Spain train driver says he can’t explain speed
MADRID – The driver of the train that derailed in northwestern Spain, killing 79 people, said he was traveling at twice the speed limit when he approached a treacherous turn.
But, sitting uneasily before a judge, he waved his hands in front of his face and was at a loss to explain why he didn’t slow down in a video released by a Spanish newspaper Thursday.
“I can’t explain it,” Francisco Jose Garzon Amo said, shifting in his chair. “I still don’t understand how I didn’t see ... mentally, or whatever. I just don’t know.”
The journey was “going fine” until the curve was upon him, he said.
When the danger became clear, he thought, “Oh my God, the curve, the curve, the curve. I won’t make it.”
Berlusconi denounces ruling on his conviction
ROME – Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi says the Italian Supreme Court’s decision to uphold his tax fraud conviction and jail sentence is ‘’baseless” and robs him of his political rights.
Berlusconi delivered a nine-minute video statement Thursday, hours after he was definitively convicted for the first time in decades of criminal prosecutions.
He said he was the victim of “an incredible series of accusations and trials that had nothing to do with reality.
Morsi supporters snub offer of protection
CAIRO – The military-backed government offered protection Thursday to supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi who end their two sit-ins – widely seen as a first step toward dispersing the vigils on opposite sides of Cairo.
But the protesters responded defiantly: “Over our dead bodies!”
The standoff underscored the ongoing political crisis since the armed forces toppled Egypt’s first democratically elected leader on July 3: thousands in the streets demanding Morsi’s reinstatement, a government unable to exert its authority and recurrent violence that has killed more than 260 people.
Rights groups, activists and politicians from rival camps, fearful of more bloodshed, tried to ward off any use of force, including a suggestion of putting a human chain around the protest sites.”
Associated Press
