World

A US passenger train that derailed, killing three people, was travelling at 80mph (130km/h) on a curve with a speed limit of 30mph, data from the train's rear engine indicates.

It happened in Washington state during rush hour on Monday and officials say 72 people were taken to the hospital.

A number of those injured are reported to be in a serious condition.

Authorities said all carriages had now been searched, but would not rule out a rise in the number of dead.

A spokeswoman for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said investigators had arrived at the scene on Monday night local time and would probably be there for a week or 10 days.

Bella Dinh-Zarr said the 12-carriage train had engines at the front and rear. The back engine's data recording had been retrieved, she said, and "preliminary indications are that the train was travelling at 80mph on a 30mph track".

"Our hearts go out to everyone who is affected by this very tragic accident," she said.

Warning signs

Passengers say the train rocked and creaked as it took the bend fast before barrelling off a bridge on to a motorway packed with traffic.

Seven vehicles, two of them lorries, were hit on the I-5 highway below. Several people were injured in their vehicles but none died.

State transport spokesperson Barbara LaBoe was quoted in the Seattle Times newspaper as saying the limit on most of the track was 79mph (128km/h) but drivers were supposed to slow dramatically at the spot where the train derailed.

She said warning signs were in place two miles before the lowered limit.

It was Amtrak's first passenger service to run on a new, shorter route. Amtrak is the name of the company that runs most passenger trains in the US, with some government funding.

The derailment happened on a section of the track previously only used for freight trains.

A safety system called Positive Train Control (PTC) was not operational on the train in question, the president of Amtrak told reporters. Using GPS tracking, PTC automatically warns the driver of speed limits and other local conditions and applies the train's brakes if the warnings are not heeded.

Congress originally legislated for PTC to be installed by the end of 2015 but it is still not even halfway complete.

The cost of implementing the system fully on all tracks and vehicles is reported to be more than $22bn (£16bn).

Train 501 had left Seattle, heading south for Portland, at 06:00 local time (14:00 GMT).

One passenger carriage could be seen dangling from the bridge, while others were strewn across the road and the wooded area next to the track.

There were 86 people on board, including 77 passengers and seven Amtrak crew members, as well as a railway technician.

Police say 19 people were taken from the scene uninjured. Of the 72 transferred to hospital for evaluation, 10 were considered to have serious injuries.

 Source : BBC

US President Donald Trump's administration is set to propose revoking a rule that makes spouses of thousands of H1-B visa holders eligible to work while in the US, potentially complicating a major driver of technology jobs, the media reported.

Since 2015, the spouses of H-1B, or high-skilled, visa holders waiting for green cards have been eligible to work in the US on H-4 dependent visas, under a rule introduced by former President Barack Obama's administration, CNN reported on Friday.

The tech sector is a major employer of H-1B visa holders.

But in a statement late Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said that it intended to do away with the rule.

However, the department did not explain its reasons in the announcement, saying that it was only acting "in light of" the "Buy American, Hire American" executive order that Trump had signed in April.

The formal process to rescind the rule will still need to be initiated at a later date.

While changing the rule would not prevent spouses of H-1B holders from pursuing other avenues for work authorisation, it could deter a number of high-skilled immigrants from staying in the US if their spouses cannot easily find work.

As well as dropping the rule allowing spouses to work, the Department of Homeland Security statement mentioned plans for other changes to the H-1B visa programme, reports CNN.

They include revising the definition of what occupations are eligible for the programme "to increase focus on truly obtaining the best and brightest foreign nationals", which would be a standard potentially far above what is currently understood under the law.

The Obama-era rule allowing spouses to work already faces a legal challenge. A group called Save Jobs USA filed a lawsuit in April 2015 arguing that it threatens American jobs.

It has continued to press the case following Trump's election, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said in the past that the H-4 rule "hurts American workers".

The administration's plans to overhaul the H-1B programme has caused particular alarm in India, which accounts for 70 percent of all H-1B workers.

The H-1B is a common visa route for highly skilled foreigners to find work at companies in the US. It is valid for three years and can be renewed for another three years.

It is a programme that's particularly popular in the tech community, with many engineers vying for one of the programme's 85,000 visas each year.

In October, the government said it was toughening up the process for renewing the visa. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services instructed its officers to review requests for renewal as thoroughly as they would initial visa applications.

Source: NDTV

At least eight women and two girls heading home from a wedding have been killed in an air attack in central-west Yemen, a health official has told Al Jazeera.

Saba news agency, aligned with Yemen's Houthi group, cited a security source as saying that the women's vehicle was struck by three Saudi-led coalition air raids late on Saturday.

The attack reportedly took place at around 11pm local time (20:00 GMT) in the Harib al-Qaramish district of the Marib governorate, east of the capital, Sanaa, where the wedding had taken place.

So far, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi rebels has not commented on the alleged air attack.

Mohammad al-Sheab, head of the health bureau in Marib, told Al Jazeera that the victims were all from the Haysan family. He said the women were between 30 to 50 years old, without providing an age for the two girls.

In a post on Twitter, Mohammad Abdel Salam, spokesperson for Ansar Allah, the political arm of the Houthis, called the attack a "massacre".

In previous tweets, Abdel Salam also accused the Saudi-led coalition of carrying out "three bloody massacres in [the towns of] Taiz, Saada and Hodeidah" over the weekend. He added that more than 70 people were killed in those attacks.

Humanitarian catastrophe
Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition at war in Yemen since March 2015, when the oil-rich Kingdom intervened to push back Houthi rebels and allied troops, and reinstate the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Despite being mired in the war for more than two years, the coalition has so far failed to achieve its stated aims as Houthi rebels continue to hold Sanaa and control the country's north.

The war has taken a huge toll on Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country.

More than 10,000 civilians have been killed, and millions of Yemenis have been left without basic necessities.
Last week,the UN warned that some 8.4 million people "are a step away from famine" in Yemen, which is already battling a massive cholera epidemic.

(Al Jazeera)

PIC: An image purportedly showing the vehicle targeted by the Saudi-led coalition [Media Committee in Sanaa]

Japan has imposed fresh sanctions against North Korea as it seeks to ramp up pressure on Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programmes.

Chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said the assets of another 19 entities and individuals would be frozen.

More than 210 organisations and people from countries including China and Russia will now be targeted.

Businesses on the blacklist include banks, coal and minerals traders, and transport firms.

The widening of sanctions comes ahead of a meeting of the UN Security Council to be held on Friday.

Japan said it is facing a "pressing threat unseen before" after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) across its territory in September.

"North Korea launched an ICBM ballistic missile that landed in our exclusive economic zone and continues to repeat provocative commentaries", Mr Suga told reporters on Friday.

Suga said it would freeze more assets to "further increase pressure" on Pyongyang.

Japan already imposes strict restrictions on North Korea, including a blanket ban on trade and port calls.

South Korea and the US also impose unilateral sanctions on North Korea, in addition to sanctions enforced by the UN.

The UN Security Council meeting on Friday is aimed at finding peaceful ways to pressure North Korea to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile tests and denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

Information provided by the CIA helped Russian security services foil an attack on St Petersburg Kazan cathedral, the Kremlin says.

The attack was allegedly planned to take place on Saturday, officials say.

In a phone call, President Vladimir Putin thanked Donald Trump for the CIA's intervention, the Kremlin said.

Mr Putin told Mr Trump that Russia's special services would hand over information on terror threats to their US counterparts, it added.

Russia's FSB security service said in a statement on Friday that it had detained seven members of a cell of Islamic State supporters and seized a significant amount of explosives, weapons and extremist literature.

The cell was planning to carry out a suicide attack at a religious institution and kill citizens on Saturday, the FSB statement said.

The group was preparing explosions targeting the cathedral and other public places in Russia's second city, the Kremlin statement said.

It added that Mr Putin had asked the US president to pass on his thanks to the CIA director and the operatives involved.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed that Mr Trump and his Russian counterpart had spoken on Sunday. More details are expected soon.

An explosion on St Petersburg's metro system in April, which killed at least 13 people, is thought to be linked to jihadists.

Returning militants from Syria pose a real threat to Russia, the head of the FSB was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Security services had already prevented 18 terrorist attacks in 2017, Alexander Bortnikov said in comments reported by Itar-Tass news agency.

Source : CNN

In a first, the top diplomatic and defense bureaucrats of the Indian and Australian governments met this week for a so-called two-plus-two meeting.

Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar and Defense Secretary Sanjay Mitra hosted Australian Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Frances Adamson and Secretary of the Department of Defense Greg Moriarty in New Delhi for the meetings.

According to a statement released by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, the meeting covered “All aspects of bilateral relations with a focus on strategic and defence relations between the two countries.”

In November, representatives from both India and Australia participated in a working-level quadrilateral meeting with representatives from Japan and the United States.

This so-called “Quad” had originally met in 2007 and the latest meeting focused on the concept of a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” an idea that all four sides backed in statements released after the working-level meeting.

Unsurprisingly, the India-Australia two-plus-two meeting referenced the idea: “Both sides agreed that a free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region serves the long-term interests of all countries in the region and of the world at large,” the Indian Ministry of External Affairs noted in its statement.

On regional security matters, India and Australia have seen a fair bit of convergence recently. The two countries conduct bilateral naval exercises in the Indian Ocean, and Australia may potentially participate in the trilateral U.S.-India-Japan Malabar drill in the coming year.

In 2017, Australia, despite its interest, did not participate in the Malabar drills, owing to Indian hesitation. The Indian Navy nevertheless joined its Australian counterpart for the AUSINDEX drill this year.

Earlier this year, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited New Delhi for a four-day state visit, where he met with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.

The joint statement released by the two leaders during that visit, which described them as “partners in the Indo-Pacific,” focused considerably on regional issues.

“The two Prime Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to a peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific, based on mutual respect and cooperation. Australia and India share a commitment to democratic values, rule of law, international peace and security, and shared prosperity,” the statement noted.

“The strategic and economic interests of both countries are converging which opens up opportunities for working together in a rapidly changing region.”

 By Ankit Panda

The Diplomat

Pic: MEA India

A suicide bomb and gun attack on a church in the western Pakistani city of Quetta has killed at least eight people and wounded dozens of others, hospital officials say.

The attack targeted Bethel Memorial Methodist Church as worshippers gathered inside to attend a Sunday midday service.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the gate of the church, prompting a police operation, officials told Al Jazeera.

A second attacker fired upon worshippers, before being killed by security forces at the scene.

"We have cleared the immediate area around the church, and we are now clearing a peripheral area further out," Moazzam Jah Ansari, police chief of Balochistan province, told reporters at the site of the attack.

Witnesses reported a heavy exchange of gunfire in the neighbourhood as police worked to clear the area.

"People were fleeing to the corners [of the church]. I couldn't understand what was happening; it happened so suddenly," a woman, who was at the church when the attack occurred, said on condition of anonymity.

Waseem Ahmed, an official at the nearby Civil Hospital, said 33 people were wounded in the attack.

More than 200 people were gathered at the church for the service at the time of the attack.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group claimed responsibility for the attack in an online statement published by its Amaq outlet. The group did not provide any evidence for its claim.

Frequent attacks

Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, has been at the centre of recent violence in Pakistan.

The city has come under attack both from armed groups allied with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and separatist fighters.

Last month, a suicide attack targeting paramilitary soldiers killed at least four people and wounded 15 others.

Earlier that month, a senior police official was also killed in a similar attack, while in October at least seven police officers were killed in another roadside bombing.

Source: Al Jazeera

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are the world's most dangerous security issue and must be resolved fast and diplomatically to avoid war, a top United Nations envoy said after a rare visit to North Korea.

Jeffrey Feltman, the UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, visited the reclusive nation between Tuesday and Friday, the first trip there by a top UN official in six years.

During his visit, he met with Ri Yong Ho, the North Korean minister for foreign affairs. Their meeting came at a particularly tense time -- a week after North Korea tested an advanced long-range missile and South Korea conducted military drills with its ally, the United States.

Ri and Feltman "agreed that the current situation was the tensest and dangerous peace and the security issue in the world today," the UN said in a statement.

Feltman stressed the need for relevant Security Council resolutions to be implemented, saying a diplomatic solution could be achieved through sincere dialogue.

In a statement to journalists, he said there's an "urgent need to prevent miscalculations and open channels to reduce the risks of conflict." He emphasized that the international community is alarmed by escalating tensions, and is committed to a peaceful resolution.

"Time is of the essence," he said.

Missiles and drills

North Korea remains technically at war with its neighbour South Korea after the Korean War ended in armistice but not peace in 1953.

Feltman's trip coincided with the annual Vigilante 18 military drill held by the US and South Korea, which the US Air Force says is designed to boost the "combat effectiveness" of the alliance.

North Korea's state media described the drills as "joint air war exercises targeting the DPRK," a reference to North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The drills came after Pyongyang test-fired a Hwasong-15 missile November 29.

It was North Korea's first ballistic missile test since September. The Hwasong-15 is believed to be its most dangerous and technologically advanced long-range ballistic missile and demonstrated a range of around 13,000 kilometres (8,000 miles), which puts most of the planet in range. North Korean state media purports it can carry a "super-large heavy warhead."

UN in North Korea

Feltman's visit to North Korea was a response to a "long-standing invitation" from Pyongyang authorities for policy dialogue, the UN said ahead of the visit.

The last senior UN official to visit North Korea was emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos in October 2011, according to the UN. The last time an undersecretary-general for political affairs visited the country was in February 2010.

Six UN agencies are represented in North Korea, staffed by a team of about 50 people from across the globe, the UN said in a statement.

Feltman visited several UN projects in North Korea, including a pediatric hospital and Tuberculosis prevention institute.

The former American diplomat is a key adviser to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on global peace and security issues. He spent nearly 30 years at the US State Department before joining the UN in 2012.

Pic Source: UN

Argentina fired the head of its navy a month after a submarine disappeared in the South Atlantic with 44 crew members on board, a government spokesman said on Saturday.

 Letting go of Navy Admiral Marcelo Eduardo Hipólito Srur was the first known disciplinary action taken by President Mauricio Macri’s administration since contact was lost with the ARA San Juan on Nov. 15.

“It was decided to remove him,” a government spokesman said.

Families of the crew members criticized Macri’s government for not clearly communicating with them and for abandoning rescue efforts.

The navy said on Nov. 27 that water that entered the submarine’s snorkel caused its battery to short-circuit before it went missing. The navy had previously said international organizations detected a noise that could have been the submarine’s implosion the same day contact was lost.

The hope of rescuing survivors was abandoned on Nov. 30. The navy said it searched for double the amount of time the submarine would have had oxygen. An international search for the submarine is still underway.

Source: Reuters

France has passed a new law to ensure all plastic cups, cutlery and plates can be composted and are made of biologically-sourced materials.

The law, which comes into effect in 2020, is part of the Energy Transition for Green Growth – an ambitious plan that aims to allow France to make a more effective contribution to tackling climate change.

Although some ecologists’ organisations are in favour of the ban, others argue that it has violated European Union rules on free movement of goods.

Pack2Go Europe, a Brussels-based organization representing European packaging manufacturers, says it will keep fighting the new law and hopes it doesn't spread to the rest of the continent.

"We are urging the European Commission to do the right thing and to take legal action against France for infringing European law," Pack2go Europe secretary general Eamonn Bates told The Associated Press. "If they don't, we will."

Bates believes there is no proof the biologically-sourced materials are more environmentally beneficial and that the ban might make the situation worse as people may misunderstand the extent of degradability.

"The ban will be understood by consumers to mean that it is OK to leave this packaging behind in the countryside after use because it's easily bio-degradable in nature. That's nonsense! It may even make the litter problem worse," he said.

Source : The Independant, UK

Toronto billionaire and philanthropist Barry Sherman and his wife were found dead in their mansion Friday afternoon, CNN affiliate CTV reports.

The Toronto Police Service is investigating the deaths as "suspicious."

During a press conference Friday, Constable David Hopkinson would not identify the two bodies. Hopkinson said police, fire units and ambulance responded to a "medical complaint" just before noon on Friday.

Ontario politicians who spoke out on social media said the deceased were generous philanthropists.

Minister of Health Dr. Eric Hoskins tweeted: "I am beyond words right now. My dear friends Barry and Honey Sherman have been found dead. Wonderful human beings, incredible philanthropists, great leaders in health care. A very, very sad day. Barry, Honey, rest in peace."

Minister of Economic Development Brad Duguid also expressed his condolences on Twitter. "Deeply shocked & saddened to hear of the deaths of Barry & Honey Sherman. Philanthropists and entrepreneurs who made our province a better place to live."

Hopkinson said that there are no concerns for the public's safety.

"The circumstances of their death appear suspicious and we are treating it that way," he said.

According to CTV, Sherman was the chairman of generic drugmaker Apotex, which he founded in 1974. Apotex went on to become the largest Canadian-owned pharmaceutical company.

Jordan Berman, global director of corporate communications for Apotex, called the news of the deaths "tragic."

"All of us at Apotex are deeply shocked and saddened by this news and our thoughts and prayers are with the family at this time," Berman said in a statement to CNN.

Constable Hopkinson said that the investigation was still in its early stages and the deaths were not being treated as homicides.

"This is just a suspicious death. We are only investigating that as such right now. If it is determined to be a homicide, then our investigators from homicide will come in."

China, Russia and India agreed to maintain regional security and economic architecture in the Asia-Pacific, said a joint communique issued Monday after the 15th trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of the three countries.

Maintaining regional security and economic architecture that is "open, inclusive, and based on multilateralism, universally recognized principles of international law" is imperative for lasting peace and stability in the region, said the communique.

The three countries emphasized the need for coordination and cooperation in various regional forums and organizations such as East Asia Summit to maintain regional peace and stability and to promote regional development and prosperity.

During the one-day meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj discussed a wide range of global and regional issues of common concern, according to the communique.

The three countries reiterated the importance they attached to cooperation and strategic partnership within BRICS.

"We will work together to implement all outcomes of BRICS summits to strengthen cooperation in economic, political, security and people-to-people fields, so as to usher in the second golden decade of BRICS cooperation," said the communique, while commending the successful hosting of the ninth BRICS summit in Xiamen by China in September 2017.

The three countries also attached special importance to the joint work within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), saying the SCO is an important instrument in promoting multilateral political, security economic and people-to-people interaction in the region.

Describing Russia-India-China Trilateral format as a platform to foster closer dialogue and practical cooperation in identified areas among the three countries, the communique said such cooperation is not directed against any other country.

"We wish to strengthen the trilateral dialogue for consultation and coordination on regional and global issues of mutual interest in the spirit of mutual understanding and trust,"it said.
"Our cooperation is conducive to maintaining international and regional peace, stability and promoting global economic growth and prosperity," it added.

Source : Xinhua