Briefly

PERU

Congress rejects new bid for early elections

Peru's Congress on Thursday voted down another proposal to advance elections to this year, a day after a similar proposal aimed at quelling deadly nationwide unrest also failed. In addition to moving elections up from April 2024 to July 2023, the proposal rejected on Thursday included the calling of a referendum on forming a constitutional convention — another key demand of protesters. The proposal by the Free Peru party was rejected with 75 votes against and only 48 in favor, with one abstention.

BRAZIL

Damaged aircraft carrier to be scuttled

Brazil plans to sink a decommissioned aircraft carrier that has been towed around the Atlantic for months with a damaged hull, drawing criticism from environmentalists, who say it is packed with toxic materials. The Navy and Defense Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the six-decade-old warship, the Sao Paulo, would be scuttled, after trying in vain to find a port willing to welcome it. Built in the late 1950s in France, whose navy sailed it for 37 years as the Foch, the aircraft carrier earned a place in 20th-century naval history.

PAKISTAN

Bus-truck collision claims 18 lives

A head-on collision between a passenger bus and a speeding truck trailer near a tunnel in northwest Pakistan overnight killed at least 18 passengers, including women and children, a rescue official said early on Friday. The crash happened in Kohat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. Road accidents are quite frequent in Pakistan, mainly due to poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and unprofessional driving.

UNITED STATES

Groundhog predicts 6 more weeks of winter

The celebrated groundhog known as Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his Pennsylvania burrow on Thursday and saw his shadow, a sign of six more weeks of frosty weather in North America, which so far has enjoyed one of the mildest winters on record. Thousands of revelers gathered at dawn in Punxsutawney, a small town northeast of Pittsburgh, to celebrate Groundhog Day and watch Phil climb out of his tree stump to offer his prognostication of what lies ahead in a quirky yearly ritual. "I see a shadow on my stage, and so no matter how you measure, it's six more weeks of winter," Phil's official "interpreter" read in a proclamation that was met by a round of cheers and applause.

Agencies - Xinhua