IN BRIEF (Page 12)

China Daily | Updated: 2019-09-27 07:48

Kazakhstan

Emirati becomes first Arab to reach ISS

An Emirati has made history as the first Arab to reach the International Space Station, after blasting off from Kazakhstan. The Russian spacecraft carrying Hazzaa al-Mansoori of the United Arab Emirates, who was accompanied by Russia's Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, docked on Wednesday after a six-hour trip. The three "entered the orbiting lab and joined six of their station crewmates for a joyful crew greeting ceremony today", NASA tweeted. A video shows the new arrivals entering head first through a hatch to join their grinning colleagues, who welcomed them with floating hugs.

Israel

PM begins coalition hunt amid deadlock

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began on Thursday the daunting task of trying to cobble together a coalition government amid political deadlock that emerged from this month's repeat elections, which had no clear winner. He now has up to six weeks to attempt to resolve the political impasse, but his odds appear slim. Even with the support of smaller allies, both Netanyahu and his main challenger, Blue and White party leader and former army chief Benny Gantz, lack the support for the 61-seat parliamentary majority needed to establish a government. That's including the support of Netanyahu's traditional ultraorthodox and religious-nationalist allies.

Indonesia

6 dead after quake rocks remote islands

Six people have died after a strong earthquake struck Indonesia's remote Maluku islands on Thursday, destroying homes and triggering landslides that buried at least one of the victims. Terrified residents ran into the streets as buildings fell in around them after the magnitude 6.5 quake hit at 8:45 am local time. People in Ambon, a city of about 400,000 people, were seen helping injured residents in bloodstained clothes, while images showed wrecked homes with collapsed walls and rubble strewn on the ground. Some patients fled a hospital as the quake hit, prompting officials to set up makeshift shelters outside the building, an official said.

Agencies - Xinhua

(China Daily 09/27/2019 page12)