BERLIN (Reuters) -- Germany has offered Warsaw the Patriot missile defense system to help it to secure its airspace after a stray missile crashed in Poland last week, Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht told a newspaper. The German government had already said it would offer its neighbor further help in air policing with German Eurofighters after the incident, which initially raised fears that the war in Ukraine could spill across the border. The missile that hit Poland last week, killing two people, appeared to have been fired by Ukraine’s air defenses rather than a Russian strike, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has said. Ground-based air defense systems such as Raytheon’s Patriot are built to intercept incoming missiles. NATO has moved to strengthen air defenses in eastern Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. More than a dozen NATO allies led by Germany in October kicked off an initiative to jointly procure air defense systems for several layers of threats, including Patriot. Germany had 36 Patriot units when it was NATO’s frontline state during the Cold War. German forces currently have 12 Patriot units, two of which are deployed to Slovakia.

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MANILA (Dispatches) -- The United States has an “unwavering” commitment to the Philippines, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris told the country’s president Monday during a visit. Harris is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Manila since President Ferdinand Marcos took power in June, signaling a growing rapport between the longtime allies after years of frosty relations under his Beijing-friendly predecessor Rodrigo Duterte. Marcos said he did not “see a future for the Philippines that does not include the United States.” The United States has a long and complex relationship with the Philippines -- and the Marcos family. Marcos’s dictator father ruled the former U.S. colony for two decades with the support of Washington, which saw him as a Cold War ally. Relations between the two countries soured under the foul-mouthed Duterte. In 2016, Duterte called Barack Obama a “son of a whore” over warnings he would be questioned by the then U.S. president over his drug war. Washington is now seeking to bolster its security alliance with Manila under the new president.

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TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan’s internal affairs minister resigned in connection with a funding scandal, becoming the third cabinet member to leave in less than a month in a severe blow to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s already shaky support. Kishida’s approval ratings have sunk after the July assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe revealed deep and longstanding ties between ruling Liberal Democratic Party politicians and the Unification Church, a group that critics say is a cult. Internal affairs minister Minoru Terada tendered his resignation to Kishida after media reports the premier was preparing to sack him. Kishida on Monday appointed Takeaki Matsumoto, a former foreign minister, to succeed Terada. A poll conducted over the weekend, before Terada’s resignation, found that only 30.5% of respondents approved of Kishida, down 2.6 points from a survey in October, Asahi TV said on Monday. Just over half, 51%, disapproved of how he had handled the resignation of two previous ministers, Economic Revitalization Minister Daishiro Yamagiwa and Justice Minister Yasuhiro Hanashi.

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BEIJING (AFP) -- China on Monday welcomed a deal struck at the landmark COP27 climate summit in Egypt, but warned there was still a “long way to go” for global cooperation in curbing rising temperatures. “The road map for doubling global adaptation funding is still unclear, which is not conducive to building mutual trust between the north and the south,” Beijing’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said, referring to funds for poorer countries already affected by climate change. “Global climate governance has a long way to go,” she added, saying “developed countries have still not fulfilled their commitment to providing $100 billion in climate funding to developing countries every year.” China -- the world’s biggest polluter -- at the summit rejected the idea that it should no longer be considered a developing country, though it is now the world’s second-biggest economy.

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BOGOTÁ (AFP) -- At least 18 people were killed in Colombia in clashes between holdouts from the former rebel army FARC and another armed group linked to drug trafficking, the government said. The government ombudsman’s office said the fighting occurred on Saturday in southwest Colombia, near the border with Ecuador. The clashes involved rebels who have rejected a 2016 peace agreement that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed with the government and a criminal band that calls itself Comandos de la Frontera, or Border Commandos. The latter is composed of other fighters that used to be with FARC and remnants of a right-wing paramilitary group active in trafficking cocaine to Ecuador and Brazil. The two groups have fought for control of smuggling routes in parts of the Putumayo border area for at least three years. Colombia has suffered more than half a century of armed conflict between the state and various groups of left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers.