High-Speed Train Derailment in China Kills 1, Injures 8

The driver of a high-speed train in southern China was killed and eight people were injured when two cars derailed early Saturday after hitting a mudslide. (Xinhua file photo)
The driver of a high-speed train in southern China was killed and eight people were injured when two cars derailed early Saturday after hitting a mudslide. (Xinhua file photo)
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High-Speed Train Derailment in China Kills 1, Injures 8

The driver of a high-speed train in southern China was killed and eight people were injured when two cars derailed early Saturday after hitting a mudslide. (Xinhua file photo)
The driver of a high-speed train in southern China was killed and eight people were injured when two cars derailed early Saturday after hitting a mudslide. (Xinhua file photo)

The driver of a high-speed train in southern China was killed and eight people were injured when two cars derailed early Saturday after hitting a mudslide, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The accident occurred mid-morning as the train was entering a tunnel in the inland southern province of Guizhou. It had been traveling on a regular route to the coastal business center of Guangzhou.

Those injured were in stable condition and the other 136 people aboard the train were evacuated safely, CCTV said.

The cause of the accident is under investigation. Landslides have become common in the region from a combination of heavy precipitation and the development of infrastructure in mountainous areas.

China has the world's most extensive high-speed rail network, with 40,000 kilometers (24,855 miles) of tracks nationwide and trains running at more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) per hour. Hundreds of millions of passengers are carried annually, although that figure has been severely reduced under pandemic-related travel restrictions.

The system's safety record has been generally good, with the exception of a 2011 collision between two trains outside the southern city of Wenzhou that left at least 40 people dead and prompted a public uproar over an apparent effort to cover up the extent of the damage.

China's aviation sector has also come under scrutiny lately following the still unexplained crash of a China Eastern Airlines passenger jet on March 21 in which all 132 people on board were killed.

And on May 12, a Tibet Airlines flight with 122 people on board was departing from the southwestern city of Chongqing when it veered off the runway and caught fire. No one was killed, but several passengers were hospitalized with minor injuries.



Ex-president Sarkozy Stripped of France's Top Honor after Conviction

Nicolas Sarkozy has been beset by legal problems since leaving office. Bertrand GUAY / AFP/File
Nicolas Sarkozy has been beset by legal problems since leaving office. Bertrand GUAY / AFP/File
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Ex-president Sarkozy Stripped of France's Top Honor after Conviction

Nicolas Sarkozy has been beset by legal problems since leaving office. Bertrand GUAY / AFP/File
Nicolas Sarkozy has been beset by legal problems since leaving office. Bertrand GUAY / AFP/File

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been stripped of his Legion of Honor -- the country's highest distinction -- following a conviction for graft, according to a decree published Sunday.

The right-winger has been beset by legal problems since he was defeated in the 2012 presidential election after serving one five-year term.

Sarkozy, 70, had been wearing an electronic ankle tag until last month after France's highest appeals court upheld his conviction last December of trying to illegally secure favors from a judge.

According to the code of the Legion of Honor, France's top state award, any person definitively sentenced to a term in prison equal to or greater than one year is excluded from the order.

But French President Emmanuel Macron had argued against such a move in April, saying that scandal-plagued Sarkozy had been elected and it was "very important that former presidents are respected".

Despite his legal problems, Sarkozy remains an influential figure on the right and is known to regularly socialize with the president.

Sarkozy becomes the second former head of state to be stripped of the award after Nazi collaborator Philippe Petain, who was convicted in August 1945 for high treason and conspiring with the enemy.

Others to have been stripped of the honor include former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, drug cheat cyclist Lance Armstrong and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein whose conduct with women sparked the #MeToo movement against sexual violence.

Sarkozy is using his last remaining legal avenue, an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, to defend himself against the conviction.

'Shameful' comparison

Sarkozy's lawyer Patrice Spinosi said the former president had "taken note" of the decision to strip him of the Legion of Honor, but stressed that the petition lodged with the ECHR was "still pending".

Any ECHR ruling against France would "imply reviewing the criminal conviction against (Sarkozy) as well as his exclusion from the order of the Legion of Honor", Spinosi said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot stressed that the "case has not been completely closed" in view of the appeal at European level.

Government spokeswoman Sophie Primas added that comparisons between Sarkozy and Petain were "shameful".

Sarkozy is currently on trial in a separate case on charges of accepting illegal campaign financing in an alleged pact with late Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi.

The court is to issue a verdict in September with prosecutors asking for a seven-year prison term for Sarkozy, who denies the charges.

The Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, General Francois Lecointre, has stressed the importance of disciplinary measures to uphold the order's integrity.

Lecointre told reporters in March that "the honor of the order depends on the fact that those decorated can also be sanctioned."