Briefly

POLAND

New vote to be held after ghost election

Poland has two weeks to set a new presidential election date, the national electoral commission said after certifying that the poll scheduled for Sunday did not happen. Polling stations never opened and turnout clocked in at zero because of a political crisis set off by the COVID-19 pandemic. The electoral commission adopted a resolution stating that the speaker of parliament had two weeks to set a new election date, which must fall within 60 days of her announcement.

IRAN

Ready for prisoner swap with US

Iran said on Sunday it had expressed readiness for a full prisoner exchange with the United States "with no preconditions" but said that the US was yet to respond. "We said some time ago that we are ready to exchange all Iranian and American prisoners," the ISNA news agency quoted government spokesman Ali Rabiei as saying. US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said that the country is committed to the return of all US citizens wrongfully held abroad.

SYRIA

Battles kill 22 soldiers and rebels in Hama

As many as 22 Syrian soldiers and rebel militants were left dead on Sunday after intense battles in the countryside of Hama province in central Syria, a war monitor reported. The rebels launched a wide-scale offensive on the Syrian forces in the village of Tanjara in the al-Ghab Plains after midnight, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Britain-based watchdog group said 15 government soldiers were killed in addition to seven rebels of the Ansar al-Deen group.

MALI

Attacks claim lives of 3 UN peacekeepers

The United Nations said three peacekeepers from Chad were killed and four others seriously injured on Sunday in attacks against a UN convoy in northern Mali. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attacks near Aguelhok in the Kidal region. The secretary-general calls on Malian authorities "to spare no effort in identifying the perpetrators of these attacks so that they can be brought to justice swiftly", Dujarric said.

RUSSIA

Death toll in hospice fire rises to 10

The death toll from a fire at a hospice in western Russia has risen to 10, an emergency ministry official said on Monday. Firefighters received a signal about a fire in the hospice for the elderly, which is located in Krasnogorsk district in Moscow Oblast, at 11:59 pm local time, and their first units rushed to the scene in 12 minutes. "The fire was completely extinguished at 1:09 am," the official said.

Agencies - Xinhua