Minister resigns

BERLIN: Germany’s labour minister says he is resigning from the Cabinet amid the fallout from an airstrike in northern Afghanistan that already cost the head of the armed forces his job. Franz Josef Jung was defence minister at the time of the September 4 airstrike, which is believed to have killed civilians, but acknowledged this week that he had not seen a

German military report and videos on the attack. Jung said on Friday he was resigning to take “political responsibility.”

Missing body found

BEIJING: Searchers have found the final missing body from a coal mine blast that killed 108 people last weekend in northeast China. The state-run Xinhua News Agency says the body of the miner was recovered on Friday afternoon. The report cited the spokesman for the accident investigation team. The gas explosion was China’s deadliest mining accident in two years. Officials have said too many workers were underground at the time of the blast and evacuation efforts were too slow. Officials have said 528 miners were in the mine when the explosion occurred.

Cambodia on its own?

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia informed Thailand on Friday it was cancelling a US$41.2 million loan from Bangkok meant to finance the upgrade of a highway from the Thai border. Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said his country didn’t need the loan and could afford to build the road on its own. The decision comes during a period of bad relations between the two countries over Cambodia’s recent welcome to former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a fugitive from Thai justice. Thai-Cambodian relations took a turn for the worse when Cambodia recently named Thaksin an adviser on economic affairs. The subsequent visit by Thaksin, and Cambodia’s rejection of a formal request from Bangkok to extradite him, drew a negative reaction from Bangkok.