News in Brief 2024-07-05

India, China agree to resolve
border issues at earliest
NEW DELHI, July 04: India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Thursday in Kazakhstan where the two agreed to step up talks to resolve issues along their border at the earliest, New Delhi said in a statement. India and China share a long Himalayan border, much of it poorly demarcated, and relations between the two countries have been sour since a military standoff in July 2020 when at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed. — Reuters
Woman made Canada’s armed forces chief
OTTAWA, July 04: Canada named a woman as the country's top soldier for the first time ever on Wednesday, continuing a push by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to appointment women to the most senior jobs. Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan, in charge of efforts to stamp out ingrained sexism and misconduct in the armed forces, will take over on Jul 18 as chief of the defense staff. — Reuters
Russian strikes kill 5 civilians in Ukraine
KYIV, July 04: A Russian missile and drone attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Wednesday killed five civilians and injured 47 others, including a 14-year-old girl, authorities said. Blasts blew out some windows of a shopping mall, raining shards onto the street, photos published by local officials showed. Mayor Borys Filatov said the daytime attack also shattered windows in two schools and three kindergartens. — AP
Japan deploys robot for railway maintenance
TOKYO, July 04: It resembles a malevolent robot from 1980s sci-fi but West Japan Railway's new humanoid employee was designed with nothing more sinister than a spot of painting and gardening in mind. Starting this month, the machine with a crude head and coke-bottle eyes mounted on a truck-which can drive on rails-will be put to use for maintenance work on the firm's network. — AFP