World Briefs

PHILIPPINES Allegations that the presidential election frontrunner had millions of dollars in an undeclared bank account have not been resolved after the accuser confronted the mayor’s lawyer at the bank. Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s lawyer said he had asked that the account be opened to prove the allegations are false but that bank officials told him yesterday it would take a week to study the request. The election is scheduled for next Monday.

INDIA Massive wildfires that have killed at least seven people in recent weeks were burning through pine forests in the mountains of northern India yesterday, including parts of two tiger reserves.

NEW ZEALAND An American exchange student lost for five days in the New Zealand wilderness with her mother recounts her ordeal to The Associated Press.

AUSTRALIA An Australian man long thought to be associated with the digital currency Bitcoin has publicly identified himself as its creator. BBC News said yesterday that Craig Wright [pictured] told the media outlet he is the man previously known by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The computer scientist, inventor and academic says he launched the currency in 2009 with the help of others. His identity had been shrouded in uncertainty until now.

IRAQ A car bombing has killed at least 13 Shiite pilgrims commemorating the death anniversary of a revered Imam in Baghdad. A police officer says the parked explosives-laden car detonated shortly after midday in Baghdad’s southwestern Saydiyah neighborhood. He added that 28 other people were wounded.

GERMANY and some other EU countries are planning to ask the EU Commission for an extension of border controls within the Schengen passport-free travel zone for another six months because they fear a new wave of migrants. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizere’s spokesman says a letter was sent yesterday asking for an extension of the controls on the German-Austrian border.

KOREAS Seoul has instructed its foreign embassies to take extra precautions against possible North Korean attempts to kidnap or attack South Koreans abroad, officials said yesterday. The instruction was issued in response to North Korea’s threat to retaliate for last month’s group defection by 13 North Koreans, who Pyongyang says were kidnapped by South Korean spies while working at a North Korea-owned restaurant in China.

HIMALAYAS The bodies of a renowned mountain climber and expedition cameraman who were buried in a Himalayan avalanche 16 years ago have been found. The widow of Alex Lowe said in a statement this weeked that two climbers attempting to ascend the 26,291-foot Shishapangma in Tibet discovered the remains of two people partially melting out of a glacier. Anker concluded that the two were Bridges and Lowe, the statement said.