. He shot his victim, then left on his motorcycle.
Police have a number of clues but the killer remains at large. A number of co-workers who were present at the time of the shooting are being given counseling.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Vita, an animal rights protection group in Russia, is putting the spotlight on Katya, a longtime star of the Big St Petersburg State Circus who is now being poorly treated in her retirement, according to an AP report that is being widely picked up by US media. The 36-year-old bear, who was cheered as she rode a bicycle around a ring during the 1980 Moscow Olympics, has reportedly not left the cage in her old touring bus for the past two years, and she “spends the long hours jumping up and down in her cage and trying to crack the rusty metal railings with her chipped and yellowed teeth”
Bears used in Russian circuses regularly make the news, sometimes for mistreatment, sometimes when things go wrong as in the 2009 incident where a bear on ice skates killed a circus manager, or when nature takes over, as in December 2010 when four bears on a circus tour went into hibernation.
Trient glacier area accident, Valais: climbers hit by Copt Couloir rockfall
Update 19:50 SION, SWITZERLAND – A French climber died early Sunday 3 July when he and another climber, also French, were surprised by a rock fall. A 23-year-old Valais man died three hours later when he fell 400 metres to his death.
Two French climbers were roped together, climbing the Copt Couloir, heading towards the Tête de Biselx near the Trient glacier, at 06:15 when the rocks fell. One man caught a rock in the head, while the second climber was able to avoid the rocks.
After the rockfall, the rope slipped the length of the corridor and the second climber suffered ankle injuries.
The survivor was flown to a hospital for treatment.
Saas Fee accident: man had just removede rope
A 23-year-old Swiss man climbing near Saas Fee died at 09:25 Sunday morning when he was coming down from the north face of the Stecknadeljoch.
He had just finished rappeling and was unhooking himself in order to anchor himself to the wall when he suddenly fell 400 metres, to the Hohbalm glacier.
Spectacular car accident near St Luc-Vissoie in Valais
A 30-year-old Valais man was hospitalized in Sion after his car flipped over several times on a mountainside and landed 140 metres below the place where it left the road.
The accident happened Sunday morning 3 July at 07:50 on the St Luc to Vissoie road. The driver was thrown from him car as it rolled several times, after he missed a curve to the left.
Car rolled 140 metres down the mountainside, landing on the road; driver is in hospital in Sion
The car landed on the road below, 140m lower.
Police, accompanied by a search dog, checked the area after the accident to make sure there were no passengers in the car.
The driver’s alcohol level was above the legal limit, at 0.96. He was flown to the Sion hospital; police have not given his medical condition.
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LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – A 57-year-old Fribourg man who lived in Le Broye died during the night at the Chuv hospitals in Lausanne, following a road accident Thursday afternoon 30 June at 17:30 near Moudon. The man was on a scooter on the Bern road between Moudon and Lucens when a French trailer-truck passed him, heading in the direction of Lucens. The man lost his balance when the trailer was level with him and he fall against the trailer, which was to his left, then hit the ground.
He was critically injured in the fall. The truck, driven by a French woman, stopped immediately. The man was attended to by emergency teams then airlifted by Rega to the hospital in Lausanne.
SION, SWITZERLAND – A climber’s body was recovered by an Air Zermatt helicopter rescue team Wednesday morning 15 June from the Hohbalm glacier. Witnesses alerted authorities that the climber, whose identification is being checked by police, appeared to be descending the Nadelhorn alone qt 08:40 when he fell 200 metres to his death, onto the glacier.
The Nadelhorn is part of the Mischabels mountain system that lies between the Zermatt and Saas Fee valleys. It is one of Switzerland’s 4,000m-plus peaks, at 4,327 metres.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Six people reportedly died and 100 were injured over the weekend as Yemen’s government forces “stormed” a protest camp that is several weeks old, in the southern city of Taiz, reports Aljazeera, which lists areas of unrest throughout the country. “Forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the long-serving Yemeni president, have battled members of the powerful Hashed tribe in recent days. Saleh has refused to sign a deal, mediated by Gulf Arab states, to start a transition of power aimed at averting civil war in Yemen,” notes the news agency, which says that government forces set fire to some tents and fired into the crowd of protesters in Taiz’s city centre.
Chinese reports say that the former defense minister Abdullah Ali Aliwah read a statement on television Sunday evening 29 May confirming that military groups have defected to the protesters’ side. His statement accused President Ali Abdullah Saleh of ” disrupting the military institution and handing over a southern province to terrorist groups,” according to Xinhua.
Links to other sites: BBC’s updated Yemen country report, “Thank you and good-bye, Economist blog, Xinhua
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - One of the two Swiss women critically injured in the blast a week earlier in Marrakesh, Morocco, has died, Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey announced late Friday afternoon 7 May. She expressed her sadness and distress at the “brutal disappearance” of those killed by the “senseless and ugly act of violence”, the bomb that exploded at a cafe popular with tourists, in the town centre 28 April.
The two men who were with the Ticino woman and another female companion, were killed in the explosion. The other woman remains hospitalized.
Police in Marrakesh have arrested three suspects.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in canton Vaud are seeking witnesses to the events surrounding the death of a motorcyclist Sunday afternoon at 14:45 on the cantonal highway at Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne. The young man, in his 20s, was traveling with another young motorcyclist when a farm truck driver, a man in his early 30s, cut in front of the first biker as the truck driver turned into a small road where he was planning to load some animals. The driver told police he never saw the bike coming.
The motorcyclist, who could not avoid the truck, died at the scene of the accident. His companion, who had time to stop, was not hurt but is being treated for shock.
The pair were headed in the direction of Sullens and first bike driver had just come out of the roundabout at Pâquis and was accelerating when he passed a car, before the Boussens intersection.
Police would like to interview the driver of the car that was passed and are asking any witnesses to contact them at 021 644 4444 or to go to the nearest police station.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss Foreign Affairs Department Sunday confirmed to Swiss media that two men missing after an explosion at a cafe in Marrakesh, Morocco last Thursday were killed by the blast. Moroccan authorities were unable to identify the bodies until Sunday.
The two, ages 23 and 25, had been sitting at the cafe with two women friends, ages 25 and 27, who were brought back to Switzerland by Rega Saturday and immediately hospitalized. Both are in critical condition.
The four were all from canton Ticino, although the 23-year-old man was Portuguese and the other man was Swiss, as are the two women.
They were in Marrakesh as tourists.
The explosion, which is still under investigation, killed 16 people, 13 of whom were tourists. In addition to the two Swiss, the Moroccan interior ministry announced that the group includes eight French citizens, three Moroccans, a Canadian, a British citizen and a Dutch person.
Another two dozen people were injured.
Hundreds of Moroccans turned out for a peaceful protest in Marrakesh Sunday, with some demanding a more rapid transition to democracy, according to several media sources with reporters on the scene. Other Moroccans are concerned about the loss of tourism, an important source of income.
Australian media carrying the story of a kangaroo that was apparently castrated and cruelly damaged Sunday afternoon 10 April while it was alive, reported that there is a public outcry over the incident, but authorities said late Tuesday that the animal had not been intentionally injured.
Police and animal welfare specialists say the number of cases of cruelty to animals is on the rise, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, but possibly due to increased awareness rather than more cases. It initially appeared that the kangaroo, after being hit by a car, was castrated, possibly for souvenir parts.
“Kangaroo scrotums are sold in souvenir shops as pouches and bottle openers,” reported the SMH.
An autopsy done on the kangaroo, which was put down by Wildlife Victoria volunteers, showed that he had in fact lost body parts as he was dragged by the car after being hit, news service AFP reports.
An opponent of Pakistan’s harsh anti-blasphemy laws, which include the death penalty as punishment, has died at the hands of a gunman. The minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, was shot in his car and died soon afterwards. He was the only Christian in the cabinet and he was the second senior official in Pakistan who opposed the laws against insulting Islam to be killed recently: in January, Salman Taseer, the Punjabi provincial governor, was killed by a bodyguard.
Reaction from the US was strong, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing concern that it is part of a trend of religious intolerance in Asia and parts of the Middle East, noting that the minister, whom she recently met, was well aware of death threats against him.
The Times of India reports the minister received 20 bullets in his body after a blast of indiscriminate firing from his assailants, who left behind brochures warning others not to meddle with strict Islamic laws.
Links to other sites: The Globe and Mail, Canada, Times of India, Voice of America
Reuters video
Group in mourning over death of singer Steve Lee, tell press conference
Public commemoration at Gotthard pass 17 October
Steve Lee, Gotthard rock band singer, at home in Lugano, concert 17 July 2010 (photo Paul Nielsen)
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The rock group Gotthard and their deceased lead singer Steve Lee’s companion, Brigitte Voss-Balzerini, held a press conference in Zurich late Tuesday, shortly after their return from the US, where Lee was killed in a motorcycle accident 5 October (see GenevaLunch story). Drummer Hena Habegger told journalists that the future of the group is not the most urgent issue: they are trying to come to terms first with his death.
The group of 22, including Voss-Balzerini, a former Miss Swiss, had just began a cross-country motorcycle trip on 12 Harley Davidsons, when they pulled over to put on rain gear. A truck swerved into their parked bikes, one of which flew into the air before hitting Lee, killing him. The trip was to fulfill a long-cherished dream of Lee’s, to cross the US on a Harley-Davidson bike. He was 47.
A public commemoration for the singer, widely considered one of Switzerland’s best-ever rock musicians, will be held 17 October at the Gotthard Pass Hospice at 10:00. A eulogy will be given by two Capucine monks at about 13:00.
The group’s public statement on the accident and their singer’s death:
“On the afternoon of October 5th 2010 our group, consisting of 22 male and female bikers on 12 Harley Davidsons, was on its way from Las Vegas to St. George, Utah, in bright weather.
“About 15 miles from Mesquite, a severe thunderstorm began. One of the bikes started to have some technical problems with its ignition, so we stopped on the breakdown lane and switched on our warning lights. The last guy in the group was reminding us to be very careful with the traffic passing by, so we paid attention. At the same time it started to rain more heavily, so the group decided to put on rain gear.
13-year-old was returning from World Cup kickoff concert
Zenani Mandela, one of nine great-grandchildren of former South African President Nelson Mandela, was killed in a one-car accident as she returned from the kickoff concert for football’s World Cup. The girl was in a car with her grandmother, Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie. The former South African president is in frail health, and had not yet confirmed if he would participate in the opening ceremonies 11 June, before the accident. The family has asked to have their privacy respected. Zenani was the granddaughter of Zindzi Mandela, the former leader’s daughter with Winnie.
No one else was injured in the crash.
Sole survivor’s aunt and uncle arrive in Tripoli
The Dutch child who is the sole survivor of the privately-owned Afriqiyah Air crash in Tripoli 12 May, an eight-year-old named Ruben, has been joined there by his aunt and uncle. His parents and older brother were killed in the crash and while he does not have life-threatening injuries, he has had surgery for multiple fractures to the lower half of his body and he’s under sedation, reports CNN. Investigators have the flight data recorder and are studying it to determine the cause of the crash.
Meanwhile, Dutch authorities now say that the flight, from Johannisburg in South Africa to Tripoli, was carrying 70 and not 58 Dutch citizens, as earlier reported. The other nationalities on the flight: six South Africans, two Libyans, two Austrians, one German, one French person, one Zimbabwean and two British citizens but the nationalities of others have not yet been provided to media. Politicians in The Netherlands have suspended their campaigns for parliamentary elections in June, to mourn the crash victims.
Links to other sites: Aljazeera, Radio Netherlands
Lausanne train station
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A woman in her eighties was hit by a train as she walked across the tracks in the Lausanne train station around 11:00 Friday morning 9 April. A regional train entering the station was unable to stop in time to avoid hitting her. Despite prompt emergency medical treatment she died shortly after being hit.
The woman had crossed the tracks using a path reserved for CFF rail company carts. The police issued a reminder with the notice about the woman’s death: passengers are not allowed to cross the tracks at any time.
Traffic on one line was stopped for a little over two hours, but trains operated mainly on schedule.
A man walked up to two police officers guarding the Pentagon, US military headquarters in Washington, DC, and “without emotion”, according to the head of the Pentagon police, started shooting them. The officers, who have non-life-threatening graze injuries, returned fire and critically shot the man, John Patrick Bedell, who later died at a nearby hospital. Several shots were fired at 18:40 local time, at the busy subway entrance that leads to the large Pentagon complex. Bedell, 36, grew up in the area and had been a graduate student in physics at San Jose University in California, according to the Washington Post.
The newspaper notes that “The assault at the very threshold of the Pentagon – the U.S. capital’s ground zero on Sept. 11, 2001 – came four months after a deadly attack on the Army’s Fort Hood, Texas, base allegedly by a US Army psychiatrist with radical Islamic leanings. In the immediate aftermath Thursday, investigators did not think terrorism was involved but were not ruling that out and did not discuss possible motives.
Links to other sites: CNN, Washington Post
It appears that the 12,000 pound killer whale Tillikum at SeaWorld in Florida killed his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, 40, by pulling her into his tank and holding her underwater for an extended period. Chuck Tompkins, SeaWorld’s curator of zoological operations, told CNN‘s “American Morning” programme that she had a long ponytail and when she leaned over the whale to rub his nose at the end of a show, in front of the crowd, he grabbed her by the hair. The massive whale has been linked to two other deaths, one at his previous marine part in Victoria, Canada, in 1991 and the other at SeaWorld after a man apparently hid in the zoo after closing hours, then climbed into the tank.
Rupert Hamer, who worked for the Sunday Mirror in Britain, was killed in Afghanistan when the US patrol he was working with was hit by a bomb. The explosion also killed an American soldier and seriously injured the Mirror photographer working with Hamer. Two weeks earlier a Canadian journalist was killed while she was out on a patrol with troops.
Two former US officials have confirmed to National Public Radio that the seven CIA agents and one Jordanian agent killed in Afghanistan the last week of December 2009 were the victims of an Al-Qaeda double agent. NBC News had earlier identified him as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan, arrested by Jordanian intelligence a year ago and who was considered by his government and the US secret service to have been turned into their own agent. The identity of the killer is prompting numerous questions in the media about undercover operations and their effectiveness, just as a report published by the Washington think tank, Center for a New American Security, questions the work of the CIA in Afghanistan.
Links to other sites: Center for a New American Security report, BBC, NPR
Avalanche rescue operation Sunday, Diemtigtal, canton Bern, Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in canton Bern say that a fourth person rescued from an avalanche in the Bernese Oberland region has died, and three are now listed as missing. The accident took place Sunday morning 3 January in an area not generally considered to be a high risk zone. A first person went missing when a ski touring group was caught by the avalanche and shortly after rescuers arrived a second avalanche hit the area, burying several others, including one of the Rega helicopter service doctors, who died later in hospital.
TSR reports Monday morning that the three skiers suspected of setting off the 27 December avalanche that rolled over a groomed slope in Anzeres have been arrested. Valais police have not yet made an official announcement.
Background story, Bern avalanche, GenevaLunch
Background story, Anzeres avalanche, GenevaLunch
Update 23:25 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Four people were killed by avalanches Sunday 3 January, two near Diemtigtal, canton Bern and one in Bagnes, Valais. Seven others were injured, some of them critically, in Bern and one other person was hospitalized following the Valais avalanche. In a separate incident, Valais police have reportedly arrested three young snowboarders who appear to have set off an avalanche near Zermatt Thursday 30 December that caught a group of seven, including five children.
The deadly accident in Bern occurred in an area that is not considered particularly at risk, although the Swiss avalanche and snow research institute has had level 3 “considerable danger” warnings out for much of the Swiss Alps during the past week. One member of a group of ski tourers was caught by a first avalanche at about 11:30 Sunday, and emergency services were immediately called. While the rescue operation was underway a second avalanche occurred. A Rega helicopter service doctor and one other skier were found and taken to hospital, where they died. Another skier was dead when uncovered. Eight people were found alive, but some of them are in critical condition Sunday night, according to Bern police. Eight helicopters were used in the rescue operation, to carry rescue teams, doctors and avalanche search dogs to the area.
The search was called off at 18:00 due to weather and snow conditions. Police in Bern ask that anyone waiting for news of ski tourers in the area phone them at +41 31 634 3434.
The other avalanche Sunday occurred near the Tête de la Payanne, in the Val de Bagnes region near Verbier, in Valais, about 14:00.
An award-winning journalist from Calgary and four soldiers died in a blast in Afghanistan, in Canada’s third worst day in Afghanistan. Five others, including one Canadian civilian, were injured by the explosion on the edges of the city of Kandahar. “The attack came during a community security patrol to gather information on the pattern of life and maintain security in the area,” reports the CBC. Journalist Michelle Lang had been in Afghanistan only two weeks and was gathering material for a series of articles on the work of Canadian soldiers.
Links to other sites: CBC, Vancouver Sun
Saas-Fee, Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Another 150,000 m3 of glacier came crashing down near Saas-Fee Monday 21 September, six days after some 50,000 m3 of ice broke loose from the same glacier, the Feegletscher. The glacier is relatively close to hiking paths and two mountain restaurants, all of which were closed temporarily after last week’s slide. No one was injured by the latest slide, and the tourist areas were re-opened.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two military tribunals that have been investigating separate accidents which killed six soldiers on the Jungfrau in July 2007 and five soldiers in the Kander river in June 2008 have pressed charges. The cases against three men, one a commanding officer and the other two mountain guides who were hired to work with the army, go to court in Chur in November 2009. The men charged risk up to three years in prison, according to news agency ATS.
Car and truck bombs going off in several parts of Iraq since Friday have killed at least 75 people and injured scores more, as the country struggles to maintain security in the wake of US troops leaving urban areas to local police and Awakening Councils. Reports are still unclear about the magnitude of the lastest attacks, two car bombs in Baghdad and two truck bombs near Mosul Monday morning. Al Jazeera, BBC,
Summer travel crashes have taken the lives of several people:
- Eight people died, including four children, when a minivan headed the wrong way on the northbound lane of the Taconic State Highway near Pleasantville, New York in the US, just north of New York City, Sunday 26 July. CNN
- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is calling for stricter road controls after an oil tanker veered into traffic Friday 24 July bursting into flames as it crashed into a bus, leaving 21 people dead, in the latest in a string of deadly accidents that killed 29 people last week alone. Moscow Times
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.
Two powerful bombs exploded Friday morning 17 July in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta at luxury hotels, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 45, according to early reports. No group has claimed responsibility. The bombs tore the front off of the Ritz-Carlton and it appears police may have found a third bomb. Foreigners were among the dead and injured: Reuters reports that Tim Mackay, president of PT Holcim Indonesia, a New Zealand citizen was killed. Holcim is a Swiss multinational. The Manchester United team, who were scheduled to stay at the Ritz-Carlton this weekend, have canceled their trip. BBC, Sky News, Jakarta Post
A Caspian Airlines plane carrying 168 people crashed, killing all those aboard, about 15 minutes after takeoff, near the Iranian city of Qazvin, Iranian media report. The flight was headed towards neighbouring Armenai. The cause of the crash is not yet clear. The aircraft was a Tupolev Tu-154. Reuters
