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Sunday, June 4, 2023

India train disaster: Signal fault the likely cause, minister says - BBC

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By Soutik Biswas in Delhi & Adam Durbin in London

BBC News

India's railway minister has suggested a signal fault led to the Odisha rail disaster, with a "change in electronic interlocking" the likely cause.

Ashwini Vaishnaw later said the cause and people responsible for the deadly three-train crash in eastern India had been identified but did not elaborate.

India's Railway Board said there had been "some kind of signalling interference" rather than failure.

A report into India's worst rail accident this century is due later.

Meanwhile the death toll has been revised down to 275 after some bodies were counted twice, officials said.

Of the 1,175 injured people taken to hospital, 793 have been discharged. Some families are still searching for their loved ones.

In railway signalling the electronic interlocking system sets routes for each train in a set area, ensuring the safe movement of trains along the track.

The crash saw a passenger train collide with a stationary goods train and derail, after being wrongly directed onto a loop track by the side of the main line. Derailed carriages then struck the rear carriages of a second passenger train passing in the opposite direction.

At a press conference on Sunday, Jaya Verma Sinha from India's Railway Board said both passenger trains had approached a Balasore district station under a green signal - indicating it was safe - within seconds of each other at the correct speed of under 130kph (81mph).

She said the passenger trains had been supposed to pass each other on the main lines but the Coromandel Express rammed into an iron ore-laden freight train on the loop line, causing the engine and some coaches to lift over the top of the heavy goods carriages.

The passenger train took the entire impact on collision and the freight train was not derailed, or even moved, she told reporters.

The Howrah Superfast Express had nearly crossed in the opposite direction, but two of its rear coaches were struck by the derailed Coromandel Express.

Ms Verma Sinha said there was "no issue with the electronic interlocking system" and said investigations indicated "some kind of a signalling interference" rather than failure.

"Whether it was manual, whether it was incidental, whether it was weather related, whether it was because of wear and tear related, whether it was a maintenance failure, all that will come out after the inquiry," she added.

Infrastructure expert Partha Mukhopadhyay told the BBC it should not be possible for green signals to display on the main line if the track is set for the loop.

"Signal interlocking is supposed to be failsafe and this level of failure is quite unprecedented," Mr Mukhopadhyay, from the Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research, said.

On Saturday Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the crash scene and vowed that anyone found guilty would be "punished stringently".

Around 2,000 people are thought to have been on board the two passenger trains - the Coromandel Express, travelling between Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) and Chennai (formerly Madras) and the Howrah Superfast Express travelling from Yesvantpur to Howrah - when the crash happened at about at about 19:00 (13:30 GMT) on Friday.

Odisha state official Pradeep Jena told the BBC that at least 187 bodies remained unidentified and officials were uploading pictures of the victims on government websites and would carry out DNA testing if needed.

Rescue work was completed on Saturday and efforts were underway to clear wreckage and restart train traffic, officials said.

India has one of the largest train networks in the world with millions of passengers using it daily, but a lot of the railway infrastructure needs improving.

Trains in India can get very packed at this time of year, with a growing number of people travelling during school holidays.

The country's worst train disaster was in 1981, when an overcrowded passenger train was blown off the tracks and into a river during a cyclone in Bihar state, killing about 800 people.

A BBC graphic shows how the crash in Odisha may have happened. The Coromandel Express first hit a goods train, although it is not clear how the two ended up on the same track. This caused the Express's carriages to derail - which were then hit by the oncoming Howrah Superfast Express, causing some of that train's own carriages to derail as well

Saturday, June 3, 2023

CIA chief made secret trip to China amid tensions: US official - Al Jazeera English

CIA Director William Burns emphasised the importance of keeping communication open between China and US.

In a bid to improve communication between Beijing and Washington, the director of the CIA, William Burns, visited China last month for talks with Chinese counterparts, a United States official said.

Burns’s visit in May, which was first reported by The Financial Times, comes as Washington tries to cool tensions with Beijing and restore lines of communication amid fears that a miscommunication between the two global powers could accidentally spiral into conflict.

News of the visit to China comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration has pressed to restore communication and schedule meetings between various top officials in Washington and Beijing.

“Last month, Director Burns travelled to Beijing where he met with Chinese counterparts and emphasised the importance of maintaining open lines of communication in intelligence channels,” a US official told the Reuters news agency on Friday.

Burns met with Chinese intelligence officials and not any of Beijing’s political or foreign policy leadership, according to a second person familiar with the visit who also spoke on condition of anonymity.

The CIA, which does not regularly announce such visits, declined to comment on reports of Burns’s China trip.

Ties between Beijing and Washington have been put under severe strain in recent months over issues ranging from Taiwan and China’s human rights record to Beijing’s growing military activity in the South China Sea and close relations with Russia.

Washington has accused China of considering supplying military aid to Moscow in support of its invasion of Ukraine. China has denied those claims.

Some Biden administration critics have questioned the value of Washington’s overtures to Beijing, arguing that decades of engagement have failed to change China’s approach to a range of issues, including trade, security and human rights.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed a planned trip to China in February amid a diplomatic storm after the shooting down of an alleged Chinese spy balloon that flew across US airspace and over sensitive military sites.

Also on Friday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin shook hands with China’s Minister of National Defence Li Shangfu on the sidelines of a security summit in Singapore but the two did not have a “substantive exchange”, the Pentagon said.

China earlier declined a formal meeting between Austin and Li, who is under US sanctions, during the Shangri-La security summit taking place over the next few days.

In 2018, Washington imposed sanctions on the Equipment Development Department (EED) of the Chinese defence ministry, and its then-director Li, over the purchase of missiles and fighter jets from Russia.

The sanctions triggered a US visa ban and prohibited the EED and Li from conducting transactions with the US financial system.

Speaking at the summit on Saturday, Austin said dialogue between the US and China was “essential” and will help avoid miscalculations that could lead to conflict.

“The United States believes that open lines of communication with the People’s Republic of China [PRC] are essential – especially between our defence and military leaders,” Austin said in remarks at the summit.

“The more that we talk, the more that we can avoid the misunderstandings and miscalculations that could lead to crisis or conflict,” he said.

Separately, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday that the US wanted to engage with China “without preconditions” on nuclear arms control issues, but that Beijing continued to be unwilling.

“Simply put, we have not yet seen a willingness for the PRC to compartmentalise strategic stability from broader issues in the relationship,” Sullivan said in a speech at the Arms Control Association, noting that this had been the bedrock of nuclear and strategic security for decades.

“That’s why we’re also ready to engage China without preconditions, helping ensure that competition is managed, and that competition does not veer into conflict,” he said.

“We’ll see what the PRC chooses to do,” he added.

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Friday, June 2, 2023

South Africa faces two Russia-related crises - Axios

From left, Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at Thursday's BRICS meeting in Cape Town. Photo: Handout via Getty

Two Russia-related controversies are gripping South Africa: U.S. accusations that weapons were shipped from Cape Town to Russia, and Vladimir Putin's invitation for an upcoming summit despite an international arrest warrant.

Why it matters: South Africa is trying to maintain its warm relations with Russia, its official neutrality on the war in Ukraine, and its economic relationship with the U.S. That juggling act is proving very difficult to sustain.

Driving the news: South Africa is hosting top diplomats from the other BRICS countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — ahead of a leader-level summit in August.

Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said Thursday that the government is examining its "legal options" should Putin decide to attend the summit.
MPs from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) have proposed legislation to nullify Pretoria's obligation to arrest leaders wanted by the International Criminal Court. Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) plans legal action to force authorities to arrest Putin if he visits.
Influential former President Thabo Mbeki told a local radio station he expects the summit to be relocated: "Because of our legal obligations we have to arrest President Putin, but we can't do that."

Then there are the explosive allegations from U.S. Ambassador Reuben Brigety that weapons were secretly shipped from South Africa to Russia.

A Russian cargo ship, the Lady R, turned off its transponder before making an unscheduled stop in December at a naval base in Cape Town, where it was loaded at night.
Brigety said on May 11 that he would "bet my life" that weapons and ammunitions were loaded onto it — comments that reportedly angered not only his host country, but also some colleagues at the State Department, who didn't want a rift with Pretoria. He has since softened his tone but not walked back the claim.
Senior South African officials have denied and angrily denounced the allegations, but President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed a retired judge to investigate them.

State of play: Like its BRICS partners Brazil, China and India, as well as many other countries in Africa, South Africa has largely refrained from directly criticizing Russia's invasion, abstained from UN votes on that topic, and called for peace talks.

Ramaphosa also blamed NATO after the invasion and went ahead with military exercises with Russia in February.

The big picture: Many senior ANC figures first developed ties to Moscow — including education and military training, in some cases — when the Soviet Union was backing the anti-apartheid struggle. The countries have maintained close ideological links since the ANC took power in 1994.

Nelson Mandela and his successor Mbeki criticized what they saw as an imbalanced global order, while also positioning South Africa as a "bridge" between the Global South and the economic powers in the West, says Christopher Williams, a research fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

Pretoria moved closer to Moscow and Beijing following the 2008 financial crisis, the election of Jacob Zuma in 2009, and South Africa's invitation to join the BRICS in 2010.
A strategic partnership agreement signed in 2013 made Moscow the closest thing Pretoria has to a formal ally.

Yes, but: The economic relationship is fairly minimal, and a controversial multibillion-dollar nuclear power project Zuma pursued with Russia never got off the ground.

Still, both Russia and South Africa regularly criticize what they see as the hypocrisy of the West and international institutions — for example, the ICC's decision to pursue war crimes charges over the invasion of Ukraine but not over the invasion of Iraq.

What to watch: The government appears to be looking for a work-around whereby the BRICS summit will be moved or Putin won't attend in person, Williams says. Meanwhile, Ramaphosa gave the panel investigating the Lady R. incident eight weeks to file its report.

If Brigety's allegations are borne out, the U.S. will likely be disinclined to renew South Africa's preferential trade status, Williams says.

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Thursday, June 1, 2023

Jordan royals marry into Saudi family with ties to MBS - CNN

CNN —

Jordan’s heir to the throne on Thursday married into one of Saudi Arabia’s prominent business families in a glitzy ceremony attended by international royals and heads of state.

From Britain’s Prince and Princess of Wales to US first lady Jill Biden, nearly 140 guests arrived at Zahran Palace in the Jordanian capital Amman to watch 28-year-old Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II and his fiancée Rajwa Alseif tie the knot.

A 29-year-old Saudi architect and a graduate of Syracuse University in New York, Alseif will be known as Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess of Jordan and, when the Crown Prince takes the throne, her title will change to Queen Rajwa.

The bride is related to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), through her mother, who hails from the prominent Al-Sudairi family.

Jordan's Crown Prince Hussein and Rajwa Alseif sit during the wedding ceremony in Amman, Jordan on Thursday.

Royal Hashemite Court/AP

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman is one of the so-called “Sudairi Seven,” the seven full brothers born to King Abdulaziz and Hussa bint Ahmed Al-Sudair, according to Saudi media reports.

The event began by 9:00 AM (ET), when Jordan’s king and queen began receiving guests at the Zahran Palace. Jordan’s armed forces played music as attendees arrived to greet and congratulate the royal family.

The event then moved to a gazebo in the palace garden, where the couple and their fathers signed the marriage contract in an Islamic ceremony known as “Katb Al-Kitab” and exchanged rings.

Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II of Jordan and Miss Rajwa Alseif.

Royal Hashemite Court/dpa/picture-alliance/AP

Outside the palace, jubilant crowds cheered and waved flags as they awaited the motorcade carrying the newlyweds along a six-mile route across the capital. Streets had been adorned for days with photos of the couple and the Jordanian flag.

Both Jordan and Saudi Arabia are among Washington’s strongest Middle East allies. Jordan is custodian of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and maintains a relationship with both Palestinians and Israelis. A global oil powerhouse, Riyadh’s ties with the US have been strained of late, namely over the kingdom’s oil policies and its relationship with Russia.

Ties between Saudi Arabia and Jordan have recently thawed after years of tension. During a trip to Jordan last year, MBS was quoted by Saudi media as saying that he was keen to “push relations [with Jordan] to a new phase.”

CNN’s Nadeen Ebrahim contributed to this report

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Covid inquiry: Government will 'probably lose legal case', says minister - BBC

By Christy Cooney

BBC News

The government is likely to lose its legal case against the Covid inquiry, a government minister has said.

It comes after the government said it would seek a judicial review over the inquiry's demand that it submit Boris Johnson's unredacted WhatsApp messages.

Speaking on BBC Question Time, science minister George Freeman said he had "very little doubt" a court would find it should hand over the documents.

He added it was "worth testing" whether officials had a right to privacy.

On Thursday, the government missed a 16:00 BST deadline to submit messages sent between Mr Johnson and 40 other ministers and officials during the pandemic.

The Cabinet Office - which supports the prime minister in running the government - has argued many of the messages are not relevant and that to hand them over would compromise ministers' privacy and hamper future decision-making.

Baroness Hallett, the retired judge and crossbench peer who is chairing the inquiry, has said it is up to her to decide what material is relevant.

Asked whether he thought the government would win the case, Mr Freeman told the BBC he thought the "courts will probably take the view" that Lady Hallett is entitled to decide "what evidence she deems relevant".

He added that "people's privacy is really important" and that the question of how private correspondence should be handled was a "point worth testing".

"I would like to see a situation where the inquiry says, 'Listen, we will wholly respect the privacy of anything that's not related to Covid. We will redact it'," he said.

The challenge is thought to be the first time a government has taken legal action against its own public inquiry.

Mr Johnson has said he has given his messages to the Cabinet Office and would be "more than happy" for them to be passed to the inquiry unredacted.

The former prime minister has not handed over any messages from before April 2021 - more than a year into the pandemic - because his phone was involved in a security breach and has not been turned on since, his spokesman said.

He has written to the Cabinet Office to ask whether technical support can be given so the content can be retrieved without compromising security, the spokesman added.

Woman writes on Covid memorial wall in London

The saga comes just weeks before the inquiry - tasked with identifying lessons from how the pandemic was handled - is due to hold its first public hearings.

Lobby Akinnola, from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, expressed exasperation at the government's decision to bring the challenge and said he feared it was part of an attempt to render the inquiry "lame".

"I'm frustrated, I'm angry," he told the BBC's The World Tonight, adding that "we're trying to understand what went wrong so we can prevent it happening again and that...is what the government is hindering."

Elkan Abrahamson, the lawyer representing the group, said the refusal to hand over the material "raises questions about the integrity of the inquiry and how open and transparent it will be if the chair is unable to see all of the material".

Opposition parties have also urged the government to comply with the inquiry's requests.

Labour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner, described the legal challenge as a "desperate attempt to withhold evidence" that would serve "only to undermine the Covid Inquiry", while the Liberal Democrats called it a "kick in the teeth for bereaved families who've already waited far too long for answers".

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

North Korea promises another attempt at spy satellite launch - Reuters

SEOUL, June 1 (Reuters) - North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, leader Kim Jong Un's sister, said her country would soon put a military spy satellite into orbit and promised Pyongyang would increase its military surveillance capabilities, state media KCNA reported on Thursday.

"It is certain that (North Korea's) military reconnaissance satellite will be correctly put on space orbit in the near future and start its mission," Kim, a powerful government official in her own right, said in an English-language statement carried by KCNA.

Her remarks came after the failure of a North Korean satellite launch on Wednesday.

It may take weeks or more to resolve the problems that caused the rocket's failure, a South Korean lawmaker said on Wednesday, citing the South's intelligence agency.

In a rare admission of a North Korean setback, KCNA reported that the Chollima-1 rocket, carrying a military reconnaissance satellite known as "Malligyong-1", crashed into the sea after an accident.

KCNA also published on Thursday images of what it said was the new rocket lifting off from a coastal launch pad. The white-and-gray rocket had a bulbous nose, apparently for carrying a satellite or other cargo.

The photos confirmed that the rocket is a new design, said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The launch used the new coastal launch pad they've built at Tongchang-ri, so we might see a larger space launch vehicle use the traditional gantry that has seen some work recently," he added.

U.S.-based monitors, including 38 North and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, reported that commercial satellite imagery showed significant activity at the main pad after Wednesday's launch.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it could be presumed from North Korea's state media photos that the rocket was launched from a new pad.

South Korea has dispatched ships and aircraft to recover parts from the space launch vehicle, the military said.

Wednesday's launch was widely criticized, including by South Korea, Japan and the United States.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said any launch by Pyongyang using ballistic missile technology breaches Security Council resolutions, a spokesperson said.

In her statement, Kim said the criticisms of the launch were "self-contradiction" as the U.S. and other countries have already launched "thousands of satellites."

"The U.S. is a group of gangsters who would claim that even if the DPRK launches a satellite ... it is illegal and threatening," she said, using the initials of North Korea's official name.

In a separate statement carried by KCNA, North Korea's vice foreign minister Kim Son Gyong criticized U.S.-led military drills in the region including a multinational anti-proliferation naval drill.

Reporting by Hyunsu Yim and Josh Smith; Additional reporting by Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Chris Reese, Grant McCool and Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Sunday, June 4, 2023

India train disaster: Signal fault the likely cause, minister says - BBC

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Related Topics

China urges US to take ‘concrete action’ to stop further decline in ties - South China Morning Post

Saturday, June 3, 2023

CIA chief made secret trip to China amid tensions: US official - Al Jazeera English

Friday, June 2, 2023

South Africa faces two Russia-related crises - Axios

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Jordan royals marry into Saudi family with ties to MBS - CNN

Covid inquiry: Government will 'probably lose legal case', says minister - BBC

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North Korea promises another attempt at spy satellite launch - Reuters

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