World
Two high-speed trains collide in Spain, police sources say 21 people killed
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez cleared his schedule for Monday to address the tragedy, while the King and Queen were following the developments with concern, a spokesperson said.
A high-speed train derailed and smashed into another oncoming train in southern Spain on Sunday, pushing the second train off the tracks and down an embankment in a collision that police sources confirmed to Reuters had killed at least 21 people.
The accident happened near Adamuz in the province of Cordoba, about 360 km (223 miles) south of the capital Madrid.
Of the 75 people hospitalised, 15 are in serious condition, the chief of Andalucia’s regional government, Juanma Moreno, told reporters early on Monday.
He said the death toll would likely be more than 20 and warned the number may rise by daylight.
“The forcefulness of the accident has been very strong … we will likely find (more) corpses,” Moreno said, adding that heavy machinery would need to be used to remove the trains’ wrecked metal pieces and try to locate any new victims.
El Pais newspaper reported that the 27-year-old driver of the Madrid-to-Huelva train, the one that was struck, was among the dead.
There were around 400 passengers on the two trains, most of them Spaniards travelling back to and from Madrid after the weekend. It was unclear how many tourists could be onboard as January is not holiday season in Spain, read the report.
“There are many injured. I am still trembling,” Maria San José, 33, a passenger on the Malaga-to-Madrid high-speed train that first derailed, told El Pais.
A passenger on the second train, who was not identified, told public broadcaster TVE: “There were people screaming, their bags fell from the shelves. I was travelling to Huelva in the fourth carriage, the last, luckily.”
The second train, heading to Huelva and operated by state-funded Renfe, was travelling at around 200 km per hour (124 miles/hour) at the moment of impact, reported El Pais.
It was unclear how fast the first train was travelling when it derailed.
The cause for the crash is not yet known, Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente told reporters at a press conference at Atocha station in Madrid, adding it was “really strange” that a derailment should have happened on a straight stretch of track. This section of track was renewed in May, he added.
The accident happened at 7.45 p.m. (1845 GMT), about 10 minutes after the Iryo train left Cordoba heading towards Madrid, authorities said.
“The Iryo 6189 Malaga – (to Madrid) train has derailed from the track at Adamuz, crashing onto the adjacent track. The (Madrid) to Huelva train which was travelling on the adjacent track has also derailed,” Adif, which runs the rail network, said in a social media post.
Puente said most of those killed and injured had been in the first two carriages of the second train, the Renfe Alvia that derailed on impact and plunged down the side of the railway embankment. The first carriage had 37 people on board and the second, 16, he said.
An Iryo-operated train travelling from Malaga to Madrid derailed, smashing into the Renfe train travelling from Madrid to Huelva, sending it careering down a railway embankment.
The Iryo train had more than 300 passengers on board, while the Renfe train had around 100.
Paco Carmona, Cordoba fire chief, told TVE that while the Iryo had been evacuated within hours of the accident, the Renfe carriages were badly damaged, with twisted metal and seats.
“There are still people trapped. The operation is concentrating on getting people out of areas which are very narrow,” he said. “We have to remove the bodies to reach anyone who is still alive. It is proving to be a complicated task.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez cleared his schedule for Monday to address the tragedy, while the King and Queen were following the developments with concern, a spokesperson said.
Foreign embassies sent text messages to staff asking them to confirm they were safe, Reuters reported.
Adamuz Mayor Rafael Moreno told El Pais that he was among the first to reach the crash site alongside the local police and saw what he believed to be a badly lacerated body several metres from the accident site.
“The scene is horrific,” he said. “I don’t think they were on the same track, but it’s not clear. Now the mayors and residents of the area are focused on helping the passengers.”
Local television images showed a reception centre set up for passengers in Adamuz, a town of 5,000 people, with locals bringing food and blankets as nighttime temperatures hovered around 42 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius).
Tearful passengers disembarking from the bus spoke briefly to local press before being guided inside.
Salvador Jimenez, a journalist for TVE who was on board the Iryo train, shared images showing the nose of that train’s rear carriage lying on its side, with evacuated passengers sitting on its upturned side.
Jimenez told TVE by phone from beside the stricken trains that passengers had used emergency hammers to smash the windows and climb out, and they had seen two people taken out of the overturned carriages on stretchers.
Iryo is a private rail operator, majority-owned by Italian state-controlled railway group Ferrovie dello Stato. The train involved was a Freccia 1000 train which was travelling between Malaga and Madrid, a spokesperson for Ferrovie dello Stato said.
The company said in a statement that it deeply regretted what had happened and had activated all emergency protocols to work closely with the relevant authorities.
Renfe said the derailment of its train had been caused by the Iryo train derailing into its path, adding that emergency services were still recovering passengers.
Renfe said its president was travelling to the crash site and that it was working to support passengers and their families. Adif has suspended all rail services between Madrid and Andalucia.
World
Trump says Israeli PM Netanyahu will visit US next week
President Donald Trump said on Friday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the U.S. next week.
Trump’s comments came in his speech at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Friday, while he was falsely casting U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer as Palestinian, Reuters reported.
“I am going to send him (Schumer) a beautiful Palestinian outfit tomorrow, so he can greet Bibi Netanyahu when he comes to town next week,” Trump said.
“He turned Palestinian,” Trump said of Schumer, who is Jewish, while also joking that sharia law was Schumer’s “new founding.”
U.S. Muslim and Jewish advocacy groups have previously criticized Trump for calling Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, a Palestinian, with the rights groups saying Trump uses the term disrepectfully as a slur and as an insult.
Netanyahu’s office said earlier that he will travel to Washington on Monday and will meet with Trump on Tuesday. Netanyahu will also attend deceased U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral, his office said.
The Trump-Netanyahu meeting will come as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran completes five months.
World
Trump vows to punish Iran for Houthi attacks in Red Sea; oil surges over $100
After the Houthis said they had struck the two tankers on Thursday, Trump said he would hold Iran accountable for any further attacks by the fighters.
U.S. President Donald Trump promised “major military punishment” for Iran and its Houthi allies on Thursday after the Yemeni fighters struck two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, extending the Middle East war to a second major shipping chokepoint.
Fears that disruption could widen further to block another sea route sent global oil prices surging in one of the steepest rises of the war. Brent crude rose more than 6%, breaking through $100 a barrel for the first time since May, Reuters reported.
Two weeks since the effective collapse of an interim truce meant to end the war, the U.S. military launched air strikes on Iran overnight into Thursday, prompting Iran to fire at neighbouring Arab countries that host U.S. bases. The U.S. military fired another round of missiles at Iran late Thursday and early Friday in the 13th consecutive night of attacks.
Iranian state media said on both nights that missiles struck Qeshm Island on the Strait of Hormuz, the virtually closed waterway that has become the focal point in a war well into its fifth month that has already killed thousands and raised fears of a global economic downturn.
TRUMP: IRAN HASN’T ‘RECEIVED ENOUGH PAIN YET’
After the Houthis said they had struck the two tankers on Thursday, Trump said he would hold Iran accountable for any further attacks by the fighters.
The Houthis, who control northern and western Yemen, said this week they were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, which has diverted millions of barrels of oil per day by pipeline to the Red Sea to get around Iran’s blockade of Gulf oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
“If they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves,” Trump wrote on social media.
He told news outlet Axios he was considering relaunching major combat operations in Iran and was close to a decision. “They haven’t received enough pain yet,” Axios quoted Trump as saying.
On Thursday evening, Trump said on social media that “any and all damages done” to cargo ships would be paid for with “Iranian Money,” referring to frozen Iranian assets held by the U.S., but he did not say how this would work.
Sources in Iran and Yemen told Reuters that Iran had flown Revolutionary Guard commanders, military advisers and missile- and drone-related equipment into Yemen days before the Houthis announced their blockade. The Houthis dismissed the report.
The Houthis said their forces had carried out missile and drone strikes on Saudi oil tankers, the Encelia and the Layla.
A maritime security source said the Encelia had transmitted a distress call reporting it had been struck by a missile near the Saudi port of Jizan in the Red Sea just north of Yemen late on Wednesday. Saudi state news agency SPA said the strike had caused a fire at the bow.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the attack on the Layla, or other battlefield accounts, but Trump mentioned two attacks on Saudi tankers.
The insurance cost of shipping goods through the southern Red Sea doubled for some companies on Thursday, after the reported attacks, sources said.
Houthi attacks could close the strait known as the Bab el-Mandeb or “Gate of Tears” which controls access from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, the second most important route for energy shipments after the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf.
In the days since they announced their blockade in the Red Sea, several tankers have changed course to avoid the Bab el-Mandeb, heading north instead through the Suez Canal, potentially using a much longer and more expensive route to reach Asian customers by sailing around Africa.
IRAN REPORTS STRIKES ON JORDAN, KUWAIT
Iran said it attacked U.S. missile systems, weapons and fuel storage sites in Jordan, as well as U.S. military posts in Kuwait.
Jordan’s army said it engaged four Iranian missiles and six drones in the past day, intercepting all but one missile, which fell in an uninhabited area.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it struck a U.S. electronic warfare unit at Al-Adiri base in Kuwait, causing unspecified casualties, in response to an overnight strike on Iran’s Shalamcheh border crossing with Iraq.
Neither the U.S. nor Kuwait has reported casualties at the base.
Iranian military spokesperson Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia said Iran would keep retaliating as long as the U.S. continued to attack its infrastructure and coastal areas, Iranian state TV reported.
Since the U.S. and Israel began the war in February, Iran has demonstrated that it can hit U.S. targets in the region, despite Trump having said early on that the U.S. had wiped out Iranian military capabilities.
Four people familiar with U.S. intelligence said Iranian strikes on CIA targets in the Gulf earlier in the war had prompted U.S. intelligence to investigate whether Russia was assisting Iran with targeting information or drone technology.
CONGRESS
High oil prices are stoking inflation globally, and have put Trump’s Republican allies under pressure ahead of congressional elections in November.
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives backed legislation on Thursday directing Trump to halt U.S. military action against Iran, the latest rebuke of the Republican president from Congress, which the U.S. Constitution grants the exclusive power to “declare War.”
Lawmakers have passed similar resolutions repeatedly in recent months, but they have not led to cessation of the war. The Senate voted hours later to block a separate, similar measure.
World
Trump links Saudi nuclear deal to Israel normalization through Abraham Accords
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that a newly agreed civilian nuclear cooperation deal with Saudi Arabia will only move forward if the kingdom normalizes relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords.
In a post on social media, Trump said the agreement does not permit uranium enrichment and stressed that approval of the deal is contingent on Saudi Arabia signing the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered agreements that established diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states.
“The agreement will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote, adding that the United States supports only civilian nuclear facilities that do not involve uranium enrichment.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly stated that it will not normalize relations with Israel without a clear pathway toward the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Palestinian statehood, arguing it would pose unacceptable security risks to Israel.
The Saudi Embassy in Washington declined to comment on Trump’s remarks.
Netanyahu’s office welcomed the prospect of Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, describing it as a “historic leap forward for peace in the Middle East,” but did not address the nuclear agreement.
The civilian nuclear agreement, announced on Wednesday, is expected to run for 30 years and involve U.S. companies in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear energy sector. According to U.S. officials familiar with the agreement, it could eventually allow for the construction of a uranium
enrichment facility following a joint U.S.-Saudi feasibility study, although Trump has insisted the final arrangement will not include uranium enrichment.
The agreement will be submitted to the U.S. Congress for review.
The Saudi Energy Ministry said the deal would help diversify the kingdom’s energy sources, promote advanced technologies and expand investment opportunities between the two countries.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the agreement during a visit to Manila, saying it would ensure Saudi Arabia partners with American companies rather than competitors such as China, Russia, France or South Korea in developing its civilian nuclear program.
“We’re not the only show in town, but we’re the best show in town,” Rubio told reporters.
The agreement has already drawn scrutiny from members of Congress and nuclear non-proliferation experts, who have raised concerns over reports that it does not include the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol, which provides for expanded inspections and verification measures.
Some lawmakers have also questioned whether Congress should have greater oversight of any nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, reviving debate over legislation first proposed in 2018 that would require congressional approval before such agreements take effect.
The Trump administration has made expanding the Abraham Accords a key foreign policy objective during the president’s second term, viewing Saudi Arabia’s participation as a major step toward broader regional normalization despite ongoing tensions stemming from the conflicts in Gaza and Iran.
-
Latest News4 days agoGermany defends Afghan deportation policy after fatal Trier knife attack
-
Sport4 days agoFIFA updates world rankings; Spain climbs to No. 1, Afghanistan ranked 171st
-
Latest News4 days agoAfghanistan and Uzbekistan advance railway cooperation, discuss Trans-Afghan project
-
World5 days agoWar in Iran has cost the US $37.5 billion so far, Pentagon says
-
Latest News4 days agoAmnesty International calls for probe into Pakistan airstrike on Kabul rehabilitation centre
-
Business4 days agoPakistan’s trade deficit with neighbours surges to nearly $16 billion as exports to Afghanistan plunge
-
Sport4 days agoRahmat Shah Zurmati appointed Afghanistan’s new Test and ODI captain
-
Latest News2 days agoFive armed men killed while attempting to cross Durand Line into Badakhshan
