Briefly

India

Train collision kills 37

Welders cut through metal and soldiers pulled bodies from the crushed cars of two trains that collided head-on Tuesday in northern India, killing 37 people.

At least 40 people were injured, with 16 of them in serious condition, after the crash in rural northern Punjab state, railway officials said.

A “communications snag” between stationmasters at two stations apparently caused the crash, with an express train and a local train allowed to travel toward each other on the same track, said Dharam Singh, the top railway official in the area.

“I don’t consider it an accident. It is nothing less than a brutal murder,” federal Railways Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav told reporters at the site.

The two stationmasters and an engineer had been fired and would face criminal charges of culpable homicide, Yadav said.

Haiti

U.N. peacekeepers roll into Aristide stronghold

Hundreds of U.N. peacekeeping troops stormed a stronghold of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s supporters on Tuesday, seeking control of areas that have become flashpoints of violence. At least four people were killed.

Shootouts broke out between residents and U.N. troops who rolled into Cite Soleil before dawn, said Damian Onses-Cardona, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission.

At least six people were shot in the slum Tuesday, including a 26-year-old woman, a 16-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy, all injured during gunfire exchanges between peacekeepers and residents.

Belgium

Terrorists reportedly training in Iraq

Radical youths from Europe and the Arab world are training at insurgent camps in Iraq, Europe’s anti-terror chief said Tuesday, warning that instability there and elsewhere in the world was making “it easier for terrorists to hide and train.”

Al-Qaida also has become more difficult to contain since the 9-11 attacks because after Osama bin Laden lost his training base in Afghanistan he began inspiring smaller militant groups to do his bidding, EU counterterrorism coordinator Gijs de Vries told The Associated Press in Belgium.

De Vries said terrorist violence in Iraq could spread to the whole region if the U.S.-led coalition fails to put down the insurgency that’s attracting Islamic radicals from outside Iraq.

Tokyo

Allegations made in N. Korea kidnappings

North Korea on Tuesday accused Japan of doctoring the DNA analysis it conducted on remains allegedly belonging to a Japanese girl kidnapped by communist spies decades ago, denying Tokyo’s claim they were those of someone else.

Japan said last week that tests on remains that Pyongyang claimed belonged to Megumi Yokota, who was 13 when she was abducted in 1977, showed that they were actually those of two other people.

A spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday accused Japan of falsifying the DNA analysis, saying the work “was based on a political script.”

Moscow

Military says foreigners detained in Chechnya

Authorities have detained 15 foreigners In Chechnya, most of them citizens of former Soviet Muslim republics, military officials said Tuesday.

The detained foreigners were mostly citizens of Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine whose visas had expired or who hadn’t properly registered with authorities, said Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesman for Russian troops in Chechnya.

Shabalkin also said none of the detained could explain what they were doing in Chechnya, raising suspicions of their collaboration with Chechen rebels. He added that several wounded rebels had been illegally taken for treatment to Crimea in Ukraine.