World News Roundup: Merkel, planning to serve full term; the Italian government's fate hanging in balance

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Germany's Merkel, planning to serve full term, backs under-fire protegee

Germany's Angela Merkel threw her weight behind her embattled new defense minister and heir-apparent on Friday while insisting she herself was fit to carry on serving as chancellor through to the end of her term in 2021. Merkel, who turned 65 on Wednesday and has been in office since 2005, has suffered several bouts of shaking at public ceremonies in recent weeks that have stirred speculation about her health, though she has maintained she is fine.

Islamist militants kidnap at least one NGO worker in Nigeria, sources say

Islamist insurgents have kidnapped at least one person working for an international aid organization, Action Against Hunger, in northeastern Nigeria, sources said on Friday. The abduction comes nine months after Islamic State's West Africa branch executed a Red Cross aid worker who was kidnapped from another town in northeastern Nigeria in March 2018.

Italy's Salvini to see Di Maio with government's fate hanging in balance

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Friday he would meet coalition partner and leader of the 5-Star Movement Luigi Di Maio amid speculation that the increasingly unwieldy government might collapse. "We will certainly meet," said Salvini, who heads the far-right League party. "The problem is not Di Maio, but opposition coming from many 5-Star politicians."

Chance of no-deal Brexit rises as Johnson leads Hunt: poll

The chance that Britain will leave the European Union without a deal is the highest since October 2017, economists polled by Reuters say, as arch-Brexiteer Boris Johnson looks set to take over as prime minister next week. Johnson was the face of the 2016 campaign to quit the EU and has said he would be willing to leave on Oct. 31 without a deal. The median forecast of that happening was 30% in the July 15-18 poll, up from 25% last month and 15% in May.

Gibraltar extends detention of Iranian tanker for a month

Gibraltar was granted the power on Friday to detain Iran's Grace 1 oil tanker for another month, keeping the vessel at the center of a big-power quarrel between Iran and the United States and its allies. Gibraltar said the Iranian vessel, seized by marines in a daring landing in darkness off the coast of the British territory on July 4, was suspected of smuggling oil to Syria in breach of European Union sanctions.

Portugal's Socialists extend lead ahead of October election: poll

Portugal's ruling Socialists have extended their lead slightly as the favorite to win the country's national election in October, an opinion poll showed on Friday. Prime Minister Antonio Costa's center-left Socialists were seen taking 37.5% of the vote, according to the survey by Aximage for newspapers Jornal de Negocios and Correio da Manha, up two percentage points from a previous poll in June.

Suspected Japanese arsonist is ex-convict who believed studio stole his novel: media

A man suspected of torching an animation studio and killing 33 people in Japan's worst mass killing in two decades had been convicted of robbery and carried out the attack because he believed his novel had been plagiarized, media said on Friday. Public broadcaster NHK, which identified the 41-year-old man as Shinji Aoba, citing police, said he served time in prison for robbing a convenience store east of Tokyo in 2012 and, after his release, lived in facilities for former convicts. He had also received care for mental illness, NHK said.

Iran dismisses Trump report that U.S. Navy downed 'provocative' drone

Iran on Friday denied President Donald Trump's assertion that the U.S. Navy has destroyed one of its drones, saying all of its unmanned planes were accounted for, amid growing international concern that both sides could blunder into a war in the Gulf. In the latest episode to test nerves around the strategic waterway, Trump said on Thursday the drone had flown to within 1,000 yards (914 meters) of the U.S. warship Boxer in a "provocative and hostile action" and had ignored several calls to stand down.

India's Priyanka stopped from visiting site of deadly shooting as tensions flare

Indian police on Friday stopped opposition leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from visiting a village where 10 tribal people were gunned down this week over a land dispute, officials said, fuelling political divisions. In an altercation on Wednesday, a village headman and his supporters allegedly shot at a group of tribal people who were working a piece of disputed agricultural land in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

For some Chinese Muslims, fleeing doesn't end trouble

Sairagul Sauytbai, an ethnic Kazakh who fled China last year after working in a so-called vocational training center for ethnic minorities, wanted to tell others about the beatings and torture she said she had seen there. But in neighboring Kazakhstan, where she arrived to seek refuge, she was accused of crossing the border illegally, stripped naked, and told by state security agents to keep quiet about Beijing's "de-radicalization drive", in which it has put hundreds of thousands of people in camps akin to prisons, Sauytbai and her lawyer told Reuters.

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