EGYPT
Deadly derailment
Packed in a rickety train speeding through the night, Egyptian conscripts were heading toward jobs as soldiers in an anti-riot force. At a station just outside of Cairo before dawn Tuesday, the train’s last car jumped the track, slammed into a parked train, and then was dragged for several miles. The car was torn to pieces, young recruits were sent flying along the tracks, and others were mangled. In the end, 19 recruits mostly in their early 20s were killed and more than 100 were injured, some with arms or legs torn off. The crash brought a new wave of anger at Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
JAPAN
Jet forced to land
An All Nippon Airways flight made an emergency landing this morning in western Japan after a cockpit message showed battery problems, in the latest trouble for the Boeing 787 “Dreamliner.” The airline’s 787s have encountered several problems in the past two weeks, though no injuries have been reported.
Ireland
Horse meat in burgers
The Irish food safety watchdog said Tuesday that it had discovered traces of horse and pig DNA in burger products sold by some of the country’s biggest supermarkets, including a burger sold by global retailer Tesco that authorities said was made of roughly 30 percent horse. Ireland’s Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney blamed a lone meat processor in County Monaghan, on the border with Northern Ireland, for the horsemeat find, which he called “totally unacceptable.”
Jamaica
Rare minerals in soil
Jamaica may be able to benefit from newly found deposits of rare-earth elements that are key ingredients for smartphones, computers and numerous other high-tech goods, the Caribbean island’s top mining official said Tuesday. Science, Technology, Energy & Mining Minister Philip Paulwell said Japanese researchers believe they have found “high concentrations of rare-earth elements” in the country’s red mud, or bauxite residue.
Compiled from wire reports.
