Tag: Deaths

40 Notable Deaths Of 2019

 

From Nobel-winning novelist Toni Morrison to iconic fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, here are some of the notable deaths of 2019.

January

– 21: Argentine footballer Emiliano Sala, 28, was killed when the plane he was in crashed into the English Channel.

– 26: French film composer Michel Legrand, who won three Oscars and scored such classics as “Yentl” (1983), died aged 86.

February

– 7: Veteran British actor Albert Finney, winner of three Golden Globes, passed away aged 82.

– 16: Bruno Ganz, the Swiss actor best known for his role as Adolf Hitler in “Downfall” (2004), died aged 77 from cancer.

– 19: Haute couture legend Karl Lagerfeld, long-running artistic director of Chanel, died aged 85.

– 21: Stanley Donen, US director of such beloved Hollywood classic as “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), was 94 when he died.

– 28: US-German composer and conductor Andre Previn, winner of 10 Grammys and four Oscars, died aged 89.

March

– 4: US actor Luke Perry died after a stroke at the age of 52.

– 4: Frontman of British rave band The Prodigy, Keith Flint, was found dead aged 49.

– 29: Pioneering female French film director Agnes Varda passed away aged 90.

April

– 17: Ex-Peruvian president Alan Garcia, 69, killed himself as the police were about to arrest him on bribery charges that he denied.

May

– 13: Hollywood legend Doris Day died aged 97.

– 16: Ieoh Ming Pei, Chinese-American architect of iconic modern structures such as the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, was 102 years old when he passed away.

– 20: Austria’s three-time Formula One world champion Niki Lauda died aged 70, eight months after a lung transplant.

– 22: British children’s author and illustrator Judith Kerr died aged 95.

June

– 1: Star Spanish football striker Jose Antonio Reyes, 35, was killed in a car crash.

– 15: Italian film-maker and opera director Franco Zeffirelli died aged 96.

– 17: Islamist Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, ousted in 2013 after one year of divise rule, died in prison aged 67.

– 17: American heiress and socialite Gloria Vanderbilt passed away aged 95.

July

– 6: Brazilian musician and songwriter Joao Gilberto, a pioneer of bossa nova, died aged 88.

– 16: South African singer Johnny Clegg died at 66 years old from cancer.

– 17: Andrea Camilleri, the Italian novelist who created Sicilian detective Montalbano, passed away aged 93.

– 22: Former Chinese prime minister Li Peng, a hardliner in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, died at 90.

– 25: The world’s oldest president, Tunisian Beji Caid Essebsi, died aged 92, just ahead of the end of his first mandate.

August

– 5: Author Toni Morrison, the first African-American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, died aged 88.

– 10: US financier Jeffrey Epstein, 66, was found dead in jail from an apparent suicide while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking girls for sex.

– 12: Ivory Coast singer DJ Arafat died in a motorbike crash aged 33.

– 16: US actor Peter Fonda, best known for “Easy Rider” (1969), died from lung cancer aged 79.

September

– 3: German photographer Peter Lindbergh, credited with launching careers of supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford, died aged 74.

– 6: Zimbabwe’s autocratic leader Robert Mugabe, ousted by the military in 2017 after 37 years in power, died aged 95.

– 9: Pioneering Swiss-born documentary photographer Robert Frank passed away at 94.

– 19: Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the first leader to be toppled in the 2011 Arab Spring, died in exile in Saudi Arabia aged 83.

– 26: Jacques Chirac, French president from 1995 to 2007, died aged 86.

– 30: Celebrated American opera singer Jessye Norman died in hospital aged 74.

October

– 17: Alicia Alonso, Cuban ballet legend who taught well into her 90s, passed away at the age of 98.

– 17: US Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings died at 68 and was the first African-American lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol building.

– 22: Belgian Paralympic champion Marieke Vervoort, suffering from a degenerative muscle disease, ended her life through euthanasia aged 40.

– 26: Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in his late 40s, blew himself up during a raid by US special forces in Syria.

November

– 24: Clive James, the Australian broadcaster, writer, critic, and poet, died aged 80 after a long battle with leukaemia.

– 30: One of the leading conductors to emerge from the former Soviet Union, Latvian Mariss Jansons, 76, died of cardiac arrest at his home in Saint Petersburg.

‘Someone Must Be Responsible,’ Cote D’Ivoire President Condemns Poll Deaths

Cote D’Ivoire President, Alassane Ouattara

 

Cote D’ Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara has refused to comment on the acquittal on crimes against humanity of his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo at the International Criminal Court while insisting investigations would continue.

“No reaction from me, it’s an ongoing trial…,” Ouattara said in an interview with Radio France International in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa where he was attending an African Union summit.

But he added: “Someone must be responsible for the 3,000 deaths. I hope that justice will shine a light on that, it is what the victims are asking for.”

ICC judges acquitted Gbagbo and his aide Charles Ble Goude on charges stemming from a wave of violence after disputed elections in the west African nation in 2010.

READ ALSO: Cote D’Ivore’s Gbagbo Seeks Immediate Release From ICC

More than 3,000 people died on both sides of the Ivory Coast conflict after Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to Ouattara, his internationally backed rival.

Gbagbo, the first former head of state to stand trial at the ICC, is currently living in Belgium under conditions pending a possible prosecution appeal following the acquittal on January 15.

He had been held in the Netherlands since 2011.

The ICC’s unwillingness to let Gbagbo return to Ivory Coast is thought to have been linked to the country’s refusal to surrender Gbagbo’s first wife, Simone, despite an outstanding ICC warrant for her arrest for her role in the post-election violence.

She was convicted and jailed by the courts there in 2015, but Ouattara granted her an amnesty last year along with 800 others.

“We are continuing our investigations in order to establish who is responsible (for the deaths),” Ouattara said in the interview to be broadcast Monday.

And he denied that any pressure had been brought to bear on the ICC to prolong the detention or trial of Gbago.

“Interfering with international or national justice, this is not how I manage my country… let justice take its course,” he said, refusing to discuss any possible return of Gbagbo. “Let’s wait and see.”

 ‘No problem’ with Soro’ 

Ouattara also returned to the subject of the resignation of the speaker of the National Assembly, Guillaume Soro, who headed rebel forces during the Ivorian war and then joined the government under Gbagbo.

Soro is a member of Ouattara’s Rally of Republicans (RDR) and is rumoured to have fallen out with Ouattara and possibly to have his own presidential ambitions.

Ouattara said he believed there were ideological differences between the two but  “no problem” between them.

“I’m not a man to force anyone (to resign)… Soro believed that we did not share the same ideology. We are a social liberal party and he considers himself a Marxist. I understand that this is not compatible with his beliefs,” he said, adding: “He is a young man that I consider as one on my sons. I do not rule out that he will return.”

Nor did Ouattara rule out Soro standing for the presidency in 2020.

“It’s his choice, he can do as he wishes. The Constitution authorises him to do so and it is not a question of me standing in the way of his candidature….”

Gbagbo’s release has come at a particularly tense time in Ivory Coast.

With presidential elections due next year, Ouattara has not said whether he will seek another term, and the coalition he formed with Henri Konan Bedie, his former ally against Gbagbo, has collapsed.

“It’s very clear, I can run if I want. There’s a new constitution (since 2016),” he said.

“All the legal opinions that I have consulted have confirmed it. I will announce my decision in 2020. I can take a decision up until July 28, 2020,” he said.

AFP

At Least 99 Dead After Consuming Toxic Alcohol In India

 

At least 99 people have died and scores have been hospitalised in northern India after drinking toxic alcohol, triggering a crackdown against bootleggers, officials said Monday. 

News of the deaths in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand has trickled in over the past three days, with police suspecting the moonshine had been cut with methanol.

Cheap, locally-made liquor is common in parts of rural India and bootleggers often add methanol — a highly toxic form of alcohol sometimes used as an anti-freeze — to their product to increase its strength.

If ingested in large quantities, methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and death.

In one district of Uttar Pradesh, 59 people had died after consuming toxic alcohol, police spokesman Shailendra Kumar Sharma told AFP.

READ ALSO: Nude Protest, Black Flags Greet India’s Modi In Assam

In a neighbouring district, a senior police officer said nine had died, adding that 66 suspected bootleggers had been arrested and samples of the liquor sent to a laboratory for testing.

Police said at least 31 people died in neighbouring Uttarakhand state and that two had been arrested on suspicion of supplying the liquor.

Newspaper reports said around 3,000 people linked with the illegal trade were arrested across Uttar Pradesh in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Hundreds of poor people die every year in India due to alcohol poisoning, mostly from consuming cheap alcohol.

In 2015, more than 100 people died in a Mumbai slum after drinking illegal moonshine.

Of the estimated 5 billion litres of alcohol drunk every year in India, around 40 per cent is illegally produced, according to the International Spirits and Wine Association of India.

AFP

Dozens Die As Guatemala Volcano Erupts

Police officers carry a wounded man after the eruption of the Fuego Volcano, in El Rodeo village, Escuintla department, 35 km south of Guatemala City on June 3, 2018. NOE PEREZ / AFP

 

Emergency workers will resume the search on Monday for Guatemalans missing after the eruption of the Fuego volcano, which belched out clouds of ash and flows of lava and left at least 25 people dead.

The volcano expelled hot muddy material that caused the deaths — including of several children — in communities located on its southern slope, disaster agency spokesman David de Leon said in a WhatsApp group.

Search and rescue operations were suspended due to low light and dangerous conditions but were to resume early on Monday morning, he said.

The Institute of Volcanology said the eruption ended after over 16 hours of activity but warned that it could resume again and recommended precautionary measures be maintained.

The eruption of the 3,763-meter (12,346-foot) volcano sent ash billowing over the surrounding area, turning plants and trees gray and blanketing streets, cars and people.

Farmers covered in ash fled for their lives as civil defense workers tried to relocate them to shelters during the event.

“This time we were saved; in another (eruption) no,” said Efrain Gonzalez, 52, sitting on the floor of a shelter in the city of Escuintla, where he arrived with his wife and one-year-old daughter after fleeing the hard-hit El Rodeo community.

Gonzalez was overwhelmed with despair, as two more of his children, aged 10 and four, are missing. They were trapped in their home, which was flooded with hot mud that descended from the volcano.

National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction (Conred) chief Sergio Cabanas did not rule out the number of dead increasing, as there are “missing persons, but we do not know how many.”

 Thousands evacuated, airport closed 

Cabanas said that the eruption also left 20 injured and affected more than 1.7 million people.

President Jimmy Morales and his government declared three days of mourning and a state of emergency for Escuintla, Chimaltenango and Sacatepequez, which must still be ratified by Congress.

Hundreds of personnel from the police, Red Cross and military have been dispatched to support emergency operations, Morales said.

Cabanas said that the dead included a civil protection official.

Some 3,000 people were evacuated due to the eruption, which affected rural communities around the volcano as well as Antigua Guatemala, a colonial-era town very popular with tourists in the Central American country, he said.

Dense ash blasted out by the volcano shut down Guatemala City’s international airport, civil aviation said.

People were working to clean ash off the runways to get the airport operating again.

The eruption is the second major one this year from the peak, following another that subsided at the beginning of February after sending ash towering 1.7 kilometers into the sky.

A September 2012 eruption of the volcano saw 10,000 people evacuated, while another in February 2015 forced the closure of the capital’s main airport.

Apart from the Fuego volcano, there are two other active volcanos in Guatemala. One of them, Pacaya, is just 20 kilometers from Guatemala City.

AFP

21 Schoolchildren, Over 200 Others Killed In Mexico Earthquake

Rescuers, firefighters, policemen, soldiers and volunteers remove rubble and debris from a flattened building in search of survivors after a powerful quake in Mexico City on September 19, 2017 AFP PHOTO / RONALDO SCHEMIDT

At least 216 people were killed when a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico on Tuesday, including 21 children crushed beneath an elementary school that was reduced to rubble.

The destruction revived horrific memories in Mexico on the anniversary of another massive quake in 1985, the disaster-prone country’s deadliest ever.

It struck just two hours after the country held a national earthquake drill, as it does every year on the anniversary of the 1985 quake, which killed at least 10,000 people.

One of the most gut-wrenching scenes was at the Enrique Rebsamen primary school on Mexico City’s south side, whose three floors collapsed into one, trapping students and teachers inside.

Twenty-one children and five adults were killed, said Major Jose Luis Vergara of the Mexican navy, who was coordinating a rescue effort that involved hundreds of soldiers, police, civilian volunteers and rescue dogs.

He said another 30 to 40 people remained trapped, while 11 children have been rescued so far.

Emergency workers found a teacher and a student alive beneath the rubble and are trying to get them out, he said.

But the situation was precarious. Late into the night, part of the wreckage collapsed as rescuers continued their search.

Local media reports said soldiers had administered oxygen to one trapped child through a tube.

President Enrique Pena Nieto, who rushed to the site, warned the death toll could rise.

“Unfortunately, many people have lost their lives, including children,” he said in a national address.

The devastation struck across a swath of central states and the death toll as of early Wednesday was 216, the head of the national disaster response agency, Luis Felipe Puente, said on Twitter.

In a sign of the ongoing confusion gripping the country, he had at one point put the death toll at 248.

In addition to Mexico City, people were also killed in Puebla, Morelos, Mexico state and Guerrero.

AFP

FRSC Releases Easter Statistics Of Road Accidents

frscA total of 77 persons lost their lives and 358 persons were injured in over 90 road accidents across the country in six days, during the Easter period according to the FRSC.

The Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr Boboye Oyeyemi, released the statistics in Abuja on Friday.

He said these figures represent a 9% reduction in the deaths recorded over the same period in 2015, 23% reduction in the number of injured persons and 32% reduction in road accidents over the same period last year.

Urging Nigerians to exercise increased caution as the rainy season approaches, he said that the campaign for the use of rear seat belts as well as speed limits for commercial drivers are being intensified as these have impacted positively in the reduction of road accidents recorded so far.Road Accidents

Following the loss of a senior official of the commission who was killed during the Easter break, the Corps Marshal also threatened to press for criminal charges for further assault on officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission.

He said that they would henceforth involve the Police and the Justice Ministry to ensure maximum sentence for such assault against their men.