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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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Passengers jump from plane’s wing after fire alert on Spain flight, triggers panic

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Wildfires have broken out on an island and in towns near Athens in Greece, with blazes also being sparked in Turkey and Syria.

The Hellenic Fire Service and local authorities said that two villages – Tsakeoi and Limnionas – had been evacuated on the island of Evia after the blaze started late on Friday.

One fire service official said more than 160 firefighters, 46 trucks and five aircraft were deployed in southern Evia to put out the fire.

Southern Evia, to the east of Athens, was one of several regions in Greece placed on high alert for wildfires over gale-force winds forecast for today.

Images from Koropi, a town to the southwest of Athens, also show houses burnt down and helicopters dropping water on burning forests.

It marks the latest wildfires to break out in Greece – where blazes are common during the summer – as it tackles strong winds and dry conditions amid an early summer heatwave in southern Europe.

Officials have linked the conditions to at least nine deaths across the continent.

A wildfire broke out in Achlia on the island of Crete on Wednesday, forcing thousands of residents and tourists to evacuate – with some taken to a nearby basketball arena and hotels in safer parts of the island.

The fire service official told Reuters on Friday that the fire in Crete was largely contained.

Meanwhile, blazes have also broken out on Turkey’s west coast – the latest in a series of blazes which started in late June – as well as its southerly neighbour Syria.

At least five fires have been reported in Izmir after extreme heat, strong winds and low humidity. Two people have been killed by the blazes, while tens of thousands have been evacuated.

Fires also flared on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border on Friday, with a new blaze reported near the town of Dortyol in Turkey’s border province of Hatay.

According to Syria’s Civil Defence, wildfires have spread across large parts of mountainous areas in the Latakia province.

The government department added that conditions have hampered efforts to bring the fire under control, and noted unexploded ordnance could be in some of the areas affected.

Source: SKY NEWS

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Big Beautiful Bill පනතට අමෙරිකානු ජනපති අත්සන් තබයි

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Big Beautiful Bill ලෙස නම් කර ඇති පනතට අමෙරිකානු ජනපති ඩොනල්ඩ් ට්‍රම්ප් අත්සන් තබා තිබේ.

ඒ එම පනත අමෙරිකාවේ පිළිගත් නීතීයක් බවට පත් කරමින් ය.

ධවල මන්දිරයේ පැවති මෙම උත්සවය සදහා ට්‍රම්ප්ගේ ආධාරකරුවන් විශාග පිරිසක් පැමිණ සිටියේ ය.

එම පණතට ආරක්ෂාව සඳහා ඩොලර් බිලියන 150 ක අයවැය වැඩිවීමක් ඇතුළත් වෙයි.

2017 වසරේ ඩොනල්ඩ් ට්‍රම්ප් පළමු ධුර කාලය තුළ සිදුකළ බදු කප්පාදු දීර්ඝ කිරීමද ඇතුළත් ය.

අඩු ආදායම්ලාභීන් සහ ආබාධිතයන් සඳහා රජය විසින් සපයනු ලබන සෞඛ්‍ය සේවා යෝජනා ක්‍රමය සඳහාද දැඩි කප්පාදු සිදුවනු ඇති.

අතිකාල සහ සමාජ ආරක්ෂණය සඳහා නව බදු සහනද ඊට ඇතුළත් වෙයි.

ආගමන සහ රේගු බලාත්මක කිරීම සඳහා මෙම පනත මගින් වෙන් කර ඇති මුදල ඩොලර් බිලියන 100 කි.

කැපිටල් හිල්හි පැවති දීර්ඝ සැසිවාරයකින් අනතුරුව මෙම පනත පසුගියදා සම්මත විය.

පනතට පක්ෂව ඡන්ද 218ක් ලැබී ඇති අතර විරුද්ධව ලැබුණු ඡන්ද සංඛ්‍යාව 214කි.

එරට ඩිමොක්‍රටික් පක්ෂයේ සියලු දෙනා මෙන්ම අමෙරිකානු ජනපති ඩොනල්ඩ් ට්‍රම්ප්ගේ පක්ෂය වන රිපබ්ලිකන් පක්ෂයේ දෙදෙනෙකුද ඊට විරුද්ධවූවන් අතරට ඇතුළත් ය.

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Namibia halts all state funerals amid criticism of high cost

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Namibia reportedly spent 30m Namibian dollars ($1.7m; £1.25m) on transport costs during founding President Sam Nujoma’s funeral

The Namibian government has announced a temporary ban on state funerals amid criticism over the rising costs of these burials.

Only President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah has the power to exempt funerals from the moratorium, the government said.

Minister of Information and Communication Technology Emma Theofelus made the announcement following a Cabinet meeting earlier this week.

She said the moratorium would last until April 2026, while a review committee looks into the “criteria and processes associated with bestowing official funerals”.

Ms Theofelus told the BBC that a committee consisting of “no more than seven members” would be established to lead the review.
The government has not said whether the decision was related to mounting criticism of the increasing costs of the numerous state funerals as reported by local media.

The BBC has asked the presidency for comment.

The Windhoek Observer, a privately owned publication, said calls for the moratorium had been made as far back as 2021 when the rising cost of official burials came under scrutiny, especially at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It quoted Prime Minister Elijah Ngurare, who earlier this year revealed that official funerals had cost the government 38.4m Namibian dollars ($2.2m; £1.6m) in the 2024/2025 financial year.

By comparison, only 2.1m Namibian dollars was spent on 23 funerals during the 2022/2023 financial year, according to the news site.

The Observer said the state had spent 30m Namibian dollars just to transport the body of founding President Sam Nujoma around the country ahead of his state funeral in February this year.

Nujoma, who died at the age of 95, led the long fight for independence from South Africa after helping found Namibia’s liberation movement, the South West Africa People’s Organisation (Swapo), in the 1960s.

After independence, Nujoma became president in 1990 and led the country until 2005.

(BBC News)

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