World News Quick Take

Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro yesterday said he is open to a presidential run in 2028, potentially pitting the China hawk against Vice President Sara Duterte. “If I have a chance, maybe. If I don’t, forget it,” Teodoro said in an interview with Bloomberg News. Teodoro has been among the most vocal critics of China’s military buildup in the South China Sea. Beijing sanctioned him earlier this year, barring him from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macau. Teodoro said the next president should be cautious about Chinese money, recalling how the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte built closer ties with Beijing. “There was accommodation already, not merely cooperation,” Teodoro said. “What happened? We were suddenly populated internally by illegal Chinese activities in the guise of investments.” Not all Chinese investments were bad, particularly “those that have undergone appropriate due diligence processes,” he said, but cautioned on investments in critical infrastructure, “because we have a national dispute with an aggressive neighbor.”

RUSSIA

Independent paper to close

Independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta yesterday announced that it was closing on Nov. 9, citing pressure from authorities who recently searched the home of its senior editor and earlier this year detained one of its journalists. “Novaya Gazeta is ceasing to exist,” editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov said in a video statement published on YouTube. “The Russian authorities — the Russian special services — have forced the editorial team to end its work.” Moscow has introduced near-Soviet levels of censorship since sending troops to Ukraine, pushing the vast majority of independent journalists into exile. Novaya Gazeta, a bastion of independent journalism in the nation, is classed as a “foreign agent” by Moscow — a label used to stifle dissent.

AUSTRALIA

Mushroom killer gets life

An appeals court yesterday ordered Erin Patterson to never be released from prison because of the “shocking criminality” involved in poisoning four of her estranged husband’s relatives with death cap mushrooms. The three judges of the Victoria state Court of Appeal upheld prosecutors’ challenge to the leniency of her 33-year non-parole sentence. “This offending was extraordinarily cold and calculated and stands to be denounced in the strongest terms,” Justice Stephen McLeish said on behalf of the three judges. Patterson can apply to the High Court to overturn the verdicts on her sentence and her convictions. The High Court is her last appeal option. Patterson insisted she added death cap mushrooms to the meals accidentally.

INDONESIA

Fire pollution kills 3,560

Air pollution from smoke emitted by months of wildfires across the nation caused an estimated 3,560 deaths last month, double the August figure, while about 57.8 million people were inhaling unhealthy to hazardous air during the same period, a report by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said. The study estimated the number of deaths brought about by short-term exposure to PM2.5 pollution, which are deaths occurring within days of exposure. Most occurred on Indonesia’s part of Borneo island as well as on Java and Sumatra islands and the country’s east. The researchers also looked at non-fire pollution from urban and industrial emissions, and found it had caused a further 1,750 deaths last month, the report said.