Geneva  - Banks and financial institutions in Geneva have lost possibly some 5 billion Swiss francs (4.2 billion dollars) in their involvement with former Nasdaq chairman Bernard L Madoff who was arrested the day before in New York, a Swiss paper reported Saturday.

The Le Temps newspaper, without naming its sources, called the affair an "earthquake," and that a leading hedge fund, Union Bancaire Privée, had exposure of about 1 billion dollars.

The company declined to comment on the report.

A private bank, Benedict Hentsch, said on Friday it could lose up to 47 million dollars to the fraud, meaning about 5 per cent of the assets it manages.

There was also concern for private investors.

Davos, Switzerland - World Cup champion Virpi Kuitunen got her first cross-country skiing season victory on Saturday in a Finnish one-two ahead of season leader Aino Kaisa Saarinen.

Kuitunen, 32, won the women's 10-kilometre classic style race in Davos in 29 minutes 51.0 seconds. It was the 19th career win for the 2007 and 2008 World Cup champion.

Saarinen led early on but eventually trailed by 18.0 seconds in second place. Former World Cup winner Marit Bjoergen of Norway was third on the podium, 46.7 seconds behind the winner.

The consistent Saarinen tops the World Cup with 365 points from five races, where she made the podium four times with one win, two second places and one third-place finish.

Amas Bank (Switzerland) Ltd has acquired 40 per cent stake in PATCO Investments & Consultancy Services Private Ltd. for an undisclosed amount. PATERSON is a Chennai-based stock broking firm, while Amas Bank is a global banking entity of the trans-national Hinduja Group, founded in 1978 as a finance company and granted banking license in 1994. Amas Bank is headquartered in Geneva, having offices in Zurich, Lucerne, Basle, St. Margrethen, Dubai, London, Paris, New York and Mauritius.

Geneva - Only Sweden, out of the world's developed countries, managed to meet all of the UN's Children's Fund's 10 benchmarks for early childhood care and education, a report on Thursday showed.

A look at the 24 countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Slovenia, ranked the five Nordic countries and France at the top of the list.

They were the only ones to have allotted a full 1 per cent of GDP to early childhood services.

Geneva - Injury and violence were responsible for 900,000 children's deaths each year, 90 per cent of which were accidental, a United Nations report released Wednesday said.

The leading cause of death resulting from an injury was road traffic accidents, followed by drowning and fires or burns.

War made up only 2.3 per cent of child-injury deaths, according to the World Health Organization and the UN's Children Fund, UNICEF.

The first UN report on the subject said millions of children suffered lifelong disabilities due to injuries, and that the poor were at an increased risk.

In 2004, some 260,000 children died in road accidents, but only 7 per cent of them were in the most developed countries.

Geneva/Harare - The death toll in Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak shot up to 746, the United Nations reported Wednesday.

The figure released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva, which reflects the situation as of Tuesday, marks a sharp increase from the 589 that had died by the weekend.

The increase is likely due to the fact that the latest figures include 256 people who have died outside health clinics in their communities.

The total number of suspected cases has also galloped ahead to 15,572, OCHA said.