BBC News with Charles Carroll
Reports from Spain say at least 20 people have been killed when a train was derailed in the north-west of the country. The authorities have confirmed that the train came off the tracks near the city of Santiago de Compostela, but could not confirm the number of casualties. The train was travelling between Madrid and Ferrol. From Madrid, here’s Tom Burridge.
The death toll seems to be rising every ten minutes or so. Apparently, according to Spanish media, the train derailed on entering a neighbourhood on the edge of Santiago de Compostela up in the north of Spain in the region of Galicia. The train left Madrid earlier today, a journey of around six or seven hours. But just before it reached Santiago de Compostela, it derailed. Tomorrow is a regional bank holiday. A lot of people are on the move for their holidays—a lot of people going on their summer holidays now. Quite possible that a lot of people were on that train on the way to their holidays up in that part of northern Spain.
President Obama has delayed the delivery of four F-16 fighter planes to Egypt three weeks after the army ousted President Mohamed Morsi. The jets were due to arrive in August. The F-16s were part of a larger arms deal to supply 20 fighter jets, eight of which have been delivered. Kim Ghattas reports from Washington.
The decision to delay the delivery of the fighter jets is an easy, somewhat symbolic, way for the US to signal its disapproval of the continued instability in Egypt without undermining Washington’s strong relationship with Egyptian military. In the days following the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, the Obama administration did not want to stop the shipment of jets. But Washington has grown increasingly concerned about the army’s handling of the situation. So President Barack Obama decided late last night that it was not appropriate to follow through with the delivery in August and he delayed it indefinitely.
Prince William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, have announced that they have named their baby son George Alexander Louis. Palace officials said the child will be known as His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge. He’s the third in line to the British throne. The baby was born at St Mary’s hospital in London on Monday.
The United Nations and Arab League’s special peace envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi has told the BBC that there can be no military solution to the civil war there. Mr Brahimi warned that delivering arms to the Syrian rebels or to the government of Bashar al-Assad would only lengthen the conflict, but would not resolve it.
"As far as the United Nations is concerned, the position is really clear. Sending arms is not the solution. The flow of arms has to stop to all sides, and what you need is work harder at making that political solution possible.”
Lakhdar Brahimi
World News from the BBC
A government spokesman in Guinea says it’s now known that at least 95 people were killed in three days of ethnic clashes in the south-east of the country last week. That’s nearly double the previous estimate. The violence began when a youth accused of stealing was beaten and killed by men from a different ethnic group. The clashes spread to Nzerekore, the second biggest city in Guinea where a curfew was imposed.
On the third day of his visit to Brazil, Pope Francis has held a mass at the basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida, which is said to be the world’s second largest basilica after St Peter’s in Rome. From Rio de Janeiro, Wyre Davies reports.
After last night’s official opening on Copacabana Beach of World Youth Day, a week-long Catholic youth festival, Pope Francis travelled to the more traditional setting of Aparecida, the site of one of the world’s largest basilicas. In spite of the cold and the rain, a huge crowd of mainly Brazilian Catholics rather than the international pilgrims who’ve congregated in Rio heard the pontiff deliver what he called a message of hope, calling on people to resist the desire for material things alone.
At least five people have been killed and more than 30 injured during an attack in southern Pakistan on a complex housing government security agencies. Police said several gunmen stormed the heavily guarded compound and detonated bombs in the town of Sukkur in Sindh province. They said officers of the country’s spy agency, the ISI, appeared to the target. It’s feared people may be trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
The Bank of England has said that the early 19th century novelist Jane Austen will become the face of the new 10-pound note following criticism that women are underrepresented on British bank notes. The bank caused an outcry in April when it announced that the former Prime Minister Winston Churchill would replace the social reformer Elizabeth Fry as the new face of the five-pound note. Austen will replace the naturalist Charles Darwin.