News in Brief

Date: 02 October 2018 - 22:17

News ID: ۵۸۰۲۶

TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has reshuffled his Cabinet following his re-election as president of the ruling party, retaining key diplomatic and economy posts as Japan tackles tough trade talks with the U.S.
Abe was re-elected in September to head the Liberal Democratic Party for a third term, paving the way to serve as Japan's leader for up to three more years.
Tuesday's reshuffle, Abe's fourth since taking office in 2012, kept the foreign, finance, economy and trade ministers, while changing the defense minister.
Abe had to re-solidify his grip on power in the party after his weaker-than-expected showing in the leadership election. He renewed more than half of the 19 Cabinet members and added some of his confidantes to help his push for a constitutional revision, his long-cherished goal.

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MOSCOW (AFP) -- Russian investigators looking into the origin of a hole that caused an oxygen leak on the International Space Station have said it was caused deliberately, the space agency chief said.
A first commission had delivered its report, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian space agency Roskosmos, said in televised remarks late Monday.
"It concluded that a manufacturing defect had been ruled out which is important to establish the truth."
Rogozin said the commission's main line of inquiry was that the hole had been drilled deliberately, a position that has been voiced in the past.
"Where it was made will be established by a second commission, which is at work now," he said.
The small hole in the wall of a Russian-made Soyuz space capsule docked onto the ISS was located in August and quickly sealed up.
Officials have suggested a number of possible reasons for the appearance of the hole.
A top government official has denied a Russian media report that the investigation looked at the possibility that U.S. astronauts had drilled the hole in order to get a sick colleague sent back to Earth.

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STOCKHOLM (AFP) -- Scientists Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics for breakthroughs in the field of lasers used for surgery as well as scientific study, the award-giving body said Tuesday.
American Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in the United States won half of the prize while Frenchman Mourou, who also has U.S. citizenship, and Canadian Strickland shared the other half.
Strickland, of the University of Waterloo, Canada, becomes only the third woman to win a Nobel prize for physics.
"The inventions being honored this year have revolutionized laser physics," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on awarding the nine million Swedish crown ($1 million) prize.
"Advanced precision instruments are opening up unexplored areas of research and a multitude of industrial and medical applications," it said in a statement.

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GENEVA (Reuters) -- Kosovo's president sees only a small chance of a border deal with Serbia emerging soon but it is an opportunity that must be pursued otherwise another decade could slip by, he said after Western Balkan talks in Geneva Tuesday.
An agreement on a lasting peace between the two countries, including the demarcation of 400 km of border, would open the way to prosperity and closer ties to the European Union, as well as full international recognition for Kosovo, President Hashim Thaci said.
The fate of ethnic Serb villages in northern Kosovo is one of the main issues of disagreement. Kosovo is a former province of Serbia which declared independence after Serbian forces were driven out by NATO bombing in a war in 1999.
Other leaders of the region also supported the effort to get a deal, he said, adding that there was no reason to fear that it would create a domino effect or represent a "Pandora's Box".

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ISLAMABAD (AFP) -- Pakistani security forces killed seven militants in a firefight after insurgents crossed the Afghan border into Pakistan's restive tribal region, the military said Tuesday.
Officials said the clashes erupted late Monday when militants attacked a Pakistani border post in North Waziristan tribal district.
"During (the) exchange of fire seven terrorists (were) killed while three (were) injured," the military said in a statement.
Violence in Pakistan has declined dramatically in recent years following a series of military operations along the northwestern border with Afghanistan, but militant groups are still able to carry out deadly attacks.
Pakistan's army launched a massive operation in 2014 to wipe out militant bases in North Waziristan and end the near decade-long insurgency that has cost thousands of lives.
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ADDIS ABABA (AFP) -- Weekend fighting between rival ethnic groups in western Ethiopia killed at least 44 people, state affiliated media reported Tuesday.
The clashes occurred on the border between the central Oromia and western Benishangul-Gumuz regions.
Violence began when officials from Benishangul-Gumuz were killed by unidentified gunmen, said the Walta Media and Communication Corporate, citing the region's communications chief Zelalem Jaleta.
The clashes between youths from rival ethnic groups armed with rocks and knives forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes with security forces deployed to pacify the area.
Benishangul-Gumuz is one of Ethiopia's nine regional states, stretching to the border with Sudan.
The UN humanitarian office OCHA said some 70,000 people had been displaced in the wave of violence. In its latest update, OCHA said the fighting began last Wednesday with the death of the four high-ranking officials.
While Ethiopia's new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has received praise from around the globe for his reformist agenda, a wave of communal violence -- mostly over land issues -- has marred the first few months of his rule.