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From Wikinews, the free news source, this is the Audio Wikinews Brief for Tuesday, June 23, 2009. I'm James Pain, and here are today's current stories.
The President of France Nicolas Sarkozy Monday, in a speech to a joint session of both houses of the Parliament of France, stated that the burqa "will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic".
In the speech, Sarkozy said that "We cannot accept, in our country, women imprisoned behind a mesh, cut off from society, deprived of all identity. That is not the French Republic's idea of women's dignity." He stated that the burqa "is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience."
France is home to Western Europe's largest Islamic community, with some five million Muslims living there.
Tensions have started to rise again between the United States and North Korea. North Korea claims that the United States have planned to start an atomic war against them due to Obama recently reaffirming the nuclear protection of South Korea. Singapore has stated that if the Korean flagship the Kang Nam is carrying a weapon that is in violation of the United Nations sanctions it would take immediate action. According to a senior member of the United States military, the USS John McCain is ready to intercept the Kang Nam but have no plans to do so.
At least nine people have been reported killed in a serious collision incident between two metro trains in Washington, D.C., United States.
The collision which occurred on the Red Line between Fort Totten and Takoma Park stations of the city's Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority during the early evening (1700 local time) is also reported to have injured a number of other passengers. The cause of the collision incident is still unclear, although it has been suggested by some sources that a derailment or head on collision may have led to the incident.
Following the resignation of Speaker Michael Martin, which took effect on Monday, members of the House of Commons, the lower house of the British houses of parliament,  yesterday elected John Bercow as the new Speaker of the House. After confirmation by a unanimous acclamation, with no "noes" voiced, John Bercow became the Speaker-elect for the 157th Speaker of the House of Commons.
The Florida newspaper St. Petersburg Times published investigative articles on Scientology on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, including exclusive interviews with former high-ranking executives within the organization. Four former Scientology executives stated that they witnessed the Church of Scientology's leader David Miscavige physically strike staff members numerous times. The St. Petersburg Times reported Monday on the attention received by the investigative articles in other media. By Monday the first article in the series had received over 3,600 "diggs" at the social news website Digg and generated over 420 comments at the site.
This has been a News Brief from Wikinews.org, the free news source, and has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license.
Until next time, thank you for listening and good day.
Wikinews:Briefs/June 23, 2009