UEFA Euro 2016, day 8: Italy-Sweden, Czech Republic-Croatia, Spain-Turkey

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Yesterday in UEFA Euro 2016, Italy defeated Sweden 1–0 and assured their advancement to the knock-out stage. Croatia vs Czech Republic resulted in a 2–2 draw and Spain defeated Turkey 3–0 as Álvaro Morata scored twice. Spectators from the Croatian end threw flares before the final whistle.

Italy faced Sweden in the first match of the day. Sweden led in terms of ball possession but, in the 88th minute, Éder scored for Italy. Italian captain Gianluigi Buffon was yellow carded in injury time as he delayed a goal-kick. Italy numerically assured their advancement to the knock-out stage by winning this game.

Croatia were 1–0 up at half time as Ivan Periši? scored in the 37th minute. FC Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakiti? scored a second goal for Croatia chipping the ball over Petr ?ech just before the one hour mark. Later, Milan Škoda scored from a header in the 76th minute for the Czechs. The match seemed to being inching towards a 2–1 victory for Croatia but Czech Republic won a penalty and Tomáš Necid equalised late in the match, having replaced Jaroslav Plašil.

In the 86th minute, spectators threw flares on the ground and delayed the game by five minutes. A hearing is scheduled to take place today.

Later, Davor Šuker, president of the Croatian Football Federation, said, “We will seek the help of the French police [to investigate] […] Something is rotten in our country, and this […] deserves zero tolerance.” ((hr)) Croatian language: Tražit ?emo od francuske policije pomo? našem sudstvu, da se vidi tko baca baklje […] Nešto je trulo kod nas, a ovo ostalo zaslužuje nultu toleranciju.

Turkish captain Arda Turan faced his FC Barcelona teammate Andrés Iniesta as Turkey took on Spain. Spanish captain Sergio Ramos was booked in the opening moments of the game. Just after the half-hour mark, Nolito assisted Álvaro Morata, who scored a header. Three minutes later, Nolito scored the second goal of the match. Three minutes after half time, Morata scored from Jordi Alba’s pass.

Spain won the game 3–0 and qualified for the Last 16 knockout phase.

David de Gea maintained a clean sheet for his first five international appearances and set a new world record breaking the previous record of Gordon Banks.

G20 protests: Inside a labour march

Wikinews accredited reporter Killing Vector traveled to the G-20 2009 summit protests in London with a group of protesters. This is his personal account.

Friday, April 3, 2009

London – “Protest”, says Ross Saunders, “is basically theatre”.

It’s seven a.m. and I’m on a mini-bus heading east on the M4 motorway from Cardiff toward London. I’m riding with seventeen members of the Cardiff Socialist Party, of which Saunders is branch secretary for the Cardiff West branch; they’re going to participate in a march that’s part of the protests against the G-20 meeting.

Before we boarded the minibus Saunders made a speech outlining the reasons for the march. He said they were “fighting for jobs for young people, fighting for free education, fighting for our share of the wealth, which we create.” His anger is directed at the government’s response to the economic downturn: “Now that the recession is underway, they’ve been trying to shoulder more of the burden onto the people, and onto the young people…they’re expecting us to pay for it.” He compared the protest to the Jarrow March and to the miners’ strikes which were hugely influential in the history of the British labour movement. The people assembled, though, aren’t miners or industrial workers — they’re university students or recent graduates, and the march they’re going to participate in is the Youth Fight For Jobs.

The Socialist Party was formerly part of the Labour Party, which has ruled the United Kingdom since 1997 and remains a member of the Socialist International. On the bus, Saunders and some of his cohorts — they occasionally, especially the older members, address each other as “comrade” — explains their view on how the split with Labour came about. As the Third Way became the dominant voice in the Labour Party, culminating with the replacement of Neil Kinnock with Tony Blair as party leader, the Socialist cadre became increasingly disaffected. “There used to be democratic structures, political meetings” within the party, they say. The branch meetings still exist but “now, they passed a resolution calling for renationalisation of the railways, and they [the party leadership] just ignored it.” They claim that the disaffection with New Labour has caused the party to lose “half its membership” and that people are seeking alternatives. Since the economic crisis began, Cardiff West’s membership has doubled, to 25 members, and the RMT has organized itself as a political movement running candidates in the 2009 EU Parliament election. The right-wing British National Party or BNP is making gains as well, though.

Talk on the bus is mostly political and the news of yesterday’s violence at the G-20 demonstrations, where a bank was stormed by protesters and 87 were arrested, is thick in the air. One member comments on the invasion of a RBS building in which phone lines were cut and furniture was destroyed: “It’s not very constructive but it does make you smile.” Another, reading about developments at the conference which have set France and Germany opposing the UK and the United States, says sardonically, “we’re going to stop all the squabbles — they’re going to unite against us. That’s what happens.” She recounts how, in her native Sweden during the Second World War, a national unity government was formed among all major parties, and Swedish communists were interned in camps, while Nazi-leaning parties were left unmolested.

In London around 11am the march assembles on Camberwell Green. About 250 people are here, from many parts of Britain; I meet marchers from Newcastle, Manchester, Leicester, and especially organized-labor stronghold Sheffield. The sky is grey but the atmosphere is convivial; five members of London’s Metropolitan Police are present, and they’re all smiling. Most marchers are young, some as young as high school age, but a few are older; some teachers, including members of the Lewisham and Sheffield chapters of the National Union of Teachers, are carrying banners in support of their students.

Gordon Brown’s a Tory/He wears a Tory hat/And when he saw our uni fees/He said ‘I’ll double that!’

Stewards hand out sheets of paper with the words to call-and-response chants on them. Some are youth-oriented and education-oriented, like the jaunty “Gordon Brown‘s a Tory/He wears a Tory hat/And when he saw our uni fees/He said ‘I’ll double that!'” (sung to the tune of the Lonnie Donegan song “My Old Man’s a Dustman“); but many are standbys of organized labour, including the infamous “workers of the world, unite!“. It also outlines the goals of the protest, as “demands”: “The right to a decent job for all, with a living wage of at least £8 and hour. No to cheap labour apprenticeships! for all apprenticeships to pay at least the minimum wage, with a job guaranteed at the end. No to university fees. support the campaign to defeat fees.” Another steward with a megaphone and a bright red t-shirt talks the assembled protesters through the basics of call-and-response chanting.

Finally the march gets underway, traveling through the London boroughs of Camberwell and Southwark. Along the route of the march more police follow along, escorting and guiding the march and watching it carefully, while a police van with flashing lights clears the route in front of it. On the surface the atmosphere is enthusiastic, but everyone freezes for a second as a siren is heard behind them; it turns out to be a passing ambulance.

Crossing Southwark Bridge, the march enters the City of London, the comparably small but dense area containing London’s financial and economic heart. Although one recipient of the protesters’ anger is the Bank of England, the march does not stop in the City, only passing through the streets by the London Exchange. Tourists on buses and businessmen in pinstripe suits record snippets of the march on their mobile phones as it passes them; as it goes past a branch of HSBC the employees gather at the glass store front and watch nervously. The time in the City is brief; rather than continue into the very centre of London the march turns east and, passing the Tower of London, proceeds into the poor, largely immigrant neighbourhoods of the Tower Hamlets.

The sun has come out, and the spirits of the protesters have remained high. But few people, only occasional faces at windows in the blocks of apartments, are here to see the march and it is in Wapping High Street that I hear my first complaint from the marchers. Peter, a steward, complains that the police have taken the march off its original route and onto back streets where “there’s nobody to protest to”. I ask how he feels about the possibility of violence, noting the incidents the day before, and he replies that it was “justified aggression”. “We don’t condone it but people have only got certain limitations.”

There’s nobody to protest to!

A policeman I ask is very polite but noncommittal about the change in route. “The students are getting the message out”, he says, so there’s no problem. “Everyone’s very well behaved” in his assessment and the atmosphere is “very positive”. Another protestor, a sign-carrying university student from Sheffield, half-heartedly returns the compliment: today, she says, “the police have been surprisingly unridiculous.”

The march pauses just before it enters Cable Street. Here, in 1936, was the site of the Battle of Cable Street, and the march leader, addressing the protesters through her megaphone, marks the moment. She draws a parallel between the British Union of Fascists of the 1930s and the much smaller BNP today, and as the protesters follow the East London street their chant becomes “The BNP tell racist lies/We fight back and organise!”

In Victoria Park — “The People’s Park” as it was sometimes known — the march stops for lunch. The trade unions of East London have organized and paid for a lunch of hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries and tea, and, picnic-style, the marchers enjoy their meals as organized labor veterans give brief speeches about industrial actions from a small raised platform.

A demonstration is always a means to and end.

During the rally I have the opportunity to speak with Neil Cafferky, a Galway-born Londoner and the London organizer of the Youth Fight For Jobs march. I ask him first about why, despite being surrounded by red banners and quotes from Karl Marx, I haven’t once heard the word “communism” used all day. He explains that, while he considers himself a Marxist and a Trotskyist, the word communism has negative connotations that would “act as a barrier” to getting people involved: the Socialist Party wants to avoid the discussion of its position on the USSR and disassociate itself from Stalinism. What the Socialists favor, he says, is “democratic planned production” with “the working class, the youths brought into the heart of decision making.”

On the subject of the police’s re-routing of the march, he says the new route is actually the synthesis of two proposals. Originally the march was to have gone from Camberwell Green to the Houses of Parliament, then across the sites of the 2012 Olympics and finally to the ExCel Centre. The police, meanwhile, wanted there to be no march at all.

The Metropolitan Police had argued that, with only 650 trained traffic officers on the force and most of those providing security at the ExCel Centre itself, there simply wasn’t the manpower available to close main streets, so a route along back streets was necessary if the march was to go ahead at all. Cafferky is sceptical of the police explanation. “It’s all very well having concern for health and safety,” he responds. “Our concern is using planning to block protest.”

He accuses the police and the government of having used legal, bureaucratic and even violent means to block protests. Talking about marches having to defend themselves, he says “if the police set out with the intention of assaulting marches then violence is unavoidable.” He says the police have been known to insert “provocateurs” into marches, which have to be isolated. He also asserts the right of marches to defend themselves when attacked, although this “must be done in a disciplined manner”.

He says he wasn’t present at yesterday’s demonstrations and so can’t comment on the accusations of violence against police. But, he says, there is often provocative behavior on both sides. Rather than reject violence outright, Cafferky argues that there needs to be “clear political understanding of the role of violence” and calls it “counter-productive”.

Demonstration overall, though, he says, is always a useful tool, although “a demonstration is always a means to an end” rather than an end in itself. He mentions other ongoing industrial actions such as the occupation of the Visteon plant in Enfield; 200 fired workers at the factory have been occupying the plant since April 1, and states the solidarity between the youth marchers and the industrial workers.

I also speak briefly with members of the International Bolshevik Tendency, a small group of left-wing activists who have brought some signs to the rally. The Bolsheviks say that, like the Socialists, they’re Trotskyists, but have differences with them on the idea of organization; the International Bolshevik Tendency believes that control of the party representing the working class should be less democratic and instead be in the hands of a team of experts in history and politics. Relations between the two groups are “chilly”, says one.

At 2:30 the march resumes. Rather than proceeding to the ExCel Centre itself, though, it makes its way to a station of London’s Docklands Light Railway; on the way, several of East London’s school-aged youths join the march, and on reaching Canning Town the group is some 300 strong. Proceeding on foot through the borough, the Youth Fight For Jobs reaches the protest site outside the G-20 meeting.

It’s impossible to legally get too close to the conference itself. Police are guarding every approach, and have formed a double cordon between the protest area and the route that motorcades take into and out of the conference venue. Most are un-armed, in the tradition of London police; only a few even carry truncheons. Closer to the building, though, a few machine gun-armed riot police are present, standing out sharply in their black uniforms against the high-visibility yellow vests of the Metropolitan Police. The G-20 conference itself, which started a few hours before the march began, is already winding down, and about a thousand protesters are present.

I see three large groups: the Youth Fight For Jobs avoids going into the center of the protest area, instead staying in their own group at the admonition of the stewards and listening to a series of guest speakers who tell them about current industrial actions and the organization of the Youth Fight’s upcoming rally at UCL. A second group carries the Ogaden National Liberation Front‘s flag and is campaigning for recognition of an autonomous homeland in eastern Ethiopia. Others protesting the Ethiopian government make up the third group; waving old Ethiopian flags, including the Lion of Judah standard of emperor Haile Selassie, they demand that foreign aid to Ethiopia be tied to democratization in that country: “No recovery without democracy”.

A set of abandoned signs tied to bollards indicate that the CND has been here, but has already gone home; they were demanding the abandonment of nuclear weapons. But apart from a handful of individuals with handmade, cardboard signs I see no groups addressing the G-20 meeting itself, other than the Youth Fight For Jobs’ slogans concerning the bailout. But when a motorcade passes, catcalls and jeers are heard.

It’s now 5pm and, after four hours of driving, five hours marching and one hour at the G-20, Cardiff’s Socialists are returning home. I board the bus with them and, navigating slowly through the snarled London traffic, we listen to BBC Radio 4. The news is reporting on the closure of the G-20 conference; while they take time out to mention that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper delayed the traditional group photograph of the G-20’s world leaders because “he was on the loo“, no mention is made of today’s protests. Those listening in the bus are disappointed by the lack of coverage.

Most people on the return trip are tired. Many sleep. Others read the latest issue of The Socialist, the Socialist Party’s newspaper. Mia quietly sings “The Internationale” in Swedish.

Due to the traffic, the journey back to Cardiff will be even longer than the journey to London. Over the objections of a few of its members, the South Welsh participants in the Youth Fight For Jobs stop at a McDonald’s before returning to the M4 and home.

Obama announces US$3.8 trillion 2011 budget plan for US

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Barack Obama, the US President, has announced a budget plan worth US$3.83 trillion for next year. The budget includes additional spending for job creation, but cuts for other areas. The president also forecast that the national debt would reach $1.56 trillion in 2010.

Among the cuts proposed include scrapping the Constellation program, a plan to send astronauts to the Moon by 2020, and capping some domestic spending programmes for three years. Overall, the cuts are predicted to save $250 billion. There is also $100 billion in tax incentives aimed at hiring workers. US residents with incomes of over $250,000 per annum, however, would be given higher taxes, partially offsetting that.

Other increases in the proposed budget include; $48 billion for veterans’ medical care, or an increase of eight percent; $53 billion for homeland security; $310 million to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison. He also suggested freezing spending for some federal programs and departments and programs for three years, exempting Medicare, Social Security, and national security.

In order for the budget to take effect, Congress must approve it by the beginning of the fiscal year starting October 1.

When introducing the budget, Obama stated that “we […] continue to lay a new foundation for lasting growth. Just as it would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today, it would be equally wrong to neglect their future by failing to invest in areas that will determine our economic success in this new century.”

At the White House, he also commented: “It’s a budget that reflects the serious challenges facing the country. We’re at war. Our economy has lost seven million jobs over the last two years. And our government is deeply in debt after what can only be described as a decade of profligacy […] “It’s very important to understand,” the president said. “We won’t be able to bring down this deficit overnight, given that the recovery is still taking hold and families across the country still need help.”

The budget plan reads: “These estimates do not reflect any policy decisions about specific military or intelligence operations, but are only intended to indicate that some as-yet-unknown costs are anticipated.”

It will be impossible to bring the deficit down unless the economy is up. The budget the president is sending Congress today puts a priority on those objectives

“It will be impossible to bring the deficit down unless the economy is up. The budget the president is sending Congress today puts a priority on those objectives.” The president blamed the previous George Bush administration for the financial difficulties, saying: “Over the course of the past 10 years, the previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program, passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy and funded two wars without paying for any of it, all of which was compounded by recession and by rising health care costs. As a result, when I first walked through the door, the deficit stood at $1.3 trillion, with projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade.”

“It will be impossible to bring the deficit down unless the economy is up. The budget the president is sending Congress today puts a priority on those objectives. It keeps one eye on the economy and the other on the deficit,” remarked Democrat Representative John Spratt from South Carolina.

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Republican senators, however, criticised the plan, citing the proposed tax increases, and suggesting that the deficit is an indication Obama isn’t able to control government spending. “President Obama is submitting another budget that spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much,” said the House Minority Leader, John Boehner. “Serious fiscal responsibility requires more than a few cuts here and there at the margins. Republicans have proposed adopting strict budget caps that limit federal spending on an annual basis and are enforceable by the president.”

this budget provides a startling figure that should stop us all in our tracks

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell commented that “this budget provides a startling figure that should stop us all in our tracks. According to the administration’s budget, the interest on the federal debt is expected to be nearly 6 trillion dollars over the next decade. We’ve all heard about interest-only loans, but this is the equivalent of an average of $600 billion dollars in interest every year. That’s an astonishing number.”

Republican Senator Judd Gregg also was critical of the plan: “These circumstances call for a bold, game-changing budget that will turn things around, put in place a plan to restrain spending, reduce the debt and tackle the big entitlement programmes that are growing out of control. Instead, the president has sent us more of the same.” He described the financial situation as being a “quagmire”.

Obama’s proposal to pull the space plan also drew fire from Republicans. “The president’s proposed Nasa budget begins the death march for the future of US human space flight,” said Republican Senator Richard Shelby. Obama, however, described the Constellation programme as being “over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation”, and said it was draining resources from other activities at NASA.

Briton to fly hang glider across the UK

Friday, September 2, 2005

A man from North London is currently training for an attempt at flying a hang glider across the UK from land’s End to John O’Groats.

Shola Ogunlokun a 41 year old married father of 3 who had never flown a hang glider before taking up this challenge said yesterday “I aim to fulfill a dream of flying, use the challenge as an opportunity to meet the people of Britain and encourage people of similar ethnic backgrounds as me to pursue their dreams”.

Shola is on stage 2 of a 3 stage training programme, and has flown a glider off a 2000ft mountain on completion of stage 1 of his training. He is currently looking for sponsors and in talks with a TV production about making a documentary of his attempt.

The flight attempt is currently planned for around Autumn next year, should take between 5-7 days, and Shola would like to spend the night of each flight at the home of a local in the town he lands. If successful, Shola will be the first person to have flown a hang glider across the UK over this distance.

Shola has an online diary charting his progress at http://mbchallenge.blogspot.com For further details, or to contact Shola, please visit his website: http://www.meet-britain.org.uk

Theresa May’s Conservative Party wins UK election but loses majority, leaving Brexit plan in question

Sunday, June 11, 2017

While Theresa May remains Prime Minister of Britain, her party, the Conservative Party, won Thursday’s general election but lost its majority in Parliament.

The next scheduled general election was not until 2020. May requested this general election, called a snap election, in April, when polls indicated it would strengthen the then-slight majority the Conservatives held in Parliament. Talks to establish the specifics of Britain’s departure from the European Union are set to begin June 19. Last year, British voters decided to leave the EU, but many of the specifics of the United Kingdom’s new relationship with the rest of Europe have yet to be established. May and the other Conservatives favor a “hard Brexit”, in which Britain would lose its current level of access to Europe’s single market and have to deal with higher tariffs and more complicated customs processes but it would regain full control of its borders with respect to trade and immigration. An increase in the number of Conservative Parliamentary seats would have supported this plan.

“Officially Theresa May is still the partner in Brexit negotiations,” said senior German MP Stephan Meyer, “but the political reality is different after this disastrous defeat. I can’t imagine that May will be able to remain prime minister.”

Jean-Claude Juncker of the European Commission said, “As far as the Commission is concerned we can open negotiations tomorrow morning at half past nine […] First we have to agree on the divorce and exit modalities, and then we have to envisage the architecture of our future relations. I do hope that the result of the elections will have no major impact on the negotiations we are desperately waiting for.”

A Parliamentary majority requires 326 of the organisation’s 650 seats. The Conservative Party holds 318 outright, including May’s own seat in Maidenhead, and the Labour Party holds 262, having gained about 30 in this election. In Britain, the leader of whichever political party has the most seats becomes Prime Minister, though they are also formally appointed by the monarch. Theresa May became leader of the Conservative Party on July 11 of last year and was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II two days later. Cases in which no political party wins outright are called a hung Parliament, and then two or more parties rule together in coalition. Britain had a coalition government from 2010 to 2015. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party has pledged an unofficial alliance with the Conservatives, which would bring them up to 328.

This would make May the second Prime Minister in a row to call an election with unexpected results. David Cameron called for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership, not expecting the voters would reject it.

May’s current ministry said most of her senior officials, including Treasurer Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, and Home Secretary Amber Rudd, will remain in the Cabinet.

May met with Queen Elizabeth II yesterday to request her permission to form a government in her name, a traditional formality.

Iran dismisses United Nations resolution imposing sanctions

Sunday, December 24, 2006

A unanimously passed United Nations Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran has been dismissed by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “piece of paper.” Ahmadinejad said that it is in “the best interest of the West” to have a “nuclear Iran” and that Iran will not stop enriching uranium.

“It is a piece of torn paper … by which they aim to scare Iranians … It is in the Westerners’ interests to live with a nuclear Iran,” said Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad also goes on to say that anyone who “backs” the U.N. resolution will “soon regret” their acts. He also added that in “February, Iranians will celebrate” the nation becoming a nuclear power.

“This resolution will not harm Iran and those who backed it will soon regret their superficial act. Iranians are neither worried nor uncomfortable with the resolution … we will celebrate our atomic achievements in February,” added Ahmadinejad.

On December 23, 2006, the U.N. stated that the resolution is “determined to give effect to its unmet 31 July demand that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. The Security Council today imposed sanctions on that country [Iran], blocking the import or export of sensitive nuclear material and equipment and freezing the financial assets of persons or entities supporting its proliferation sensitive nuclear activities or the development of nuclear-weapon delivery systems,” reported the press release on the U.N.’s website.

The U.N. also said that Iran must suspend all uranium enrichment and that the sanction would be lifted if the country complies with the U.N..

“Unanimously adopting resolution 1737 (2006) under Article 41 of the Charter’s Chapter VII, the Council decided that Iran should, without further delay, suspend the following proliferation sensitive nuclear activities: all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development; and work on all heavy-water related projects, including the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water. The halt to those activities would be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).”

The U.N. also stated that “specifically, all States [countries] should prevent the supply, sale or transfer, for the use by or benefit of Iran, of related equipment and technology, if the State determined that such items would contribute to enrichment-related, reprocessing or heavy-water related activities, or to the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems. The Council decided it would terminate the measures if Iran fully complied with its obligations, or adopt additional ones and possible further decisions if the country did not.”

Iran also said that beginning on “Sunday morning, we [Iran] will begin activities at Natanz” which has “3,000 centrifuges” which they “will drive them with full speed” in response to the U.N.’s resolution.

“From Sunday morning, we will begin activities at Natanz, the site of 3,000-centrifuge machines, and we will drive it with full speed. It will be our immediate response to the resolution,” said Ali Larijani, the top nuclear negotiator for Iran.

The U.N. will review the resolution and Iran’s activities in 60 days.

Tom Cruise orders €14,500 takeaway meal

Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Tom Cruise this week took the delivery service to a whole new level. Celebrating his 43rd birthday with numerous guests at a party in the USA, Cruise decided to call up his three favorite chefs, all living in Italy, to prepare a meal.

Cruise decided to fly all three chefs out to the United States at a cost of €14,500. According to the Daily Mail the chefs cooked the celebrity tagliatelle ragu, veal, and chocolate tiramisu.

Trains collide in eastern France

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Two trains have collided head-on in eastern France at Zoufftgen in the Moselle region of France, close to the Luxembourg border, at around 11:45 local time (09:45 UTC) earlier today. Based on inital reports, BBC News has suggested 10 passenger deaths as well as the those of two train drivers involved in the incident and a track side worker. French officials later confirmed at least 5 dead.

The trains were a french freight train and a Luxembourgeois passenger train. The passenger train was travelling from Luxembourg to Nancy and the freight train was travelling from Thionville to Luxembourg.

There are also at present 20 additional casualties although this number could rise. BBC News has reported, some of the injured may still be trapped in wreckage. Rescuers from France and Luxembourg are at the scene, with BBC reporting that a mobile hospital as well as specialist equipment was on the way.

The cause of the crash is undetermined at present, but due to engineering works, single line working was in operation on the route affected. The trains collided head-on. An SNCF spokesman was quoted as saying “Due of the engineering works, only one way was available and train traffic was alternating” He continued, “For reasons still to be established, the trains found themselves facing each other”.

French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Transport Minister Dominique Perben are understood to be on their way to the scene of the incident.

Eric Soupa, a local official was quoted (BBC News) on French radio: “We are faced with an important and dramatic situation.” According to first reports, the spokesman of SNCF has indicated that the driver of the freight train did not “pass a signal at red” and had actually passed the signal at green.

Canadian city announces first Studios of Brampton tour

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Created by the Brampton Arts Council and the City of Brampton, the Studios of Brampton studio tour will allow residents a chance to view works by dozens of local artists at twelve locations.

The tour will run October 1 & 2 from 10 pm until 4 pm ET.

On the tour are the personal studios of watercolourist Jack Reid, sculpture Marion Bartlett, woodworker Rick Bino, ceramicist Eric Wong, calligrapher and fashion illustrator Rosemarie Gidvani, abstract painter Karen Darling, oil painter John Cutruzzola, stain-glass artist Darlene Robichaud, and watercolourist Gordon Stuart.

Also on the tour is the Art Gallery of Peel, which will be exhibiting Sydney Drum, a Canadian artist based in New York, and Kelly McNeil.

Visual Arts Brampton and Beaux-Arts Brampton will both have line-ups of local artist members. VAB has confirmed displays by William Band, Bridget Doughty, Betty Jean Evans, Marguerite Finlayson, Conrad Mieschke, Keith Moreau, Mary Noble, Olga Rudge, and Elizabeth Patrick.

Sample works representing each location on the tour will be shown at the Brampton City Hall’s Atrium Gallery.