News in Brief(2023-08-30)

Putin won't attend Prigozhin funeral
MOSCOW, Aug 29: Russian President Vladimir Putin has no plans to attend the funeral of Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. He told reporters the Kremlin did not know about the planned funeral arrangements, saying this was a matter for the family. Prigozhin died when his business jet crashed last week, two months after he and his Wagner mercenaries staged a mutiny against Russian military commanders in which they took control of a southern city, Rostov, and advanced towards Moscow before turning back 200 km (125 miles) from the capital. —Reuters
West has failed to isolate Iran: Raisi
TEHRAN, Aug 29: Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi said on Tuesday that the West had failed to isolate his country, while also holding out the prospect of resuming talks on reviving a nuclear deal. "The enemy tried to follow two strategies: one was to isolate Iran from the world and the other was to discourage the Iranian nation," Raisi said. "It failed with both strategies. It didn't succeed in isolating Iran," he told a news conference in Tehran. —AFP
Live worm found in woman's brain
SYDNEY, Aug 29: In a world first, scientists say an 8cm (3in) worm has been found alive in the brain of an Australian woman. The "string-like structure" was pulled from the patient's damaged frontal lobe during surgery in Canberra last year. "It was definitely not what we were expecting. Everyone was shocked," said operating surgeon Dr Hari Priya Bandi. —BBC
39 civilians killed in Darfur shelling
WAD MADANI, Aug 29: Thirty-nine civilians were killed, most of them women and children, when shelling hit their homes on Tuesday in war-torn Sudan's vast western region of Darfur, medics and witnesses said. The sources said the attack occurred in Nyala, the capital of Darfur South state, from which 50,000 people have been forced to flee since August 11, according to the United Nations. —AFP
UK foreign secy to visit China today
BEIJING, Aug 29: British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly will visit China this week, the two countries said Tuesday, as Beijing and London seek to shift a turbulent recent relationship onto surer footing. Cleverly will become the first UK foreign secretary to travel to China since Jeremy Hunt in 2018. Relations have soured since then over issues including human rights, technology and Beijing's crackdown in the former British colony of Hong Kong. —AFP