News in Brief

Date: 07 June 2021 - 21:45

News ID: ۹۱۰۰۷

MIAMI (AP) — Three people are dead and at least six others injured following a shooting at a Florida graduation party, the latest in a string of such violence in the Miami area, police said. One of those killed was a state corrections officer, Miami-Dade police Director Freddie Ramirez told news outlets. He said the party at a strip mall lounge was ending when one or more vehicles “pulled up and began to fire into the crowd.” The identities of those killed and wounded were not immediately released Sunday. The shooting happened about 2 a.m. in the suburb of Kendall. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said she was “horrified” by this latest shooting. Sunday’s shooting follows a bloody Memorial Day weekend in the Miami area that saw three people killed and 20 wounded in a still-unsolved mass shooting at a banquet hall. Another shooting on May 28 in the Wynwood area killed one person and injured six others.

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BEIJING (Reuters) -- China’s foreign ministry said on Monday it had lodged “solemn representations” with the United States after three U.S. senators visited Chinese-claimed Taiwan on Sunday. Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin made the comment at a daily news briefing in Beijing.

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LONDON (Reuters) -- U.S. President Joe Biden will warn British Prime Minister Boris Johnson not to renege on the Northern Ireland Brexit deal when they meet for the first time at the G7 summit this week, The Times reported on Monday, citing unidentified sources. Preserving the delicate peace in Northern Ireland without allowing the United Kingdom a back door into the European Union’s markets through the 310-mile (500 km) Irish land border was one of the most difficult issues of the Brexit divorce. The British-run region remains deeply split along sectarian lines 23 years after a peace deal brokered by the United States largely ended three decades of bloodshed. Many Catholic nationalists aspire to unification with Ireland while Protestant unionists want to stay part of the United Kingdom. The EU and Britain tried to solve the border riddle with the Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit agreement, which keeps the province in both the United Kingdom’s customs territory and the EU’s single market. But unionists say it contravenes the 1998 peace deal and London has said the Protocol is unsustainable in its current form after supplies of everyday goods to Northern Ireland were disrupted.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) -- Key Indian cities re-opened for business on Monday, with long queues for buses in the financial hub of Mumbai while traffic returned to the roads of New Delhi after a devastating second wave of coronavirus that killed hundreds of thousands.The 100,636 new infections of the past 24 hours were the lowest in the world’s second most populous nation since April 6, and well off last month’s peaks of more than 400,000, allowing authorities to re-open parts of the economy. Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ordered half the capital’s shops to open on odd and even numbered days of the month respectively, in a bid to limit crowds, but allowed offices and the Delhi underground rail network to run at 50% of capacity. India added 2,427 deaths overnight for a toll of 349,186, the health ministry said, down from more than 4,000 each day at the height of the crisis, while its tally of infections now stands at 28.9 million.

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GENEVA (Reuters) -- Switzerland could become the first European country to ban artificial pesticides in a June 13 referendum which backers of the initiative hope will trigger similar prohibitions elsewhere. Globally, only Bhutan has a complete ban on synthetic pesticides, according to supporters aiming to outlaw the use of products made by agro-chemical giants such as Switzerland’s Syngenta and Germany’s Bayer and BASF. Supporters of the ban say the artificial products cause serious health problems and reduce biodiversity. Manufacturers say their pesticides are rigorously tested and regulated, can be used safely and crop yields would slump without them. Another initiative to be voted on the same day aims to improve the quality of Switzerland’s drinking water and food by stopping direct subsidies to farmers who use artificial pesticides and antibiotics in livestock.

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BERLIN (Reuters) -- The United States’ reputation as the leading global power has suffered in France and Germany because of Washington’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans, a poll showed on Monday. On the eve of President Joe Biden’s trip to Europe, the survey by the German Marshall Fund and the Bertelsmann Foundation said he had not won back the standing of the United States as it was before COVID-19 struck. China’s reputation had risen slightly. According to U.S. research papers released on March 26, the United States under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths with a more effective strategy.Only 51% of Germans see the United States as a reliable partner, rising to 60% in France, 67% in Britain and 76% in Poland. Fewer than a quarter of Turks trust the United States. Most Americans regard the European Union as a reliable partner, the study said.