The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Moscow - The lack of an alarm system and other basic safety precautions contributed to the high death toll in a dormitory fire that killed 36 foreign students and injured nearly 200, officials said Tuesday. The students from Asia, Africa and Latin America, who were trapped by a fire that engulfed the dormitory of the People's Friendship University before dawn Monday, screamed for help and leaped from the top floors of the five-storey building when they found some exits locked, survivors said. The dorm lacked an alarm system and there was no evacuation plan for its residents, many of whom didn't speak Russian. London - International efforts to control the spread of HIV/AIDS are failing, with more people dying from the disease this year than ever before and as many as 46 million people around the world now living with the virus, says a UN report released Tuesday. The worldwide epidemic has killed more than three million people this year and infected five million more with human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, said UNAIDS, the UN agency responsible for co-ordinating global efforts to fight AIDS. The report said the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa remains rampant while epidemic-sized outbreaks are growing in China, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam and several central Asian republics.
