Egypt: US Calls For Release Of Detained Morsi

The US has called for the release of Mohamed Morsi as tens of thousands of supporters of the ousted Egyptian president staged protests across the country.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US agrees with the German Foreign Ministry, which had called for an "end to all restrictive measures considering Morsi".

Mr Morsi, an Islamist who became the country's first freely elected leader, was ousted on July 3 by the military.

His removal followed a wave of protests calling on him to step down.

He has been kept at an undisclosed Defence Ministry facility since then, but no formal charges have been filed.

Mohamed Morsi was ousted by the Army in what many called a coup

Supporters vowed to continue their campaign of street rallies as long as necessary to force Mr Morsi's reinstitution.

At the main Islamist rally in Cairo, the crowd poured into a large boulevard in front of a main mosque where his supporters have been camped out for two weeks.

Some held up photos of Mr Morsi, others carried posters depicting army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sissi with blood coming out of his mouth and emblazoned with the word "traitor".

"We are ready to stay for a month, two months, a year or even two years," an ultraconservative Salafi cleric, Safwat Hegazi, told protesters.

Friday prayers on the third day of Ramadan

The day of protests marked the first Friday of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

During Ramadan, Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset, which usually cuts down on activity during the day - particularly outdoors in warm summer temperatures.

During the daytime fast, some at the rally rested in their tents, reading the Quran or sleeping.

Similar rallies were held across the Nile River in Cairo's sister city Giza, in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and several other cities.

Clashes have broken out between Mr Morsi's supporters and his critics

A week of violence in a bitterly divided nation has left dozens of Mr Morsi's Islamist supporters dead.

The new military-backed administration has intensified its crackdown on the leadership of Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, issuing several arrest warrants.

The administration is pushing ahead quickly with its transition plans, which the military said would include new elections.

However, the new prime minister Hazem el Beblawi said members of the Muslim Brotherhood would be offered cabinet posts.

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Paris Train Crash: Faulty Track Likely Cause

A loose component connecting rails may have triggered the derailment of a packed train outside Paris that left at least six people dead and dozens injured.

Pierre Izard, a general manager of the SNCF national rail company, said a joint bar, a kind of steel clip that links two rails on a switch, broke away, became detached and came out of its housing.

The detached joint "lodged itself at the centre of the switch, prevented the normal progression of the train's wheels and seems to have caused the train's derailment," he said, adding that checks had been ordered on some 5,000 similar devices on the network.

Carriages came off the tracks and smashed into Bretigny-sur-Orge station

The head of the SNCF, Guillaume Pepy, said the "detachment of this joint bar" was the focus of investigations.

He said the third and fourth carriages initially came off the track, then knocked the others off. He called the accident a "catastrophe", adding that "some cars simply derailed, others are leaning, others fell over".

Earlier, transport minister Frederic Cuvillier had said that human error was unlikely to have caused the tragedy, and that authorities were looking into a possible mechanical error in the switching system as well as other possibilities.

Rescuers pull survivors from the wreckage. Pic: @aishakurdish

The crash was France's deadliest in years, but Mr Cuvillier said it could have been worse and praised the driver who sent out an alert quickly, preventing a pile up.

Responding to criticism that France had not invested enough in maintaining infrastructure, he added: "For the moment we have no information that allows us to confirm that the dilapidation of the network was the cause of this derailment."

The seven-carriage service with 385 passengers on board was about 20 minutes into a three-hour journey to Limoges when it crashed 12 miles south of the capital at about 5.15pm local time on Friday.

Part of the metal roof over the platform was crushed as carriages came off the tracks and smashed into Bretigny-sur-Orge station.

Up to 200 passengers are said to have been injured in the smash

Interior minister Manuel Valls said at least six people had been killed. He added that nine people were gravely injured, and warned the number of dead could rise. In all, nearly 200 people were hurt.

A large, heavyweight crane is expected to be brought in later to try to lift one of the carriages which toppled over.

Sky's Ian Woods, who was at the scene, said: "They don't know for certain, but there may well still be people underneath that carriage they haven't been able to get to.

The French interior minister has called the crash a "catastrophe"

"It's unclear whether anyone at the station was hurt by the impact of the train and flying debris, or whether all of those injured were on the train."

Footage from the scene showed crushed metal on the platform and debris from the crash clogging up the stairs.

Emergency services went on red alert with 300 firefighters, 20 paramedic teams and eight helicopters deployed to the area.

All Paris regional hospitals were put on standby to deal with casualties.

Firefighters rescue passengers trapped in a carraige

Within hours French President Francois Hollande was at the scene and said: "I want to express our solidarity to all the families.

"It will take a long time to identify the victims. Investigations are under way and as soon as possible we will name them and inform their families - I understand their anxiety and pain."

Briton Graham Hope, a passenger in the third carriage, told Sky News: "The carriage I was in was bouncing for several seconds before we came to a halt.

"Everyone was very calm. A couple of people were quite concerned, but we worked together to get out of the carriage.

People at the station look on from across another platform

"When I got out we could see the rest of the train was further up the line ... I would be very surprised if people got out of the front carriage unscathed."

A witness in a nearby train, 19-year-old Bazgua El Mehdi told Le Parisien newspaper: "I heard a loud noise. A cloud of sand covered everything. Then the dust dissipated.

"I thought it was a freight train, but then we saw the first casualties ... many passengers on the (train) were crying."

The passenger train crashed into the platform and some cars tipped over

A police source said: "The train arrived at the station at high speed. It split in two for an unknown reason. Part of the train continued to roll while the other was left on its side on the platform."

But a passenger speaking on France's BFM television said the train was going at a normal speed and was not meant to stop at Bretigny-sur-Orge.

The station is expected to remain closed for several days during the investigation and clear-up operation.

French President Francois Hollande speaks to some of the injured

The crash comes as France prepares to celebrate its most important national holiday, Bastille Day, on Sunday.

Many people have been heading out of Paris and other big cities to see their families or to go on holiday.

Earlier, passengers observed a minute's silence at Austerlitz railway station in Paris as a mark of respect.

The train derailed at Bretigny-sur-Orge, just south of Paris

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Russia: No Official Approach From Snowden

Russia says it has still not received a formal request for asylum from CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Snowden broke three weeks of silence on Friday and said he would be seeking temporary asylum in the country.

He told a group of human rights activists he hoped to stay in Russia until he had won "safe passage" to Latin America.

Snowden, who has been stranded at a Moscow airport since June 23, said he would be making an asylum request later that day.

However, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying: "We are not in contact with Snowden "

Snowden flanked by members of Human Rights Watch

Mr Lavrov said that under Russian law asylum seekers must first make an official appeal to the Federal Migration Service (FMS).

FMS director Konstantin Romodanovsky said on Saturday it had not received an approach from Snowden.

Washington has urged Moscow to return the 30-year-old to the US, where he is wanted on espionage charges after revealing details of secret surveillance programmes.

His leaks about US spying, including eavesdropping on global email traffic, have caused a furore in the US, which has revoked his passport.

There is worldwide support for Snowden among human rights activists

Snowden, who worked for the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed that the body has access to vast amounts of data from companies including Facebook and Google under a government programme called Prism.

He fled to Hong Kong and then flew to Moscow where he and Russian officials say he has remained in the transit zone of the city's Sheremetyevo airport. He has no visa to enter Russia.

Mr Snowden has asked some 20 countries for asylum and received offers from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia.

But he said on Friday that Western states had made it "impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there".

Last week a plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from Russia was denied access to the airspace of several European countries on suspicion that Snowden was on board.

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Moscow Bus Crash: 'At Least 18 Dead'

Eighteen people have been killed and at least 40 injured in a road crash outside Moscow, according to Russian officials.

A truck, a bus and several other vehicles were involved and the dead includes a young girl, said the interior ministry.

The accident took place when a truck carrying gravel turned onto a main road and ploughed into the bus, which was broken in two by the force of the collision.

Helicopter teams and 30 ambulance crews were sent to the scene. The number of dead was revised upwards after several of the injured died in hospital.

The crash occurred near Oznobishino, about 25 miles south of Moscow city centre.

Officials said that injuries were particularly serious as bus passengers were also hit with gravel being carried on the truck.

Twenty people remain remain in hospital, with 16 of them said to be in a serious condition.

Moscow deputy mayor Pyotr Birukov said that the truck's driver, a 46-year-old Armenian who survived the crash, had been fined for traffic offences six times over the last year.

Russia has one of the world's worst road safety records with some 25,000 people losing their lives in traffic accidents every year, although the government is trying to improve the situation with measures including a zero-tolerance ban on drink driving.

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Pamplona Bulls Trample Trapped Runners

Dozens of people have been trampled at the famous Pamplona bull run after becoming trapped at the entrance to the bullring.

A 19-year-old Spanish man is in a "very serious" condition and a 28-year-old man from Ireland has suffered chest trauma, authorities said.

At least 23 other people are being treated in hospital after Saturday's event in the Spanish city.

Runners and bulls became trapped together in the bottleneck for almost two minutes when the weight of people forced shut a door normally kept open.

Goring injuries are not uncommon, but injuries from stampedes are rare.

Other injuries on the festival's penultimate day included a 35-year-old American gored in the buttocks, and an 18-year-old from Spain gored in the armpit.

The popular tourist event, which ends on Sunday, sees runners tearing frantically through the city's cobbled streets pursued by the bulls.

Fourteen people have died in the last 100 years of the San Fermin festival, an event that dates from the 13th century.

The bull run takes place at 8am every morning for one week in July. Saturday's run lasted just four minutes and 15 seconds.

The bulls are usually killed in the ring by bullfighters.

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Schoolgirl Malala Defies Taliban At UN

The Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban has told the United Nations that she will not be silenced by terrorists.

Malala Yousafzai has spent her 16th birthday addressing the UN in New York, where she called on governments across the world to provide compulsory education for every child.

In her first major public speech, Malala had a message for the terrorists who shot her.

"They thought that the bullet would silence us, but they failed," she said.

"The terrorists thought that they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in life, except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died.

"Strength, courage and fervour was born."

Young people from 80 different countries were at the UN to hear Malala's speech and to support her education cause.

"Let us pick up our books and our pens," Malala said.

"They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution."

Malala leaving Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham

July 12 is being marked as Malala Day, but the 16-year-old said the day is not just for her.

"Today is for every woman, boy and girl raising their voice for human rights," she said in the speech.

Three million people have already signed a petition which Malala has presented to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

Mr Ban said: "In far too many places, students like Malala and their teachers are threatened, assaulted, even killed.

"Through hate-filled actions, extremists have shown what frightens them the most: a girl with a book."

The schoolgirl was shot by the Taliban in 2012 while on her way to school in Swat Valley.

Her remarkable recovery has seen her become a high profile campaigner with her face being recognised all over the world.

She was transferred to Birmingham in the UK and underwent extensive surgery to rebuild her skull at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The UN event has been organised by former prime minister Gordon Brown, now the UN Special Envoy for Global Education.

"This frail young girl who was seriously injured has become such a powerful symbol not just for the girls' right to education, but for the demand that we do something about it immediately," Mr Brown told CBS News.

"There will be no compromise with any religious extremist who says girls should not go to school or stop going to school at 10."

The Malala Day petition can be found here.

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Indonesia: Prisoners Escape Amid Jail Riot

Security forces have retaken control of a crowded prison in western Indonesia where inmates started a massive riot that left five people dead and hundreds of prisoners, including convicted terrorists, on the loose.

About 500 policemen and 300 soldiers have been deployed around Tanjung Gusta prison in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, where the riot broke out on Thursday night.

Fire brigades have also been battling fires started by prisoners which had engulfed the jail.

Prison directorate spokesman Akbar Hadi said the situation is now under control after soldiers entered the prison without resistance.

Prisoners stand inside the Tanjung Gusta prison amid the riot

Hundreds of policemen have blocked roads linking Medan to the provinces of Aceh, Jambi and West Sumatra while searching for inmates who escaped during the riot, which began after a protest over a lack of water and electricity turned violent.

Indonesian authorities said security forces had recaptured 64 out of 240 prisoners who fled the facility in the nation's third-largest city.

Inmates had been in control of the jail until early on Friday morning, casually chatting outside their cells while heavily armed security forces formed a cordon round the building.

Five people, three prisoners and two prison staff, were killed in the riots. Ten civilian guards had briefly been held hostage but were later released.

The jail was set ablaze by inmates

Prisoners still on the loose included five of the 14 terror convicts that were being held at the institution.

The terrorists are believed to have links to Toni Togar, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence in a separate prison for a series of church bombings in Sumatra in 2000, according to the Jakarta Post.

A spokesman for the justice and human rights ministry, Goncang Raharjo, said that, like many jails in Indonesia, Tanjung Gusta was overcrowded - holding more than double its official capacity.

"The prison capacity is only 1,054 but it now holds about 2,600 convicts and suspects on trials.

"Most prisons across the country have this problem," he said.

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Kremlin Typewriters: Russian Plan To Stop Leaks

The Kremlin's security agency is buying up typewriters to avoid damaging leaks in a move said to be motivated by recent US surveillance scandals.

Russia's Federal Protective Service, the KGB's successor in charge of protecting President Vladimir Putin and his officials, placed an order for 20 typewriters, according to the state procurement website

The agency, known by its Russian acronym FSO, is ready to pay £500 each for them, the Kremlin-connected newspaper Izvestia reported.

It said the FSO believed it was necessary to expand the use of typewriters after American Edward Snowden reportedly used a simple flash drive to reveal the extent of the US government's phone and internet surveillance programmes.

"After the scandal with the spread of classified documents WikiLeaks, revelations of Edward Snowden, reports of tapping Dmitry Medvedev during his visit to the G20 summit in London, it has been decided to expand the practice of creating paper documents," a FSO source told the newspaper.

Typewriters have already been used for printing drafts of some official documents and reports presented to Mr Putin, according to the report.

Leaks by Edward Snowden Julian Assange leaks may have sparked the move

The Russian newspaper also said the FSO has been ordering print cartridge ribbons for the Triumph Adler Twain 180.

The Triumph model "allows you to create fairly complex documents for use in their professional organisations", it said.

The FSO has not commented on why it needs the devices.

Snowden abandoned his high-paying intelligence contractor job in Hawaii and went to Hong Kong on May 20 to begin issuing a series of leaks on the National Security Agency (NSA).

He revealed the NSA's access to vast amounts of internet data such as emails, chat rooms and video under a government programme known as Prism.

Snowden is now holed up in the transit area of a Moscow airport, seeking to avoid extradition to the US to face espionage charges.

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Free Syrian Army Killing Exposes Rebel Rifts

The assassination of a senior Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander by militants linked to al Qaeda is tantamount to a declaration of war, FSA rebels have said.

Kamal Hamami - better known as Abu Bassir al Jeblawi - of the FSA Supreme Military Council was killed by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a hardline Islamist group, on Thursday.

A senior FSA commander said the al Qaeda-linked militants had previously warned FSA rebels that there was "no place" for them in the northern Latakia province, where Hamami was killed.

He added that there would be retaliation for the killing.

"We are going to wipe the floor with them. We will not let them get away with it because they want to target us," he said on condition of anonymity.

The FSA and Islamists have sometimes joined forces

The statement is the latest sign of disarray in the armed opposition to Syrian President Bashar al Assad, who has regained the upper hand more than two years into an insurgency that grew out of Arab Spring-inspired pro-democracy protests.

Opposition sources said the killing of Mr Hamami followed a dispute over control of a strategic checkpoint in Latakia.

"FSA rebels fired into the air, and subsequently, an ISIS fighter shot Abu Bassir dead and wounded two other fighters from his battalion," the opposition Syrian Observatory For Human Rights said

The Observatory for Human Rights added that the FSA and the Islamic State have had violent exchanges in several areas of Syria over the past few weeks, showing growing antagonism between Assad's foes.

"Last Friday, the Islamic State killed an FSA rebel in Idlib province and cut his head off. There have been attacks in many provinces," the Observatory's Rami Abdelrahman said.

The West is considering arming the Free Syrian Army

FSA Supreme Command Political Coordinator Louay Mekdad said Mr Hamami and his brother were shot dead at the roadblock by Abu Ayman al Baghdadi, the Islamic State's Emir of the coastal region.

He said a fighter who was travelling with them was set free to rely the message that the Supreme Command was now an al Qaeda target.

"If these people came to defend the Syrian revolution and not help the Assad regime, then they have to hand over the killers," Mr Mekdad said.

Syria's conflict turned violent in the face of a crackdown on protests. Civil war ensued with disparate rebel groups taking up arms and the Observatory says more than 100,000 people have been killed.

The FSA and the jihadists have sometimes joined forces on the battlefield but the divisions have been highlighted as the West considers arming the FSA and some Gulf states have funnelled weapons to the Islamists.

US congressional committees are holding up plans to arm the rebels because of fears that such deliveries will not be decisive and the arms might end up in the hands of Islamist militants.

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Edward Snowden Wants Asylum In Russia

Intelligence services whistleblower Edward Snowden has told activists he wants to request asylum in Russia, after accusing the US of trying to block him from travelling to other countries.

Snowden has held closed-door talks with human rights groups and lawyers at the Moscow airport where he has been holed up for weeks.

Human Rights Watch representative Tanya Lokshina told the Interfax news agency that Snowden had revealed he "wants to stay" in the country.

Politician Vyacheslav Nikonov said Snowden wants to stay put

Russian parliament member Vyacheslav Nikonov, who was also in the meeting, also reported Snowden's intentions to seek asylum.

In a statement released after the 45-minute meeting, Snowden said: "That moral decision to tell the public about spying that affects all of us has been costly, but it was the right thing to do and I have no regrets."

Meanwhile, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said Snowden might be allowed to stay in Russia if he stops releasing leaks that would damage the US or Russia-US relations, repeating conditions Mr Putin had set out earlier.

But he said he was not aware of any formal request. Snowden has previously made a bid for asylum in Russia but he later withdrew it.

Pic: Courtesy of Tatyana Lokshina/Human Rights Watch

A picture of Snowden at the meeting, taken by Ms Lokshina, shows him with WikiLeaks representative Sarah Harrison on his right. 

In a letter to Human Rights Watch earlier, he said the US government was waging a campaign to stop him getting asylum in any other country.

He said: "I have been extremely fortunate to enjoy and accept many offers of support and asylum from brave countries around the world. These nations have my gratitude.

Protesters have shown their support for Snowden

"Unfortunately, in recent weeks we have witnessed an unlawful campaign by officials in the US government to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

"The scale of threatening behaviour is without precedent: never before in history have states conspired to force to the ground a sovereign president's plane to effect a search for a political refugee."

That remark appears to refer to how Austrian authorities last week searched the Bolivian president's plane when it was diverted to Vienna because the US suspected Snowden was on board.

Snowden is wanted by the US on espionage charges over a series of leaks about spying programmes, with his most recent claims involving collaboration between Microsoft and American intelligence services.

He fled to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 and has been in limbo in Sheremetyevo airport's transit area despite three countries - Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia - saying they would be willing to grant him asylum.

Doubts had been raised about whether Snowden could fly from Moscow to any of those countries without passing through the airspace of the US or its allies.

Entrances were guarded during the meeting at the airport

He is seeking to avoid extradition after divulging embarrassing evidence about the activities of US spies, as well as the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ, to newspapers including The Guardian.

The latest files said Microsoft helped America's National Security Agency (NSA) to circumvent encryption so it could view web chats on the Outlook.com portal, which is replacing Hotmail.

Evidence seen by the paper said Microsoft also worked to give the NSA easier access to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which has more than 250 million users. And by July 2012, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the Prism intelligence programme was collecting triple the amount of Skype video calls.

Microsoft told the paper it only provides information about users when demanded to do so by the government.

Snowden's files have also revealed the NSA claimed to have access to the servers of web firms including Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo, while GCHQ scans vast amounts of internet traffic through a system of fibre-optic cables.

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Driver Drags Child After Reversing Into Buggy

Police are hunting for a driver who reversed into a mother pushing her child in a pushchair and dragged it across a car park before speeding off.

Video and images of the driver in a shop before the incident have been released by police in Muskegon, Michigan in an attempt to identify him.

The video shows the car backing into the woman and knocking her over before driving off with the pushchair containing the child apparently hooked on to the back.

The 18-year-old woman chases after the car, which stops long enough for her to unbuckle her son, and then drives off - taking the buggy with him.

The mother had a scraped knee but the one-year-old was not injured.

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San Francisco Crash Pilot 'Blinded By Light'

The pilot of a plane which crashed at San Francisco airport, killing two people, may have been temporarily blinded by a bright light as he came into land.

Lee Kang Kuk, who was making his first landing at the airport and had just 43 hours' experience at the controls of the Boeing 777, said he saw a bright flash as he approached the runway.

It happened around 35 seconds before impact when Asiana Airlines flight 214 was around 500ft (150m) off the ground - the point at which the aircraft began to slow down and drop steeply.

Deborah Hersman, who chairs the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said the use of lasers had not been ruled out.

Passenger Eugene Anthony Rah took this photo of the aftermath of the crash

It is not clear whether the flash of light caused the crash or whether other factors were to blame.

The pilot's claim came as phone calls to the emergency services made by passengers on board the plane were released, demonstrating the confusion caused when the Boeing 777 hit the runway.

Pleading for ambulances to be sent, one woman can be heard saying: "There are a lot of people that need help ... We have people over here who weren't found and they're burned really badly."

Meanwhile, it has emerged that passengers were initially told not to evacuate the aircraft.

The airline stewardesses at a press conference following the crash

The plane hit a sea wall as it came into land, causing its tail fin to break off and the rest of the fuselage to spin across the runway.

However, the NTSB found people did not begin leaving the plane until a fire erupted 90 seconds after impact.

"We don't know what the pilots were thinking, though I can tell you in previous accidents there have been crews that don't evacuate, they wait for other vehicles to come to be able to get the passengers out safely," Ms Hersman said.

She suggested that the pilots in the cockpit may not have been in a position to spot the fire outside the plane.

Air crash investigators at the site in San Francisco

At least one of the emergency escape slides opened inside the aircraft, pinning down two flight attendants.

Three other crew members were flung from the aircraft onto the runway but survived.

The NTSB is using pilot interviews, cockpit recordings and control tower communications to piece together the moments leading up to the crash.

They found both Mr Lee and his co-pilot, Lee Jung Min, who was on his first flight as an instructor, both thought the aircraft's speed was being controlled by an autothrottle, which was set to 157mph.

Wreckage from Asiana Airlines flight 214 was strewn across the runway

When they realised the plane was approaching the waterfront runway too low and too slow, they both reached for the throttle.

Passengers heard a loud roar as the pilots made a desperate attempt to abort the landing.

Two Chinese students were killed in the crash, which left 180 people injured. The students, who began their journey to the US in Shanghai, were on their way to a 15 day camp to study English.

Families of around 20 survivors who remain in hospital have begun arriving to care for their loved ones.

Flight 214 was a direct flight from Incheon in South Korea to San Francisco.

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Canada Train Blast: Engineer Blamed For Crash

Fifty people have now been confirmed dead or are presumed dead after a runaway freight train derailed and exploded in Canada.

Twenty bodies have already been found and officials are telling the families of 30 other people missing that all are believed to have been killed.

A railway boss has blamed an employee for failing to set the brakes properly.

Edward Burkhardt, chief executive of Rail World, made his comments during his first visit to the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic.

Mr Burkhardt, who arrived with a police escort and was heckled by angry residents, said a train engineer had been suspended without pay.

The boss said: "I think he did something wrong. It's hard to explain why someone didn't do something.

"We think he applied some hand brakes but the question is did he apply enough of them.

"He said he applied 11 hand brakes, we think that's not true. Initially we believed him but now we don't."

Edward Burkhardt, chief executive of Rail World visited Lac-Megantic

Mr Burkhardt does not suspect sabotage was involved.

An area of Lac-Megantic was flattened in the inferno caused by the crash, as a wall of fire tore through homes and businesses.

Some parts of the devastated scene have been too hot and dangerous to enter and find bodies even days after the disaster.

The blaze forced about 2,000 residents to flee their homes in the town, which has a population of 6,000. Most residents started returning on Tuesday.

The train, operated by Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and carrying crude oil, had been stopped for a crew change in the nearby town of Nantes when it broke loose and hurtled downhill without a conductor towards Lac-Megantic.

It travelled for nearly seven miles before derailing at a curve in the tracks at 63mph and several wagons exploded.

Investigators are looking closely at a fire that happened on the train less than an hour before it became loose while stationary in Nantes.

The train's engine was shut down - standard operating procedure but one that might have disabled the brakes.

Police said a range of possibilities remain under investigation, including criminal negligence.

Some officials have raised the possibility the train was tampered with before the crash.

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Magnitsky Trial: Dead Lawyer Guilty Of Tax Fraud

A Moscow court has found the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion three years after his death.

The investment fund lawyer, who died while in pre-trial detention in 2009, was convicted in Russia's first ever posthumous trial - branded a "show trial" by his supporters.

The Tverskoy District Court also found Mr Magnitsky's former boss, the London-based investor William Browder, guilty of tax evasion. He was tried in absentia after declining to return to Russia and received a nine-year jail term.

But Russia's options for jailing US-born Mr Browder are limited since Interpol has refused to include him on its international search list after deciding that Russia's case against him was political.

Mr Browder has all along dismissed the trial as a politically motivated effort to discredit him and Mr Magnitsky.

Court bailiffs wait before a session in the trial

Speaking to Sky News from New York after the verdicts, Mr Browder said it was "one of the most shameful moments in modern Russian history".

" ... They're prosecuting the dead man, what they should be doing is prosecuting the people who killed him. It's truly a travesty of justice."

He said he was "not too worried" about being pursued by the Russian authorities as long as he was in the West because Western governments and Interpol had rejected the allegations.

"It shows the desperation of Putin to cover up the crimes of his regime by going after the whistleblowers," he added. 

An empty cage in the Moscow courthouse - where normally the defendant hears the verdict - symbolised the absence of the late Mr Magnitsky and his co-accused.

"I did not doubt that the decision would look like this," the lawyer for Mr Magnitsky's family Dmitry Kharitonov told the RAPSI legal news agency.  "I know that he committed no crimes."

Magnitsky died on his 358th day in custody in a Moscow detention centre

Mr Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 soon after accusing Russian law enforcement officers of corruption. The lawyer was held on charges of tax evasion after claiming officials conspired to claim $230m (£150m) in tax rebates through Mr Browder's Hermitage Capital investment company.

A year later, the 37-year-old father died in prison of pancreatitis, after what supporters claim was a systematic torture campaign. A report by Russia's presidential human rights council found in July 2011 that he had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment.

Campaigners say the fraud was committed by state officials who subsequently had him framed and arrested for the crime.

His death sparked widespread condemnation and a US law named after Mr Magnitsky imposing sanctions on Russians implicated in the lawyer's death.

The legislation infuriated Moscow, which in retaliation passed legislation prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian children.

Mr Browder, who is a British citizen and is campaigning for other governments to adopt the Magnitsky Act also told Sky News that Britain was acting "very shamefully" by not enforcing the sanctions, especially since his investment fund that sparked the case is based in the UK.

Friends and relatives attend Magnitsky's funeral ceremony

Mr Magnitsky had kept a diary in which he documented the conditions he was being held in and his deteriorating health.

Entries recorded in the months before he died describe excruciating pain from his untreated pancreatitis, raw sewage flooding prison cells and the sound of rats running through the prison at night.

Shortly before his death, the lawyer wrote: "I'm being subjected to punishment only for trying to defend the interests of my client and my country."

The Kremlin's own human rights council has said there was evidence suggesting Mr Magnitsky was beaten to death, but President Vladimir Putin has dismissed allegations of torture or foul play and told the nation last year that he died of heart failure.

Russian authorities closed the case against Mr Magnitsky after his death but reopened it in 2011, in a move former colleagues say was illegal because they did not have the consent of his relatives.

"This show trial confirms that Vladimir Putin is ready to sacrifice his international credibility to protect corrupt officials who murdered an innocent lawyer and stole $230m (£150m) from the Russian state," Hermitage Capital said in a statement.

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Runaway Train Blast: Town Mourns Victims

The identities of up to 50 people killed when a runaway train carrying crude oil exploded in Quebec have started to emerge as police admitted the missing were presumed dead.

Twenty bodies have been recovered following the blast in Lac-Megantic, according to officials, which has been blamed on the train's engineer failing to set the train's brakes properly.

Quebec police inspector Michel Forget said he told a meeting of families of the dead and missing "of the potential loss of their loved ones".

"You have to understand that it's a very emotional moment," he said.

Many of the victims had been at the Musi-Cafe, a popular late night bar and live music venue on the town's rue Frontenac.

The disaster scene with the remains of the Musi-Cafe in the foreground

A 40th birthday party for Josee Lafontaine had been taking place attended by her friends and family, with live music played by Guy Bolduc and Yvan Ricard.

But just after 1am the celebrations came to a sudden halt when the train derailed and exploded in flames just metres from the venue.

One of the guests at the party was Gaetan Lafontaine who had stepped outside moments before the blast occurred.

He immediately rushed into the inferno to look for his wife, Joanie Turmel, but neither of them survived. The couple left behind two children.

The crude oil freight train was out of control when it crashed

Mr Lafontaine's brother, Pascal, and his sister-in-law, Karine Lafontaine, who also had two children, were in the cafe at the time of the first explosion and have not been seen since.

Raymond Lafontaine lost a son, two-daughters-in-law and an employee.

"I cannot tell you what my heart is feeling," he told the National Post.

"The more you scratch, the more it hurts. As long as I am active and keep moving, I will be able to talk. But the day I stop, I am going to cry all the tears in my body."

Parts of the town were completely destroyed by the wall of fire

Mr Ricard had briefly left the venue to smoke a cigarette during an interval in the music, a move which saved his life.

But his colleague, who had gone to the bar for a drink just before the blast, was unable to escape. Mr Bolduc was married with two children.

"The last words he said to me were, 'Yvan, I really like playing with you. We have so much fun together,'" Mr Ricard told TVA.

Local resident Geneviève Breton had finished work at a local pharmacy and had one to the Musi-Cafe to meet her boyfriend.

Ms Breton was training to be a teacher and was well known in the town after her appearance in a Quebec singing competition.

Although her boyfriend escaped the inferno, Ms Breton died in the blast.

"Everybody loved her," her mother Ginette Cameron told the National Post. "She sang like an angel."

Just across the road from the Musi-Cafe lived Jimmy Sirois with his partner, Marie-Semie Alliance, and their 18-month old daughter, Milliana.

The accident was Canada's worst railway tragedy in 150 years

The couple were killed when the blast flattened their apartment, but Milliana had a miraculous escape as she had been staying with Mr Sirois' parents that evening.

Three of the cafe's employees were also killed in the blast, including Andrée-Anne Sévigny and Jo-Annie Lapointe. Stephane Lapierre, who lived in an apartment above the cafe, also died.

Lucie Vadnais was unable to escape the explosion as it ripped through the bar. She ran a daycare centre according to Josée Lemieux, a neighbour who often left her son there during the day and who described her as an "angel".

Henriette Latulippe, who worked in a beauty parlour on rue Frontenac,  was believed to have been asleep at home a hundred metres from the accident when she was caught in the blast.

The disaster forced 2,000 of the town's 6,000 residents from their homes and was Canada's worst railway tragedy in 150 years.

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China Pollution 'Cuts Lives By Five Years'

By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent, in Beijing

The dire quality of the air in China will shorten lives by an average of five-and-a-half years, according to a major new study.

Scientists from four universities collaborated to produce ground-breaking research which provides the first-ever scientific evidence of the health implications of China's air pollution.

The study, by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, Tsinghua University and Peking University in Beijing, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, used data covering an unusually long time span - from 1981 to 2000.

Published today, it concludes that the effect of air pollution will reduce China's workforce by one-eighth.

"We can now say with more confidence that long-run exposure to pollution, especially particulates, has dramatic consequences for life expectancy," Michael Greenstone, the Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT, said.

This year has been the worst on record in the Chinese capital.

In January, the Air Quality Index (AQI) reached a level of more than 700. The World Health Organisation's recommended safe limit is just 25.

Since then, there have only been 20 days when the pollution levels in Beijing recorded an AQI of below 50.

China's air quality was 28 times above safe levels in January

"Everyone understands it's unpleasant to be in a polluted place," Professor Greenstone said.

"But to be able to say with some precision what the health costs are, and what the loss of life expectancy is, puts a finer point on the importance of finding policies that balance growth with environmental quality."

The study focused on northern China where pollution levels are at their worst.

The scientists compared pollution levels with mortality rates north and south of the Huai River, which runs west to east through central China.

In the 1980s, the river was used by the Chinese government as a boundary determining access to free heating.

The population living north of the river, who endure extreme winters, received free coal for fuel boilers and had access to a municipal heating system fuelled by coal power stations, which was switched on and off automatically.

The scientists linked pollution data to mortality statistics from between 1991 and 2000.

The results highlighted a stark difference in mortality rates on either side of the river.

For many years the Chinese government has been accused of ignoring the country's worsening air quality.

Until recently, state media would refer to 'fog' rather than 'smog'.

The swift rise of China's economy poses serious health risks for its people

But last year the Chinese government changed its policy and began to publish data for air quality - first in Beijing and then around the country.

The move came after the US government's decision to place an air quality monitor on the roof of its Beijing embassy. It published its data, initially causing a diplomatic row, but eventually prompting the Chinese to publish their own data.

The worsening air quality is the result of a variety of factors. Coal-fired power stations are only believed to be part of the problem.

The sharp and continuing rise in the number of cars on China's roads, combined with low quality fuel, is a contributing factor.

China's breakneck economic growth over the past three decades has effectively prompted what amounts to a frightening human health experiment.

The effect of China's modern-day industrial revolution will probably not be known for a generation.

In cities across the country, the air is unsafe to breathe, the water is unsafe to drink and the soil contaminates whatever is grown.

As China's population becomes more physically mobile and technologically connected, they are becoming more aware of the dangers posed by the environment.

Pollution issues are increasingly the focus of social unrest and public protests.

The Chinese government is now fully aware of the pressure to act and has introduced measures to improve the quality of vehicle fuel, limit the number of cars on the roads and invest in greener energy models.

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'Troll' Jailed For 200 Facebook Death Threats

A man from South Shields who threatened through Facebook to kill 200 people in the US has been jailed for 28 months.

Reece Elliot posted the messages on an online memorial page for a girl from Tennessee who had been killed in a car crash.

Using a false profile, Elliot, 24, wrote: "My father has three guns. I'm planning on killing him first and putting him in a dumpster. Then I'm taking the motor and I'm going in fast.

"I'm gonna kill hopefully at least 200 before I kill myself. So you want to tell the deputy, I'm on my way.''

The court heard the father-of-one had also directed abusive messages at the deceased girl, who was a popular pupil at Warren County High school.

"I'm glad the fat bitch is dead. Let's drink to drink driving. No-one gives a sh*t that she's dead, get over it."

One 15-year-old girl, whose identity cannot be reported due to her age, was told: "You have been chosen tomorrow at school to receive one of my bullets."

With heightened sensitivities following the Newtown shooting in which 20 children were killed, schools in Warren County went into lockdown and 3,000 pupils missed school the next day.

Inquiries made by the FBI and Homeland Security traced the username to Reece's address in Newcastle.

Judge James Goss QC, the Recorder of Newcastle, told Reece the offences were driven by "no more than self-indulgent nastiness".

The judge took into account Elliott's early guilty plea and genuine remorse in passing a sentence of 28 months.

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Dozens Injured In South Beirut Explosion

A car bomb at a shopping centre in southern Beirut has injured 37 people, according to security officials in the city.

Southern Beirut is a stronghold for the Lebanese pro-Syrian Shiite Hizbollah militant group.

The group said the blast, in the Beir el Abed area, was caused by a car bomb in the parking area of the shopping centre.

Earlier reports of several deaths have not yet been confirmed.

The explosion was close to Hizbollah's 'security square' where many of the party's officials live and have offices.

Two men at the scene of the blast

The group's Al Manar TV station broadcast pictures of black smoke rising into the sky and people rushing to help the wounded.

Hizbollah members, some of them carrying Kalashnikov rifles, cordoned off the site with yellow ribbons.

Around 100 supporters of the group marched in the area after the blast, shouting slogans in support of Hizbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.

"The Shiite blood is boiling," Hizbollah supporters shouted.

Tensions have been high following the intervention of Hizbollah fighters in the Syrian war where Sunni Muslim rebels are trying to topple President Bashar al Assad.

Hizbollah fighters gave vital help when Syrian government forces regained control of the strategic town of Qusair, close to the Lebanese border.

Some Syrian rebel groups, which are mainly made up of Sunni Muslims, have threatened to strike in Lebanon.

In May, two rockets hit southern Beirut and injured four people.

That attack came hours after Sheik Hassan Nasrallah promised to help the Syrian regime defeat rebel forces.

Hizbollah, much like the Syrian regime, accuses Syrian rebels of being agents of the US and Israel.

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Ohio Kidnap Victims In 'Thank You' Video

Three women who were abducted and held captive in a house in Cleveland, Ohio, for a decade have thanked the public for their support in a YouTube video.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight broke their silence in the video, saying the encouragement of family, friends and the public had allowed them to restart their lives.

Former bus driver Ariel Castro is alleged to have kidnapped the women off the streets between 2002 and 2004.

Ariel Castro is charged with 329 crimes and could face the death penalty

He has pleaded not guilty to 329 charges, including 139 counts of rape, and aggravated murder over the death of an unborn child.

The women were rescued in May when Ms Berry broke through a door at the home and yelled to neighbours for help.

"I'm getting stronger each day and having my privacy has helped immensely," she said in the video.

"I want everyone to know how happy I am to be home with my family and my friends. It's been unbelievable.

"I want to thank everyone who has helped me and my family through this entire ordeal."

Ms Berry, now 27, was reportedly forced to give birth to her daughter Jocelyn in an inflatable children's paddling pool, while fellow captive Michelle Knight gave the baby mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

In the video, Ms Knight said she had "been through hell and back", but she was doing well and did not want to be "consumed by hatred".

Ms Berry, who was snatched at the age of 20 and is the eldest of the three women, spoke of how her faith in God had helped her deal with the situation.

The three women before they were taken between 2002 and 2004

"I have no problems expressing how I feel inside," she said.

"Be positive. Learn that it is important to give than to receive. Thank you for all your prayers. I'm looking forward to my brand new life."

The three victims' rehabilitation has been helped by more than $1m (£670,000) of public donations to the Cleveland Courage Fund.

Gina DeJesus, now 23 and the youngest of the kidnapped women, spoke briefly only to say "thank you for the support".

The three women were apparently held at Ariel Castro's home

However, her father, Felix DeJesus, and aunt Nancy Ruiz, also spoke in the video to thank people for being "awesome".

Castro, 52, was last week refused a visit with the six-year-old girl he fathered with Ms Berry, with a judge calling the request "inappropriate".

An upcoming meeting will discuss the possibility of seeking the death penalty for the alleged crimes.

Castro's lawyers had previously hinted that he might plead guilty if talk of capital punishment was taken off the table.

A trial is scheduled for August 5, but the judge said it could be delayed.

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Edward Snowden 'Accepts Political Asylum Offer'

Confusion surrounds claims from a Russian politician that US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden has accepted an offer of political asylum from Venezuela, after the statement was deleted from Twitter.

In a tweet, the head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, Alexei Pushkov wrote: "Snowden has given his agreement to (Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro's offer of political asylum."

However the tweet was quickly removed from his account and replaced by the clarification: "I got the information from the 18pm news bulletin from (Russian state TV channel) Vesti 24. All questions to them."

Pushkov then added a further tweet, which said:  "As Vesti 24 reported sourcing Maduro, Snowden has accepted his asylum offer. If that is so, he's chosen that option as most reliable."

But the statement has led to confusion as Vesti has only been reporting that Venezuela had received an asylum request from Snowden.

Since Snowden's arrival in Russia, Alexei Pushkov has acted as the Kremlin's unofficial spokesman on the affair.

Former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden leaked details of a US intelligence programme used to monitor Internet activity and is on the run after espionage charges were filed against him.

He is believed to have been in a transit zone in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport since June 23 after arriving from Hong Kong and reportedly failing to board an onward flight to Cuba.

More follows...

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Video Shows Aftermath Of San Francisco Crash

The dramatic evacuation of a Boeing 777 that crashed onto the runway in San Francisco has been captured on film.

Two teenagers were killed and around 180 people were injured, many of them seriously, when Asiana Airlines flight 214 slammed into the runway.

The pilot who was flying the plane when it came down had just 43 hours' experience flying that type of aircraft, aviation officials have said.

The amateur video taken immediately after the crash shows black smoke billowing from the plane as the 305 passengers and crew evacuated using the emergency inflatable chutes.

The plane spun as it hit the ground (Pic. CNN/Fred Hayes)

It also clearly shows that the aircraft's tail has been torn off and other parts of the plane were significantly damaged.

Air crash investigators said the crew tried to abort the landing less than two seconds before impact.

Although the captain, Lee Gang-guk, had spent nearly 10,000 hours at the controls of other planes, he had never landed at San Francisco before.

He was sitting alongside another pilot who had flown 3,200 hours in 777s and around 12,000 hours in total.

The mangled interior of the Boeing 777 (Pic: NTSB/Twitter)

The head of the airline has described as "intolerable" media reports that pilot inexperience may have been to blame for a fatal weekend crash.

Meanwhile, officials are looking at whether one of the two teenagers killed in the crash was run over by a rescue vehicle.

It is not clear whether she died during the crash or whether she was knocked down as emergency crews rushed to the scene.

The landing gear was separated from the fuselage (Pic: NTSB/Twitter)

As air crash investigators continue to look for the cause of the crash, they published a series of pictures, including one taken inside the wreckage of the plane, showing oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling of the cabin and seats bent at various angles.

They have recovered both "black box" in-flight recorders from the 777, which should reveal exactly why the aircraft came down.

Deborah Hersman, head of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the plane was travelling well below its target speed of 157mph.

Investigators study the aircraft's tail fin (Pic: NTSB/Twitter)

She said a piece of safety equipment that warns pilots of an impending stall went off moments before the crash.

Cockpit voice recordings revealed the crew's desperate attempts to climb back into the sky but did not suggest any mechanical problems.

No warnings were issued to air traffic controllers until seven seconds before impact.

Teenagers Wang Linjia and Ye Mengyuan died in the crash

Although the cause of the crash is yet to be confirmed, one theory is that the plane clipped a sea wall at the end of the runway as it came in to land.

Amateur video obtained by CNN shows the plane landing on the runway and then appearing to spin counter-clockwise before crashing down again with black smoke billowing from its tail.

The two pilots - part of a crew of 16 - had around 22,000 flying hours between them.

There were 291 passengers on board, many of whom were Chinese.

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Eddie Izzard Meets Syria's Child Refugees

By Eddie Izzard, Ambassador for UNICEF UK

Most Brits would think of Iraq as one of the most dangerous places on Earth. But it's here, in the searing summer heat, that seven-year-old Nisreen from Syria has been forced to seek refuge.

Like millions of other Syrian children, Nisreen has lost everything she ever knew. With bombings in her region and a breakdown of security, a group of men almost succeeded in kidnapping her from her home in Syria.

Her mother, Dala, took immediate action. She picked up Nisreen and her two-year-old brother and fled, leaving behind her friends, family and school.

Dala told me Nisreen's story from their basic shelter near Dohuk in northern Iraq. It's converted from an animal barn and they share it with two other families.

I've travelled to the region with UNICEF UK to report on the Syria refugee crisis for Sky News.

There are huge numbers of Syrian refugees who need vital aid

I had heard about horrific conditions facing children in Syria and in neighbouring countries like Jordan and Lebanon, but the hardship faced by Syrian refugees in Iraq is an untold story.

Every Syrian child has been touched by this conflict and in every refugee family there is a story of tragedy - of children who have lost their childhood.

The number of refugees pouring into Iraq from Syria has tripled over the past six months, and the number is expected to more than double again by the end of the year - to 350,000.

For those who managed to escape Syria, life as a refugee remains incredibly difficult. Nisreen is still out of school and has become ill from the effects of the extreme heat and dust.

I also met children like 11-year-old Ahee who lives in a tent in the Domiz refugee camp not far from Nisreen's shelter.

The Dohuk refugee camp in northern Iraq

With summer temperatures peaking at 45 degrees and a camp once designed for 10,000 now crammed with 45,000, she is facing the real risk of dehydration and the outbreak of disease.

Children are struggling to get access to clean water and vital schooling. Ahee and her family don't wash regularly as they can't afford to waste a drop.   

UNICEF is working night and day to get vital aid to Syrian children and their families - like vaccinations and medical supplies. 

In the last year they've supplied 10 million people in Syria and the region with clean drinking water, and they are doing everything they can to get as many children into school as possible.

However, the numbers of refugees are huge and resources are stretched to the limit.

UNICEF has around only a third of the money it needs this year to get aid to children like Nisreen and Ahee who need it and desperately requires more funds to carry out its vital work.

If we don't act now, Syria's children are at risk of becoming a lost generation.

:: Nisreen is not the seven-year-old girl's real name, but has been used to protect her identity.

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