No image available
/ 23 January 2006
About 20 000 people have fled violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to seek refuge in the border to Uganda over a four-day period, the United Nations refugee agency said on Sunday. Most of the refugees said they had fled to escape violence, while about 5 000 said they left the DRC because they feared attack.
No image available
/ 20 January 2006
At first sight, it could be a job ad for a company, a charity or even an army playing up its peacekeeping role: "Looking for something different? Enjoy contact with people from all over the world?" But there’s a giveaway: "Will you commit body and soul for the security of the pope?"
No image available
/ 13 January 2006
Swiss Professor Henri Rieben, one of the original architects of what is now the European Union who was once described by former EU chief Jacques Delors as the ”guardian of the European flame”, has died, his former assistant said on Friday. He was 84. Rieben died on January 11 of cancer in his hometown just north of Lausanne.
Swiss-based South African explorer Mike Horn is set to attempt another Arctic first when he tries to reach the North Pole at night. Horn announced on Tuesday that he plans to start the 1Â 000km hike from Russia’s Cape Artichesky on about January 15, together with Norwegian friend Borge Ousland.
A United Nations body on Tuesday slapped a freeze on exports of caviar from wild sturgeon, saying the move was essential to protect the endangered fish that produces the gourmet eggs. It is now up to exporting nations to come forward with new proposals if they want to restart the money-spinning commerce.
No image available
/ 30 December 2005
The head of the United Nations refugee agency said he was ”deeply shocked” that Egyptian riot police forcibly broke up a three-month protest outside UN offices in Cairo in which 10 Sudanese refugees were killed on Friday. ”I am deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic events early today in Cairo,” High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in Geneva.
No image available
/ 23 December 2005
The United Nations food aid agency said on Friday that it will be forced to halve rations for refugees in Zambia within days because of a funding shortfall. The World Food Programme (WFP) said it urgently needs ,5-million to feed about 82 000 Angolans and Congolese in the African country.
No image available
/ 20 December 2005
Former Swedish international referee Anders Frisk received the Fifa president’s award from Sepp Blatter here on Monday in what the soccer supremo termed was a message of support for referees. Frisk retired from the game after receiving several death threats following the Champions League quarterfinal first leg match between Barcelona and Chelsea last season.
No image available
/ 13 December 2005
The Democratic Republic of Congo should benefit from an unprecedented -billion in relief aid next year in an attempt to shore up the outcome of elections in the country, the United Nations’s top aid official said on Monday. ”We aren’t taking this quantum leap in any other country,” said UN aid chief Jan Egeland.
No image available
/ 1 December 2005
United Nations human rights chief Louise Arbour warned on Thursday that Nepal faced the threat of a full-scale armed conflict, and called on authorities to join a ceasefire with Maoist rebels and allow free assembly. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights joined calls for Maoist rebels to extend a unilateral ceasefire which is due to end this week.
No image available
/ 22 November 2005
Europe’s illegal timber imports could speed up the disappearance of some forests within a decade, as well as increasing poverty in producer countries, the conservation organisation WWF warned on Tuesday. In a report, the WWF focused on trade between EU countries and timber regions in the Amazon Basin, the Congo Basin, East Africa, Indonesia and the Russian Federation.
No image available
/ 21 November 2005
The makers of Europe’s toilet paper and other household paper good are contributing to deforestation by failing to offer consumers enough recycled products, conservationists said on Monday. The vast majority of their products contain ”alarmingly low levels” of recycled fibres, said the WWF.
No image available
/ 17 November 2005
Turkey could be banned from the 2010 World Cup after Fifa launched an investigation into the violence that followed their play-off with Switzerland in Istanbul on Wednesday. Switzerland lost a dramatic second leg 4-2 in Istanbul on Wednesday but advanced to the 2006 finals in Germany thanks to the away goals rule, having won the first game in Bern 2-0.
No image available
/ 14 November 2005
Graham Payn, a South African-born singer and actor who was a post-war fixture in London’s West End, has died, agents for the estate of Payn’s long-time companion, Noël Coward, said on Monday. He was 87. Payn, a product of the white-tie-and-tails school of song and dance, made his breakthrough in Coward’s 1945 Sigh No More.
No image available
/ 12 November 2005
David Beckham is confident that Wayne Rooney will not allow his combustible temperament to ruin his chances of starring at next summer’s World Cup. Beckham even echoed head coach Sven-Goran Eriksson’s line that to calm Rooney’s temper is to diminish him as a player.
No image available
/ 9 November 2005
Fighting bird flu in poultry across the world and preparing for a human influenza pandemic will cost up to -billion over the next three years, the World Bank said on Wednesday. That cost does not include the stockpiling of antiviral drugs and human flu vaccines, Fadia Saadah, of the World Bank, told a global meeting on how to contain the disease.
No image available
/ 1 November 2005
Authorities will lift blocking orders on four bank accounts and return -million to Angola for use in humanitarian projects, the Swiss Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. The money was frozen in connection with a Swiss investigation of French businessman Pierre Falcone, who was suspected of helping Angolan officials embezzle part of the African country’s debt repayment to the Russian Federation.
No image available
/ 26 October 2005
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday urged donors to show the same kind of generosity towards earthquake-hit Pakistan as they did in the wake of last year’s Indian Ocean tsunami. Annan addressed a gathering of UN and other aid agencies, donor governments and Pakistani officials in Geneva.
No image available
/ 21 October 2005
Top seed Lindsay Davenport had to save two match points against enterprising Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova before advancing to the quarterfinals of the Zurich Open on Thursday. France’s second seed Amelie Mauresmo meanwhile was bundled out by qualifier Katarina Srebotnik.
No image available
/ 18 October 2005
This year’s seasonal ozone hole over Antarctica was the third largest on record, but forecasters are uncertain how it will behave in the future, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Tuesday. The hole peaked last month at almost 27-million square kilometres, and then began shrinking as usual, the WMO said in a statement.
No image available
/ 18 October 2005
The Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche said on Tuesday that it was now ready to allow other companies or governments to produce Tamiflu, a drug considered a first line of defence against a potential flu pandemic. It also announced that it would go ahead with a new facility to produce the drug in the United States.
No image available
/ 13 October 2005
About 220 Malians migrants marooned in Morocco after failing to reach Europe will be flown home on Thursday at their own request, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Thursday. The repatriation of the group of Malians, in and around the Moroccan city of Oujda, will be strictly voluntary, Jemini Pandya, a spokesperson for the Geneva-based IOM, said.
No image available
/ 10 October 2005
The top United States trade official laid out a new proposal on Monday on agricultural tariffs and subsidies, saying the European Union and Japan must
now promise to do more to improve their own offers. With two months remaining before a deadline for a framework global trade treaty, ministers from World Trade Organisation members were once more confronting the thorny issue of United States and EU farm subsidies.
No image available
/ 27 September 2005
A current cholera epidemic spreading across West Africa is more serious than other recent outbreaks because of the fast spread of the disease in Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Mauritania, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday. ”Is it worse than in previous years? Yes, because of the big outbreaks it is worse,” said WHO’s cholera chief Claire-Lise Chaignat.
No image available
/ 26 September 2005
Between 400 and 500 people were killed in violence around elections in Togo in April, a United Nations report said on Monday, placing much of the blame on the West African state’s authorities. A culture of ethnically-tinged repression and military strength built up over four decades of iron-fisted rule by late president Gnassingbe Eyadema lay at the heart of violence, said a UN fact-finding mission.
No image available
/ 21 September 2005
Manchester United forward Wayne Rooney will miss the next two Champions League matches after being sent off at Villarreal last week. Uefa said on Tuesday that the 19-year-old England international will be absent when United hosts Benfica on September 27 and at Old Trafford against Lille on October 18.
No image available
/ 20 September 2005
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday it is sending 100 000 malaria treatments to Niger, concerned that malnutrition in the sub-Saharan country could worsen the child death rate from the disease. ”Even under ordinary conditions in Niger, 50% of all deaths among children are from malaria,” the WHO said.
No image available
/ 20 September 2005
Two European airlines will allow passengers late next year to use their own cellphones on commercial flights within western Europe, a Geneva-based technology firm said on Tuesday. TAP Air Portugal and British carrier bmi both have agreed to introduce OnAir’s voice and text service for cellphones in separate three-month trial runs.
No image available
/ 2 September 2005
Defending champion Luke Donald and Sergio Garcia opened with five-under 66s, putting them one stroke off the lead on Thursday in the first round of the European Masters. Peter Hedblom of Sweden also had a 66. Garry Houston of Wales and Jarmo Sandelin of Sweden and David Carter of England opened with 65s to lead the tournament.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) said on Monday it will investigate reports of positive drug tests at the 1999 Tour de France, but stopped short of naming seven-time winner Lance Armstrong. The allegations surfaced last week in the French sports daily newspaper L’Equipe.
Photographer Horst Tappe, whose portraits of literary and artistic luminaries included Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Vladimir Nabokov and Alfred Hitchcock, has died, a friend of the artist said on Monday. He was 67. Tappe died on August 21 in Vevey, Switzerland, after a long battle with cancer.
Residents of flood-stricken parts of Switzerland continued to suffer on Friday from the aftermath of a weeklong crisis that left at least six people dead or missing. About 400 inhabitants of the town of Brienz and a nearby village were evacuated overnight amid fears of a further landslide.