A crash between a double-decker bus and a lorry in Cambridgeshire, eastern England, has left two people dead and 18 others injured, police say.

The collision took place on the A47 Thorney Road in Guyhirn, a village near Wisbech, around 7:30 a.m. local time (0630GMT) on Tuesday.

Reports said the deceased were the bus driver, in his 50s, and a passenger, in his 70s.

“We are sorry to report that two men, traveling in the bus involved in the A47 collision, have sadly died. Our thoughts are with their families at this time,” said Cambridgeshire Constabulary’s official Twitter account. “Seven people have been seriously injured and 11 have minor injuries following the collision.”

Police noted that those who were seriously hurt had a combination of broken bones and head injuries, including brain injuries.

Footage from the scene shows the bus, which had been traveling eastbound, rammed into the side of the lorry, which appears to have been heading westbound.

The East of England Ambulance Service said the casualties had been transferred to a nearby hospital for treatment.

A police spokesman announced that investigations continued at the scene of the collision and the road remained closed.

Source: Presstv

The French defense chief says nine European Union countries are set to formalize a plan for the creation of a joint European military intervention force, which would have the backing of Britain following its exit from the 28-nation bloc.

Representatives of the EU countries—France, Germany, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Estonia, Spain and Portugal—will meet in Luxembourg later on Monday to sign a letter of intent on the issue, Florence Parly said in an interview with Le Figaro.

The plan, which was launched last year by French President Emmanuel Macron, involves “joint planning work on crisis scenarios that could potentially threaten European security,” according to a source close to the minister.

The force is intended to be rapidly deployable to deal with those situations, including natural disasters, intervention in a crisis or evacuation of people.

The joint military force would be separate from other EU defense cooperation and will operate independently of the union.

“This is clearly an initiative that allows the association of some non-EU states,” Parly said. “The UK has been very keen because it wants to maintain cooperation with Europe beyond bilateral ties.”

Germany, which was initially reluctant to join the military plan, announced earlier this month that it would support it.

The new government in Italy “is considering the possibility of joining” but has not made a final decision yet, said the French minister. The former government had shown interest in the plan.

In December 2017, 25 EU states inked a major military deal, under which they agreed to cooperate in various projects, but it is not clear whether London would be allowed to take part in any of them once it leaves the bloc.

Britain, Europe’s biggest military power along with France, will no longer be allowed to operate within the union after its separation from the bloc.

The United Kingdom voted to leave the EU by a margin of 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent in a referendum held on June 23, 2016. It is now involved in a complicated debate with the EU for the separation.

Source: Presstv

One man died and four others were wounded in a shooting outside an internet cafe in central Malmo on Monday evening.

According to witnesses, 15-20 shots were fired in quick succession and people could then be seen loading injured men into private vehicles. The shooting occurred on Drottningatan, only blocks away from a police station.

Swedish police say the motive for the shooting is still unknown. It is being treated as murder and attempted murder. The area is currently sealed off while further investigations occur. In a statement, police confirmed an 18 year old man had died in hospital.

Three people have died in south London after being hit by a train, according to police. The police said on Monday that the men were in their 20s and the accident happened near Loughborough Junction in south London in the early hours of Monday.

Spray cans were found near where their bodies were found, according to rail industry sources.

“My team is now working hard to understand what happened and how these three people came to lose their life on the railway,” said detective Gary Richardson.

“At this time, we are treating their deaths as unexplained as we make a number of immediate inquiries.

“I would ask anyone who was near to Loughborough Junction this morning, and saw something which they think might be relevant, please contact us as soon as possible.”

British Transport Police (BTP) Supt Matthew Allingham said three men were declared dead at the scene.

“It is believed that they died earlier in the morning and that their injuries are consistent with having been hit by a train,” he told reporters.

Close to one thousand protesters filled Milan’s Piazza della Scala on Tuesday in protest against the Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini’s decision to close Italian ports to migrant rescue ships.

“We ask to solve problems on the land, not the sea. The sea is the place to rescue people, as soon as possible.” said Giorgia Linardi, a member of Sea Watch, a non-profit organisation which carries out rescue operations in the Mediterranean.

The migrant rescue ship Aquarius rescued 629 people in two different operations with help from the Italian coastguard. They were due to dock in Sicily, but Salvini responded by closing Italian ports and said Malta should take the boat. Spain has since offered ‘safe harbour’ to the migrant rescue ship.

Source: Ruptly

Scotland’s National Party (SNP) leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has urged supporters to focus on expanding support for independence from the United Kingdom instead of the timing of the secession.

Addressing delegates at the SNP’s summer conference in Aberdeen on Saturday, Sturgeon – who also heads Scotland’s decentralized government – further acted to diminish expectations among her backers of an immediate push for a new independence vote while the outcome of Brexit remains unclear.

“The case for independence is strong. And it is getting stronger by the day,” Sturgeon said.

“As we wait for the fog of Brexit to clear, our opportunity – indeed, our responsibility – is this: Not just to focus on the ‘when’ of independence. But to use our energy and passion to persuade those who still ask ‘why?'”

“Right now, that is the more important task.”

The development came as polls indicate that a majority of Scots are against holding a fresh ballot. This is while a push for an early referendum in 2017 backfired when support for her party declined in a snap election.

In March 2017, Scotland’s parliament authorized Edinburgh to request a transfer of powers from the UK parliament to hold a referendum, though London has not yet agreed to the request.

The last time Scots voted on independence was in 2014. More than 55 percent voted to stay in the UK while nearly 45 percent voted to leave.

This is while a SNP spokesman was cited in a Reuters support as saying that Sturgeon remains committed to updating the public on the timing of a possible new referendum on Scottish independence in the autumn.

Her speech on Saturday further highlighted a new SNP economic report that tackles the weaknesses of the economic arguments from the 2014 vote.

“It doesn’t pretend there are always easy answers – no one believes that. But it does lay strong foundations for independence. Even with no extra growth from independence, the deficit can be turned around in five to 10 years,” Sturgeon underlined.

She also emphasized on the need for more immigration to the sparsely populated northern tip of Britain and greater powers for Scotland to control it as a central feature of economic growth.

“It’s time for powers over migration to come to Scotland,” said the SNP leader.

Scotland’s population, much of which is rural and dispersed unlike the rest of Britain, is aging faster than other parts of the country.

Immigration, meanwhile, remains one of the trickiest political issues in the Brexit negotiations, and limiting the number of foreigners entering the UK was reportedly a key element on which Britain’s overall 2016 vote to leave the EU rested.

Source: Presstv

Ireland has voted overwhelmingly to end the abortion ban after a historic referendum, in yet another example of how the country is moving away from its traditional Catholic values.

Irish people voted 66.4 percent to 33.6 percent on Friday to repeal the Eight Amendment of the country’s Constitution, which has been in place since 1983, effectively banning abortion.

Abortion is currently allowed if a woman’s life is at risk, but not in cases of rape, incest or fatal foetal abnormality.

However, now the government in Dublin will be able to introduce abortion in Ireland’s health service up to 12 weeks into pregnancy.

“What we have seen today really is a culmination of a quiet revolution that’s been taking place in Ireland for the past 10 or 20 years,” Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said at a counting center in Dublin before the results of Friday’s vote were released, giving an early indication of the final outcome.

“This has been a great exercise in democracy,” Varadkar said, “and the people have spoken and the people have said: We want a modern constitution for a modern country, and that we trust women and that we respect them to make the right decisions and the right choices about their own health care.”

The outcome, which marks a dramatic defeat for the Catholic church’s one-time domination of the Republic, sparked harsh criticism.

“This is devastating for the Roman Catholic hierarchy,” said Gail McElroy, professor of politics at Trinity College Dublin. “It is the final nail in the coffin for them. They’re no longer the pillar of society, and their hopes of re-establishing themselves are gone.”

“Today is a sad day for Ireland and for people who believe in genuine human rights,” the deputy chairwoman of one of Ireland’s biggest anti-abortion groups, Cora Sherlock, said in a Twitter message. “The struggle to defend the most vulnerable has not ended today, it’s just changed.”

Access to abortion is restricted across the border in Northern Ireland, which is part of United Kingdom.

Source: Presstv

Public services workers across France have staged a fresh round of strike to protest government plans to reform labor laws, which entails cutting tens of thousands of jobs in the upcoming years.

Unions called civil servants in various sectors to stop work on Tuesday and join street protests planned in about 140 cities, towns and villages across France.

The nationwide walkout is a third under President Emmanuel Macron since he took office last year on pledges of reforming the labor laws.

More than 300,000 people took to the streets in a previous march called by the unions in March.

Civil servants, hospital staff, postal workers, air traffic controllers, state teachers and public administration workers were expected to join the strike, which is aimed at persuading Macron to revise his policies for a drastic reduction in public spending and overhaul of the labor laws.

The workers are specifically angry at Macron’s plans to cut 120,000 government administration posts by 2022. They also want the government to scrap a proposal to end certain sick leave perks and plans for replacing the job-for-life recruitment with contract hiring system in the civil service.

Nine major unions are also demanding higher wages for public service workers. Some 5.7 million people are employed in government administration, state agencies, schools and hospitals in France.

Macron, 40, has shown little signs he may surrender to demands of the workers. His administration has held rounds of talks with union leaders and insists it will legislate on the labor reforms next year.

The nationwide strikes come amid a continued industrial action in France’s railway sector. Workers have stopped working several days a week since early April to protest plans for ending SNCF train company’s monopoly. Rail workers unions are also angry at planned use of contracts for hiring staff that they say are more protective than other sectors.

Source: Presstv

Two British citizens have been kidnapped in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the foreign office has said.

The man and woman were reportedly abducted on Friday while visiting the Virunga National Park, a renowned gorilla sanctuary in the east of the country.

A female park ranger travelling with the pair was killed, local media reported. The park has seen rising violence in recent months, with armed gangs using weapons to steal resources, in particular charcoal.

DRC is still recovering from a bloody civil war that raged between 1997 and 2003, and the recent surge in violence has concerned aid agencies, who warned the country was “on a cliff edge”.

Last month, five rangers and a driver were killed in a militia ambush, the park said.

It was the deadliest attack in recent years and took the total number of rangers killed to 175.

The rising death toll has earned the park, which is a Unesco world heritage site, a reputation as one of the most dangerous conservation projects on the planet.

The park spans 3,000 square miles n the DRC’s border with Uganda and Rwanda and is home to to around a quarter of the world’s critically endangered mountain gorillas and other endangered species as well as lions, elephants, hippos and a host of rare bird species.

Last year, a fifth of the park’s southern sector was deforested owing to illegal charcoal production, the park said.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are in close contact with the authorities in Democratic Republic of the Congo following an incident involving two British nationals, and our staff are providing support to their families.”

Source: Agencies

A goods train and a passenger train collided in southern Germany on Monday, rail operator Deutsche Bahn said, and local media reported two people were killed.

Deutsche Bahn said in a statement on its website the collision took place at around 9.20 p.m. local time (19:20 GMT) near the Aichach station on the line between Ingolstadt and Augsburg in Bavaria.

Deutsche Bahn and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung both reported police as saying that two people were killed and several injured.

(Source: Reuters)