Trains collide, killing at least 32 in Egypt
Two trains crashed Friday in southern Egypt, killing at least 32 people and injuring 165 others, authorities said, in the latest of a series of deadly accidents on the country’s troubled railways.
Someone apparently activated emergency brakes on the passenger train, and it was then rearended by another train, causing two cars to derail and overturn, Egypt’s Railway Authorities said. The passenger train was headed to the Mediterranean port of Alexandria, north of Cairo, the statement said.
Video showed twisted piles of metal with passengers trapped inside — some bleeding and others unconscious. Bystanders helped removed the passengers.
More than 100 ambulances were sent to the scene in the province of Sohag, about 270 miles south of Cairo, Health Minister Hala Zayed said. The injured were taken to four hospitals.
Two planes carrying a total of 52 doctors, mostly surgeons, were sent to Sohag, she added at a news conference in the province.
President AbdelFattah elSissi said he was monitoring the situation and that those responsible would receive “a deterrent punishment.”
Egypt’s rail system has a history of badly maintained equipment and mismanagement, and official figures said there were 1,793 train accidents in 2017.
In 2018, elSissi said the government needed about 250 billion Egyptian pounds ($14.1 billion) to overhaul the rail system.
RWANDA
Report faults France on delay
A commission that spent nearly two years examining France’s role in 1994’s Rwandan genocide concluded Friday that the country reacted too slowly in appreciating the extent of the horror that left over 800,000 dead but cleared it of complicity in the slaughter.
The report said France bears “heavy and overwhelming responsibilities” in the drift that led to the killings, which principally claimed victims from Rwanda’s Tutsi ethnic minority.
Persistent claims that France under thenPresident Francois Mitterrand did not do enough to stop the genocide have damaged the FrancoRwandan relationship since the 1990’s. French President Emmanuel Macron ordered the 15member commission in May 2019 to shed light on what happened in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994.
The report excluded any “complicity in genocide” by the French, saying there was no evidence of an intention to carry out genocidal actions. But it did find “malfunctions in the process of appreciation of the situation” and the resulting French government and military decisions.
BANGLADESH
4 die in violent protests
At least four people were killed and scores injured in violent protests Friday set off by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s arrival in Bangladesh to celebrate its 50th anniversary of independence.
The casualties happened after students from a prominent madrasa, or Islamic school, and members of an Islamist group clashed with police in the southeastern district of Chattogram.
At Dhaka’s main mosque, clashes broke out between groups of demonstrators and police dispersed the crowd by using tear gas and rubber bullets — injuring scores of people, officials and witnesses said.
Critics accuse Modi’s Hindunationalist party of stoking religious polarization in India and discriminating against minorities, particularly Muslims.
WASHINGTON New House security chief
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday that she had tapped Maj. Gen. William Walker, commanding general of the District of Columbia National Guard, to be the House’s first African American sergeantatarms.
Walker will lead House security measures as Congress is dealing with the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Walker will replace Paul Irving, who resigned immediately after the insurrection. Walker’s testimony has been a crucial part of investigations into how hundreds of Donald Trump’s supporters could have invaded the Capitol and sent members of the House and Senate fleeing for their lives.
CALIFORNIA Arrests over homeless camp
More than 180 protesters in Los Angeles were arrested and several members of the news media were detained in the second night of confrontation over the removal of a large homeless encampment that overtook a city park, police said Friday.
A police statement said an unlawful assembly was declared Thursday night near Echo Park Lake.
The incident followed the city’s move Wednesday night to fence off the park for repairs while trying to move homeless people to alternative housing, largely hotel rooms. That move led to a confrontation with demonstrators who oppose closing the camp.
Detained reporters were later released without being arrested, police said.