The number of H1N1 cases worldwide now stands at 787 with two additional deaths reported in Mexico, the World Health Organization announced early Sunday. The organization said the virus, more commonly known as swine flu, has been confirmed in 17 countries. The higher number of cases is a result of ongoing tests on previously collected samples; not newly reported and confirmed infections, the WHO said. Several other countries reported additional cases that have not yet been added to the WHO ...

The global rise in swine flu has showed few signs of slowing. Now in 11 countries, the H1N1 flu virus was confirmed on Thursday in the Netherlands and Switzerland; in Canada, cases rose to 27 and in the U.S., the caseload increased to 109 in 11 states, with hundreds of school closures that sent some 160,000 students home. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has said that a new flu pandemic is imminent, yet some pharmacies are temporarily running ...

The number of confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus has jumped more than 30 percent with 331 people being diagnosed so far, the World Health Organization said Friday. The virus, commonly known as swine flu, has spread to 11 countries, but the hardest hit areas were in the western hemisphere, the organization said. "We have not seen sustained human-to-human transmission anywhere outside the Americas region," said WHO spokesman, Thomas Abraham. In the United States, the Centers for Disease ...

The number of confirmed swine flu cases worldwide has risen to 154, with six additional cases reported in Spain, the World Health Organization said Thursday. The WHO is troubled because in one of the 10 cases in Spain the virus was transmitted from person-to-person within the community. The other nine infected people had returned from Mexico, where the crisis is most severe, according to WHO spokesman Dick Thompson. If Spain sees more such cases of community transmission, the world ...

Even at the beginning of the 20th century — before mass reproductions, package tours to France and The Da Vinci Code — Mona Lisa was different from other pictures. The woman with the enigmatic smile got so many love letters that her portrait was the only artwork at the Louvre to have its own mailbox. A heartbroken suitor once shot himself to death in front of her. So is it any surprise that somebody finally eloped with her On the ...

Israel pulled its ambassador from Switzerland on Monday to protest a planned address by Iran's president at a controversial anti-racism conference. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman "have decided to call the Israeli ambassador to Switzerland back for consultations, in protest of the conference in Geneva, in which a racist and a Holocaust denier, who openly declares his intention of erasing Israel, is a guest," Netanyahu's office announced Monday. Withdrawing an ambassador is a sign of serious ...

One of two aid workers still held by militants in the Philippines has been freed, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Saturday. ICRC officials spoke briefly by telephone to Andreas Notter and confirmed he is free, an ICRC spokeswoman in Geneva, Switzerland, said, but no other details were immediately available. The Philippine News Agency said Notter's captors released him Saturday morning. The agency cited a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo, who himself cited "sketchy reports" that ...

Swiss bank UBS said Tuesday it is banning its private bankers from traveling overseas amid a tax evasion probe by the U.S. government. The global travel ban, which came into force April 1, applies to private bankers in the Wealth Management & Swiss Bank and Wealth Management U.S. divisions, the bank said. UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, is in a legal battle with the U.S. officials over its unwillingness to divulge the names of American clients it helped to avoid paying ...

Hundreds of people were feared dead on Tuesday after high winds and heavy seas capsized boats carrying African migrants heading for Europe off the coast of Libya. "A tragedy has happened off the Libyan coast with at least two boats going down ... with obviously hundreds of people going down at sea," Jean-Philippe Chauzy with the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, Switzerland, said Tuesday, citing diplomatic officials in Tripoli and Libyan officials. The vessels departed Sunday and were heading ...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was coy Monday about whether she would meet Iranian delegates at an international conference on Afghanistan, and she urged Tehran to play a positive role in helping stabilize its neighbor. "I believe that there will be an opening by this conference that will enable all the countries, including Iran, to come forward," Clinton told reporters aboard her plane en route to The Hague for Tuesday's conference. "The fact that they accepted the invitation to come ...