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Railway collision in India kills 15, injures several

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A freight train smashed into the rear of a stationary passenger train in India’s West Bengal state on Monday, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens, police said, in an accident that railway authorities blamed on a disregarded signal.

Media showed images of the pile-up, with containers from the goods train strewn nearby, and one carriage left nearly vertical after the accident, which comes just over a year after a signalling error caused one of India’s worst rail crashes.

At least 15 bodies have been pulled from the mangled carriages, Abhishek Roy, a senior police official in the eastern state’s district of Darjeeling, the site of the accident, told Reuters.

Nearly 30 people were injured and rescue teams from the police and national disaster response force were working with doctors and residents of the area to clear debris from the derailed carriages, Roy added.

The goods train hit the Kanchanjunga Express travelling to Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, from the northeastern state of Tripura, driving three carriages of the passenger train off the rails.

It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board at the time.

Rescuers used iron rods and ropes to work free one carriage of the passenger train that had been swept upwards to lodge on the roof of the freight train by the impact of the collision.

The dead included the driver of the freight train and a guard on the passenger train, Jaya Varma Sinha, the head of the railway board that runs the countrywide network, told reporters.

The accident happened after the driver of the freight train disregarded a signal and hit the rear end of the express train, Sinha added.

Rescue work has been completed, Sinha said, while authorities were working to restore traffic, although the damage had been less extensive than initially feared.

“The guard’s compartment in the passenger train was badly damaged,” he added. “There were two parcel vans attached ahead of it which reduced the extent of damage to passengers.”

Nearby residents heard a loud crash and saw the pile-up upon going to investigate, several told the ANI news agency, in which Reuters has a minority stake.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences on the loss of life in the accident and said Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw was on his way to the site.

About 288 people died a year ago in the neighbouring state of Odisha, in India’s worst rail crash in more than two decades, caused by a signal failure.

(Reuters)

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US Senator breaks record for longest Senate speech

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US Senator Cory Booker has broken the record for the longest speech ever delivered in the Senate.

The New Jersey Democrat’s marathon address, a symbolic protest against President Donald Trump, in which he warned of a “grave and urgent” moment in American history, ended after for 25 hours and four minutes.

Although it was not a filibuster – a speech designed to obstruct passage of a bill – it held up legislative business in the Republican-controlled Senate. The rules for such speeches require a speaker to remain standing and forgo bathroom breaks.

The previous record was held by Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, who spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act in 1957.

Booker said he would speak for as long as he was physically able as he began his address at around 19:00 local time on Monday evening. He concluded at 20:06 on Tuesday.

The 55-year-old, who is the fourth-ranking Democrat in the chamber, filled some of the time reading letters from constituents, who said they had been harmed by President Trump’s policies.

The former presidential candidate also ran out the clock by discussing sports, reciting poetry and taking questions from colleagues.

Booker, who is African-American, spoke of his roots as the descendant of both slaves and slave-owners.

“I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people are more powerful,” he said, referring to segregationist Thurmond’s record-setting address 68 years ago.

As he reached the milestone, Booker said he was going to “deal with some of the biological urgencies I’m feeling”.

He was able to give his jaw much-needed respite during the speech by taking questions from colleagues, including Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.

The Democratic Party, currently out of power in the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, rallied behind Booker’s symbolic act of protest.

Booker’s speech is also the longest in the Senate since a 21-hour filibuster in 2013 by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, against Obamacare.

Cruz told CBS, the BBC’s US partner, that a filibuster is a challenging physical feat.

For his own protest, he wore comfortable shoes and tried to drink as little water as possible – an approach he described as “nothing in, nothing out”.

(BBC News)

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Myanmar announces week of national mourning

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Myanmar has announced a week of national mourning as the death toll has passed 2,000 and hopes of finding quake survivors continue to fade.

National flags will fly at half-mast until April 06 “in sympathy for the loss of life and damages” from Friday’s massive quake, the ruling junta has said in a statement.

Rescue teams from around the world are in Myanmar after a powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck last Friday.

The National Unity Government – currently in exile – has announced a “two-week pause in offensive military operations” in areas hit by the quake
In neighbouring Thailand, the death toll in Bangkok has risen to 18, with 76 workers missing at a collapsed high-rise under construction.

Search and rescue efforts are underway.

(Agencies)

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Trump ‘very angry’ with Putin over ceasefire negotiations

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Donald Trump has said he is “very angry” and “pissed off” with Russian President Vladimir Putin after weeks of attempting to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine.

In an NBC News interview, the US president criticised Putin for attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s credibility, and threatened to impose a 50% tariff on countries buying Russian oil if he did not agree to a ceasefire.

Last week, Putin suggested the possibility of a UN-run government in Ukraine to organise new elections and then begin peace talks.Trump’s comments mark a change in tone towards Putin. Over the past six weeks, Trump has publicly harangued Zelensky and demanded numerous concessions from Ukraine’s president.

In turn, he has flattered Putin and largely given in to the Russian president’s demands.

European leaders had worried that Trump was cosying up to Putin.

But Trump’s comments on Sunday appeared to be a departure from that dynamic. It is the first time the US has seriously threatened Russia with consequences for dragging its feet in ceasefire negotiations, which would seem to put the diplomatic ball back in Moscow’s court.

NBC News reported that, in a 10-minute phone interview, Trump said he was very angry and “pissed off” when Putin criticised the credibility of Zelensky’s leadership, although the president has himself called Ukraine’s leader a dictator and demanded that he hold elections.

“You could say that I was very angry, pissed off, when… Putin started getting into Zelensky’s credibility, because that’s not going in the right location,” Trump said.

“New leadership means you’re not gonna have a deal for a long time,” he added.

When speaking about Putin, Trump said that the Kremlin knew of his anger, but noted that he had “a very good relationship” with the Russian leader and “the anger dissipates quickly… if he does the right thing”.

If Russia does not follow through with a ceasefire, Trump threatened to target its economy further if he thought it was Putin’s fault.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault – which it might not be… I am going to put secondary tariffs… on all oil coming out of Russia,” he said.

“There will be a 25% tariff on oil and other products sold in the United States, secondary tariffs,” Trump said, noting that the tariffs on Russia would come in a month without a ceasefire deal.

Secondary tariffs are sanctions on countries that do business with another country. They could constitute up to 50% on goods entering the US from countries still buying oil from Russia. The biggest such buyers by a long margin are China and India.

Zelensky wrote on social media following the interview that “Russia continues looking for excuses to drag this war out even further”.

He said that “Putin is playing the same game he has since 2014”, when Russia unilaterally annexed the Crimean peninsula.

“This is dangerous for everyone – and there should be an appropriate response from the United States, Europe, and all our global partners who seek peace.”

Trump said he would speak to Putin later in the week.

Moscow says the current Ukrainian authorities are illegitimate as President Zelensky has stayed in power beyond the end of his term and is therefore not a valid negotiating partner.

But Zelensky has stayed because elections have been put on hold, legally by martial law and practically by the chaos of war.

It would be almost impossible to hold a valid election with more than five million Ukrainian citizens displaced overseas and many hundreds of thousands away from home fighting on the front line.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour, Ukraine, in February 2022. It currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

More than 100,000 people fighting for Russia’s military have now died as the war in Ukraine enters the fourth year, according to data analysed by BBC Russian, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers who have been counting deaths since the war began.

Ukraine last updated its casualty figures in December 2024, when President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged 43,000 Ukrainian deaths among soldiers and officers. Western analysts believe this figure to be an under-estimate.

Also in the NBC interview on Sunday, Trump said he was “not joking” when he said he would not rule out seeking a third term in the White House, despite it being prohibited by the US Constitution.

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go.”

During the call with NBC, he also again threatened to bomb Iran if it did not agree to a nuclear deal. Trump earlier this month sent a letter to the regime demanding negotiations.

“It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” he said, noting he would also impose secondary tariffs.

On Sunday, Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian said the country would not enter into direct negotiations with Washington concerning their nuclear programme, but indirect talks were possible.

“We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” he said. “They must prove that they can build trust.”

(BBC News)

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