News in Brief

Date: 20 June 2021 - 21:44

News ID: ۹۱۵۰۸

FLORIDA (Dispatches) – A driver slammed into spectators Saturday evening at the start of a parade in South Florida, and an official announced one person was killed and another seriously injured. The pickup driver acted like he was part of the parade but then suddenly accelerated when he was told he was next, crashing into the victims, Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis stated, POLITICO reported. One of the victims later succumbed to their injuries, Trantalis added. News outlets reported that the driver of the pickup truck was taken into custody. Authorities did not immediately give details about the victims or say whether they believe the crash was intentional.

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PARIS (AP) – Marine Le Pen’s far right party is riding high on her tough-on-security, stop-immigration message as French voters started choosing regional leaders Sunday in an election that’s seen as a dress rehearsal for next year’s presidential vote. President Emmanuel Macron’s young centrist party is expected to fare poorly, lacking a strong local political base and suffering from frustration at his government’s handling of the pandemic. Turnout in Sunday’s first round could hit a record low. The elections for leadership councils of France’s 13 regions, from Brittany to Burgundy to the French Riviera, are primarily about local issues like transportation, schools and infrastructure. But leading politicians are using them as a platform to test ideas and win followers ahead of the April presidential election. Le Pen and Macron are expected to dominate that race. Parties that win more than 10 percent of the votes in Sunday’s first-round regional voting advance to the decisive runoff June 27.

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COLOMBO (AP) – The United Nations representative in Sri Lanka has said the sinking of a container ship that caught fire while transporting chemicals off the coast of the capital has caused “significant damage to the planet” by releasing hazardous substances into the ecosystem. The Singapore-flagged MV X-Press Pearl sank off Colombo on Thursday a month after catching fire, raising concerns about a possible environmental disaster. The UN said it was coordinating international efforts and helping Sri Lanka in assessing the damage, recovery efforts and preventing such disasters in the future. “An environmental emergency of this nature causes significant damage to the planet by the release of hazardous substances into the ecosystem,” UN Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka Hanaa Singer-Hamdy said in a statement late on Saturday. “This, in turn, threatens lives and livelihoods of the population in the coastal areas.”

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BENGHAZI (Dispatches) – The Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Field Marshal Khalifa Hafta, has declared the Libyan border with Algeria a militarized zone. “The armed forces have closed the Libyan-Algerian border and declared it a militarized zone where the movement is prohibited,” a statement reads. A source told Sputnik that the LNA is currently controlling only one of the three border checkpoints, located in the country’s southwest, near the city of Ghat. The nearly 1,000-kilometre (620 miles) border between Algeria and Libya cuts through mostly uninhabited desert and has few crossings. Haftar was put onto the back foot last year after the collapse of his 14-month offensive against Tripoli, while a new unity government backed by a UN-facilitated peace process has called into question his political position. However, despite progress towards a political solution for Libya after a decade of violence and chaos, most of the country is still controlled by armed groups, corruption is rampant and the outside powers involved in the conflict have not withdrawn.

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HANOI (Reuters) – Myanmar junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has left the Southeast Asian country to attend a conference in Moscow, state media reported on Sunday. Min Aung Hlaing will attend Russia’s Moscow Conference on International Security, scheduled to be held from June 22-24, Myanmar military-controlled television network MRTV reported on Sunday.