In brief: 25 reported dead in train collision

Cairo, Egypt – A passenger train collided with the back of a second one just outside of Cairo on Saturday, destroying several passenger cars and killing at least 25 people, a police official said.

At least 55 others were wounded in the accident.

Egypt has a poor safety record on its railways, and there are several fatal accidents each year, usually blamed on poorly maintained equipment.

Top Iran politician knocks nuke deal

Tehran, Iran – The powerful speaker of Iran’s parliament Saturday derided a Western-backed proposal to transfer the bulk of the country’s enriched-uranium stockpile abroad as a trick meant …

Cairo, Egypt – A passenger train collided with the back of a second one just outside of Cairo on Saturday, destroying several passenger cars and killing at least 25 people, a police official said.

At least 55 others were wounded in the accident.

Egypt has a poor safety record on its railways, and there are several fatal accidents each year, usually blamed on poorly maintained equipment.

Top Iran politician knocks nuke deal

Tehran, Iran – The powerful speaker of Iran’s parliament Saturday derided a Western-backed proposal to transfer the bulk of the country’s enriched-uranium stockpile abroad as a trick meant to rob Iran of its nuclear fuel.

“My guess is that the Americans have made a secret deal with certain countries to take (low)-enriched uranium away from us under the pretext of providing nuclear fuel,” Ali Larijani, who is close to supreme leader Ali Khamenei, told the Iranian Students News Agency. “We hope Iranian officials will pay due attention to this issue.”

Larijani, who once served as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, is the highest-ranking official explicitly to question the plan, which would push Iran’s enriched-uranium stockpile below the threshold necessary to make a single nuclear bomb.

Under the deal, which could serve as a template for a broader deal between Iran and other entities harboring doubts about its nuclear program, Russia would refine Iran’s reactor-grade fuel.