Briefly

SPACE MISSION

4 astronauts return from space station

Four astronauts returned to earth on Saturday after hustling to the International Space Station five months ago to relieve the stuck test pilots of Boeing's Starliner. Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab. Splashing down were NASA's Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan's Takuya Onishi and Russia's Kirill Peskov. They were launched in March as replacements for the two stranded NASA astronauts.

SOUTH CAUCASUS

Armenia, Azerbaijan ink peace agreement

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement at the White House on Friday, ending a decades-long border conflict. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev witnessed the signing of the deal by their foreign ministers. The two countries will take further steps to eventually sign and ratify the agreement, the declaration said. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at loggerheads over the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region since 1988.Peace talks have been going on since 1994 when a ceasefire was agreed on, despite sporadic clashes since then.

Xinhua - Agencies