Man dies after being hit by train on crossing - Yorkshire Post

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Published on Tue Jul 12 08:46:10 BST 2011
POLICE were last night investigating an incident on the East Coast Main Line in Yorkshire which left a man dead and a three-year-old girl critically injured.
British Transport Police said the pair were hit by an express train bound for Leeds near a pedestrian crossing over the track about half-a-mile from Adwick station, north of Doncaster.
Officers said the 28-year-old man and the chil(router,verizon wireless,wireless network,wireless internet,i phone,i phone verizon,my verizon wireless,wireless adapter,att wireless)
d were thought to be from the nearby village of Bentley, although neither of them had been identified last night.
A BTP spokesman said: “The child was injured and has been airlifted to Sheffield Children’s Hospital.
“The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Officers are currently working to establish the full circumstances surrounding the incident and to establish the identities of both the man and child.”
He said the train involved was the 10.35am East Coast King’s Cross to Leeds service.
Services operated by both East Coast and Northern Rail on the route were badly disrupted yesterday as specialist search officers examined the scene.
Northern Rail services between Doncaster and Wakefield Westgate were replaced by buses, while trains continued to run between Wakefield and Leeds.
The tragedy is the second to happen on the East Coast main line near Doncaster in the last month
An elderly man was struck by a train on the Doncaster to York stretch of line in mid-June.
The body of the 69-year-old was found in undergrowth on Tuesday June 14 next to a level crossing.
Police said that man had been struck by a train near a crossing between Arksey and Bentley just before 7pm the previous day.
British Transport Police officers had conducted an extensive search of the lines and surrounding area – involving both ground units and a helicopter – on the Monday night before finding the body on Tuesday morning.
Officers said the pensioner’s death was not being treated as suspicious.


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Gamble over Afghan retreat - Yorkshire Post

Published on Thu Jul 07 00:00:00 BST 2011

THE death of a British soldier, apparently captured by the Taliban, does, indeed, illustrate the high price that British troops are paying to bring stability to Afghanistan, as David Cameron pointed out during his visit to that benighted country.

Yet it also shows the fragile nature of any progress being made and the scale of the challenge facing Afghan security forces once the British and Americans pull out.

The Prime Minister also made great play of a further reduction in troop numbers, to be announced today, and there will be few in this country who will not breathe a sigh of relief once Britain finally ends its combat role in 2015, a full 14 years since the start of a war which has become increasingly unpopular on the home front.

It will be a sad epitaph to those years of bravery and sacrifice, however, if this withdrawal proves premature because the Afghan security forces are not ready to hold the line and if the Kabul government collapses, sending the country spiralling back into chaos and conflict.

Indeed, if Afghanistan becomes a failed state yet again, and a breeding-ground for international terrorism, it will be more than merely regrettable, it will be a serious threat to Britain’s national interests.

This is why there is increasing concern on both sides of the Atlantic that the British and American withdrawals are being calibrated to coincide not with the birth of Afghanistan as a viable nation-state but with election dates in the UK and US.

It is right that David Cameron and Barack Obama are looking to bring an end to a conflict which once looked as if it would continue indefinitely, but wholly wrong if they are looking at withdrawal from Afghanistan purely as a headline for their own re-election manifestoes.

No-one is expecting Afghanistan to emerge as a fully functioning, corruption-free Western-style democracy. But it has to have a government strong enough to make rival factions consider joining it rather than undermining it through armed insurgency.

And this will not be achieved by planning Afghanistan’s future according to the electoral timetables of Britain and America.

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