Paparazzi

Indian rescue workers search for survivors in the wreckage of a train that derailed near Pukhrayan in Kanpur district. AFP An Indian express train derailed early Sunday, killing over 100 people in one of the country’s worst rail disasters in years, police said, as emergency workers searched the mangled wreckage for survivors. Shocked passengers recounted being woken by a violent thud, and told of their desperate search for loved-ones on the train, which was carrying at least one wedding party with the marriage season in India in full swing. “We woke up to a great thud this morning. It was pitch dark and the noise was deafening,” one passenger told reporters as he waited with his family at the scene. “I am lucky to be alive and safe. It was a near-death experience for us.” Many were sleeping when 14 carriages leapt from the tracks in a remote area outside the northern city of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh state. It is the worst disaster since 2010 when a passenger t...

Senate President, Bukola Saraki RASHEED BISIRIYU, SUNDAY ABORISADE, ANNA OKON and LEKE BAIYEWU There are strong indications that influential Nigerians, including a serving governor and a minister, are among owners of about 1,500 exotic vehicles parked in the Volkswagen Yard, on the Mile 2-Badagry Expressway in Lagos since 2015. Another governor from the South-East (name withheld) has also been identified as the owner of 15 Sports Utility Vehicles intercepted and impounded by officers of the Nigeria Customs Service and parked in the agency’s office in Ikeja. The Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff, led by its Chairman, Hope Uzodinma, had visited the VON premises last week on oversight assignment when it discovered that the place looked deserted with disused equipment in its assembly plant. The officials of the company, who had earlier declined to open the store to the lawmakers for inspection, were forced to grant the visitors access into the warehous...