Switzerland on Monday called for more efforts by countries worldwide to eradicate anti-personnel mines ahead of a major conference on the subject in Geneva later this month.

Juerg Streuli, Switzerland`s ambassador to the 156-nation Ottawa Convention banning landmines, said he will chair the ninth conference of states party to the convention in Geneva from November 24-28.

Switzerland on Monday called for more efforts by countries worldwide to eradicate anti-personnel mines ahead of a major conference on the subject in Geneva later this month.

Juerg Streuli, Switzerland`s ambassador to the 156-nation Ottawa Convention banning landmines, said he will chair the ninth conference of states party to the convention in Geneva from November 24-28.

The Algerian army last month destroyed nearly 14,700 mines along its eastern and western borders dating from its war of independence from France, the state APS news service reported Sunday.

The figure brings to more than 33,000 the number of mines destroyed, including more than 270,000 anti-personnel mines planted by the French during the 1954-1962 conflict.

ZAGREB, September 3, 2008 (AFP) - A deminer was killed in Croatia on Wednesday in a zone suspected of being littered with land mines dating from the country's 1991-1995 independence war, police said.

The accident occurred near the eastern town of Vinkovci while the 41-year-old land mine clearer was working in a farming area, police said without elaborating.

TYRE, August 31, 2008 (AFP) - Mohamed Balhas was on his tractor clearing a patch of land near his home in southern Lebanon last week when a cluster bomb exploded, shooting shrapnel into his chest and left leg.

'I didn't know what hit me. Suddenly blood was pouring from my chest,' said the 36-year-old Balhas.

KABUL, August 23, 2008 (AFP) - Six mine clearers were kidnapped four days ago in Afghanistan, one of the most mined countries in the world, their agency said Saturday, as a global anti-landmine group demanded their release.

SARAJEVO, July 12, 2008 (AFP) - Two mine clearers were killed Saturday when a landmine left over from Bosnia's 1992-95 war exploded as they were working at an area near the central town of Maglaj, police said.

'The mine exploded close to the two men,' a police spokesman told AFP, adding that the men killed at Kraljevo Brdo were aged 36 and 42.

KANO, July 5, 2008 (AFP) - Radioactive materials in abandoned mining fields in central Nigeria?s Plateau state pose a serious health hazard to two million people, officials said Saturday.

KANO, July 5, 2008 (AFP) - Radioactive materials in abandoned mining fields in central Nigeria?s Plateau state pose a serious health hazard to two million people, officials said Saturday.

SARAJEVO, July 1, 2008 (AFP) - Two men were killed and another two injured when a landmine left over from Bosnia's 1992-95 war exploded near the northeastern town of Tuzla, police said Tuesday.

The victims, Hismet Tagic, 45, and Nihad Dagic, 24, were chopping wood on Sunday evening when they triggred the device in a forest near Tuzla.

SARAJEVO, June 8, 2008 (AFP) - An elderly man was killed and another injured on Sunday in the explosion of a landmine near a central Bosnian town left over from the country's 1992-95 war, national radio reported.

JOHANNESBURG, June 3, 2008 (AFP) - Gold production in South Africa fell 16.8 percent in the first quarter of the year following widespread power cuts, figures from the chamber of mines showed on Tuesday.

ZIGUINCHOR, Senegal, May 23, 2008 (AFP) - Khadija Signate was only a toddler when she stepped on a landmine and lost her left leg: now aged 12, she has to deal with the psychological as well as the physical scars.

AMMAN, April 24, 2008 (AFP) - The European Commission and the UN Development Programme signed an agreement with Jordan on Thursday to help the desert kingdom clear landmines along its northern border with Syria.

KINSHASA, April 4, 2008 (AFP) - Over 2,000 people have died or been injured by landmines littering the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said Friday.

'To-date, the country can count 2,078 victims of anti-personnel landmines or other unexploded ordnance,' said Ross Mountain, number two with the UN mission to the central African state, MONUC.

BAGHDAD, April 3, 2008 (AFP) - The United Nations on Thursday urged more efforts to clear Iraq of landmines, which it said threaten the population and complicate reconstruction and development projects.

GENEVA, April 1, 2008 (AFP) - Several countries are not moving quickly enough to meet their commitments under the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, a Nobel-prize winning campaign group monitoring compliance said Tuesday.

BAMAKO, March 21, 2008 (AFP) - Five civilians including a child were killed Friday when their vehicle ran over a landmine in Mali's northern desert, local and hospital sources said.

DUBLIN, March 14, 2008 (AFP) - Ireland pledged 1.8 million euros (3.1 million dollars) on Friday to help with mine clearance in Afghanistan, Angola and Somalia.

The funding will support the operations of non-governmental organisation the HALO Trust, which has been removing mines and leftover explosive in conflict-affected countries around the world for the last 20 years.

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 27, 2008 (AFP) - AngloGold Ashanti, a leading global gold producer, hopes to resume production in its South African mines 'in the course of this week,' a company spokesman said on Sunday.

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 27, 2008 (AFP) - Some South African mines shut following the nation's electricity crisis are to resume their underground operations on Sunday, a spokesman of the Chamber of Mines said.

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 26, 2008 (AFP) - Diamond, gold and platinum mines in South Africa were shut for the weekend owing to an electricity shortage that has crippled the sector and left thousands of miners without work, officials said.

HERAT, Afghanistan, Jan 26, 2008 (AFP) - Iran was accused of supplying weapons to the Taliban on Saturday after security forces found dozens of Iranian-made mines in a rebel cache in western Afghanistan.

NIAMEY, Jan 11, 2008 (AFP) - The explosion of anti-tank mines in central and south Niger towns has alarmed the population, as rumours have spread since once killed a journalist in the capital that the weapons are being widely laid.

LUANDA, Dec 20, 2007 (AFP) - Authorities in Angola have this year demined 36,007 kilometres (22,504 miles) of rail line and 1,683 kilometres (1,051 miles) of roads across the country, a senior official said.

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Dec 18, 2007 (AFP) - Two demining experts were killed in Bosnia Tuesday while clearing land mines left over from the country's 1992-1995 war, police said.

The two men suffered fatal injures while clearing a minefield in the village of Okoliste, near the southern town of Ljubinje, police said.

WARSAW, Dec 17, 2007 (AFP) - Miners seeking wage hikes in Poland brought work to a 24-hour standstill in 16 mines owned by the country's largest coal conglomerate, Solidarity miners' union leader Dominik Kolorz said Monday.

Up to 40,000 of a total 65,000 miners employed by the Kompania Weglowa conglomerate started the work week off the job, union officials said.

BRUSSELS, Dec 4, 2007 (AFP) - NATO has signed an agreement with Jordan to help the desert kingdom clear thousands of landmines and other explosives laid during successive conflict with Israel.

SEOUL, Nov 13, 2007 (AFP) - The border between South and North Korea remains one of the world's most heavily mined areas, with one million of the devices planted on the southern side alone, an international campaign group says.

GENEVA, Nov 12, 2007 (AFP) - The number of reported landmine victims fell 16 percent in the past year, but Western countries such as France and Britain must do more to clear mines in Africa and the Falklands, a campaign group said Monday.

The number of victims dropped to 5,751 in 2007, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

BERLIN, Nov 12, 2007 (AFP) - The number of reported landmine victims fell 16 percent in the past year, according to a campaign group Monday -- but it warned the real figure could be much higher.

The number of victims dropped to 5,751 in 2007, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).

AMMAN, Nov 7, 2007 (AFP) - Jordan said on Wednesday it has destroyed more than 50,000 Israeli-laid landmines in southern areas recovered from the Jewish state after the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1994.

YANGON, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - Three people have been killed by landmines in military-ruled Myanmar, state press reported Wednesday, which the authorities blamed on ethnic rebel militias battling the junta's troops.

The official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said another four people were injured by the 'insurgent-planted mines' as they were out hunting and working in the east of the country Monday.

Two were killed and two injured in a mountain range in Mon State, while one person died and two were wounded in Karen State.

AL-HOSH, Lebanon, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - With sweat trickling down his temples, Hossam Mustapha froze as the metal detector sounded in a banana plantation riddled with unexploded bomblets left over from the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

The young deminer treads on dangerous ground as he clears fields and residential areas in south Lebanon of the unexploded cluster bombs dropped by Israel during its July-August 2006 war with the Shiite militant group.

But as he seeks out the deadly crops in the coastal region of Al-Hosh, farmers go about their work in the fields.

MAE SOT, Thailand, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Samuan seems reluctant to talk about his troubles as he lies in a hospital bed, watching men and women eat lunch outside a stuffy surgical ward where they are learning to cope with artificial limbs.

The 57-year-old, who wears a deep-blue embroidered top and sports a long, salt-and-pepper braid over his shoulder, instead holds up his mangled and swollen hand, and rubs the bandaged stump where his right leg used to be.

Samuan arrived at a clinic on the Thai-Myanmar border about a month ago.

KINSHASA, Oct 6, 2007 (AFP) - Landmines have killed or wounded 2,012 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the end of the 1998-2003 war there, a UN agency reported Saturday.

And a total of 1,830 danger zones containing unexploded mines had been identified across the country, the Centre for the Struggle Against Landmines, or CLAM, reported.

SARAJEVO, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - EU troops in Bosnia said Thursday they had handed over the full responsibility for mine clearance to the country's armed forces, as a sign of a growing confidence in its post-war institutions.

'The ownership and responsibility for all demining activities in Bosnia-Hercegovina brings with it a sense of pride and progress for the armed forces' of the country, the statement from the European Union Force (EUFOR) said.

MAPUTO, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - At least 440 sites are still heavily infested by landmines near residential districts in three Mozambican provinces, a non-governmental organisation working with the disabled said Thursday.

Demining agency Handicap International said the sites, mined during the former Portuguese colony's 16-year civil war, were in the southern province of Inhambane and central provinces of Manica and Sofala.

VILNIUS, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - Warships from 10 nations have converged on Lithuania for an annual minesweep of the Baltic Sea to recover deadly undersea ordnance from two world wars, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

Known as Open Spirit 2007, the operation -- which runs through September 10 -- aims to find, identify and neutralise munitions from World War I and World War II that are still lingering beneath the waves.