Five people were killed in a shooting in northern Switzerland, police said yesterday, rocking the normally tranquil nation.
The shooter in the drama that played out on Saturday evening in the town of Wuerenlingen, near Zurich, was among the dead, police chief Michael Leutpold told a news conference, adding that the incident was linked to a personal conflict.
All the victims and the shooter were Swiss, he said, adding: “We have ruled out a terrorist angle.”
Photo: AFP
He said the shooter was a 36-year-old Swiss national, but did not reveal his identity. Local media reports described him as a police officer and father of three.
He did not have a gun license and did not employ a police weapon, the police spokesman said.
The shooter first went to a house in a residential area and fired on three people, killing a 58-year-old man, his 57-year-old wife and a 32-year-old man, police said.
The older couple were his parents-in-law and the younger man his brother-in-law, they added. He then went to another house and shot dead a 46-year-old man before turning the gun on himself.
Neighbors had alerted police after hearing gunshots after 11pm.
The latest shooting, which follows similar incidents in January and in November last year, sent shock waves through the tiny Alpine nation.
“This is not possible; we are after all the richest and happiest country in the world,” the German-language Swiss newspaper Blick said.
In a report published late last month, Switzerland was found to have the world’s happiest people, sparking a wave of national pride and media fervor with front-page headlines.
According to unconfirmed estimates, there are up to 4.5 million firearms in circulation in the nation.
It is one of the world’s top countries in terms of the circulation of firearms, after the US, Yemen and Serbia.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique