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Taiwan president calls for clear probe of fatal train crash

DONGSHAN TOWNSHIP, Taiwan — Taiwan’s president pressed for a quick, transparent probe into the cause of the island’s worst train crash in nearly three decades as the search of the derailed cars ended and crash investigators examined the wreckage Monday.
The eight-car Puyuma express ran off the tracks as it went around a bend where the maximum speed is 75
Eighteen people were killed and 187 injured in the crash that left most of the cars damaged and five overturned in a zig-zag pattern to the left of the tracks. Rescuers searched through the night for more victims before work crews moved the derailed cars upright to assist the investigation.
“Everyone cares a lot about the cause of the accident,” Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said in a statement from her office. “Therefore we request that the investigating departments must as soon as possible make clear the timing and situation of the whole accident from start to finish and be able to give citizens a report.”
That report may take more than a day as investigators do interviews and check records, a Taiwan Railways Administration spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. The speed of the train was not being released due to the pending investigation, but has not been ruled out as a cause.
The Taiwan Railways Administration said it has not released any official video pending the investigation.
Survivors told Taiwan’s official Central News Agency the driver applied emergency brakes multiple times before the train derailed. One told local television reporters the train sped up after taking the curve.
Crash investigators checked inside and underneath the now-upright cars for evidence. The Yilan County prosecutor also surveyed the wreckage as her office talked to witnesses.
The 6-year-old trains were built to travel at an especially fast 150 kph to ease transportation on rugged parts of the island. They are designed to tilt when going around curves.
Taiwan Railways bought the Puyuma cars in 2011 from Japanese maker Nippon Sharyo for $260 million. The seller said then that the trains were part of a $46 billion upgrade of the line along Taiwan’s east coast.
The train that derailed had its most recent inspection and major maintenance work in 2017, Taiwan Railways Director Lu Chieh-shen said Sunday at a televised news conference.
Lu offered to resign Monday, an offer that is not unusual in Taiwan in such situations. It’s not yet certain if his offer would be accepted or if he would be asked to stay as the investigation continues.
Five people killed including a 9-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl belonged to a single family. Three students and two teachers who died were from the same middle school.
Some passengers were crushed to death, Ministry of National
The train had been carrying more than 360 passengers on a popular weekend route from a suburb of Taipei in the north to Taitung, a city on Taiwan’s southeast coast.
Railway service was partly restored Monday.
A 1991 train wreck killed 30 people, and Sunday’s derailment was at least the third deadly rail accident in Taiwan since 2003.
A tourist train overturned in the southern mountains in April 2011 after a large tree fell into its path. Five Chinese visitors were killed. A train undertaking a test run ignored a stop sign and crashed into another train in northeastern Taiwan in June 2007. Five people were killed and 16 others hurt.
And in March 2003, a train derailed near a popular mountain resort, killing 17 people and hurting more than 100 people. Investigators blamed brake failure.
___
AP writers Johnson Lai in Su’Ao, Taiwan, Yanan Wang in Beijing and Elaine Kurtenbach in Bangkok contributed to this report.
Ralph Jennings, The Associated Press
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Kananaskis G7 meeting the right setting for U.S. and Canada to reassert energy ties

Energy security, resilience and affordability have long been protected by a continentally integrated energy sector.
The G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, offers a key platform to reassert how North American energy cooperation has made the U.S. and Canada stronger, according to a joint statement from The Heritage Foundation, the foremost American conservative think tank, and MEI, a pan-Canadian research and educational policy organization.
“Energy cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the United States is vital for the Western World’s energy security,” says Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and one of America’s most prominent energy experts. “Both President Trump and Prime Minister Carney share energy as a key priority for their respective administrations.
She added, “The G7 should embrace energy abundance by cooperating and committing to a rapid expansion of energy infrastructure. Members should commit to streamlined permitting, including a one-stop shop permitting and environmental review process, to unleash the capital investment necessary to make energy abundance a reality.”
North America’s energy industry is continentally integrated, benefitting from a blend of U.S. light crude oil and Mexican and Canadian heavy crude oil that keeps the continent’s refineries running smoothly.
Each day, Canada exports 2.8 million barrels of oil to the United States.
These get refined into gasoline, diesel and other higher value-added products that furnish the U.S. market with reliable and affordable energy, as well as exported to other countries, including some 780,000 barrels per day of finished products that get exported to Canada and 1.08 million barrels per day to Mexico.
A similar situation occurs with natural gas, where Canada ships 8.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day to the United States through a continental network of pipelines.
This gets consumed by U.S. households, as well as transformed into liquefied natural gas products, of which the United States exports 11.5 billion cubic feet per day, mostly from ports in Louisiana, Texas and Maryland.
“The abundance and complementarity of Canada and the United States’ energy resources have made both nations more prosperous and more secure in their supply,” says Daniel Dufort, president and CEO of the MEI. “Both countries stand to reduce dependence on Chinese and Russian energy by expanding their pipeline networks – the United States to the East and Canada to the West – to supply their European and Asian allies in an increasingly turbulent world.”
Under this scenario, Europe would buy more high-value light oil from the U.S., whose domestic needs would be back-stopped by lower-priced heavy oil imports from Canada, whereas Asia would consume more LNG from Canada, diminishing China and Russia’s economic and strategic leverage over it.
* * *
The MEI is an independent public policy think tank with offices in Montreal, Ottawa, and Calgary. Through its publications, media appearances, and advisory services to policymakers, the MEI stimulates public policy debate and reforms based on sound economics and entrepreneurship.
As the nation’s largest, most broadly supported conservative research and educational institution, The Heritage Foundation has been leading the American conservative movement since our founding in 1973. The Heritage Foundation reaches more than 10 million members, advocates, and concerned Americans every day with information on critical issues facing America.
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Poilievre on 2025 Election Interference – Carney sill hasn’t fired Liberal MP in Chinese election interference scandal

From Conservative Party Communications
“Yes. He must be disqualified. I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty, a foreign government that would almost certainly execute that Canadian citizen.
“Think about that for a second. We have a Liberal MP saying that a Canadian citizen should be handed over to a foreign dictatorship to get a bounty so that that citizen could be murdered. And Mark Carney says he should stay on as a candidate. What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?
“Mark Carney is deeply conflicted. Just in November, he went to Beijing and secured a quarter-billion-dollar loan for his company from a state-owned Chinese bank. He’s deeply compromised, and he will never stand up for Canada against any foreign regime. It is another reason why Mr. Carney must show us all his assets, all the money he owes, all the money that his companies owe to foreign hostile regimes. And this story might not be entirely the story of the bounty, and a Liberal MP calling for a Canadian to be handed over for execution to a foreign government might not be something that the everyday Canadian can relate to because it’s so outrageous. But I ask you this, if Mark Carney would allow his Liberal MP to make a comment like this, when would he ever protect Canada or Canadians against foreign hostility?
“He has never put Canada first, and that’s why we cannot have a fourth Liberal term. After the Lost Liberal Decade, our country is a playground for foreign interference. Our economy is weaker than ever before. Our people more divided. We need a change to put Canada first with a new government that will stand up for the security and economy of our citizens and take back control of our destiny. Let’s bring it home.”
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