Task force to probe Bank Negara losses
KUALA LUMPUR • The Malaysian Cabinet has agreed to set up a special task force to conduct a probe into the losses suffered by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) due to forex trading in the 1990s.
The Prime Minister's Office said yesterday in a statement that the task force would be made up of representatives of various government agencies, including highly respected individuals who were experts in certain fields, the Bernama news agency reported.
In an interview carried in the New Straits Times last month, former BNM assistant governor Abdul Murad Khalid claimed that the central bank had lost US$10 billion (S$14 billion), not RM9 billion (S$2.8 billion) that was publicly reported, during that period of time.
Pakistan rattled by 4 suicide bombers
PESHAWAR • Four suicide bombers struck Pakistan in one day yesterday, killing six people and unnerving citizens whose growing sense of security has been shaken by multiple Taleban blasts this week.
The latest assault happened in the north-western city of Peshawar, said police, after a bomber rode a motorcycle into a van carrying several judges that was travelling through an upmarket neighbourhood.
Earlier in the day, two suicide bombers launched an assault on a government compound in the Mohmand tribal region in the north-west, killing five people. Another suicide bomber later blew himself up when security forces surrounded him during a search operation in the area.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Killing of aide: Hunt for ex-military man
YANGON • Myanmar's presidency has said police and military intelligence are hunting for a former lieutenant colonel who is behind the killing of an adviser to de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Mr Ko Ni was shot in the head in broad daylight outside Yangon's airport late last month while waiting for a taxi, in a crime that rocked the political establishment.
The president's office said yesterday that police identified Aung Win Khaing from CCTV images at the airport, which show him asking for flight arrival times before Mr Ko Ni was shot, the Agence France-Presse reported.
Tamil women 'face abuse by officials'
COLOMBO • Tamil women who survived Sri Lanka's civil war now face widespread sexual exploitation by officials in their own community as well as from the army, the head of an ethnic reconciliation body said yesterday.
Former president Chandrika Kumaratunga, chairman of the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation, said women who were widowed during the 37-year conflict were among the victims of abuse by officials who frequently demand sexual favours just to carry out routine paperwork.
Many women, particularly widows, have struggled in the war's aftermath to obtain identity papers and birth certificates which are essential to obtain government handouts and other aid.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
