International News

Australians vote on name for home-made Moon rover

SYDNEY: Australians began voting Monday on a name for the country first home-made Moon rover, with a shortlist including "Mateship", "Roo-ver" and "Kakirra" -- an Indigenous word for the Earth satellite.
Australia space industry will develop the semi-autonomous rover to collect lunar soil under an agreement signed two years ago with NASA, which plans to fly it to the Moon surface as soon as 2026.
NASA will then attempt to extract oxygen from the soil sample, marking "a key step towards a sustainable human presence on the Moon", the Australian Space Agency said in a statement.

Biden says Gaza, West Bank should be reunited under Palestinian Authority

WASHINGTON: Gaza and the West Bank should eventually be "reunited" under a new Palestinian Authority, US President Joe Biden said in an opinion piece Saturday, as questions swirl over the future of the region once Israel achieves its goal of crushing the Hamas militant group.
"As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority, as we all work toward a two-state solution," Biden wrote in the piece published in The Washington Post.

Sudan announces immediate end to UN mission in war-torn country

UNITED NATIONS, United States: Sudan has informed the UN chief of the "immediate" end of the United Nations political mission in the war-torn country, according to a letter circulated in the Security Council.
In an official letter in Arabic dated Thursday, accompanied by an English version from the Sudanese ambassador to the UN, Foreign Minister Ali Elsadig Ali informed Antonio Guterres of "the decision of the government of Sudan to terminate the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) with immediate effect."
According to the English version, UNITAMS had aimed to "assist the transitional government of Sudan after the December 2018 revolution," but the government said the mission had proven "disappointing."