JAKARTA - INDONESIAN President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recommended on Monday that charges against two anti-graft officials be dropped after senior police and prosecutors apparently attempted to frame them.
Dr Yudhoyono said he asked the police and attorney general's office to withdraw bribery and blackmail charges against Chandra Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto from the Corruption Eradication Commission, after a government-sanctioned fact-finding team concluded accusations against them were baseless.
MANILA - GUNMEN abducted and killed at least 21 people in the southern Philippines on Monday, apparently to prevent a woman filing her husband's nomination to run for provincial governor in elections next year, the military said.
Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner said the bodies of 13 women and eight men were found in the area where about 30 people were taken hostage.
LONDON - THE head of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn said here on Monday that although the worst of the global financial storm had passed, the world economy remains 'highly vulnerable.'
'Today the storm has passed. The worst has been averted thanks to a bold and rapid policy response and thanks to cooperation,' he told delegates at the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) - Britain's biggest employers group.
KUALA LUMPUR - THOUSANDS of Malaysian boys will begin the journey into adulthood at mass circumcision ceremonies that start this month throughout this mainly Muslim South-east Asian nation.
The events, held to coincide with the year-end school holidays which run into December, are a rite of passage for Muslim boys aged between 6 and 12 and whose faith requires removing the foreskin of the penis.
