PHILIPPINES
Kidnapped victims rescued
Police have rescued two kidnapped Chinese mining prospectors and killed one of their abductors in a sting operation in the country’s south, a police spokeswoman said yesterday. Li Defeng, 43, and Yang Liguang, 48, were unharmed when police carried out the operation, which was disguised as a ransom payment drop, regional police deputy spokesperson Zena Panaligan said. The two Chinese were seized at a friend’s home in the remote town of San Francisco on Mindanao Island on Saturday by members of a kidnapping gang that demanded 1 million pesos (US$24,000) in ransom, she said. A Filipino friend of the Chinese men agreed to deliver the ransom money on Monday as part of the sting operation, but the suspects recognized one of the undercover officers and opened fire, Panaligan said. The shootout left one of the suspects dead, while the rest of the gang fled, leaving their two hostages and the ransom untouched, police said.
PAKISTAN
Authorities green-light probe
The government yesterday backed down in a long-running legal wrangle over corruption allegations against President Asif Ali Zardari that has already cost one prime minister his job. Ministers have spent more than two years resisting court orders to write to Swiss authorities to ask them to reopen graft investigations into Zardari, arguing that as head of state, he enjoys immunity from prosecution, but yesterday Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf told the Supreme Court he had instructed the law minister to write to Switzerland to withdraw a letter sent in 2007 by the then-attorney general which asked them to halt probes into Zardari. The allegations against Zardari date back to the 1990s, when he and his late wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, are suspected of laundering US$12 million allegedly paid in bribes by companies seeking customs inspection contracts.
AUSTRALIA
Joint currency a no-go
A monetary union between Australia and New Zealand is not a practical option given the political and economic differences between the two countries, a joint government study said yesterday. A draft report prepared by officials from the countries said the costs of a monetary union, with a common currency and monetary policies, outweighed the benefits. “They imply a loss of autonomy over monetary policy and exchange rate flexibility, which are important tools for macroeconomic stability,” the report said. “Tying New Zealand’s fortunes to Australia’s currency would result in monetary policy being driven by Australian conditions, with decisions made by the Reserve Bank of Australia.” Australia’s economy is around seven times larger than New Zealand and central banks in the two countries have pursued different monetary policies.
GERMANY
Security warning issued
The Federal Office for Information Security is warning of a security breach in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and recommending people use other browsers until the problem is fixed. The office said in a statement on Monday that the browser’s “weak point is already being used for targeted attacks.” It said the code to attack computers running on Windows XP or Windows 7 operating systems through the browser is freely available online and might therefore spread rapidly. Microsoft Corp’s German division was not immediately reachable for comment.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion