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At least 39 people died in southern Spain after ‌a high-speed train derailed and collided with an oncoming one on Sunday night in one of the worst railway accidents in Europe ‌in the past 80 years.  Twelve were in ‍intensive care after the accident near Adamuz in the province of Cordoba, about 360km south of Madrid, according to emergency services. Experts studying the crash site say a faulty rail joint may be key to determining the cause of the crash. “The train tipped to one side... then everything went dark, and all I heard was screams,” said Ana Garcia Aranda, 26, who was travelling back to Madrid ‍and was being treated at a Red Cross centre in Adamuz.  Limping and wrapped in a blanket, her face covered with plasters, she described how fellow passengers dragged her out of the train covered in blood. Firefighters rescued her pregnant sister from the wreckage and an ambulance took them both to hospital. “There were people who were fine and others who were very, very badly injured.  You had them right in front of you and you knew they were going to die, and you couldn’t do anything,” she said. The collision occurred in a hilly, olive-growing region which could only be accessed by a single-track road, making it difficult for ambulances to enter and exit, Iñigo Vila, national emergency director at the Spanish ‌Red Cross, said.  Emergency teams were struggling to bring in heavy machinery that could lift the wreckage to get access to more of the dead, the Andalusia region’s President Juan Manuel Moreno said. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Transport Minister Oscar Puente visited the crash ‍site Tuesday.  Police drone footage showed how the trains came to a standstill 500 ‌metres apart. One train’s carriage was split in two, and the locomotive was crushed like a tin can. Experts studying the crash site found a broken joint on the rails, which created a gap between the rail sections that widened as trains continued to travel on the track, according to a source briefed on initial investigations into the disaster.

Spokesperson for the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Bassal stated that a seven-day-old infant died as a result of the extreme cold in the Gaza Strip, which has been experiencing a storm since Friday.Bassal confirmed to the Qatar News Agency (QNA) today that the infant died in his family's tent in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. This brings the number of victims of the cold in tents in Gaza to four children, in addition to 19 people who died as a result of the collapse of buildings bombed during the Israeli aggression.Bassal explained that the current storm affecting the Gaza Strip has caused severe damage to temporary shelters, noting that thousands of tents have been completely destroyed, while many others, especially those on the beach, have been blown away by the strong winds.He pointed out that thousands of tents remain at risk of being blown away at any moment, given the continued unstable weather conditions and the lack of any means of securing or protecting them. He added that civilians are living in catastrophic conditions inside tattered tents and dilapidated houses, lacking even the most basic safety and human dignity. He pointed out that they were forced to pitch their tents on the beach due to the lack of space within the cities after the widespread destruction of residential neighborhoods and the absence of alternative shelters.Bassal confirmed the existence of thousands of houses on the verge of collapse, posing a direct threat to the lives of residents, especially with cracks and partial collapses that worsen with rain and wind. He warned that every new storm turns into a genuine humanitarian disaster, given the ban on the entry of building materials and the continued obstruction of reconstruction efforts.He added that what the Gaza Strip is witnessing today falls far short of the minimum humanitarian standards and constitutes a blatant violation of humanitarian principles and international humanitarian law. He explained that civil defense teams are working with extremely limited resources, amidst increasing reports of collapses, tents being blown away, and rainwater leaks.The spokesperson warned that the continuation of this situation threatens a wider humanitarian catastrophe in the coming period unless urgent intervention is undertaken to provide safe shelter solutions and allow the immediate entry of building materials.The residents of the Gaza Strip, particularly those displaced and living in tents, have been facing a severe humanitarian disaster and tragedy since the war on Gaza. This is compounded by the lack of shelter necessities, the Israeli occupation's prevention of their entry, and the deteriorating living conditions, forcing them to live inside homes that have been destroyed or are on the verge of collapse due to the bombing, despite warnings and appeals from the international community.

Two people died in the Netherlands in fireworks accidents and there were scattered instances of violence as the country celebrated the New Year, and in a separate incident a historic church in the heart of Amsterdam burned down. The Netherlands traditionally rings in the New Year with people setting off their own fireworks, which causes hundreds of injuries and millions of euros in damage every year.This year, some 250 people were arrested on New Year’s Eve and in several towns riot police were deployed, police said. “The impact of heavy fireworks and arson this New Year’s Eve in some areas was utterly devastating,” police said in a statement Thursday. “The targeted violence against emergency services and police was intense again.” The head of the Dutch Police Union, Nine Kooiman, reported an “unprecedented amount of violence against police and emergency services” over New Year’s Eve. She said she herself had been pelted three times by fireworks and other explosives as she worked a shift in Amsterdam. Shortly after midnight, authorities released a rare country-wide alert on mobile phones warning people not to call overwhelmed emergency services unless lives were at risk. Reports of attacks against police and firefighters were widespread across the country. In the southern city of Breda, people threw petrol bombs at police. The fireworks accidents killed a 38-year-old man in Aalsmeer, close to Amsterdam, and a boy from Nijmegen, a town in the east of the country, police said. In Amsterdam, the neo-Gothic Vondelkerk, near the city’s central Vondelpark, was almost destroyed by a fire that started shortly after midnight. The 50m-high church tower collapsed and the roof was badly damaged but the structure was expected to remain intact, Amsterdam authorities said. The Amsterdam police and fire department said they were investigating and had no comment yet on what caused the blaze in the church, which was built in 1872. New Year’s Eve 2025 marked the last year before a nationwide ban on the sale of fireworks to consumers will come into effect. Emergency room doctors, police, firefighters and local and national politicians have campaigned for the ban for years. According to the Dutch Pyrotechnics Association, revellers splashed out a record €129mn ($151mn) on fireworks. Some areas had been designated firework-free zones, but this appeared to have little effect. An AFP journalist in such a zone in The Hague reported loud bangs until around 3am. In Belgium, meanwhile, police made scores of arrests as officers in both Brussels and Antwerp were targeted with fireworks – with a New Year’s ban on their use failing to prevent chaotic scenes in both major cities. Police used tear gas and arrested more than 100 people in the port city of Antwerp, where minors as young as 10 or 11 targeted officers and emergency services with fireworks and stones, setting fire to bikes, cars and trash cans, a spokesperson told AFP. Authorities confiscated a number of “very dangerous” professional grade fireworks, the spokesperson said. A 12-year-old child was seriously injured in a fireworks incident in the northern city. Likewise in the capital Brussels, police said they were “repeatedly” targeted with fireworks, making some 70 arrests overnight. In Germany, two 18-year-olds died in the western city of Bielefeld when they set off home-made fireworks that produced “deadly facial injuries”, local police said in a statement. 

A year after the worst air disaster on South Korean soil, ‌families of the 179 people who died gathered around the battered ‌concrete embankment where Jeju Air Flight ‍2216 crashed, demanding answers and a thorough investigation.Hundreds of people surrounded the site at Muan International Airport ⁠where the Boeing 737-800 crash-landed without wheels ⁠deployed, slammed into the barrier and exploded into a fireball on December 29, 2024.Relatives - ‍who have said they are outraged by the lack of progress in finding out what went wrong - sobbed on Monday as they lit candles on a cake and sang 'Happy Birthday' for the 16 victims who were born in December."We will not stop until the truth is finally revealed and those responsible are held accountable so that the lives of the 179 ‌were not lost for nothing," Kim Yu-jin, representing the families, said at a memorial service in the airport.Addressing mourners, government officials and the Parliament speaker, Kim accused the government of ‍focusing its energies on clearing up ⁠the aftermath of ‌the crash rather than carrying out a proper investigation.Relatives laid flowers on a memorial altar and looked on as the names of the dead were read out and displayed on a screen, written on cards in the shape of boarding tickets."I hope the investigation will be conducted thoroughly, so that those who deserve to be punished ... are punished,” Ryu Kum-Ji, who lost both her parents in the crash, told Reuters.President Lee Jae Myung - who came to office six months after the disaster - apologised to the families in a statement earlier on Monday and said it was his duty to ​make sure there was no repeat ‌of the tragedy."The disaster clearly revealed the systematic problems and limitations of our society," Lee said."What's needed now ⁠is not perfunctory promises or ‍empty words but rather real change and action."The government-led Aviation and Railway Accident Investigation Board has failed to meet a one-year deadline to release a report into the accident.It said in a preliminary report in January that both of the plane's engines sustained bird strikes in an earlier approach to the airport.In July, investigators said the left ​engine, which sustained less damage than the right one following the bird strikes, was shut down before the crash landing.Few other details have emerged since then, with questions remaining about the design of the runway including the heavy embankment, and what actions the pilots may have taken in the last few minutes of the flight.Representatives of the families have raised questions about the board's independence and expertise and said investigators appear to be blaming the pilots rather than looking into other factors.Parliament has ⁠been reviewing a plan to overhaul the board. 

Shamshad Akhtar, the first and only woman to lead Pakistan's central bank and a two-time caretaker finance minister, died at 71, the finance ministry said Saturday.She was ⁠serving as chairperson ⁠of the Pakistan Stock Exchange at the time of her death, giving her a rare role spanning Pakistan's monetary policy, fiscal management and capital markets.Akhtar was governor of the State Bank of Pakistan from 2006-09 and later led the finance ministry in caretaker governments ahead of the 2018 and 2024 general elections.Finance ⁠Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb described Akhtar as a principled and dignified voice in Pakistan's economic history, praising her integrity, professionalism and long public service."She served the country with honesty and dedication in some of the most senior economic roles," he said in a statement, offering condolences to her family, friends and colleagues.Local media reported that she died of cardiac ⁠arrest.Widely regarded as one of Pakistan’s most internationally experienced economic policymakers, Akhtar also held senior positions, including as vice-president at the World Bank and executive secretary of the UN ESCAP, and previously worked at the Asian Development Bank.Born in Hyderabad, she was educated in Karachi and Islamabad and held degrees from the University of the Punjab, Quaid-e-Azam University, the University of Sussex and the UK’s ⁠Paisley College of Technology. 

Cameroonian opposition figure Anicet Ekane died in detention in Yaounde Monday morning, the vice president of his party said.The left-wing nationalist politician was arrested in Douala on October 24, on the eve of the publication of presidential election results that returned 92-year-old Paula Biya to power for an eighth mandate.Ekane was close to fellow opposition figure Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who contested Biya's 43-year grip on power in the October 12 election."Anicet Ekane died this morning in Yaounde, where he had been transferred after his arrest at the end of October in Douala," Valentin Dongmo of the African Movement for the New Independence of Cameroon (Manidem) party said.The exact circumstances of Ekane's death remain unclear."Anicet Ekane was arrested in Douala and then transferred to Yaounde, where he was held at the State Defence Secretariat (SED). It was there that his health began to deteriorate," according to Dongmo."We repeatedly alerted the authorities, including the military court administration, requesting that Anicet Ekane be transferred to a hospital with the appropriate facilities for better care, but our requests did not receive a favourable response," he said.He added that "just Monday" (Sunday), Ekane's supporters had called for a "medical evacuation".Ekane and other political leaders were arrested for publicly supporting Bakary's self-proclaimed presidential victory ahead of the publication of official results.Manidem had denounced the "arbitrary" arrests aiming to "intimidate" Cameroonians.According to political analyst Stephane Akoa, the SED, an administrative unit attached to the defence ministry, has allowed the political system to "maintain strict control over VIP detainees or those considered as such", without guaranteeing them "better treatment."Akoa added that the death of Ekane "crudely reminds us that detention conditions in Cameroon are extremely poor, including "in some cases a disregard for human rights", despite international conventions the country has ratified.The defence ministry said in a statement Monday it denied any negligence, insisting "he was appropriately cared for by the medical staff".The ministry noted an investigation has been opened to "precisely determine the circumstances of death".Born in Douala in 1951, Ekane joined the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) party in 1973, which he then quit to create Manidem in 1995.In February 1990, he and other members of the Yondo Black group were arrested. He was convicted at a military trial before being pardoned several months later.Ekane, whose death triggered a groundswell of reactions on social media, led Manidem for several years and ran as its presidential candidate in 2004 and 2011.The government said it had learned of his death "with consternation" and called on the public to "remain calm", adding that Biya had ordered an immediate probe to establish "the real causes" of Ekane's death.The European Union delegation in Cameroon renewed its call for the release of everyone who had been abitrarily detained since the presidential elections.It also stressed the need for "justice" to prevent such tragedies happening again.It pointed to its previous calls to "guarantee the safety and physical integrity of all political actors" and to "combat the excessive use of violence and human rights violations". 

James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the discovery of DNA's double-helix structure, but whose reputation was tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died aged 97.The eminent American biologist died Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, said the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career.Watson went down as among the 20th century's most storied scientists for his 1953 discovery of the double helix, a breakthrough made with research partner Francis Crick.Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, Watson shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for their momentous work that gave rise to modern biology and opened the door to insights including on genetic code and protein synthesis.That ushered in a new era of modern life, allowing for revolutionary technologies in medicine, forensics and genetics, like criminal DNA testing or genetically manipulated plants.Watson was just 25 when he joined in on one of science's greatest discoveries. He later went on to do groundbreaking work in cancer research and mapping the human genome.His 1968 memoir *The Double Helix was a best-seller praised for its breezy writing about fierce competition in the name of scientific advancement.But on a personal level Watson was known as at best cantankerous and frank, at worst mean and bigoted.He routinely disparaged female scientists, including Rosalind Franklin, whose work on X-ray diffraction images of DNA offered the clue that made Watson and Crick's modeling possible.Franklin, who worked with Wilkins, did not receive the Nobel. She died in 1958, and the prestigious prize is neither shared by more than three people nor given posthumously.Watson faced few consequences for his behavior until 2007 when he told a newspaper he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really."He apologised — but was swiftly removed as his lab's chancellor and his public image never recovered.Born on April 6, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, at the aqe of 15 James Dewey Watson won a scholarship to the University of Chicago.He received a PhD in zoology in 1950 from Indiana University Bloomington, and embarked on an academic path that took him to European universities including Cambridge, where he met Crick and began a historic partnership.Working with X-ray images obtained by Franklin and Wilkins, researchers at King's College in London, Watson and Crick started parsing out the double helix.Their first serious effort came up short.But their second attempt — an image of Franklin's proved key, and the duo had it without her knowledge — resulted in Watson and Crick presenting the double-helical configuration.The now iconic depiction resembles a twisting ladder.Their model also showed how the DNA molecule could duplicate itself, answering a fundamental question in the field of genetics.Watson and Crick published their findings in the British journal *Nature in 1953 to great acclaim.Watson taught at Harvard for 15 years before becoming director of what today is known as the Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory, which he transformed into a global hub of molecular biology research.From 1988 to 1992, Watson was one of the directors of the Human Genome Project at the National Institutes of Health, where he oversaw the mapping of the genes in the human chromosomes.He shared two sons, Rufus and Duncan, with his wife Elizabeth.And he received honorary degrees from dozens of universities, wrote many books and was heavily decorated. Jeff Goldblum played him in a BBC-produced film about the double helix.On Friday his former lab commended his "extraordinary contributions."But the institution had ultimately severed ties with the scientist, including stripping him of his emeritus status — in a PBS documentary that aired in 2019, Watson once again made "reprehensible" remarks.

Fifteen people, mostly children, died when a boat sank in a lake in northeastern Ghana. Ghanaian authorities reported that 11 children, aged between two and 14 (five boys and six girls), were among the dead in the accident on Lake Volta in the Oti Region. A statement issued by the Maritime Authority stated that the children and other victims were traveling from Okuma to Bovime when their boat capsized, noting that four adults survived. The statement added that the incident was a serious and unacceptable violation of safety standards. The statement noted that a specialized team has been deployed to determine the cause of the sinking, noting that preliminary findings indicate that the boat was overloaded. The authority confirmed that it will form a high-level investigation committee with the Ministry of Transport, and will launch an ongoing process to enforce lakeside safety measures to ensure compliance with passenger limits and lifejacket regulations. Boating accidents are common on Lake Volta, often caused by overloading and collisions with tree trunks. In August, six people were killed in a similar accident, and 18 people died in May 2023 after their boat struck a submerged tree trunk.

At least 23 people have died in Mexico because of heavy rains this week, local authorities said Saturday. Mexico's civil protection authorities reported intense rainfall in 31 states, with the worst-affected areas being Veracruz in the east, Queretaro and Hidalgo in the centre, and the north-central state of San Luis Potosí. In Hidalgo state, 16 deaths were reported and 1000 homes affected. Five deaths were reported in Puebla state and 11 people were still unaccounted for. A minor died in Veracruz state and a police officer died in Queretaro. President Claudia Sheinbaum wrote on X after a meeting with local officials and members of her Cabinet: "We are working to support the population, reopen roads and get the power back on." The Mexican military will help distribute aid in affected areas.

A child died Tuesday from malnutrition and famine in the Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll from famine and malnutrition to 453, including 150 children. According to Palestinian medical sources, since the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared famine in Gaza, 175 deaths have been recorded to date, including 35 children. Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are treating hundreds of people of all ages who are suffering from severe hunger and malnutrition, and are in a state of extreme stress. The medical sources noted that 17,000 children are suffering from severe malnutrition, and that patients are being treated for stress and memory loss resulting from severe hunger. Hospitals lack sufficient beds and medications for the massive number of people suffering from severe malnutrition. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that malnutrition among children under the age of five doubled between March and June as a result of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. UNRWA indicated that its health centers and medical points conducted approximately 74,000 malnutrition tests for children during this period, identifying approximately 5,500 cases of global acute malnutrition and more than 800 cases of severe acute malnutrition.