Foul Play, Negligence Not Ruled Out In Quebec Train Disaster

Do not cross: Crime scene tape blocks access to part of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where a train derailed and exploded on Saturday.

Quebec police are looking into whether Saturday's train derailment and the massive explosions that followed in the small town of Lac-Megantic were caused by "foul play or criminal negligence," CBC News reported Wednesday morning.

"We are conducting a criminal investigation. We are not neglecting anything so far," provincial police inspector Michel Forget said, according to the news network. Authorities do not suspect this was an act of terrorism, however.

As Wednesday began, the confirmed number of deaths remained at 15. But as we reported Tuesday evening, that left the number of missing at about 35 people. (Update at 10:55 a.m. ET: Later Wednesday morning, officials said they now believe about 45 people are still unaccounted for.)

The CBC says that Canada's Transportation Safety Board is "looking into whether the train's operator — Montreal, Maine and Atlantic — followed proper safety procedures in the hours before the unmanned 72-car train carrying crude oil rolled down a hill and slammed into town. ... It remains unclear whether the train's conductor had set enough hand brakes — which are meant to hold a train in place even if the air brakes fail — before he left the train for a shift change shortly before the fire broke out."

The Canadian Press writes that "police say they're treating the Lac-Mégantic disaster area as a 'crime scene' and say they could lay charges. ... Quebec provincial police Insp. Michel Forget revealed that police are not leaning towards terrorism as a hypothesis, but are more likely exploring the possibility of criminal negligence. ... However, he did not say whether the investigation was for potential crimes committed at the explosion site or farther up the rail line."

Meanwhile, investigators are also looking at what happened earlier when there was a fire on the train as it was parked in the nearby town of Nantes. According to Canadian Press, the railroad company "has suggested the fire crew didn't do enough — and even suggested the decision to shut off the locomotive to put out [the] fire ... might have disabled the brakes. The fire crew, however, says it was simply following procedures set out by the railway itself."

It was following that fire, while the train was unattended during a shift change of its crew, that the tank cars loaded with oil started rolling toward Lac-Mégantic — where they derailed and exploded.

Lac-Mégantic is about 150 miles east of Montreal, near the border with Maine.

Chris Evans Rides Post-Apocalyptic Train in 'Snowpiercer' Trailer

A plan to stop global warming has gone very, very wrong in Snowpiercer, which has debuted a new trailer.

The post-apocalyptic sci-fi film from South Korean director Bong Joon-ho is set in a future in which a failed experiment to put an end to global warming has resulted in an ice age, kiling off most of humanity. The only survivers live on Snowpiercer -- a train that circumnavigates the globe and is powered by a perpetual-motion engine.

PHOTOS: 'Snowpiercer' Character Posters: Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton in Propulsive Sci-Fi Thriller

A class system has developed, with the poor living in the train's tale and the rich living in the front. One man (Chris Evans) has had enough, and seeks to reach the front of the train to benefit everyone on it. Among those seeking to stop him is the strangely dressed Mason (Tilda Swinton).

It's the first English-language film for Bong, known for directing the Korean monster blockbuster The Host (2006).

The film lso stars Jamie Bell, Alison Pill, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer, and Ed Harris. Frequent Bong colaborator Song Kang-ho plays Namgoong Minsu, a mysterious securty specialist Evans' character seeks out for help.

Snowpiercer is being released domestically by the Weinstein Company, which has not announced a release date. It hits South Korean theaters this summer.

Backlash occurs in Japan over sales of train e-ticket records

A privacy debate has erupted in Japan over a new service from a major rail operator that sells private e-ticket records as marketing data.

This week East Japan Railway (JR East), the country's largest rail company, has begun offering for sale the anonymized histories of millions of its passengers. The data is gleaned from its Suica train pass system, which is Japan's most popular with 43 million users, roughly equivalent to a third of the national population.

JR East and Hitachi, which will handle the technical aspects of the service, announced it last week via a terse news release that initially drew little attention. But this is the first time Suica information has been sold to third parties, and the news was soon highlighted by prominent bloggers, triggering a discussion that has now spread to Twitter and other online forums.

"Even if there is a proper way to use this (data), it must be done with the approval of society," wrote Hiromitsu Takagi, a professor and prominent commentator on data privacy, on his Twitter account.

Some were less reserved, with many calling the new service "revolting."

"Personally, rather than being revolted, I just don't have confidence in the ability of JR East and Hitachi to manage the data," wrote another commentator.

The Japanese debate is unfolding as the rest of the world reacts to revelations about surveillance programs of the U.S. National Security Agency. The tale of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who released details of the surveillance, has been closely followed by the media in Japan, where many are hesitant to publicize their private details online.

JR East's service provides details for passengers that use specific stations, such as their sex, the date and time they used the service, and the amount they spent. The company and Hitachi are adamant that no laws are being broken, and JR East says the Suica user contract gives it rights to the passenger data.

"There is no way to determine the identity of specific individuals from the data, so we feel there is no privacy issue," said Takashi Yamaguchi, a JR East spokesman.

Hitachi is marketing the service as an example of its prowess at handling "Big Data" a foreign buzzword for using powerful servers to crunch through large amounts of information that has recently caught on in Japan. The cheapest price for the service is $50,000, which provides passenger data on ten stations for a year. New data is added to the system monthly.

"This is statistical data," said Hisahiro Sakai, a spokesman for Hitachi. "We will aim to sell it to station tenants, or companies that are thinking of starting businesses in stations, as well as real estate companies and advertisers that want information about specific stations."

JR East was already facing criticism over a newly installed entrance at a busy station in the eastern part of Tokyo. The gates at the "nonowa" entrance only work with Suica or compatible touch cards, so travelers with traditional tickets or passes must take another route.

"No one without an IC Card gets in?" asked the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest newspapers, in the headline of an article that said many locals consider the entrance to be a form of discrimination.

IDGNSA passenger uses a touch card to enter a train station in Osaka, Japan.
Another train organization was forced to change its policies after an embarrassing leak last year. An employee of Tokyo Metro, which runs the city's subway system, disclosed the "Pasmo" train pass history of a female passenger, forcing the company to cancel a service that allowed users to view their histories online.

Suica, launched in 2001, uses NFC technology developed by Sony. Initially offered as train passes that had to be periodically recharged, the technology is now built into credit cards, mobile phones, and even USB readers that can be plugged into PCs for home shopping. Payment can now be made in many convenient stores and restaurants, as well as taxi cabs and vending machines.

In March, the most popular regional electronic train pass systems in use throughout Japan signed agreements so that they could all be used interchangeably. The data sold by JR East currently covers only users of its own Suica system.

JR East is the largest of Japan's seven overland railway companies, formed when a nationwide rail system run by the government was broken up in 1987. JR East's domain covers about half of Japan's main island, including the crowded Tokyo capital and surrounding metropolis. It runs everything from daily commuters to the bullet trains that operate on its territory, all of which are compatible with Suica.

Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl

First 'Nymphomaniac' Clip: Seduction on a Train

The first teaser for Lars von Trier's buzzy erotic drama Nymphomaniac has been released online, and it's branded with the auteur's distinctive style of yellow-tinted scenery and an unvarnished, at times unsettling, naturalism that hooks you even though you might want to look away.

Billed as an "appetizer" from the first of eight chapters of Nymphomaniac, the scene features Stacy Martin as a younger version of Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) embarking on a mission to seduce a fellow passenger aboard a train.

The sexually explicit film, slated to premiere Dec. 25 in Copenhagen, drew even more attention when von Trier released a porn-inspired cast photo in May, featuring a plethora of stars (including Shia LaBeouf, Uma Thurman and Willem Dafoe) in compromising positions.

Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl