World briefs

IRAQ’s special forces entered the outskirts of Mosul yesterday, taking the state television building and advancing despite fierce resistance by Islamic State group fighters who hold the city, an Iraqi general said.

PHILIPPINES The military said yesterday it has killed 70 Abu Sayyaf militants and captured 32 others in an offensive that began in July against the group, which is accused of kidnapping sailors from neighboring countries for ransom. More on p11

INDONESIA Four bodies were recovered yesterday from the wreckage of a cargo plane that crashed in Indonesia’s remote, mountainous Papua province a day earlier, Indonesia’s search and rescue agency said.

KOREA North Korea is joyfully jumping into a bizarre political scandal rocking Seoul, calling it the inevitable result of a corrupt regime and saying the administration is “the most deformed, abnormal and stupid in contemporary society.” More on p11

NEPAL Army soldiers and local villagers have finished digging through rocks and boulders to drain a glacial lake just south of Mount Everest, bringing the water to a safe level and possibly preventing an outburst that could have flooded several villages, officials said yesterday.
India-Pakistan Seven civilians were killed and nine others wounded by Pakistani shelling in Kashmir yesterday, Indian officials said, as cross-border firing by the two countries’ troops escalated in the disputed region. Civil administrator Pawan Kotwal said hundreds of civilians living in villages along the frontier have been evacuated to safer places in recent weeks and are spending nights in government-run shelters.

EGYPT The secretary-general of the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation has resigned after making a joke about the purportedly frugal ways of Egypt’s president, the group said. The joke became the latest point of contention in Cairo’s increasingly tense relations with Riyadh.

RUSSIA The speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper chamber, Valentina Matviyenko, who is in Japan to lay the groundwork for President Vladimir Putin’s upcoming visit, says Moscow isn’t going to give up any of the disputed Pacific Ocean islands to Japan.

GERMANY Police say they have seized several firearms from a couple believed to belong to the so-called Reich Citizens’ Movement, a loose grouping of anti-government extremists, after authorities revoked their weapons permits.

BRITAIN’s Treasury chief has promised the country will ‘strike back’ against cyberattacks amid fears that online threats from state-sponsored hackers jeopardize society.