World Briefs

TAIWAN and the Solomon Islands put on a display of friendship yesterday, pledging to deepen ties, even as rumors persist the Pacific nation is close to severing relations in favor of China.

PHILIPPINES Five people were honored yesterday as this year’s winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards, regarded as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize, including a South Korean who helped fight suicide and bullying and a Thai housewife who became a human rights defender after losing her husband to violence in southern Thailand.

VIETNAM is at risk of a 500,000 ton shortage of the meat most of its citizens rely on for daily protein between now and the Lunar New Year in January as African swine fever ravages the nation’s hog herd, according to Ipsos Business Consulting.

NORTH KOREA State media urged citizens yesterday to “fully mobilize” to rebuild after powerful Typhoon Lingling lashed the country over the weekend, with workers rebuilding electricity networks, salvaging battered crops and helping families whose homes and property were damaged.

AUSTRALIA A key unaligned senator, Sen. Jacqui Lambie, said yesterday she will support laws that would force Australia’s jobless to undergo drug tests in return for welfare checks if lawmakers were screened as well.

AFGHANISTAN Afghans braced for a possible new wave of Taliban violence yesterday after President Donald Trump abruptly called off talks with the insurgent group, which vows to continue its fight against what it calls “foreign occupation.”

ISRAEL Avigdor Lieberman entered Israeli politics as a loyal protégé of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Now, the maverick politician could be the one to topple his former mentor.

SWITZERLAND The U.N. human rights chief said yesterday she was “alarmed” that migrant children are still being held in centers in the United States and Mexico and warned that climate change has become an unprecedented threat to human rights worldwide.

UK British Airways has canceled almost all its flights for 48 hours, affecting as many as 195,000 travelers, due to a strike by pilots over pay.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted yesterday that a new Brexit deal can be reached to ensure Britain leaves the European Union by the Oct. 31 deadline, as he acknowledged that withdrawing without one would be a “failure” for which he’d be partially to blame.

USA President Donald Trump’s weekend tweet canceling secret meetings at Camp David with the Taliban and Afghan leaders just days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is the latest example of a commander in chief willing to take a big risk in pursuit of a foreign policy victory only to see it dashed.