portugal
Train derailment kills four
A passenger train derailed Friday in Spain’s Galicia region, killing at least four people, including an American tourist, and injuring 48 others who were taken to hospitals, authorities said. The accident occurred at 9:30 a.m. in Porrino, about 280 miles northwest of Madrid, the regional government said. The three-car train was traveling between Spain and neighboring Portugal. The regional government’s president, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, told reporters at the scene that the train’s engineer and ticket collector were among the dead, as well as two passengers. One of the passengers was a U.S. tourist who died on the train, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
CUBA
Diplomat upset over embargo
Cuba’s top diplomat says President Barack Obama’s easing of the U.S. trade embargo on the country has had virtually no positive effect for its economy. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez asserts that the sanctions cost Cuba $4.6 billion last year. He spoke Friday while presenting a report ahead of a U.N. vote on condemning the embargo. The report is an annual ritual driving home to a mostly domestic audience Havana’s message that the embargo is to blame for most of Cuba’s problems.
Germany
Under-age migrants married
German authorities say at least 361 migrants aged under 14 are registered as married. The usual minimum age for marriage in Germany is 18, but an exception is made for children aged 16 or over who have their parents’ permission to marry. Marriages undertaken abroad can be recognized even if the person is aged under 16. German officials are discussing whether to nix the exception for under-age marriage and refuse to recognize minors’ foreign marriages.
France
Tourists stuck on cable cars
Dozens of tourists, including three children, were rescued Friday after being trapped overnight in cable cars dangling above the slopes of Mont Blanc in the Alps. Their return to land ended an extraordinarily complex and vertiginous rescue effort over two days amid the spectacular but dangerous landscape of Western Europe’s tallest mountains. The last passengers were brought down Friday morning, after emergency workers managed to untangle cables that had jammed Thursday, according to the mayor of the French town of Chamonix. The ordeal trapped 110 people in a string of cars at 3,800 meters altitude.
Compiled from wire reports