A passenger train carrying about 80 people derailed early Monday
after an avalanche near the village of Goppenstein in southern Switzerland, officials said.
Police confirmed that the derailment occurred at 7 a.m. local time and warned that there was a “possibility” of people being injured.
News agency AFP reported that they evacuated 30 passengers from the affected trains by 10.00 am, while ambulances and rescue helicopters continued their operations.
“The train derailed due to an avalanche in the Stockgraben area,” a spokesman for Swiss rail company BLS told 20 Minutes.
According to The Independent, several casualties are feared as rescue teams arrive at the scene
The train, which left Spiez at 6.12 a.m., was heading south toward Brig at the time of the incident.
As a result, rail traffic between Gopenstein and Brig has been suspended, with services expected to remain halted until at least Tuesday, the BLS said.
Switzerland’s rail network is known for its extensive coverage and punctuality, connecting cities, towns and remote villages.
Rail lovers from all over the world travel along the scenic routes, some of which include steep climbs.
Officials are assessing the situation and providing medical care to those affected. In 2023, a separate storm near Bern caused two trains to derail within 20 minutes, injuring 15 people. This is a developing story…
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK for help. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
The smell comes even before you can see the tent. In the al-Taawun camp, located between Yarmouk Stadium and al-Sahaba Street in central Gaza City, the line between human habitation and human waste has blurred.
765 families forced to flee their homes due to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza have set up temporary shelters right above and near a giant solid waste dump. Here, amidst mountains of rotting garbage, they are battling against diseases, pests, and the psychological terror of living in filth.
Father Faiz al-Zadi, who has experienced 12 displacements since the start of the war, claims that the living conditions are depriving him of his humanity.
“The rats eat the tents from underneath,” al-Zadi told Al Jazeera. “They run across our face while we sleep. My daughter is 18 months old. A rat runs across her face. Every day, she has gastroenteritis, vomiting, diarrhoea or malnutrition.”
Al-Zadi’s petition is not for any luxury housing, he said, but merely for 40 to 50 meters (130 feet to 164 feet) of clear space to live in. “We want to live like humans.”
Faiz al-Zadi, a Palestinian father who has been displaced 12 times by war, says rats were running across his children’s faces as they slept in their tent near a solid waste dump in Gaza City. [Screengrab/Al
‘We wake up screaming.’
The sanitation crisis has sparked an epidemic of skin infections among the camp’s 4,000 residents. The lack of running water and a sewage system has led to the rapid spread of scabies.
Six-month-old baby Fares Jamal Sobh spends his nights crying. His mother points out the red, angry rashes on his little body.
“He can’t sleep at night because of the itching,” she said. “We wake up and see that there are cockroaches and mosquitoes on it. We bring medicine, but it is useless because we are living on garbage.”
Um Hamza, a grandmother who cares for a large family including a blind husband and a son who suffers from asthma, said shame no longer eases her suffering.
“We have stopped being ashamed to say that my daughter has scabies,” she told Al Jazeera. “We have used five or six bottles of ointment, but it is in vain.”
He said the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system has left them with nowhere else to go. “Hospitals like Al-Ahli have started turning us away. … They write us a prescription and ask us to buy it, but there is no medicine to buy.”
Six-month-old Fares Jamal Sobh suffers from severe skin infection and asthma due to the unsanitary conditions in the al-Taawun camp in Gaza City, where displaced families are forced to live on top of piles of solid waste. [Screengrab/Al
city in ruins
The conditions at al-Taawun are a microcosm of the citywide collapse. Hamada Abu Laila, a university lecturer who helps run the camp, warned of an “environmental catastrophe” due to the lack of sewage networks and drinking water in Gaza City.
But the problem goes deeper than lack of support. According to Gaza Municipality spokesman Hosni Muhanna, the crisis is man-made. Israeli forces have blocked access to the Gaza Strip’s main landfill in the east, forcing the creation of dangerous temporary dumps in populated areas such as Yarmouk and the historic Firas Market.
“More than 350,000 tonnes of solid waste are accumulating inside Gaza City alone,” Muhana told Al Jazeera in January.
He explained that the municipality has been paralysed by a “complex set of constraints”, including the destruction of machinery, severe fuel shortages and persistent security risks. With interventions limited to primitive means, the municipality can no longer manage waste according to health standards, leaving thousands of displaced families sleeping on top of toxic time bombs.
sleeping next to a tank shell
The threats in Al-Taawun are not just biological. Rizq Abu Laila, displaced from the city of Beit Lahiya in the north, lives with his family next to an unexploded tank shell amid garbage bags and plastic sheets.
“We are living next to a garbage dump full of snakes and stray cats,” Abu Laila said, pointing to the ordnance. “It’s an unexploded shell right next to the tent. With the heat of the sun, it could explode at any moment. Where should we go with our children?”
Their daughter, Shahad, is afraid of the pack of wild dogs that roam the garbage heap at night. “I’m afraid of dogs because they bark,” she whispered.
Widad Sobh, another resident, described the nights as a horror movie. “The dogs pounce on the tent fabric…they want to attack and eat. I stay up all night to drive them away.”
For Um Hamza, the daily struggle to survive has reached a tipping point.
“I swear to God, we eat bread after the rats have eaten it,” he said, describing the terrible hunger in the camp. “I just want the authorities to find a better place for us, one that is away from the garbage.”
The Taylor Swift concert in 2024 has been charged.
A man accused of plotting an attack on a Taylor Swift concert in 2024 has been charged with a terrorism-related offence.
The 21-year-old has now been charged by Austrian prosecutors following his arrest shortly before the singer was scheduled to perform on his first Eraz tour in Vienna.
image: Police are on patrol in Vienna after the concert was cancelled. Photo: Reuters
The suspect is accused of planning to carry out an Islamist terrorist attack, and the Vienna prosecutors’ office plans to bring a criminal case against him in Wiener Neustadt, a city near the Austrian capital.
The man allegedly produced a small quantity of the explosive triacetone triperoxide and attempted to purchase weapons illegally, a statement issued on Monday said.
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The statement referred to the suspect’s arrest in August 2024, the same month that Austrian authorities said they had foiled an attack, after which Swift’s three Eras tour dates in Vienna were cancelled at short notice.
It said he was a member of Islamic State and is accused of conducting online research on a type of shrapnel bomb used by the group and spreading Islamic State “propaganda material” online.
The suspect’s attorney was not immediately available for comment, but he has previously disputed the allegations made against his client.
Kirsty Muir once again came very close to winning a Winter Olympic medal.
Freestyle skier Kirsty Muir once again came very close to a Winter Olympic medal for Team GB by finishing second and fourth at the Games.
Competing in big air, Muir scored a total of 174.75 points from her best two runs, 3.5 points behind Italian bronze medallist Flora Tabanelli.
This comes just a week after she missed the slopestyle bronze medal by just 0.41 points.
Canada’s Megan Oldham won the gold medal, with China’s defending champion Eileen Gu – competing in a major aerial competition for the first time since winning the Olympic title four years ago – this time having to settle for a silver medal.
The final was delayed by more than an hour due to a heavy blizzard at Livigno Snow Park, while Mathilde Gremaud, a medal favourite, was one of two Swiss skiers to withdraw at the last minute due to injury.
The field seemed to have opened up for Muir, who qualified for the final in fourth place.
But in a surprising first round, four skiers posted scores of 90.00 points or higher, with Muir finishing seventh and knowing she needed to perform big.
She did just that, posting 93.00, which was the highest score of the second run and moved her into the silver medal position.
Gu, already a silver medallist in slopestyle at these Games, was well off the pace, struggling on her second attempt, but she improved her final jump to drop Muir to third place.
The Chinese skier celebrated as if his medal was assured at that moment, despite many skiers waiting to push him off the podium.
As it proved, they could not do so, although Tabanelli’s final jump of 94.25 points – the highest score of the night – was only 0.75 points short of the silver medal position.
This increased the pressure on Muir’s third and final jump. She spent her time at the top of the large air structure, talking about her options with her coach, but ultimately did not succeed in her attempt, leaving her sitting on the ice lost in her thoughts about what could have been.
An attack on a market in central Sudan killed at least 28 people.
Cairo– a human rights group said on Monday that an attack on a market in central Sudan killed at least 28 people and wounded dozens in the Kordofan region, as the war between the army and paramilitary groups approached three years.
Emergency Lawyers, a rights group that monitors violence against civilians, said in a statement that drones bombed a market in the Sudri area of North Kordofan province on Sunday at a time when the market was packed with civilians, “aggravating the humanitarian tragedy”. The group said the number of casualties was likely to rise.
“The repeated use of drones to target populated areas shows a serious disregard for civilian life and signals an escalation that threatens daily life in the province. Therefore, we call for an immediate cessation of drone attacks by both sides of the conflict,” the statement said.
More than a week ago, a drone near Rahad town in North Kordofan hit a vehicle carrying displaced families, killing at least 24 people, including eight children. The day before that attack, a World Food Programme aid convoy was targeted.
In April 2023, a full-scale war broke out across the country between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Army. According to the World Health Organization, at least 40,000 people have died so far and 12 million have been displaced. Aid groups say the actual death toll from the war may be many times higher because of the vast and remote areas where fighting restricts access.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recently said the Kordofan region remains “unstable and a hotbed of hostilities” as warring parties compete for control of strategic areas.
The United Nations Human Rights Office released a report on Friday saying that more than 6,000 people died. Over three days RSF unleashed a “wave of intense violence … shocking in its scale and brutality” in Sudan’s Darfur region in late October.
RSF’s aggressive stance to capture Al-Fashar city: mass atrocities took place in late October in what used to be a military base – war crimes and, according to the United Nations, possible crimes against humanity
Take a positive, close look at the world and what do you see?
This certainly seems unexpected. Old friends are unreliable, and the rules no longer apply. For many, the global neighbourhood is clearly becoming scary.
But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the head of Britain’s intelligence agency, MI6.
“The front line is everywhere,” says Blaise Metreveli, who warned of “the dangers of aggression, expansionism” in a recent speech. Russia is also an aggressive and expansionist nation.
Several military leaders have echoed their concerns. Richard Knighton, chief of the British defence staff, said, “The situation is more dangerous than I have seen in my career.”
“The response requires more than strengthening our armed forces.”
image: Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper arriving at Munich Airport, Germany. Photo: PA
Experts of the Foreign Office – including its embassies and consulates abroad – play a vital role in the country’s security blanket, and the woman in charge says she gets it.
For more information, visit the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s website.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced the formation of a “State Threat Unit” along with other initiatives to defend the UK in a world of “increasing hybrid threats”.
However, what senior officials are not talking about are the government’s plans to cut the workforce to deal with these threats.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (to use its full name) will be replaced with a new restructuring plan called FCDO 2030.
The process will result in the loss of approximately 2,000 jobs or up to 25% of the total workforce – with cuts of up to 40% expected in some London-based departments.
Sky News’s Deborah Haynes discusses Sir Keir Starmer’s speech at the Munich Security Conference.
One staff member compared the environment at the Foreign Office to the dystopian film The Hunger Games, where employees are forced to compete for a dwindling number of positions.
The PCS trade union, representing staff at the Foreign Office, described the situation as “messy.”
“We have seen no justification for these cuts and have not yet been told what work the senior leadership has deemed disposable,” a PCS official said.
Interestingly, those senior leaders – including the minister in charge of international development – have made it clear that they will rely on the expertise of their own staff as they attempt to make massive funding cuts to programs in the international aid budget.
“The shift from grants to expertise is quite fundamental,” Development Minister Baroness Chapman announced to members of a parliamentary committee.
“Our influence is not about the size of our (direct spending) program... it is much more about our diplomatic work, our political relations, and our role in the multilateral arena.”
image: Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper with Norwegian Foreign Minister Barth Eade in January. Photo: PA
Serious challenges are emerging in the multilateral arena. Britain can no longer unite with EU members – nor rely on its relationship with the US to get what it wants. Instead, he must sacrifice his well-being for power and influence.
The man effectively driving these cuts, Permanent Under-Secretary of State Sir Oliver Robbins, told MPs that he was following the mandate set by former Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who saw the Foreign Office as unfocused, overly burdensome and “not strategic enough.”.
Yet in discussions with MPs, Robbins appeared to accept that some of the best people would succeed.
“We’re working hard to ensure that we agree on the highly skilled talent we need at various seniority levels.”
Outrage has greeted the job losses.
MPs on the International Development Committee have described the cuts as “brutal,” and in an interim report, they have called for the plan to be “immediately halted.”
“Lives would be at risk, not to mention the real risk to Britain’s global reputation,” stated Sarah Champion, the chair of the committee. If we lose the invaluable FCDO expertise, it will be irreversible.
However, Sky News has learned that Robbins dismissed those criticisms during a recent “town hall” meeting between staff and the Foreign Office.
A PCS union official said, “Ignoring parliamentary committee recommendations like this is unheard of.”
image: Rory Stewart criticises the government by stating, “We spend more on Kent County Council than on our foreign policy.”
Perhaps the most forceful defence of the country’s diplomatic corps has come from a former minister, Rory Stewart, who has been highly critical of the government he served.
“In 2015, the situation was miserable, even 10 years ago when we were dismantling the Foreign Office and much of our foreign infrastructure.” The Foreign Office was half the size of the French counterpart. We spend more on Kent County Council than on our foreign policy.”
Stewart says the current Labour administration is headed down the same dangerous path.
“We are creating a chaotic situation where we have exaggerated our soft power and mistakenly believe that we can defend ourselves with only a few aircraft carriers that lack protection and a few large nuclear weapons that have no surrounding defence.”
In response to our reporting on FCDO 2030, a Foreign Office spokesperson said, “FCDO is changing to be more agile and focused so we can work for the UK in a rapidly changing world.
“This is part of wider government reforms that are beneficial for the British people and ensure value for money for taxpayers while maintaining our world-leading expertise in diplomacy and development.”
Mikaela Shiffrin’s Olympic drought continues after missing the podium at the Milano Cortina Games. The women’s giant slalom finished 11th on Sunday.
The US standouts had a combined time of 2:14.42. His racing was clean but not fast enough to challenge for a podium finish. After his second race he showed no outward signs of disappointment, puffing out his cheeks and waving with both hands to the fans in the grandstand.
Mikaela Shiffrin of Team USA competes during the Women’s Giant Slalom.
Mikaela Shiffrin of Team USA competes during the Women’s Giant Slalom at the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on February 15, 2026, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
A 30-year-old who is one of the most winning athletes on the World Cup circuit has now failed to win a medal in eight consecutive Olympic events since the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang.
Italy’s Federica Brignone won the top prize, her second gold medal at these Games and her fifth overall. Notably, it was a split silver medal after Sweden’s Sara Hector and Norway’s Thea Stjernsund posted the same time in both the first and second runs.
As Brignone crossed the finish line to loud cheers from the home crowd, Hector and Stjernsund ran into the finish area, bowing to the champion amid chants of “Fede” from the fans.
Italian gold medalist Federica Brignone is congratulated by Norway’s Thea Louise Stjernsund and Sweden’s Sara Hector in the women’s giant slalom at the 2026 Winter Olympics
“That was the biggest show of GS skiing we’ve had in a really long time,” Shiffrin said. “And to do it, you know, at the Olympics, where people’s eyes are really on the sport. Federica had incredible skiing. It was great to see.”
Salvation for Shiffrin, who came in fourth with teammate Breezy Johnson in the women’s team combined event on Thursday, may come in her best event—the slalom—on Wednesday.
Vladimir Putin’s top aides issued a scary warning.
One of Vladimir Putin’s top aides issued a scary warning to Europe, describing the continent as an “evil empire”. On his Russian state TV show, “Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov”, the notorious host delivered a heated speech criticising Russia’s internal economic policies before lashing out at Germany and broader European leadership.
Responding to the Munich Security Council, the leading forum for international security policy, which took place between 13 and 16 February,
Solovyov called for the “destruction” of the city of Munich and several top German politicians. Solovyov said, ”
The Munich conference has once again demonstrated that the city of Munich should probably be destroyed, because everything that comes out of Munich brings complete filth.” ”
These people are sick of war.” He then threatened Germany and even the leaders of the United Nations with sabotage.
“[Olaf] Scholz must be destroyed. [Friedrich] Meraz should be destroyed. [Johann] Wadeful should be destroyed.
Annalena Baerbock must be destroyed,” the state TV host said, referring to Germany’s former chancellor, current chancellor, federal minister for foreign affairs and president of the UN General Assembly, respectively.
“These words sound horrifying, don’t they?”
He claimed that German-supplied drones were killing Russians, which makes Germany a direct participant in “genocide.”
Solovyov then expanded his attack, describing Europe as an “empire of evil” and claiming that the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was building a “new Reich”.
His guest, political scientist Sergei Mikheyev, then said that Europeans are “psychopaths” who can only be stopped by a “good punch in the nose”—a direct military threat that “leaves Europe with nothing.”.
“The ‘Empire of Evil’ has always been and will always be Europe […] Ursula von der Leyen is building another Reich,” Solovyov said, adding, “A good punch in the nose is more effective as persuasion than 10 volumes of epistolary style.”
Nevertheless, Russia itself fell victim to Solovyov’s latest attack. He heavily criticised the Russian Central Bank and the Ministry of Economic Development, mocking decisions to keep interest rates high and raise taxes and arguing that these policies were preventing the economic growth needed to win the war. He also expressed frustration that Russia is still dependent on Chinese components for drones because domestic businesses cannot get loans to build their own factories.
Sunday’s threat from Russia comes just a day after revelations that visitors to the MSC exhibition this week were being shown a two-minute AI-generated video featuring an actual downed martyr drone.
Behind the UAV, whose warhead has been removed, a two-minute AI-generated video is playing on a large screen in a loop. show this Again,
A massive drone launch occurred somewhere in Russia. Drones attacked targets in Davos and Brussels, including the European Parliament building.
Sarah Ferguson’s new life has emerged following her recent fall from grace.
Sarah Ferguson’s new life after her recent fall from grace looks very different from the one she was used to.
The former Duchess of York has no title, home or job since disturbing details emerged about her relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The US Justice Department recently released millions more documents related to her case, further drawing her into the Epstein controversy.
Many of these documents feature Fergie, as she is otherwise known, and see her sending Epstein several embarrassing emails about her finances, her children, and her overall life.
Mention in the Epstein files does not suggest any wrongdoing.
However, it has become increasingly difficult to pinpoint Ms. Sarah’s whereabouts and future plans, despite suggestions that her former husband, the “miserable adventurer” Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, found refuge in one of the King’s private homes at the Sandringham estate.
The former duchess, who has not been seen in public since last December, reportedly headed to the Alps before heading to the UAE to think about her return and her finances, with sources claiming she is adamant on keeping her “distance” from Andrew.
However, royal writer Robert Jobson dismissed the claims on his X account, saying, “The UAE angle may not be worth pursuing.”
It is still unclear where the former duchess is living since the release of the bombshell Epstein files. Sources told the Daily Mail that she was telling friends, “I need to go back to work. I need money.”
