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.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of