■VIETNAM
Hanoi demarcates border
Hanoi and China have completed the demarcation of their long-disputed land border in what they hailed as an event of “great historic significance” 30 years after their brief but bloody border war, state media reported yesterday. The two countries signed a land border agreement in 1999, but it took them nine years to demarcate the 1,350km frontier. The two sides, represented by Vice Foreign Minister Vu Dung and his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei (武大偉), pledged to build a border of “peace, friendship and long-term stability,” the central news agency said. China backed the communists during the Vietnam War, but sent troops to invade in early 1979 for ousting Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, which was backed by Beijing.
■NEPAL
Crew blamed for crash
Investigators probing a plane crash near Mount Everest have blamed the pilots for the accident that killed 18 people, a report said yesterday. The report said the two pilots misjudged deteriorating weather conditions and flew inside a patch of fog while trying to land at Lukla airport, which is carved into the side of the Himalayas at an altitude of 2,800m. The DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter plane belonging to Yeti Airlines then hit a rock on the side of the runway and burst into flames on Oct. 8. The investigators interviewed several eyewitnesses and visited the accident site in the foothills of Everest. Of the 19 people on board the flight from Kathmandu, only the captain survived the crash. Twelve Germans, two Australians and four Nepalese were killed.
■BANGLADESH
Former PM accepts defeat
Former prime minister Khaleda Zia has accepted this week’s election results despite alleging the vote, which she lost heavily, was rigged, a spokesman for her party said yesterday. “We want to give the Awami League party the opportunity to run the country. We want to see them keep their promises to the people,” Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) spokesman Khondaker Delwar told reporters. Delwar said the BNP maintained that the vote, in which they won just 29 seats out of a possible 300, was rigged but that they would not challenge the outcome.
■PHILIPPINES
Girl freed after month
A gang of kidnappers has freed a nine-year-old girl after more than a month in captivity in the south, provincial officials said yesterday. Nicole Reveche was freed by her captors unharmed shortly before midnight on Wednesday in a remote village on troubled southern Basilan island, the officials said. Reveche was seized by the gang with suspected links to Islamic militants on Nov. 26. They had earlier demanded a ransom of 6 million pesos (US$127,000) from her parents, the officials said. On Tuesday, gunmen also freed a four-year-old girl, Andrea Diman, in Tuburan town, two days after she was snatched, also in Basilan.
■JAPAN
PM looks to past for hope
Prime Minister Taro Aso insisted in a New Year message yesterday that the country could survive the current harsh economic climate just as it rose from the ashes of World War II. In the online statement, he reiterated his resolve to be the first major nation to emerge from the global economic meltdown. Tokyo has much to worry about in the year ahead, with the economic crisis battering the economy and pushing household names such as Toyota and Sony to cut costs and slash jobs.
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