World briefs

JAPAN’s prime minister has picked a record-matching five women in his new Cabinet. The appointments are seen as a way for Shinzo Abe to showcase his “womenomics” pledge to revive growth by bringing more of the country’s well-educated women into the workforce and leadership.

MONGOLIA Russian President Vladimir Putin is flying to Mongolia for a working visit amid soaring tensions with Washington and NATO over a Kremlin-backed offensive in Ukraine. Putin was due to arrive in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator for talks with Mongolian President Elbegdorj Tsakhia. The two are to oversee the signing of trade and transport agreements.

AUSTRALIA’s prime minister says he will sign a uranium export deal with India for peaceful power generation this week, but added that exports of the nuclear fuel to Russia have been banned until further notice.

PAKISTAN The military says it has killed 910 suspected militants and lost 82 soldiers in a major offensive launched in June in a restive tribal region near Afghanistan. The military said it has cleared the main towns of Miran Shah, Mir Ali, Datta Khel, Boya and Degan, all former Taliban strongholds in North Waziristan, since June 15, when it launched a major operation there to eliminate local and foreign insurgents accused of orchestrating attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

INDIA Police say a speeding truck has overturned and crushed to death 10 people, including seven children, sleeping on a sidewalk in northern India.

INDONESIA The anti-graft commission says it is investigating the country’s minister of energy and mines for alleged corruption. The Corruption Eradication Commission said Jero Wacik illegally acquired 9.9 billion rupiah (USD840,000) from 2011 to 2013.

BOSNIA Police say they have detained 15 people suspected of having fought in Syria and Iraq or of recruiting and funding other Balkan men to join the Islamic militants there. Police said yesterday that some 200 officers from a number of Bosnian law enforcement agencies were involved in the continuing operation targeting 17 locations around the country. Earlier this year, Bosnia introduced prison terms of up to 10 years for its citizens who fight in conflicts abroad or recruit others.

USA New DNA evidence has freed a death-row inmate after he spent three decades in prison for rape and murder. Henry McCollum, 50, walked out of Central Prison in Raleigh, while his half-brother, 46-year-old Leon Brown, was expected to be freed later yesterday. A judge overturned their convictions after another man’s DNA was discovered on a cigarette butt left near the body. Tuesday’s ruling is the latest twist in a notorious legal case that began with what defense attorneys said were coerced confessions from two scared teenagers with low IQs. McCollum was 19 at the time and Brown was 15.

UK A British nurse infected with Ebola was discharged yesterday from a London hospital after making a full recovery, the hospital said. William Pooley, 29, contracted the deadly disease while treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone. The outbreak in West Africa has also hit Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal, and has killed more than 1,500 people.

ESTONIA Confronted by a Kremlin backed military offensive in Ukraine, President Barack Obama and Western allies will approve plans this week to position at least 4,000 troops and military equipment in Eastern Europe, bolstering NATO’s security commitments to nervous member states near the Russian border.

UK The British parents who took their critically ill son for treatment abroad were reunited with the child yesterday after they were released from a Spanish prison after U.K. authorities dropped accusations of child cruelty against them. Brett King, the father of 5-year-old Aysha, told reporters that everything he and his wife did for their son was for the boy’s own good. The boy has a brain tumor and is hospitalized in Malaga, a 2-hour drive from Seville.