Wikinews:Briefs/September 5, 2006

September 5, 2006

Arctic Monkeys win Mercury Music prize
The Arctic Monkeys won the 2006 Mercury Music Prize for their debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. They beat such competition as Muse, Editors and Thom Yorke to the £20,000 prize. The Arctic Monkeys said they were "Surprised, honoured but very pleased" to win. In all, more than two hundred albums (released in the last year) were considered from both British and Irish acts.

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not became the fastest selling debut album ever in Britain when it was released; selling over 360,000 copies in its first week.

Egypt - Rail accident claims five lives
The collision of a freight train with a passenger train just north of Cairo in the town of Shebin al-Qanater. The accident claimed 5 lives and injured another 30. It is reported that one of the dead was the engineer of the freight train.

The accident comes amid a public inquiry into a previous crash. Mohammed Mansour (Egypt's new director of transport) has said that the transportation system is to be overhauled. The government has approved $860 million in funding to develop the rail infrastructure as well as another $600 million in loans to private rail operators.