WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. government announced on Wednesday it is admitting Israel into a program that will allow visa-free entry by Israeli citizens starting Nov. 30.

Admission to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which Israel's Foreign Ministry said was expected, is a win for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a time when relations between his religious-nationalist government and Washington have been strained over its judiciary overhaul plan and policies toward Palestinians.

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/: Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has noted high production rates demonstrated by the Tactical Missiles Corporation (KTRV). At the same time, he hopes that the production pace will increase further in certain areas, the Defense Ministry has said.

Shoigu noted that KTRV was developing modern aviation weapons, including high accuracy ones.

LONDON (AP) — Britain on Wednesday gave the go-ahead for a major oil and gas project in the North Sea, ignoring warnings from scientists and the United Nations that countries must stop developing new fossil fuel resources if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change.

CAIRO, Sept 27 (NNN-MENA) – A joint Egyptian-German archaeological mission, discovered eight storage rooms in the Pyramid of Sahure, in Egypt’s Giza province, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement yesterday.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, described the discovery as “very significant because it sheds light on the interior design of the Pyramid Complex of King Sahure, the second ruler of the fifth dynasty (of Egypt) that dates back to 2400 BC.”

SYDNEY, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manesseh Sogavare said he skipped a Pacific Islands leaders summit at the White House this week to avoid a "lecture" and because he had more pressing issues at home.

Sogavare, who has built close ties with China, held a press conference on Wednesday after arriving back in Solomon Islands from the United States, where he spoke at the United Nations but did not join other Pacific Island Forum leaders in Washington for a two-day summit.

JERUSALEM, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Israeli authorities said on Wednesday that they have arrested five members of an Iran-backed cell who attempted to assassinate Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency said in a press release that the five suspects, including three Palestinians and two Arab-Israeli citizens, are in custody.

The five suspects acted "under directions and instructions" of an Iranian agent who lived in Jordan, according to the Shin Bet.

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/: Russia is expecting that its signals regarding relations with Armenia will find a receptive ear among the South Caucasus country's leadership in Yerevan, and that all bilateral agreements between Moscow and Yerevan will be put into practice, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing.

DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Monday that the country has opened its doors wide to more Chinese investors to support the East African nation's industrialization drive.

"Tanzania is ready to do business with you; our doors are wide open," Majaliwa assured the Chinese investors as he closed a one-day China Tanzania Investment Forum Zhejiang (Jinhua)-Tanzania Trade and Investment Conference held on Monday in the port city of Dar es Salaam.

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/: Russian interests in the South Caucasus can’t be ignored, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"Historically, geographically, geopolitically it is impossible to lose Russia in the sense of completely ignoring its interests in the South Caucasus," the minister said, when asked whether Armenia could drift away from Russia. "But such hopes are being nurtured by some leaders in Yerevan, and they say it directly."

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has secured the release of a U.S. soldier who sprinted across a heavily fortified border into North Korea more than two months ago, and he is on his way back to America, officials announced Wednesday. U.S. ally Sweden and rival China helped with the transfer.

Left unanswered were questions of why Pyongyang—which has tense relations with Washington over the North’s nuclear program, support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and other issues—had agreed to turn him over and why the soldier had fled in the first place.

BERLIN, Sept 27 (Reuters) - Germany will introduce new border controls with Poland and the Czech Republic this week, the German interior minister announced on Wednesday, saying that more should be done to protect the European Union's fragile system of open borders.

Germany saw its first-time asylum requests rise by 78% in the first seven months of 2023, according to official data. In August, registered illegal border crossings to Germany reached 14,701, up 66% on the same month last year, police data shows.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The former boyfriend of a central Kentucky woman who disappeared more than eight years ago has been arrested on charges stemming from the investigation, the FBI and Kentucky State Police said Wednesday in a statement.

Brooks Houck was arrested without incident on charges stemming from the Crystal Rogers investigation, the statement said. The indictment remains sealed and additional details will be revealed during Houck’s arraignment in early October in the Nelson County Circuit Court, according to the statement.