News in Brief -2024-09-24

Russian cosmonauts return to
Earth after record ISS stay
ALMATY, Sept 23: Two Russian cosmonauts landed back on Earth on Monday after a record-breaking stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub spent 374 days in low-Earth orbit at the ISS, the longest time anybody has ever stayed on the station in a continuous stint. During his stay, Kononenko, 60, also set a new record for the longest cumulative time any person has spent in space-passing the three-year mark with a total of 1,111 days across five trips. — AFP
Austria's far-right within reach of power
VIENNA, Sept 23: Austria's sharp-tongued far-right leader Herbert Kickl does not exactly cut a dashing figure but he has skilfully tapped into voter anxieties over migration, the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic. Neither as charismatic as the former leader Joerg Haider, nor as bullish as his predecessor Heinz-Christian Strache, he has made his career largely behind the scenes as the longtime ideologue of the Freedom Party (FPOe). But under 55-year-old Kickl, a marathon runner and climber, the party has rapidly regained ground lost after a string of corruption scandals and is expected to win Sunday's national elections. — AFP
Russian strikes on Ukraine kill one
KYIV, Sept 23: Russia's latest strikes on Ukrainian regions have killed one person and wounded 23, officials said on Monday. One person was killed and seven wounded in the Kherson region Sunday, while in the Zaporizhzhia region, 16 people were wounded in a strike on the region's eponymous capital overnight, governors and police said. In Kherson, Russian shelling and air strikes hit residential buildings, killing one 61-year-old woman and wounding seven people Sunday, said governor Oleksandr Prokudin. — AFP
Teenager stabbed to death in UK
LONDON, Sept 23: A teenage boy has died after being stabbed in southeast London, police in the British capital said Monday, before a nationwide ban on "zombie" style weapons to reduce knife crime. The Metropolitan Police said the boy was found injured after officers were called to a disturbance on a residential street in Woolwich at about 1735 GMT Sunday. He died a short time later, a statement read. No further details were released but the youth's death comes with mounting concern about the numbers of offences involving knives and young people carrying them. — AFP